State Houses Thread

[fraurosena]

I have no words.        

 

[Howl]

But wait!  There's still more cruel idiocy and profound ignorance in Ohio: 

Someone Tell This Ohio Legislator You Can’t Move Ectopic Pregnancies Into the Uterus  Rep. John Becker's bill would remove the exception for rape and incest and would also eliminate the ability for consumers to buy supplemental coverage. That means that pregnant people in Ohio would be forced to pay out-of-pocket for the costs of a “nontherapeutic abortion." 

Plus, he thinks most forms of contraception are abortifacients. 

<snip>

Quote

Enter Ohio Rep. John Becker, aka This Fucking Guy: a Republican who has sponsored a bill that literally defies science. In defending his bill, Rep. Becker has claimed that contraceptives cause abortion (they don’t) and that ectopic pregnancies—in which the embryo implants somewhere other than the uterus, usually the fallopian tube—can be fixed by simply sticking the errant embryo into the pregnant person’s uterus.

That is not something that can be done. The medical technology does not exist. And ectopic pregnancies are not viable in the first place.

Nevertheless, that’s what’s posited in a new bill sponsored by Becker and co-sponsored by nearly one-fifth of his fellow Ohio house representatives.

 

Edited May 11, 2019 by Howl

[AmericanRose]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

But wait!  There's still more cruel idiocy and profound ignorance in Ohio: 

Someone Tell This Ohio Legislator You Can’t Move Ectopic Pregnancies Into the Uterus  Rep. John Becker's bill would remove the exception for rape and incest and would also eliminate the ability for consumers to buy supplemental coverage. That means that pregnant people in Ohio would be forced to pay out-of-pocket for the costs of a “nontherapeutic abortion." 

Plus, he thinks most forms of contraception are abortifacients. 

<snip>

 

Well. I'm sad to say people have told him it's not possible (including an anti-choice RN). His response:
"If you PM me your email address, I'll send you the documentation for the successful transfer of ectopics into the uterus. If those medical journals are fraudulent, I need to know that. I'd like your opinion on that. Thanks!"

[47of74]

Well. I'm sad to say people have told him it's not possible (including an anti-choice RN). His response:
"If you PM me your email address, I'll send you the documentation for the successful transfer of ectopics into the uterus. If those medical journals are fraudulent, I need to know that. I'd like your opinion on that. Thanks!"

He’s a fucking coward. He needs to make the supposed documentation he has public.

[AmericanRose]

27 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

He’s a fucking coward.

 

He also posted this gem:
"As I'm sitting at my computer reviewing my hate mail, I am reminded of the need for honest citizens to carry guns."

[GreyhoundFan]

This was in response to the GA bill:

 

[Howl]

On 5/11/2019 at 7:42 PM, AmericanRose said:

Well. I'm sad to say people have told him it's not possible (including an anti-choice RN). His response:
"If you PM me your email address, I'll send you the documentation for the successful transfer of ectopics into the uterus. If those medical journals are fraudulent, I need to know that. I'd like your opinion on that. Thanks!"

Well good to know that he's reading some mindless crap on the internet/blowing smoke out his ass, but can't be bothered to read actual peer-reviewed journals or listen to ob-gyns and other physicians who specialize in reproductive medicine.

Not to mention that bleeding/hemorrhaging from an ectopic pregnancy that ruptures the fallopian tube has the potential to kill a woman, especially a woman without access to medical care who puts off going to an ER or doctor because she can't afford it. 

This is right up there with Todd Akin (R-Pig Ignorant Shit for Brains): “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

So, yeah, no legitimate doctor would say this. 

[Imrlgoddess]

Anndd Alabama just went off the deep end.  

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/alabama-state-senate-passes-near-total-abortion-ban-direct-challenge-n1005556

[formergothardite]

Our country seems doomed right now. 

[Bethella]

Well, Michigan's legislature has joined the fucking chorus. It's not quite as bad as Alabama or Georgia but they've voted to ban D&E procedures. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michigan-legislature-bans-abortion-procedure_n_5cdb29e7e4b0b53922030553

Luckily we have a Democratic governor who is firm in her pro-choice support and will be vetoing the bill. 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Bethella
spelling

[Imrlgoddess]

Alabama's bill was signed into law yesterday evening. Missouri has an 8 week ban now as well. They are all gunning for RvW.  Scariest time in the world to have a female child. 

