Latest news with #SB153
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
KHSD to consider banning discriminatory teaching material in proposed revision to policy
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Kern High School District Board may update its policy to ban the use of textbooks and other class materials that would subject a student to discrimination. According to the agenda for the KHSD Board of Trustees meeting scheduled for Monday, the revision is meant to reflect Senate Bill 153, a new California law passed in 2024. The existing policy, first adopted in November 2009 and revised Jan. 18, 2024, outlines the procedure of processing complaints made against instructional materials for the school district. KHSD offers free meals for children, teens this summer The proposed revision, if passed, would prohibit the school district's Board of Trustees from adopting or approving textbooks, instructional material, supplemental teaching material and class curriculum that would make a student suffer from 'unlawful discrimination.' Unlawful discrimination includes discriminating against someone based on their disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, immigration status and other characteristics, according to California's Education Code 220. The bill also allows anyone to file a complaint if they believe the board violated this prohibition. However, the KHSD policy maintains the school district will only accept complaints from the school district staff, district residents or the parents and guardians of the district's students. Never miss a story: Make your homepage If the Superintendent determines the violation to be true and the board doesn't take corrective action within 60 days, the California Department of Education can 'use any means authorized' to make the district comply, according to SB 153. The school district board could also face financial penalties, the bill says. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Ohio Republicans using fake ‘noncitizen voting' problem as a false pretext to make it harder to vote
Stock photo from Getty Images. 'What is the problem trying to be solved with (Ohio) Senate Bill 153?' asked a speaker testifying before a senate committee last week on yet another Republican measure to make voting harder in the state. It was a rhetorical question. Kelly DuFour, the voting and elections manager at Common Cause Ohio, knew the proposed legislation wasn't drafted as a solution to any glaring flaw in Ohio elections. So did the overflow crowd hastily assembled in the middle of a day (with little advance notice from the committee) to register overwhelming opposition to SB 153. So did the two GOP state senators who co-sponsored the legislation, Bowling Green Republican Theresa Gavarone and Andrew Brenner of Delaware. They see the same data on statewide voting the public does. They know rampant voter fraud or noncitizens casting ballots en masse is not an Ohio problem. They know the checks and balances that scrupulously safeguard the administration of free and fair elections in the state routinely produce problem-free elections with 99.9% accuracy. They ought to know the 2020 presidential election was not stolen in Ohio from the sore loser whose lies led to a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Gavarone and Brenner also ought to know that there is not a scintilla of evidence that noncitizens are brazenly violating federal and state election laws at the polls. Ohio officials who combed through years of voting records in the state were able to identify only six possible noncitizens — one of whom was dead — who cast ballots out of 8 million registered voters between 2008 and 2020. A Brennan Center analysis concluded that 'even if every one of those cases is proven, that's less than one noncitizen vote in a million in any given election.' Even Ohio's partisan hack/elections chief Frank LaRose acknowledged the infinitesimal percentage of potential voting cases involving noncitizens were probably due to mistakes, i.e., being wrongly registered, and not intentional. Why would noncitizens, who risk much to live free, jeopardize everything with nefarious subterfuge at the polls? They wouldn't and don't. Proof is the handful of supposed infractions flagged over a 12-year period in Ohio that will likely never rise to prosecutable offenses. The reality is Buckeye elections have been laudably conducted with meticulous rigor to diligently ferret out any suspected discrepancies or irregularities. County boards of election across Ohio report that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent in the state — no noncitizens voting, no voter impersonation, no drop box sabotage. But that hasn't stopped the Ohio Senate's most prolific sponsor of anti-voting legislation from proposing ever-restrictive solutions to nonexistent election problems. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Gavarone is a career climber who jumped on the Trump propaganda train about rigged elections that weren't and never looked back. After the Big Lie took hold among MAGA faithful, she and other Trumpian opportunists amplified the deception to advance voter suppression measures in state and federal government. The senate majority floor leader joined Republicans in statehouses across the country to exploit the unfounded doubt seeded by Trump and his GOP toadies to delegitimize democratic elections long considered the envy of the world. Like other MAGA Republicans angling for attention, Gavarone used the Republican-planted mistrust over (baseless) election fraud rhetoric with a spate of bills, including one that produced the strictest voter ID law in the nation and led to the current Senate Bill 153, arguably her most extreme effort yet to limit voting in Ohio. As a second term senator, Gavarone religiously parrots her party's talking points about 'working to improve the integrity and confidence of Ohio's elections' as though she really believes them and the charade she adopted in the wake of Trump's lawless attempt to overturn a legitimate election. Her hollow justifications for manipulating the phantom menace of pervasive voter fraud to enact severe voting restrictions that purportedly strengthen 'trust and integrity in our institutions' are a parody of trust and integrity. But her latest handiwork, with co-sponsor Brenner, is a manifest assault on the voting rights of all Ohio voters. It mirrors the travesty passed by U.S. House Republicans — the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or SAVE Act — that would severely restrict voting access by making it harder for all American citizens and registered voters to cast a ballot. They'd have to provide documentary proof of citizenship in person to register or update their voter registrations for federal elections. Convenient registration options by mail, online, at the BMV, and community options would be eliminated, forcing voters to register only at county election boards. The SAVE Act (which saves no one) would disproportionately impact women who've changed their names, rural residents, older Americans, Black voters, military personnel, people with disabilities, and students. Gavarone's SB 153 creates the same hoops for those voters and worse. It bans ballot drop boxes so 'people don't have the ability to sabotage our elections' — despite zero drop box threats in the state. It hobbles direct democracy with new barriers for statewide citizen initiatives and referendum campaigns. It creates impossible bureaucratic and financial burdens on county boards of election. What made-up election problem is Ohio Senate Bill 153 is trying to solve? None. 'It's about keeping people who don't agree with the people in power from voting,' wrote an alarmed voting advocate in Gavarone's hometown. Nailed it. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Opponents warn of harm to eligible voters if Ohio lawmakers require citizenship documents
A voter shows identification to an election judge. (Photo by) Ohio senators are considering a plan to require voters show proof of citizenship to register to vote. In a hearing this week, more than a dozen organizers and activists argued the bill's stringent requirements would wind up disenfranchising eligible voters. There is still no evidence of widespread voter fraud, despite Republicans warning for years about the threat posed by alleged noncitizen voters. In Ohio, for instance, the attorney general found six cases of illegal voting spread over twelve years. Meanwhile, there is solid evidence that many Americans, more than 9% of voting-age citizens according to one study, don't have up-to-date documents proving citizenship readily available. Name changes from marriage and/or divorce, and the availability of that documentation, complicates things further. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announces six voter fraud indictments two weeks from Election Day Under Ohio Senate Bill 153, new voters and those updating their registration would have to prove their citizenship before being allowed to vote. In practice, most verifications would happen behind the scenes. Voters would provide their state driver's license or ID number, and the BMV which typically has record of a person's citizenship status, will give the board of elections a thumbs up or down. But if for some reason the BMV can't verify a voter's status, they'd need to provide a valid birth certificate, U.S. passport, or naturalization document before casting a ballot. If they don't, the voter would have to cast a provisional ballot and then provide proof after the fact. SB 153 takes a skeptical view of those voters. Anyone who casts a provisional ballot and then doesn't show up with the required documentation would have their registration cancelled. Over and above the registration changes, the bill would eliminate ballot drop boxes and impose new requirements on petition circulators. Some of that amounts to red tape — the canvasser would have to personally tally the number of signatures they collected rather than someone else in the campaign, for instance. Another change would require paid circulators to wear a badge identifying themselves as such. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Opponents of the bill emphasized the complications it will create for voters. All Voting is Local Action Senior Campaign Manager Greer Aeschbury argued the changes would lead to a dramatic increase in provisional voting. Her organization tracks provisional ballots, and found some 34,000 of them got rejected in the 2024 election. 