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RandySF's JournalMissouri abortion rights group collects enough signatures to advance ballot measure
A proposed amendment to enshrine abortion access in Missouri’s constitution cleared a key hurdle Friday to appear on the ballot this year after a coalition of reproductive rights advocates submitted the required number of valid signatures to state officials.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group leading the ballot effort, announced it had collected signatures from more than 380,000 registered voters — more than the approximately 172,000 it needed to move forward with the process of qualifying their proposal for the ballot.
The group had faced a May 5 deadline to submit the signatures.
The proposed amendment would enshrine language in the state constitution that protects abortion rights up until fetal viability, or around the 24th week of pregnancy, with exceptions after that point for the life and health of the mother.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/missouri-abortion-rights-ballot-measure-rcna150448
Georgia's next election will be referendum for or against Europe: President Zourabichvili
Georgia has erupted in protest once again, as the ruling Georgian Dream party pursues a "foreign agents" bill in parliament – something that has left a question mark hanging over the country’s European ambitions. The EU granted the ex-Soviet nation candidate status to join the bloc last December. We speak to Georgia's President Salomé Zourabichvili, who plans to veto the final draft of the law, but admits that parliament can still override her veto. That makes the October 26 election even more crucial for re-asserting the country’s European path, she says.
Zourabichvili explains that, contrary to what Georgia's ruling party says, the draft law is not equivalent to transparency legislation in Western countries. "It's an exact copy of the law that was passed by Russia and which allowed Russia to clamp down on nongovernmental organisations first and on the media next," she says. "And the Georgian authorities are pushing this law for the second time. Last year they declined to go forward with it, and now they are proposing the same law and their aim and objective is no different."
The Georgian president says she will veto the bill after it has gone through various readings. But she admits that the ruling party has the votes in parliament to ultimately overturn her veto. In that case, what is the answer? "The answer to this law, and to many other laws, and to the anti-European, anti-Western rhetoric coming from the governing party, will be in the elections," she states.
"We have elections on October 26 of this year. And now it's very clear that the elections will be a kind of referendum for or against Europe. What type of future do we want for Georgia? The Georgian population has been supporting the European path for years and years now, with 80 percent of all the opinion polls in favour. The granting of EU candidate status to Georgia has only reinforced the sense that we are now close to the next stage, and that is a stage that nobody here wants to see escaping us. Georgians will probably vote en masse next October. I'm very confident and I'm very hopeful."
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/talking-europe/20240503-georgia-s-next-election-will-be-referendum-for-or-against-europe-president-zourabichvili
London mayoral election on a knife edge, warn Labour insiders
Labour insiders have warned that the London mayoral election is on a knife edge after the party was hit by a local elections backlash from Muslim voters over its stance on Gaza.
One ally of Sadiq Khan, the incumbent mayor, said the fight with Conservative Susan Hall was “definitely going to be close” and suggested there could be just a few points in it.
The warnings suggested Ms Hall could defy expectations, despite having largely been written off ahead of the election.
On Friday night, the Conservatives were buoyed by low turnout data suggesting that many of Mr Khan’s previous supporters may have stayed home.
The number of ballots cast was down in some areas where he performed well last time, while it was up in Tory strongholds such as Bexley and Bromley.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/03/london-mayoral-election-on-knife-edge-warn-labour-insiders/
Rishi Sunak calls local election losses disappointing as Labour make gains
The Conservatives have lost over 400 council seats, while Labour won the Blackpool South by-election.
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said voters showed Mr Sunak they wanted a change in the last big test of public opinion before a general election.
Nearly 90% of the 107 councils up for election have declared so far.
Sir Keir said the Blackpool result - a massive 26% swing to Labour - was a message to the Tory leader that it was time to move on and call a general election
.https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68947838
Voters Swing to Labour in English Local Elections: Key Takeaways
The election made clear that the opposition Labour Party was succeeding in winning back its longtime supporters in the working-class areas of northern England — often called the “red wall” for their entrenched support for Labour, whose party color is red — who had defected over Brexit and immigration.
After Labour won control of the council in Hartlepool, a party representative said, “Making gains here shows that the party is on track to win a general election and is firmly back in the service of working people.”
In Blackpool South, a deprived seaside district, the Labour Party easily took a parliamentary by-election held Thursday after a Conservative lawmaker stepped down. The seat had long been held by Labour, but it was won by the Conservatives in 2019.
Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, said the win was a message sent directly by the public to Mr. Sunak “to say we’re fed up with your decline, your chaos, your division, and we want change.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/03/world/europe/voters-england-elections-takeaways.html
Anger over Gaza clouds Labour's local election wins
Anger over Labour’s position on the war in Gaza led to some council losses and raised fears over its performance in the West Midlands mayoralty contest, clouding an otherwise strong set of local election results for the party.