[Imrlgoddess]

Just to put things into a further perspective, several of states that have cracked down their abortion laws don't have a minimum marriage age.  They will say 18 or 17 or whatever & then there's a caveat that allows for parents or the courts to bypass the standard. Almost all of them have a pregnancy exception.  Meaning a girl, however young, may be allowed by a judge to marry, regardless of any standing age gap law.  Thus the ability of the 11 year old in OH to legally marry her 26 year old rapist.  

 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by Imrlgoddess
syntax

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Where women call the shots"

Spoiler

CARSON CITY, Nev. — She didn’t plan to say it. Yvanna Cancela, a newly elected Democrat in the Nevada Senate, didn’t want to “sound crass.” But when a Republican colleague defended a century-old law requiring doctors to ask women seeking abortions whether they’re married, Cancela couldn’t help firing back.

“A man is not asked his marital status before he gets a vasectomy,” she countered — and the packed hearing room fell silent.

Since Nevada seated the nation’s first majority-female state legislature in January, the male old guard has been shaken up by the perspectives of female lawmakers. Bills prioritizing women’s health and safety have soared to the top of the agenda. Mounting reports of sexual harassment have led one male lawmaker to resign. And policy debates long dominated by men, including prison reform and gun safety, are yielding to female voices.

Cancela, 32, is part of the wave of women elected by both parties in November, many of them younger than 40. Today, women hold the majority with 23 seats in the Assembly and 10 in the Senate, or a combined 52 percent.

No other legislature has achieved that milestone in U.S. history. Only Colorado comes close, with women constituting 47 percent of its legislators. In Congress, just one in four lawmakers is a woman. And in Alabama, which just enacted an almost complete ban on abortion, women make up just 15 percent of lawmakers.

The female majority is having a huge effect: More than 17 pending bills deal with sexual assault, sex trafficking and sexual misconduct, with some measures aimed at making it easier to prosecute offenders. Bills to ban child marriage and examine the causes of maternal mortality are also on the docket.

“I can say with 100 percent certainty that we wouldn’t have had these conversations" a few years ago, said Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson (D). "None of these bills would have seen the light of day.”

Nevada didn’t reach this landmark by accident. A loosely coordinated campaign of political action groups and women’s rights organizations recruited and trained women such as Cancela, who became political director of the 57,000-member Culinary Workers Union before she turned 30. One of those organizations, Emerge Nevada, said it trained twice as many female candidates ahead of the 2018 midterm election as it had in the preceding 12 years.

Meanwhile, the election of President Trump in 2016 mobilized Democratic women nationwide, including in Nevada, where women already held 40 percent of statehouse seats.

Along with the gender shift has come a steady increase in racial diversity: Of 63 lawmakers in Nevada, 11 are African American, nine are Hispanic, one is Native American and one, Rochelle Thuy Nguyen (D), 41, is the legislature’s first Democratic female Asian American Pacific Islander.

The result may seem surprising in a state more often defined by the hypersexuality and neon-lit debauchery of the Las Vegas Strip. Until 2017, the legislature included an assemblyman who had briefly appeared as an extra in a film about women being kidnapped and forced to live naked in kennels, according to PolitiFact.

But that lawmaker, Stephen Silberkraus (R), 38, was defeated by a woman, Lesley Cohen (D), 48, who highlighted the film during her campaign. (Silberkraus told reporters that he had been unaware of the film’s sexual nature.) As a member of the Assembly, Cohen is leading a study on conditions for female sex workers in Nevada’s rural brothels, the nation’s only legal bordellos.

“Outsiders ask why and how Nevada — of all places — became first,” Cohen said. “But I say, why not Nevada? Why not everywhere?”

A culture change

Carson City is a tiny frontier town, cradled among the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. For decades in the statehouse, charges of sexual harassment often were shrugged off or belittled, and bills sponsored by women were sometimes mocked.

In 2015, Sen. Patricia Ann Spearman (D), now 64, said legislative leaders refused to schedule a hearing on her bill to promote pay equity for women. “The boys club was like, ‘Why do we need that?’ ” she said. “It was a very misogynistic session."

As recently as 2017, when the legislature approved a public referendum to repeal the "pink tax” on necessities such as tampons and diapers, one assemblyman argued against it, saying it would create a slippery slope.