'The second most popular reason for rejection was a lack of proper ID,' she explained. 'This means that voters attempted to vote, but because of our strict photo ID rules, they either didn't have the proper ID or simply forgot to bring it in.' Under SB 153's changes, Aeschbury said, those voters could show up at the next election, ID in hand because of that prior experience, only to learn their registration got canceled. Scott Sibley recalled helping his 86-year-old grandfather get a state ID card when he was no longer able to drive. They gathered several documents including birth certificate and Social Security card, but couldn't meet all five of the elements required by the state BMV. It took a total of three visits, Sibley said, to get all the necessary documents. 'At the time government photo IDs were not yet a requirement for voting, but after this episode, I understood the arguments against such requirements,' he said. 'Is this any way to treat an elderly World War II veteran? I cannot imagine that we would have made it through this new process under SB 153. I think we would have thrown up our hands.' In addition to making registration more onerous for voters, Kelly Dufour, from Common Cause Ohio, explained the bill also puts new burdens on election officials already reeling from recent changes. In the last two years, she said, more than '85 sections of related Revised Code have been amended, deleted or removed.' The current proposal would amend 46 more and add three new ones. 'It seems to me it's a system that's set up to fail,' she said. 'So, I'm just asking to please slow down, maybe let the new laws simmer. Visit with election officials to get some of their input on meaningful improvements.' She and others commented on election officials' absence. While lawmakers were holding the hearing elections officials around Ohio were busy certifying the May 6 primary election. While many organizers criticized the bill's aggressive approach to verifying registrations, several others argued it doesn't go far enough. Half a dozen people showed up to speak as an 'interested party,' warning poll workers aren't adequately trained to verify citizenship documents, or that state officials should be even more proactive in reviewing the voters rolls. Scott Taylor described himself as a poll worker from Montgomery County, and he zeroed in on the idea of a person providing proof of citizenship on Election Day. 'I got wondering, what would that certificate look like?' he told the committee. Taylor said he went online, found an example and did a bit of editing. He held up the printout, framed with an ornate, official-looking border a bit like a dollar bill. 'So I generated my own certificate of citizenship, and I produced this in about 15 minutes,' Taylor said. 'I went on to Google, and I found an example, and I just cut it up a bit, put a picture of a cat on it.' He argued that it's unfair to ask poll workers to distinguish a real document from a fake, so he said that any voter who hasn't proven their citizenship prior to Election Day should be forced to cast a provisional ballot. Gail Niederlehner from Butler County insisted that in several ways the bill 'closed the front door' only to 'leave the back door open.' She said that voters shouldn't even be allowed to register without providing proof of citizenship. 'Without pre-registration verification, the risk of noncitizen registration continues,' she said. Niederlehner criticized the bill for accepting expired documents like a passport as proof of citizenship and said the proposal's regular reviews of the voters aren't stringent enough. To this point there has still been just one entity to voice support for the measure. FGA Action, which previously went by Opportunity Solutions Project, is a Florida-based think tank that advocates for conservative policies in statehouses around the country. It gets some of its funding from the conservative dark money network controlled by former Federalist Society president Leonard Leo, and it backed the effort by Republican lawmakers in 2023 to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution. Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alabama Senate votes to ease voting rights restoration for those convicted of felonies
Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, speaks in the Alabama Senate on April 9, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector_ The Alabama Senate on Thursday passed a bill aimed at streamlining the process for restoring voting rights to some individuals with past felony convictions. SB 153, sponsored by Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, would require the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles to develop new procedures to make the restoration process easier. The bill passed the Senate 27-0. 'This requires [Board of Pardons and Paroles] to post notices so people know how to have their rights restored, and once they have met that requirement, that Pardons and Paroles is the one that really is going to be notifying the Secretary of State,' Coleman-Madison said in a phone interview Friday. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Under existing Alabama law, individuals can lose their right to vote following a conviction in state or federal court. They may have that right restored by the Board of Pardons and Paroles if they meet certain requirements, such as paying fines, fees and court costs and having completed their sentence. The bill seeks to make the restoration process more transparent and accessible. It requires the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Secretary of State to develop and make available on their websites a specific form and instructions for applying for a Certificate of Eligibility to Register to Vote. This applies to individuals who met the eligibility criteria outlined in the state code before Oct. 1, 2025. Applicants would submit this form to the board for review. The board would be required to provide the secretary of state with the individual's address and the date their voting rights were restored. Once the information is received, the secretary of state would then notify both the individual and the board of registrars in the county where the individual resides about the restoration date. The county board of registrars would be required to add the individual's name back to the poll list and inform the person of their eligibility date, unless the individual had never been registered to vote prior to their conviction. Coleman-Madison said efforts to streamline the voting rights restoration process go back a few years to when she worked with former Sen. Cam Ward who is now director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles. In an interview Friday, Ward confirmed working with Coleman-Madison and said that he had 'no problem' with legislation, calling it a 'great idea.' 'I think she just tried to do an administrative streamlining, which I've always said should be done anyway,' Ward said, adding that it wouldn't be a policy change but an administrative one. Ward said that once a person completes their sentence, they are given a Certificate of Eligibility to Register to Vote in many cases, depending on the crime. He said the individuals then have to take the certificate to the Alabama Secretary of State, where the secretary of state can make the final determination about that individual's voting eligibility. 'What we do is we go through the process of certifying … the right to vote, and then actually, the Secretary of State makes a final call. We don't,' Ward said. Messages seeking comment were left with the Secretary of State's office. Coleman-Madison said the bill would most impact people who 'come out and try to get their lives back together,' saying that 'these are family people who want to be role models for their children and their spouses.' Coleman-Madison also said it's important to notify people who had their voting rights restored. The bill would mandate that the Board of Pardons and Paroles publicly post on its website the names of everyone whose voting rights have been restored under the relevant state code section. The Board must list the county where each person was last registered or their last known county of residence if they had never registered before their conviction. 'You can send it to the last known address. They may not get it, but if you put it up on a site, you can let people know you go to that site, and that's where you can check it,' she said. The bill moves to the House for consideration. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bill that KY hospitals said they need fell victim to dizzying last-minute changes in House
Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, told his Senate colleagues, 'I'm not just asking you for help on this, I'm begging you" as his bill protecting a program that he said pumps $250 million into Kentucky hospitals died Friday. (LRC Public Information) A bill Kentucky hospitals say was essential to preserving funds for charity care appears dead after lawmakers in the House late Friday rolled Senate Bill 14 — plus several other health measures — into a single bill, effectively killing it. In announcing the demise of his SB 14 — meant to strengthen access to a federal program that raises money from pharmaceutical companies — an angry Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, compared it to the Kenny Rogers' song 'Lucille.' 'I've seen some good times and I've seen some bad times, but this time the hurting won't heal,' Meredith said in a Friday night speech on the Senate floor. 'It's crushing to me,' he added, saying it puts funding from the 340B Drug Pricing Program for health care at risk throughout Kentucky. 'This is not just a luxury, this is a lifeline, a financial lifeline for many of our communities. The House action Friday also killed an unrelated bill sought by the state's largest treatment program, Addiction Recovery Care, or ARC, to protect Medicaid payments for treatment services. Senate Bill 153, sponsored by Sen. Craig Richardson, R-Hopkinsville, would have placed limits on how insurance companies that handle most of Kentucky's Medicaid claims can restrict payments to providers they consider 'outliers.' But in a dizzying series of changes, the House deleted contents of SB 153, replacing it with Meredith's SB 14, as well as several other measures, effectively killing them all. With only two days left in the session, it's too late to revive them, sponsors say. By turning SB 153 into Meredith's SB 14 — among other changes —'in that moment, the bill was dead,' Richardson said in an email. 