Britain’s main opposition party stacked up gains across England in areas ranging from the north-east coastal “red wall” town of Hartlepool to Rushmoor in the southern county of Hampshire.
The spread of victories was a positive omen for Sir Keir Starmer ahead of the general election expected this year, particularly given Labour’s thumping by-election win against the Tories in Blackpool South.
But support appeared to drain away in some areas with larger proportions of Muslim voters, a sign of the damage done by the party’s evolving position on the Israel-Hamas war since October.
The issue threatened to derail Labour’s attempt to unseat Andy Street as Tory mayor of the West Midlands; that result is not expected until Saturday.
https://www.ft.com/content/32fc13d1-2ae4-45a7-b950-ad2325bcbe14
Green party celebrates 'really encouraging results' in England's local elections
The Green party was heading for a record number of councillors in local elections across England, celebrating significant gains in places where it already had a firm foothold but also winning for the first time in inner city and rural areas.
Party officials said they believed the Greens were on track to finish with more than 800 members on more than 170 councils.
The Greens were delighted to win first seats on councils including Newcastle upon Tyne, Sefton in Merseyside, Redditch in Worcestershire, and South Norfolk. It became the largest party on Hastings borough council, moving up from fourth place to first.
Co-leader Adrian Ramsay, said: “We’ve had a really encouraging set of results, building on what we’ve seen over the last four sets of local elections where we have gained record numbers of Green councillors each time.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/03/green-party-adrian-ramsay-celebrates-results-england-local-elections
CAGOP Welcomes Dog Killer as Convention Keynote Speaker
Whther its the local county party or the state party, what the hell happened to Republicans and actual common sense?
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is the keynote speaker for the California GOP at the State Party’s Convention in May in Burlingame. Sure hope SPCA or PETA shows up to picket.
Noem wrote in her not yet released memoir that she took a 14 month old puppy to a gravel pit and shot the dog in cold blood. Noem claimed the dog, named Cricket, was “untrainable” and “dangerous.”
“It was not a pleasant job,” she wrote. “But it had to be done.”
https://theliberaloc.com/2024/05/03/cagop-welcomes-dog-killer-as-convention-keynote-speaker/
San Francisco Democrats are having a #MeToo moment as women share stories of rape, abuse
San Francisco Democrats appear to be on the verge of a #MeToo moment based on comments shared Thursday evening at a special hearing on sexual assault and harassment by local party leaders.
More than 50 people attended the hearing inside the Milton Marks Auditorium, where rape survivors and victims of sexual assault and harassment shared personal stories while calling out local leaders who have turned a blind eye to allegations for years—if not decades.
“I've gotten sick and tired of having to make phone calls to leaders around the city to let them know that this person and that person is problematic,” said Denise Heitzenroder, a board member for the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee. “It really just boggles my mind that 20 years later we still are having these conversations about whether or not this is a problem.”
Nancy Tung, chair of San Francisco’s Democratic County Central Committee, called the hearing in response to multiple allegations against prominent figures in the local Democratic Party, including former housing nonprofit director Jon Jacobo and Kevin Ortiz, a co-president of the Latinx Democratic Club.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi endorsed the committee’s work in a letter last weekend—Ortiz worked in her office as recently as 2022—and social media posts have since been identifying other individuals in local politics who have been accused of sexual misconduct.
https://sfstandard.com/2024/05/02/san-francisco-democrats-metoo-sexual-assault-rape/
The 1864 abortion law is officially repealed, but when it takes effect remains uncertain
With a stroke of a pen on Thursday, Gov. Katie Hobbs struck down a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban.
Just a day earlier, Democrats in the state Senate succeeded in peeling away enough Republican votes to repeal an abortion ban first passed in 1864, while Arizona was still a territory. The push to repeal it came after the state Supreme Court ruled it was once again enforceable, and Hobbs’ signature ended weeks of turmoil as the Republican-majority legislature grappled with the political fallout.
“Today, we are doing what 23 governors and 55 legislatures refused to do and I am so proud to be the ones that got this job done,” she said shortly before signing the bill, referring to the number of governors before her and previous legislatures.
The Democrat, who made a campaign promise to repeal the 1864 law and was a vocal supporter of the movement to do so this month, said the threat of the law’s reimplementation had sparked concern across the state.
https://azmirror.com/2024/05/02/the-1864-abortion-law-is-officially-repealed-but-when-it-takes-effect-remains-uncertain/
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