“Can I add my jockstrap purchases to your list? You might argue it’s not a necessity, but I might beg to differ,” Jim Marchant (R) said at the time. Last November, voters agreed to repeal the tax — and replaced Marchant with a woman, Shea Backus (D).

Even now, female lawmakers in both parties say they receive anonymous phone calls from men commenting on their looks or threatening sexual violence. GOP women “share a lot of common ground and lived experiences with Democratic women,” said Assemblywoman Jill Tolles (R), 45.

[ 80 nations set quotas for female leaders. Should the U.S. be next? ]

Still, Nevada also has long history of female leadership. The first woman was elected to the legislature in 1918, before the U.S. Constitution guaranteed women the right to vote. And although the state has never elected a female governor, it has had at least four female lieutenant governors, the first appointed in 1962.

These days, a giant banner strung across Main Street advertises a hotline for victims of sexual harassment and assault. Set up two years ago, after state Sen. Mark Manendo (D), now 52, resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment, witness tampering and other misconduct, the hotline has been buzzing during the current legislative session.

Many women called with allegations of harassment against Assemblyman Michael Sprinkle (D), 51, who stepped down in March. In a statement announcing his resignation, Sprinkle said that he was “taking full responsibility for my actions,” would “continue to seek therapy,” and asked his accusers and family for forgiveness.

“There’s change in this building that is just this amazing story of transformation,” said Assemblywoman Heidi Swank (D), 51, who helped bring the allegations against Sprinkle to light. “And it really highlights the importance of the female majority being not just here, but finally being heard.”

Some female lawmakers say the old guard is literally dying. In November, voters in rural Nevada elected Republican Dennis Hof — a 72-year-old reality TV star and owner of several legal brothels, including the Love Ranch and the Moonlite Bunny Ranch — to the state Assembly. At the time, Hof had been dead for three weeks.

While many female lawmakers say they have found strong male allies this session, a few older men seem to be finding life in the minority difficult.

Democratic Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, 45, who keeps a “No Bulls--t Allowed” sign on her desk, said one assemblyman frequently asks, “Have you been a good girl today?”

“It’s so inappropriate on so many levels, and it’s that old guard trying to hang on,” she said. “Calling this out is the way you change the world.”

The assemblyman, co-Deputy Minority Leader John Ellison (R), 66, said he has “great respect” for Bilbray-Axelrod. After being contacted by The Washington Post, Ellison sent her a handwritten card asking her to “please accept my apology if I ever said anything offensive to you."

Bilbray-Axelrod said the moment shows that “there is hope for everyone.”

Historically, state legislatures have been “stubborn, slow-to-change institutions, which were heavily male-dominated,” said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Although it’s notable that “one state has crossed into the 50-percent mark to represent women,” she said, “it’s probably a lot more significant that we have 49 legislatures left to go.”

A new generation, a new point of view

Assemblywoman Selena Torres (D) never expected to be here. The 23-year-old teacher who helps Hispanic students learn English said she was inspired to run when she heard Trump on TV saying “awful things about immigrants.”

“I think growing up, you have this idea that politicians aren’t us. They don’t look like me. They don’t have my type of hair. They don’t come from our background. They don’t have to send money back to El Salvador to make sure that their family can make ends meet,” Torres said. “But then you come to realize: That’s the problem.”

Torres signed up for workshops by Emerge Nevada, a national Democratic organization that recruits and trains female candidates. In the legislature, Torres said she has found a spirit of sisterhood.

Benitez-Thompson, 40, has mentored her and given her suits and blazers. She and some of the other women share apartments and joke that they could star in a fun but wonky reality show called “The Real World: Carson City.”

Meanwhile, the women are savoring their first legislative victories. Cancela, who has the logo of the culinary union tattooed across her rib cage, noted that the Senate recently passed her Trust Nevada Women’s Act, which would codify and update abortion rights. It’s now awaiting a vote in the assembly.

Cancela said she was nervous when she defended the measure with a reference to vasectomy that day in March. But she said she willed herself to summon the courage to disrupt the usual order.

“I wanted to be respectful,” she said. “But also make a point.”

I so wish every state had a legislative body that was composed of a female majority. I think so many crappy laws would be overturned.

[fraurosena]

12 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I so wish every state had a legislative body that was composed of a female majority. I think so many crappy laws would be overturned.

