Latest news with #VotingRightsActof1965
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trump judicial nominee wrote op-ed in favor of literacy tests for voters
Donald Trump's administration isn't being subtle in the steps it's taking to recreate the conditions of the segregated Jim Crow era. And one of his judicial nominees for a lifetime appointment once wrote in favor of one of the era's main tools for voter suppression. In March, the Trump administration lifted an express ban on the funding of federal contractors that support segregated facilities. Earlier this month, the administration ended a decadeslong school desegregation order issued to a Louisiana parish notorious for its history of educational discrimination. Taken together with his efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion programs from public and private institutions, the moves make a credible argument for Trump being the most pro-segregation president in living memory. Now HuffPost reports that one of his recent judicial nominees, Missouri's Solicitor General Joshua Divine, appears to favor one of the hallmarks of the Jim Crow era, with the outlet noting his past support for requiring prospective voters to pass a literacy test. According to HuffPost: One of President Donald Trump's nominees to a federal judgeship, Josh Divine, argued in a college opinion piece that people should be required to take literacy tests in order to vote — despite such tests being outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because they were routinely used to keep Black people from voting. 'People who aren't informed about issues or platforms — especially when it is so easy to become informed these days — have no business voting, which is why I propose state-administered literacy tests,' Divine wrote in October 2010 in The Mirror, a publication of the University of Northern Colorado. At the time, he was a junior at the university. 'In the Civil Rights Act, literacy tests were banned because they were used as a form of discrimination in that they were only administered to certain groups of people,' he said, 'but literacy tests themselves are not a bad thing.' Some people might argue it's unfair to judge a man on views he expressed as a college junior, but there's a long tradition of scrutinizing judicial nominees' past writings that I don't think Divine should be excused from. After all, 2010 wasn't even that long ago! As HuffPost notes, it's not clear whether Divine still stands by his support for literacy tests for voting, and the Missouri Attorney General's Office did not immediately return MSNBC's request for comment. But that Divine ever expressed support for literacy tests — let alone in an op-ed that acknowledges their use as a racist tool to undermine civil rights — seems like it should give pause to the senators considering his nomination. Divine's nomination reminded me of the far-right Federalist Society director Leonard Leo, who's helped steer the conservative movement's judicial appointments for years. Leo's infatuation with returning America to pre-New Deal jurisprudence, a period when legalized racism was rampant, is well-documented; Joshua Divine, who is himself a contributor to the Federalist Society, seems suited to help Leo pursue that goal. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trump Court Pick Once Called For Bringing Back Literacy Tests In Elections
WASHINGTON — One of President Donald Trump's nominees to a federal judgeship, Josh Divine, argued in a college opinion piece that people should be required to take literacy tests in order to vote — despite such tests being outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because they were routinely used to keep Black people from voting. 'People who aren't informed about issues or platforms — especially when it is so easy to become informed these days — have no business voting, which is why I propose state-administered literacy tests,' Divine wrote in October 2010 in The Mirror, a publication of the University of Northern Colorado. At the time, he was a junior at the university. 'In the Civil Rights Act, literacy tests were banned because they were used as a form of discrimination in that they were only administered to certain groups of people,' he said, 'but literacy tests themselves are not a bad thing.' Here's a copy of Divine's column: Literacy tests in elections have a long and ugly history in the U.S. They were used from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s to prevent voting by immigrants and lower-income people, who were considered not educated enough to vote. In particular, in the 1960s, Southern states forced Black residents to explain complicated constitutional provisions in order to vote. The landmark Voting Rights Act ultimately banned literacy tests, along with poll taxes, and the result was a surge in registered Black voters. The intent behind literacy tests was never to ensure that people became more informed in elections; they were a series of trick questions designed to keep non-white people from voting and having political power. Voting clerks, who were always white, could typically decide at will who passed or failed these tests. White people usually didn't have to take literacy tests, because their voting rights were tied to their grandfathers' rights from before the Civil War. Divine also wrote in the column that he's glad the United States isn't 'a true democracy,' which is usually understood to mean direct democracy, in which voters weigh in directly on policies rather than voting to appoint representatives who then vote to represent their constituents. 'I am very thankful we do not live in a true democracy, for if that were the case, America would not just be dying, its gravestone would already have weathered away,' he said. It's not clear whether Divine, who is now in his mid-30s, still thinks it would be a good idea to let states bring back literacy tests as a requirement for voting. The White House did not immediately return a HuffPost request for comment. Divine is Trump's pick for a lifetime federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri. (It's unusual, but one judgeship serves both courts.) He is currently the solicitor general of Missouri and director of special litigation in the state attorney general's office. He previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and served as chief counsel to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Divine will benefit not just from Hawley's enthusiastic support for his nomination but also from the lawmaker's seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which hears from and approves judicial nominees before they advance to the full Senate for confirmation. Trump has so far nominated a handful of people to lifetime federal judgeships in his second term, but none has had a hearing yet.