'It will be a fight for next session,' Richardson said. Meredith said Richardson, a freshman lawmaker, afterwards expressed surprise at the outcome. 'I told him, 'Welcome to the General Assembly,'' Meredith said. Also included in the now-defunct bill was a measure by Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill, to create new, detailed reporting requirements for nonprofit hospitals and clinics on funds they receive through the 340B program. Moser had argued at a committee hearing that such measures were needed to improve 'transparency.' Meredith said the reporting requirements were excessive and 'just ridiculous.' And the Kentucky Hospital Association, which had lobbied heavily for Meredith's SB 14, said it could not support the newly-created version, describing the reporting requirements as 'counterproductive.' The changes 'make the program unworkable, and Kentucky's hospitals cannot embrace such legislation,' said a statement from a spokesperson. Not everyone was disappointed. Kentucky hospitals testify they need drug discount program under attack by pro-Trump group The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, along with several other industry and employer groups, had opposed SB 14, arguing the 340B program has expanded too rapidly with little oversight and must be better managed. They argue 340B must be reformed by Congress, which created it in 1992 and has done little to check its growth. It has devolved into a program in which hospitals and clinics get prescription drugs at steep discounts, and then, for insured patients, bill Medicaid and private insurance companies for the market price and pocket the difference, they said. Calling it a 'hospital markup program,' PhRMA spokesman Reid Porter said the discussion in Kentucky underscores the need for federal action. 'It must shift from a loophole benefiting tax-exempt hospitals at the expense of Kentuckians to a system that truly supports vulnerable patients and communities,' he said. 'We appreciate the legislators who prioritized transparency and took steps to bring greater accountability to how 340B is used and we continue to support these changes at the federal level.' As for the original version of SB 153, it had drawn opposition from the Kentucky Association of Health Plans, or KAHP, which represents insurers and pointed out that ARC, one of the bill's chief backers, is under investigation by the FBI for possible health care fraud. SB 153 — meant to limit how private insurers known as managed care organizations, or MCOs, can withhold Medicaid payments they find questionable — would make it harder to act in such cases, it said in a March 12 news release prior to changes to SB 153 that killed it. 'The federal government is cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse,' Tom Stephens, KAHP CEO, said in the news release. 'What kind of message does it send that Kentucky is doing the exact opposite.' This week, Stephens welcomed the end of SB 153. 'We appreciate voices in the General Assembly arguing for real accountability,' Stephens said. 'We have witnessed that a lack of guardrails has been a boon for disreputable providers and resulted in significant abuse of taxpayer dollars. The FBI has not brought any charges in the investigation of ARC that it announced in August. ARC has said it provides quality treatment services and is cooperating with the FBI. Meredith, a former hospital CEO who was pushing his 340B bill for the second year, vowed he's not giving up on legislation he said is needed to preserve health services, especially in rural areas where hospitals are struggling. With potential Medicaid cuts looming at the federal level, Meredith said action is urgently needed. 'I guess I've got to wave the white flag on this one for this session but it will be back in 2026,' he said in Friday's speech to fellow lawmakers. 'I'm not just asking you for help on this, I'm begging you.' In an interview, Meredith said the 340B program brings in about $250 million a year that hospitals and clinics, rural and urban, use to shore up charity care services. It doesn't all have to go for direct care for patients who can't pay, he said. For example, one rural hospital uses proceeds to enhance nurses' salaries to avoid losing them to larger hospital systems that pay more. Others use proceeds to enhance cancer care or other treatment they couldn't otherwise afford. 'The program was never meant to provide charity care as much as it was to provide access to care,' he said. Without his bill's protection, pharmaceutical companies will continue to try to limit discounts and the type of drugs shipped to Kentucky, which will erode 340B funds, he said adding, 'It just boggles my mind we're willing to walk away from $250 million a year.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