I agree, to a certain extent. I wish legislative bodies (around the world) were composed of an equal amount of women and men. Real men, that is, ones that aren't so afraid of women that they feel compelled to suppress them.

With all the assholes currently occupying legislative bodies, it makes it seem that the majority of men are like-minded. I'd like to think that there are much more men who feel on equal footing with women, than there are misogynistic morons with fragile egos. These real men, just like women, need to run for office, get out and vote, and become politically active. That's the only way this lopsided minority rule will be overthrown. 

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up: "These Illinois Republicans are rallying around a bill to kick deep-blue Chicago out of the state"

Spoiler

Brad Halbrook stood in front of a crowd of more than 1,600 people on March 10 in Effingham, Ill., roughly 200 miles south of Chicago. According to supporters who were there, the rallygoers went wild when Halbrook — a Republican state lawmaker — talked about his big idea: a resolution to separate Chicago and its 3 million residents from the state of Illinois.

If Halbrook and his supporters have their way, the 51st state would not be the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico. It will be the Windy City.

Halbrook, who represents a district east of Springfield, Ill., reintroduced a bill in February to create a new state around Chicago. According to Halbrook, there are eight co-sponsors, up from three when it was introduced last year. The bill has a long way to go; it needs at least 60 votes to pass the Illinois House of Representatives, to say nothing of the state Senate or the governor.

And yet the bill’s supporters are hopeful, pointing to a rising tide of frustration toward what they see as Chicago’s overstated influence in Illinois politics, namely around issues of gun rights, debt, immigration and abortion. After the 2018 election, Democrats now control the state Senate, House and governor’s office.

“This isn’t an idea that’s going to go very far,” said Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan (D).

Yet the call for separation has picked up speed in part because of the work by grass-roots movements such as Illinois Separation and New Illinois to spread the movement to the county level in the past year.

“The movement is building,” Halbrook said.

Collin Cliburn, 32, started the Illinois Separation blog in 2018. Cliburn, who is a carpenter and works on the separation movement part-time, has lobbied counties throughout the state to introduce a nonbinding resolution to the ballot.

“I want to show the legislature that this is truly what the people want, and the only way we can do that is through a nonbinding resolution,” he said. According to Cliburn, he’s seeing momentum for the nonbinding resolution in 20 out of the state’s 102 counties.

One county has already decided to put the issue to a vote. Effingham County, in southern Illinois, will include the question on the 2020 ballot.

G.H. Merritt, co-founder of New Illinois, said she was considering moving out of the state as she became increasingly unhappy with the new administration’s economic policies. “Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning,” Merritt said. “Why should we be the ones to leave?”

People outside of the metropolitan Chicago area feel as though they don’t have a voice anymore, Merritt said.

“Forty percent of the population live in Cook County, and they completely dominate state politics,” she said. “The other 60 percent have to dance to their tune.”

According to Halbrook, while Chicago is an economic force in the state, the rest of Illinois holds the key to its own economic success: agriculture. “One in 4 jobs is related to agriculture so there is another economic driver,” he said.

Merritt, who was formerly a nonprofit administrator, said it’s not really a “red, blue, Republican and Democrat thing. It’s an urban versus rural thing."

Many researchers and scholars see statehood movements like Illinois’s as a symptom of a growing division between large cities and rural communities. Similar movements in California and New York have crept into the mainstream, too.

“This is an idea that has been around and comes and goes,” said John Jackson, political professor emeritus at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. “Especially if you have one or two big cities and a lot of rural areas.”

While Cook County and the five urban counties that surround Chicago have turned heavily Democratic, the rest of the state has grown more and more Republican, according to Jackson.

“It’s a way for conservative and Republican legislators to let up steam,” Jackson said. “It’s always popular downstate to run against Chicago.”

The problem isn’t unique to Illinois, according to Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization. Jones, a scholar on religion, culture and politics, said it’s particularly evident in states with a healthy, vibrant city center and a larger agricultural base. He attributes part of this national trend to younger generations who are moving out of rural areas, as well as an increase in ideological sorting.

“For younger people, there’s evidence that people are moving to fit their ideological and cultural identity,” Jones said.

According to the PRRI’s 2018 American Values Atlas, the differences between Chicago and the rest of the state are stark. In Chicago, 53 percent of the population is white. In the rest of Illinois, that fraction is 73 percent. Roughly 28 percent of non-Chicago residents hold a college degree, while 36 percent of Chicagoans do.