New York Post
19-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Minimums for a new Iran nuke deal, beware fake experts and other commentary
Iran beat: Minimums for a New Nuke Deal Even if Iran's leaders are 'willing to dispose of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, restrict itself to a purely civilian program and commit to never developing a bomb,' argue Bloomberg News' editors, they must also agree to see their advanced centrifuges (not needed for any civilian nuclear program) 'destroyed or removed from the country.' Unlike the flawed 2015 deal, new 'restrictions on enrichment will have to be indefinite or pushed out so far into the future that they might as well be.' Also, Tehran must agree 'to accept intrusive monitoring by American or European inspectors' as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency 'to demonstrate compliance.' Conservative: Beware Fake Experts 'The propaganda campaigns against Israel rely on an industry of manufactured 'expertise,' ' explains Commentary's Seth Mandel — but the game is collapsing. A Sky News anchor recently denouncing 'Israel's strike on a tunnel system beneath a Gaza hospital to eliminate senior Hamas officials, notably its de facto leader Muhammad Sinwar,' cited 'our experts' in insisting 'Israel was wrong to say there were tunnels underneath the hospital' — but then 'Hamas confirmed that the targeted area was indeed the site of a tunnel system,' followed by 'reports that Muhammad Sinwar's body was indeed found in the tunnel system targeted by the IDF.' Fact is, news organizations now find 'experts' whenever 'they're needed to lend an academic gloss to rank speculation and conspiracy theories.' From the right: Blacks' Bad Bet on Political Clout Passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prompted groups like the NAACP to fast-track 'efforts to elect more black officials,' believing 'that black political power would naturally lead to black upward mobility,' but the election of black mayors, congressmen and aldermen hasn't resulted in 'the broader economic and social uplift that many expected from increased black political clout,' grumbles City Journal's Jason L. Riley. 'Political integration' and 'influence' have 'proved insufficient' as history shows 'political clout' has 'never been a prerequisite for minority socioeconomic advancement.' Blacks needed 'more than political saviors and affirmative action schemes,' they needed 'economic growth and opportunity' plus 'the development of self-reliance, work skills, and cultural norms that have succeeded in lifting so many other groups.' Advertisement Washington watch: Good Riddance to FBI HQ 'The closure of the J. Edgar Hoover building and the dispersal of the toxic Washington-centric [FBI] hierarchy is welcome news,' cheers Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness. 'Most of the FBI scandals of the last decade were born in the Hoover building headquarters.' Special counsel Robert Mueller ran a '20-month, 40-million-dollar legal circus chasing the unicorn of 'Russian collusion.'' And FBI chief James Comey found 'Hillary Clinton likely guilty of, but somehow not indictable for, a number of felonies.' His successor, Christopher Wray, 'infamously oversaw FBI agents spying on parents at school board meetings' and the 'discredited Mar-a-Lago SWAT team raid.' And the agency suppressed 'any news considered problematic to the then-2020 Biden campaign' on social media. Let this closure ' also mark the end of the most sordid' chapter in the FBI's history. Hate patrol: Medicine's Antisemitism Problem Antisemitism is 'a problem among doctors, and a lot of that problem is concentrated among doctors educated overseas,' warn Jay P. Greene & Ian Kingsbury at Tablet. In a set of over 700 people 'profiled by the organization Stop Antisemitism,' Do Not Harm 'found that health professionals were more than 2.5 times more likely to be found among antisemites than their share of the workforce. Doctors were almost 26 times overrepresented,' and 'half of those Jew-hating doctors received their medical degrees abroad.' Among those, '68% were trained in the Middle East (40%) or Pakistan (28%).' 'This problem will only get worse as the rate of importing doctors from abroad is rising.' 'To be clear, the average foreign doctor is not an antisemite,' but 'in such large numbers, extremists among foreign doctors become more common.' — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal judge signals support for reviving voter lawsuit in Georgia
The Brief A federal appeals panel signaled it may revive a lawsuit accusing True the Vote of violating the Voting Rights Act by challenging over 360,000 Georgia voters ahead of the 2021 Senate runoff. Judges questioned a lower court's ruling that found no attempted voter intimidation, calling it a potential legal error. The lawsuit, filed by Fair Fight, claims the mass voter challenges were reckless and intended to suppress votes. ATLANTA - A federal appeals court in Atlanta appears poised to revive a closely-watched legal case involving a controversial mass voter eligibility challenge that took place in Georgia ahead of the 2021 U.S. Senate runoff elections, according to The Associated Press. What we know A three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday in a case brought by Fair Fight, a voting rights group founded by former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. The group sued Texas-based True the Vote, alleging the nonprofit attempted to intimidate voters by challenging the eligibility of more than 360,000 people ahead of the runoff. The original case was dismissed last year by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, who ruled that Fair Fight had failed to prove True the Vote's