VA-SD07: Democrats from every corner of the Commonwealth knock doors for Aaron Rouse

Aisha Wahab becomes 1st Muslim, Afghan American elected to CA State Senate

HAYWARD, Calif. (KGO) -- There are very few who can ever say they were the first.

"I genuinely think in California, it is about time. However, also at the same time, it is wonderful to see so many different community members excited," says Aisha Wahab.

Wahab is headed to the California State Senate as the first-ever Muslim and first-ever Afghan American elected to that body. She will represent District 10, which includes parts of Alameda and Santa Clara counties.

"I hope to bring my lived experiences to the policies we make, to be more inclusive, to think about the most vulnerable community members. That has always been part of my policies, even in the City of Hayward," says Wahab, who is currently a Hayward city council member, and where she first got into politics.

She was born in New York City. Her father was brutally murdered. Her mother died when she was young. Aisha grew up in foster care until she and her sister were adopted by an Afghan family in Fremont, home to one of the largest Afghan communities in the United States.




https://abc7news.com/aisha-wahab-hayward-california-state-senate-ca/12479214/

George Jones - Beneath Still Waters

George Jones - Just A Girl I Used To Know

La.: Davante Lewis ousts incumbent from PSC, becomes first openly LGBTQ state elected official

Progressive policy advocate Davante Lewis defeated three-term Public Service Commissioner Lambert Boissiere III on Saturday, handing the incumbent and utilities that backed him a stunning loss with the help of big money from environmental groups who want to shake up the commission.

ewis, 30, who lives in Baton Rouge and works for the left-leaning Louisiana Budget Project, ran on a platform of making bold changes to how Louisiana regulates utilities. He called for a quicker transition to renewables, an effort to harden the electric grid in the face of increasingly severe hurricanes and a crackdown on excessive fees by Entergy and other utilities.

He becomes the first openly LGBTQ person elected to state office in Louisiana, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund.

With all early votes counted, plus election day votes from 738 of 748 precincts, Lewis had amassed 59% of the vote, after getting just 18% in the primary last month. He advanced to the runoff after edging out Boissiere’s three other challengers, two of whom later endorsed Lewis.

Both Lewis and Boissiere are Democrats.



https://www.nola.com/news/politics/davante-lewis-easily-ousts-lambert-boissiere-iii-in-psc-race/article_cac2d384-78da-11ed-904e-dfc3b490bf63.html

The big Republican Latino realignment didn't happen in 2022.

he 2020 election set off alarms among Democrats — and bold predictions among Republicans — about a realignment of the Latino vote. In 2020, President Donald Trump saw his support among Latinos jump 10 percentage points nationally, to 38 percent from 28 percent in 2016. In South Florida and South Texas, Trump made even bigger gains in some heavily Hispanic counties.

There were other reasons to think a major shift could be underway. Latinos are not a monolithic group, and many Hispanics share some things in common with Republicans, among them religiosity and small-business economics. Some analysts have long seen Latinos as a potential swing vote — and still do.

But while Republican gains in South Florida and South Texas drew the most attention, many strategists and academics tracking Latino voting patterns said the true test of whether the Democrats were continuing to lose ground would come this year in Arizona and Nevada, a pair of midterm battlegrounds each with hard-fought races for Senate and governor.

“It was going to be the ultimate testing ground,” Carlos Odio of Equis Research said of the two Southwestern states. “While there was no reversal to pre-2020 levels, neither [of the Republican senatorial candidates] improved on 2020. … You have to judge it as a failure of Republicans to exploit what seemed the best opportunity they were going to get.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/10/republican-latino-realignment/

N.J. domestic workers' bill of rights moves ahead in the Senate despite GOP pushback

Advocacy groups in New Jersey are fighting for better working conditions for domestic workers like housekeepers, in-home cooks, and laundry workers.

The New Jersey Senate Labor Committee advanced legislation codifying domestic worker protections. Named the “Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, the bill would provide privacy rights to domestic workers, and require employers and domestic employees to enter into a written contract.

It would also establish penalties for companies that aren’t in compliance, including penalties for employer retaliation against workers, and create a state board to monitor the bill’s enforcement.

Domestic workers have historically been prone to abuse regarding wages and the terms of their employment, supporters say.



https://whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-domestic-workers-bill-of-rights-senate/

Tweet of the Day

Virginia Republican Proposes Total Abortion Ban for State to Consider in January

In a bleak reminder that the fallout from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is nowhere near over, a lawmaker in Virginia has proposed a total abortion ban for the legislature to consider in January. Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) wants a ban on abortion at 15 weeks, and the public comparing these two options is very convenient for him.

Delegate Marie March (R) recently pre-filed House Bill 1395, which would define life as beginning at fertilization, thereby banning abortion and potentially even jeopardizing access to emergency contraception—because some conservatives wrongly believe Plan B is akin to abortion.

Virginia has two Democratic Senators, and the state has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 2008. But Republicans took control of the House of Delegates in 2021, when the state elected Youngkin. The state senate remains in Democratic control, so it’s unclear whether an abortion ban could pass that chamber.

As the advocacy organization Repro Rising Virginia has noted on social media, March’s bill performs the neat trick of making Youngkin’s proposal look “reasonable” by comparison. No abortion ban is reasonable, as every single one denies people their agency and puts their health and lives at risk.


https://news.yahoo.com/virginia-republican-proposes-total-abortion-195500695.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr

It's telling how far down the shit hole America's gone.......

when half the country is angry that a Black, queer woman was released from a Russian gulag. It hits hard especially when I am old enough to remember the hostage crises in Iran and Lebanon.