While people might be paying closer attention to the divide between cities and rural communities now, the problem isn’t new, according to Jones. “It’s been a long-term trend, this isn’t the last five to 10 years,” he said. “It’s been the last couple of generations.”

A 2018 Pew Research Center study on the similarities and differences between rural and urban communities found the divide fell almost strictly along partisan party lines, according to senior researcher Ruth Igielnik. While there have always been more Democrats than Republicans in urban areas, there’s been a stronger concentration in the past 10 years, Igielnik said. “Twice as many voters identified as Democrats than Republicans in urban communities,” she said.

“It was really divisive,” Igielnik said. “We really didn’t see many political similarities.”

Back in Illinois, Merritt said the proposal was more than a conversation starter. It’s a movement of people who are “willing to fight for our home,” she said.

 

[47of74]

Here's a real douche cannon

Quote

A police report says a south Mississippi lawmaker punched his wife in the face after she didn't undress quickly enough when the lawmaker wanted to have sex.

Republican state Rep. Doug McLeod of Lucedale was arrested Saturday on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge.

The Sun Herald reports the document was filed with the George County Sheriff's Department.

Deputies report McLeod was drunk and holding a glass of alcohol when they arrived. Deputies report McLeod punched his wife and bloodied her nose. When officers told McLeod a domestic assault had been reported, they say he replied "Are you kidding me?"

 

[47of74]

Tennessee to Mississippi: Hold my beer

Quote

Tennessee's embattled House speaker said Tuesday that he plans to resign from his leadership post following a vote of no confidence by his Republican caucus amid a scandal over explicit text messages.

The speaker announced the decision just a day after previously shrugging off a 45-24 secret ballot vote from his GOP caucus determining they no longer had confidence in his ability to lead the Tennessee House. Casada said he would work to regain his colleagues' trust.

He began to lose that support when his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, was pressured into resigning after the release of years-old racist texts and the sexually explicit messages, and Cothren's admission that he used cocaine in his legislative office years before becoming Casada's top aide. Casada was included in one of the group texts with a racist message, but has said he never saw it.

Another scandal that sparked early doubts was the report that Cothren may have tampered with evidence in a young black activist's criminal case, which a special prosecutor is still investigating.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good graphic about why red trifecta states are difficult places to live:

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by GreyhoundFan
edited for riffles

[GreyhoundFan]

"GOP lawmakers skipped town to avoid a climate change vote. Then the governor called the police."

Spoiler

Outside the Oregon State Capitol, small groups of protesters jockeyed for position. There were loggers who opposed the cap-and-trade bill up for a vote that morning. And there were young climate activists who said the legislation was vital to preserving the world they would soon inherit. But there were a few crucial components missing from the political drama unfolding in Salem on Thursday.

Namely, the lawmakers.

Inside the statehouse, the Senate chambers were conspicuously quiet. As the clerk called roll, a third of the room’s seats were empty. The Republicans, facing down a Democratic supermajority bent on passing bills to combat climate change, resorted to some last-ditch political arithmetic: no senators, no votes.

Without their 11 GOP colleagues, Senate Democrats can’t achieve a quorum, and their legislative agenda grinds to a halt. So the Republicans fled. They left the state, reportedly bolting over the Idaho line.

But state Democrats, who control the legislature and the executive, had a last resort of their own — and that afternoon, they used it. Gov. Kate Brown called the cops.

Brown instructed Oregon State Police to track down and round up any lawmakers on the lam, an order that authorizes authorities to put the elected officials in patrol cars and drive them back to the Capitol, though the department said it would instead opt for “polite communication.”

The governor accused the senators of abandoning their posts in the face of a potentially historic vote, one she said would put Oregon at the forefront of the nation’s fight against global warming.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that the Senate Republicans would turn their back on their constituents who they are honor-bound to represent here in this building,” Brown said in a statement. “They need to return and do the jobs they were elected to do.”

But Oregon Republicans said a boycott was the only way they could advocate for the people that voted them into office. They spoke of a deepening divide between the state’s ultraliberal urban enclaves and its sprawling rural counties with proud libertarian streaks.

“Protesting cap and trade by walking out today represents our constituency and exactly how we should be doing our job,” Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger, Jr. said in a statement. “We will not stand by and be bullied by the majority party any longer. Oregonians deserve better. It’s time for the majority party to consider all Oregonians — not just the ones in Portland.”