actions amounted to voter intimidation under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During Tuesday's hearing, two appellate judges—Adalberto Jordan and Federico Moreno—signaled disagreement with the lower court's conclusion. Judge Jordan called the dismissal a "legal error," while Moreno suggested the trial judge had not fully examined all parts of the law. What they're saying The appellate judges expressed concern that the lower court overlooked key aspects of the case. In particular, Judge Jordan stressed that intent alone can support a claim of attempted intimidation: "Attempt does not require success," he noted. Judge Moreno questioned whether intimidating voters was the real objective behind the challenge and said the appeals court should provide clarity on mass voter eligibility contests in future elections. True the Vote's attorney, Jake Evans, defended the group's actions, arguing there was no intent to intimidate and no direct contact between True the Vote's co-founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, and any of the voters who testified. Big picture view The outcome of this appeal could set a precedent for how far third-party groups can go in challenging voter rolls before elections. With election security and voter suppression continuing to spark national debate, the case raises broader questions about the limits of citizen-led scrutiny and the protections afforded under the Voting Rights Act. What's next The appeals panel has not yet issued a ruling, but Tuesday's questioning suggests Fair Fight may see its lawsuit revived. If that happens, the case will likely return to district court for further proceedings. In the meantime, the appellate court's decision could influence how courts handle similar voter challenges in upcoming election cycles.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
In the Deep South, health care fights echo civil rights battles
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Tara Campbell, center, dances through a cheer tunnel formed by other GirlTrek walkers outside the Bricklayers Hall in Montgomery, Ala., on April 19, 2025. After every Saturday morning walk, it's tradition that the group celebrates each other for finishing the workout and prioritizing their health. (Anna Claire Vollers/Stateline) MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Tara Campbell unlocked the front door of the Bricklayers Hall, a no-frills brick building on South Union Street in downtown Montgomery, half a mile from the white-domed Alabama Capitol. She was dressed in leggings, a T-shirt and bright blue running shoes. It was 8 a.m. on a Saturday, and she exuded the bouncy enthusiasm of a Zumba instructor as she welcomed the handful of Black women who'd just arrived. Like Campbell, they were dressed for a workout. Three of them wore superhero socks that boasted tiny capes, which earned some laughs. The women were ready for a two-mile group walk around Montgomery's historically Black Centennial Hill neighborhood. But Campbell wanted to give them a quick tour of the building first. For most, it was their first time inside the new Montgomery outpost of GirlTrek, a national organization dedicated to improving the health of Black women. A veteran of the nonprofit group's Chicago chapter, Campbell moved south three months ago to open the new office in Montgomery. GirlTrek chose its location deliberately. The Bricklayers Hall was the nerve center of the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott, which successfully desegregated the city's public buses and became a model of nonviolent protest. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other boycott leaders strategized inside the hall, where King also kept an office. That office is now Campbell's office. GirlTrek's walking teams are designed to empower Black women to improve their health, but also to encourage civil rights-inspired activism to tackle broader health disparities. This year marks the milestone anniversaries of several civil rights victories: the 70th anniversary of the bus boycott, the 60th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare and Medicaid Act in July 1965. (LBJ Presidential Library) But 2025 also marks the 60th anniversary of Medicaid, the public health insurance program for people with low incomes. The creation of Medicaid isn't typically considered a civil rights victory. But the idea of health care as a human right was very much a part of the Civil Rights Movement, as was the belief that universal coverage could help dismantle racial inequities in health care. 'The connection between Medicare, Medicaid and the Civil Rights Movement was there from the beginning,' said Zachary Schulz, a history lecturer at Auburn University who specializes in public health history and policy. 'Desegregation is often discussed in education, but there could be an argument made that it began in health care.' Many of the Alabama communities that were home to the fiercest civil rights battles of the 20th century still grapple with systemic neglect that's resulted in poor health outcomes, high uninsured rates and a shortage of medical providers. In the neighborhoods around the Alabama Capitol, where nearly 50,000 people gathered in March of 1965 to meet the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers and push for voting rights, nearly a quarter of residents don't have health insurance, according to the latest U.S. census data, for 2023. Around the Bricklayers Hall, the median household income is about $23,615, less than half of what it is statewide. The neighborhood's closest hospital filed for bankruptcy in February. Statewide, 12% of Black residents under age 65 are uninsured, compared with 8.2% of white people and 10.3% for all