Sen. Brian Boquist, one of Baertschiger’s colleagues, sent a warning to any search party that might come looking for him.

“Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” Boquist said he told the superintendent of the state police. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”

Critics of the cap-and-trade bill vigorously oppose it because they say it will have a disproportionate and detrimental effect on Oregon’s rural communities. Under the plan, greenhouse gas emissions would be limited and carbon-producing businesses would be required to purchase pollution credits. Over time, the state would decrease the number of credits available, thereby lowering the level of emissions allowed.

Those against the legislation argue that industry will likely pass the extra cost on to consumers, and the price of fuel would rise, putting a strain on industries like trucking and logging.

The two sides spent hours hashing out their disagreements on Wednesday and, as Brown said, they reached “an impasse.” Baertschiger called the negotiations “fruitless.”

It’s the second time this session that Republicans walked out in the face of a stalemate. But last month, Democrats were able to coax them back with a legislative carrot, rather than the state trooper stick.

The episode makes for another installment in the country’s storied and bizarre history of police officers chasing down lawmakers who have refused to do their jobs.

In the late-1970s, an apiary-themed manhunt unfolded for absent state senators in Texas. A Washington Post story at the time put it like this: “The hives of the Texas ‘killer bees’ remained undisturbed today ... After four days of deadlock, the ‘worker bees’ are invoking the heroes of the Alamo, the ‘queen bees’ are under 24-hour surveillance and the ‘bumble bees’ are simply trying to defend themselves.

The killer bees, apparently, were 12 liberal senators who fled to sabotage the legislature’s quorum and block a bill they opposed. The worker bees were those lawmakers who stayed behind, while the queen bees were the wives of the missing men, whose houses the Texas Rangers, or bumble bees, were staking out as they searched for the senators.

Roughly 10 years after that, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) ordered Capitol police to search for a group of Republicans that had absconded to block the passage of campaign finance reform. Sen. Robert Packwood, also an Oregon Republican, barricaded himself in his office, an official history recounted. After officers pushed through, Packwood made them a deal: he’d go with them, but they had to carry him back into the chamber feet first, a theatrical protest.

More recently, a group of Wisconsin Democrats left the state to thwart a 2011 anti-union bill. Police were also dispatched to search for them.

In Oregon, as authorities sought his Republican colleagues, state Senate President Peter Courtney issued an entreaty from the chamber floor.

“I beg and beseech my fellow legislators to come to the floor,” Courtney said, according to the Associated Press. “I need you, the legislature needs you, the people of Oregon need you to pass budgets to take care of our citizens.”

But many were already on their way out.

The Oregonian reached one, just after 7 a.m. Thursday, as he sped out of the state.

“In a few moments,” Sen. Cliff Bentz told the paper, “I will not be in Oregon.”

 

[AmericanRose]

Are you freaking kidding me???

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-statehouse-shut-down-after-lawmakers-team-up-with-right-wing-militias/ar-AADh0mB?ocid=spartanntp

[Imrlgoddess]

So this happened:  In Alabama, pregnant woman is shot during a verbal argument, results in miscarriage...gets charged with manslaughter.  The shooter's charges are dropped. 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pregnant-woman-whose-unborn-child-died-when-she-was-shot-in-the-stomach-charged-with-manslaughter-1.4484764?fbclid=IwAR18DRpNqhHi5uJZhYeH3K2gYzJcUu89hrGrJfnUVQX8typhq-qSCZrBzBI

[Ali]

On 6/27/2019 at 2:31 PM, Imrlgoddess said:

So this happened:  In Alabama, pregnant woman is shot during a verbal argument, results in miscarriage...gets charged with manslaughter.  The shooter's charges are dropped. 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pregnant-woman-whose-unborn-child-died-when-she-was-shot-in-the-stomach-charged-with-manslaughter-1.4484764?fbclid=IwAR18DRpNqhHi5uJZhYeH3K2gYzJcUu89hrGrJfnUVQX8typhq-qSCZrBzBI

Someone created a thread for this. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The Repugs here in Va showed that the NRA owns them all: "Gun debate ends abruptly in Virginia as GOP-controlled legislature adjourns after 90 minutes"

Spoiler

RICHMOND — Virginia’s Republican-controlled General Assembly abruptly adjourned a special legislative session on gun control after 90 minutes Tuesday without considering a single bill.