races, according to the census. Desegregation is often discussed in education, but there could be an argument made that it began in health care. – Zachary Schulz, Auburn University history lecturer Just as civil rights activists marched for voting rights and an end to segregation, the next generation of organizers is demanding something they see as no less essential: the right to accessible, affordable health care in a system that continues to deny it. The women in the Saturday morning walking group come from different neighborhoods across the city. Most said they have health insurance. But everybody knows somebody who's struggled to get the health care they need. Campbell believes unjust policies harm the health of Black women everywhere — and wants to encourage them to continue pushing for change. One policy change that has long been the focus of rallies, committee hearings and advocacy across the state: Alabama's refusal to expand Medicaid to more adults under the Affordable Care Act, despite evidence that the state's health care system is failing huge swaths of Alabamians. Alabama consistently ranks at or near the bottom in health measures, including high rates of heart disease, obesity and maternal deaths. 'We're trying to save our own lives,' Campbell said. 'We're here in the footsteps of the Civil Rights Movement where, when they walked, things changed.' 'The most shocking and the most inhuman' Black medical leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Dr. W. Montague Cobb, advocated for the passage of Medicaid and Medicare. Others, including King, spoke of health care as a moral imperative. 'Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman,' he reportedly said in a 1966 speech to health care workers. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., standing, holds a meeting with the Executive Board of the Montgomery Improvement Association in April 1956, after orders were issued to end segregation by the Montgomery City Lines following a five-month boycott. (Horace Cort/The Associated Press) When Medicaid and Medicare launched that year, many Southern hospitals were still segregated. The feds sent teams to thousands of hospitals over the next few years to make sure they were following federal law before they could receive federal Medicare and Medicaid funding. 'Southern states were especially resistant back then to participation because it required compliance with federal regulations, including civil rights laws,' said Schulz, of Auburn University. Alabama didn't launch its Medicaid program until 1970. Some see echoes in today's debate over Medicaid expansion. Under the Affordable Care Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010, states can extend Medicaid coverage to adults making up to 138% of the federal poverty level — currently about $21,000 a year for a single person. The feds currently cover 90% of the costs for those newly eligible enrollees. Congressional Republicans are now considering whether to reduce the amount the federal government kicks in. But even at the 90% rate, 10 states — most of them in the South — have refused to take the deal. Many Republicans in those states say extending coverage to working-age adults would take away resources from people in greater need. 'Yet again, as in the '60s, Southern states, including Alabama, were slow or resistant to expansion,' said Schulz. 'The parallels are there: States' rights versus federal mandates are very much the bottom line.' 'Connect and keep moving' Less than three miles from the Bricklayers Hall, Valtoria Jackson pastors the St. Peter African Methodist Episcopal Church. Her flock is a small but active Black congregation whose mission work often centers on health issues. Situated in a lower-income Montgomery neighborhood that's recently seen signs of gentrifying, the church has sponsored a community garden, fitness classes and a fund to help neighbors pay their medical bills. Jackson has also been a nurse for 41 years, most of them in Montgomery, and reckons she's worked at every hospital in the city. 'I see myself as a connector,' she said. 'I don't like being in front. I just connect and keep moving.' On a recent weekday morning she was in her car, delivering boxes of food to older people as part of a nutrition program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She's also a familiar face in Montgomery's advocacy circles. She's spoken at rallies on the steps of the state Capitol, protesting with organizations such as the Poor People's Campaign against poverty and for universal health care and Medicaid expansion. 'There's no reason we shouldn't have Medicaid expansion here in the South,' Jackson said. Alabama's skeletal Medicaid program does not cover able-bodied adults without children. Its income eligibility limit for parents — 18% of the federal poverty line — is among the lowest in the nation. A single parent with one child, for example, is ineligible if she makes more than $3,816 per year. Some of Jackson's parishioners work low-wage jobs and fall into the so-called coverage gap, earning too much to qualify for Alabama Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health insurance. About 161,000 uninsured adults in Alabama would gain coverage if the state expanded Medicaid, according to a KFF analysis of federal data. More than half are people of color, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank. 'Good Sam' In 1965, Lula Edwards was a 35-year-old nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, Alabama. The hospital, known in the community as 'Good Sam,' was the only medical center in six counties that was open to Black people. On March 7, 1965, its hallways filled with the bleeding and injured after Alabama state troopers attacked civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what would become known as Bloody Sunday. Edwards was supposed to be off work that day, but was called in to care for the wounded. Outside of her hospital work, she kept her Montgomery home open to people who needed treatment. For Edwards, community-based care was a human right. 'She treated people in her own home when she wasn't at the hospital, giving people their shots, giving stitches, giving medicine,' said her grandson, Robert Stewart. 'She was right there in the neighborhood and treated them for free.' Stewart was determined to continue her legacy and that of his other grandparents, who marched in Selma during the Civil Rights Movement and helped register people to vote. Edwards died in 2022 at age 92, a day after Stewart announced he was running for a seat in the Alabama state Senate. At her funeral, he said, mourners came up to him with campaign donations in her honor. 'My grandmother always told me I would be in politics,' he said. Stewart won his election a few months later. The Selma native now represents an eight-county district in central Alabama that has some of the poorest health outcomes in the state. As a Democrat in a state with a Republican supermajority, his calls for Medicaid expansion go largely ignored. But he's proud the legislature expanded Alabama's postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a year in 2023 and eliminated Medicaid application delays for pregnant women earlier this year — significant steps for a state where Medicaid covers about half of all births. But it's still not enough. 'I represent eight counties, yet only two of them have pediatricians,' he said. 'I have people in my district who have opted to stay out of the workforce so they can qualify for Medicaid because that's the only way they can afford their insulin or their blood pressure medication.' Two hospitals closed in Alabama just last year, including one in his district. Four Alabama hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units since 2023. The Alabama Hospital Association has long advocated for Medicaid expansion as a way to help financially struggling hospitals, particularly in rural areas. Stewart and other Democrats have adapted their calls for Medicaid expansion to include the ways it could fit into Republican priorities, such as benefiting the state's workforce. 'Expanding Medicaid needs to be a number one priority if we're going to be serious about improving workforce participation as well as improving the overall health of Alabamians,' he said. In recent years, conservative lawmakers in holdout states such as Alabama and Mississippi have signaled interest in expanding Medicaid. But after President Donald Trump's reelection put federal Medicaid cuts on the table, expansion seems further away than ever. Earlier this year, Alabama's Republican House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said expansion was no longer a priority this legislative session because Medicaid could see changes at the federal level. 'We are better off seeing what they are going to do,' he told reporters. The Bricklayers Hall, located in the historically Black neighborhood of Centennial Park in Montgomery, Ala., was the nerve center for the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott touched off by Rosa Parks. Today, the building houses the Montgomery office of GirlTrek, a national organization dedicated to improving the health of Black women. (Anna Claire Vollers/Stateline) Sacred ground The front office at the Bricklayers Hall is sparsely furnished. There's a metal desk, a small filing cabinet, a tripod with a ring light for filming social media videos. Bulletin boards lean against the wall, waiting to be hung. In the corner, a big blue sign: 'Black women, you are welcome here.' As Campbell shows the women around the space, she tells them the office once belonged to King. 'It's like we're walking on sacred ground,' someone says quietly. In a back room, posters and protest signs decorate the wall: 'When Black women walk, things change' 'We walk for healthier bodies, families & communities' Mary Mixon, 73, is retired from the Air Force and already walks up to five miles each day. But she comes to the Saturday morning GirlTrek walks, she says, 'for the joy.' She moved to Montgomery decades ago when she was assigned to nearby Maxwell Air Force Base. Mary Mixon, 73, is retired from the Air Force and walks at least four miles every day. She began walking with GirlTrek on Saturday mornings because of the group's focus on joy and health. Mixon has military-provided health care but acknowledges the challenges others face in accessing health care in Montgomery, Ala. (Anna Claire Vollers/Stateline) 'I was literally afraid to come because I'm from the Midwest, and I'd heard of so many ugly things here,' she recalled. 'But as the time went on, I learned that injustice — yes, it does happen. But initiatives happen also. You can take the injustice and turn it around to justice.' After Campbell passed out GirlTrek T-shirts to everyone, the group began its two-mile walk. They set a speedy pace but waited at red lights for one another — no woman left behind. They chatted about kids and jobs. Some listened to music. Their walk took them through the same neighborhood streets where, 60 years ago, Black Montgomery residents marched for justice and equal treatment. But their route didn't pass the Alabama State House, where lawmakers are winding down another legislative session without expanding Medicaid. This story is part of 'Uninsured in America,' a project led by Public Health Watch that focuses on life in America's health coverage gap and the 10 states that haven't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