Hundreds of gun control activists and gun rights protesters who had packed the State Capitol after lobbying and demonstrating all morning were stunned. “Gutless bastards!” one man shouted from the House of Delegates gallery.

Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ordered the session in the wake of the May 31 mass shooting at a Virginia Beach municipal building in which 12 people were killed. Lawmakers had filed some 30 bills aimed at restricting gun use or lethality or stiffening penalties for gun law violations.

Republican leaders in the state House and Senate said they would refer all bills to the bipartisan Virginia State Crime Commission for study and recommendation, then reconvene Nov. 18 — after a high-stakes state election in which all 140 legislative seats are on the ballot.

“The call for this session was premature,” House Speaker Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) told reporters moments after both chambers adjourned on party-line votes.

Cox accused Northam of “an election-year stunt” and said gun violence needs more-thorough study.

The gun issue is likely to supercharge what is already shaping up to be a pivotal election year in Virginia. Republicans have a 51-48 edge in the House of Delegates and a 20-19 advantage in the Senate, with one vacancy in each chamber.

Democrats, who are hoping to take control of both chambers for the first time in more than 20 years, wasted no time Tuesday in embracing gun control as a rallying cry for their base.

“The Republicans in this state are totally controlled — I mean 100 percent controlled — by the National Rifle Association,” Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) fumed in the Capitol’s marble-lined hallway.

“This is far from over,” he said. “In the end, let me assure you, we are going to prevail, one way or another.”

House Minority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax), who had been consulting with Republicans even after the session started about what the rules of engagement would be, was almost shaking with anger.

“Shocking,” she said. “Disturbing. But it’ll be up to the voters in November now.”

For Republicans, guns are also an animating issue. The party’s conservative activists are deeply protective of Second Amendment rights, even as polling shows that a majority of Virginians statewide favor some form of restrictions.

The GOP’s Tuesday adjournment strategy was closely coordinated — and closely guarded — among House and Senate GOP leaders. People familiar with the decision said it came together in the past week.

Referring the bills to the commission keeps them alive but defers action to a lame-duck legislature. The action also allowed Republicans to claim the mantle of an unlikely figurehead: They spoke admiringly of former governor Tim Kaine (D), who created a blue-ribbon panel to study legislative solutions after the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007.

“I remember the statesmanship of then-Gov. Kaine,” Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City) said. “He chose not to take a political posture.”

But in recent weeks, Kaine — now a U.S. senator — had urged lawmakers to pass Northam’s package of gun control measures.

Kaine spokeswoman Sarah Peck recalled that Republicans refused one of the Virginia Tech panel’s chief recommendations: closing a loophole that allows some gun purchases to take place without background checks.

“Thousands of Virginians have died by gun violence since the Virginia Tech shooting, yet Republican legislators just showed us that they are still too cowardly to make the meaningful gun safety reforms recommended by the panel,” she said.

Northam said Republicans had abdicated their duty. “I expected them to do what their constituents elected them to do — discuss issues and take votes,” Northam said in a statement. “An average of three Virginians die each day due to gun violence. That means hundreds of Virginians may die between today and November 18. . . . It is shameful and disappointing that Republicans in the General Assembly refuse to do their jobs.”

'We're ready to vote'

The special session had focused national attention on Richmond. The NRA held town hall meetings around the state in the weeks leading up to it and seemed clued-in on the Republicans’ strategy, putting out a statement of support moments after the votes.

National gun-violence-prevention groups helped build turnout for “roundtables” the Northam administration staged around the state to rally support for gun control. Brady, Giffords and Moms Demand Action were among the organizations that helped turn out hundreds of people Tuesday for rallies and demonstrations.

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Friday had sent a letter to Northam pressing for “bold action” to stop the flow of guns from the commonwealth into the District. She called guns purchased in Virginia a “key driver of gun crime” in Washington.

Citing statistics from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, D.C. officials said the number of guns seized in the city and traced to Virginia has increased in recent years, totaling nearly 600 last year.

Norment, the Senate majority leader, said Northam’s crusade was “political theater” to distract from scandals that have engulfed him since early this year.

Northam, a pediatrician, drew national scorn in January when he made unclear remarks about abortion that led conservatives to accuse him of favoring infanticide. Then a racist photo came to light from his 1984 medical school yearbook.

He first took responsibility for the photo, then disavowed it — but admitted wearing blackface for a dance contest that same year. Most Democrats called on him to resign.

Now Norment and other Republicans say Northam is exploiting the Virginia Beach shooting to obscure those lingering issues as elections draw closer.

In Capitol Square on Tuesday, some gun-toting protesters held aloft images of the photo from Northam’s yearbook, which featured a person in Ku Klux Klan robes and another in blackface at what appeared to be a costume party. Printed atop the blown-up image was the caption: “The man behind the sheet wants your guns.”

On Monday, Norment had seemed to support one aspect of Northam’s effort, proposing a bill to ban all firearms from municipal buildings around the state. But he faced a sharp backlash from the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League and GOP colleagues — even prompting Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (Franklin) to threaten to resign as majority whip. Soon after the Senate convened Tuesday, Norment withdrew his measure.

“I do not support — nor will I support — any measure that restricts the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” he said, adding later it had been a ruse.

The Republican strategy gave Democrats in the House about an hour to speak on the need for gun control.

Del. Chris L. Hurst (D-Montgomery) invoked the death of his girlfriend, Alison Parker, a journalist who was shot and killed on live television in 2015 by a former co-worker. Describing how he had agonized ever since about whether he could have done anything to protect her, he concluded that it was now his responsibility as a lawmaker.

“We’re ready to act, we’re ready to vote, and we’re ready to change the laws to save Virginians’ lives,” Hurst thundered. When he added that it’s “time for us to pull our fingers out of our ears,” Democrats and spectators in the gallery erupted in cheers and applause.

But just as it seemed the House would debate individual bills in committees, Republican leaders called for adjournment until Nov. 18. Flustered Democrats asked them to repeat the motion, unsure of what was happening.

On the Senate side, there was not even time for speeches.

Sen. Stephen D. Newman (R-Bedford) rose to make a motion to adjourn until Nov. 18. Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) tried to weigh in, but under Senate rules the motion was “non-debatable.”

In a party-line vote of 20-18, the motion passed. Senators quickly dispersed.

Within minutes, Jason Ouimet, acting executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, released a statement applauding the House and Senate Republican leadership and calling the special session “a complete taxpayer-funded distraction.”

Opposing rallies

Earlier Tuesday, armed militia members and gun control activists had swarmed the grounds and streets outside the State Capitol building.

Men in camouflage toting assault rifles or swinging holstered handguns from their hips gathered not far from a heavily female crowd wearing red “Moms Demand Action” T-shirts. Busloads of activists rolled into the city, their passengers bracing for a long day.

Jeff Squires, 57, was among the pro-gun demonstrators. He said he wanted legislators to hear firsthand from gun owners who feel under siege.

“It’s an incremental taking-away of rights,” Squires said. “There’s an agenda to take away guns, and this is how they’re doing it. I understand there’s violence. It’s not just with guns, though. It’s people with those guns.”

At the nearby bell tower in Capitol Square, Northam, in a suit and tie despite the summer heat, addressed an hour-long peace vigil, leading several hundred people in chants of “Enough is enough!”

The governor held hands with African American community leaders, and they sang “We Shall Overcome.” He was joined by Richmond’s mayor, Levar Stoney (D), as well as the city’s police chief, schools superintendent and other officials. Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) also stood with Northam, as did state senators Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria) and Barbara A. Favola (D-Arlington) and Del. Delores L. McQuinn (D-Richmond).

Richmond NAACP President James Minor called on attendees to “support our governor” and his gun control efforts. And he sent a political message in biblical language: “If you cannot do right by the people, if you cannot do right by the children, then ye shall be removed.”

Stoney told the crowd: “There will be a day of reckoning. If not today, then it will be at the ballot box in November.”

Republicans said later that they appreciated the outpouring of public sentiment.

“It is really important for us to not question the sincerity of the advocates who descended upon the Capitol today, on both sides of the issue,” said Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Rockingham), the chairman of the bipartisan crime commission that will study proposed legislation.

“What we are trying to do is introduce an evidence-based process,” Obenshain said. “One in which we can, with calm deliberation, look at the issue, the underlying causes, and what we can truly do that’s actually making a difference in making communities safe across Virginia.”

That didn’t satisfy some activists.

Andy Parker, Alison Parker’s father, said he was dumbfounded by the quick adjournment.

“I didn’t expect much, but I didn’t expect this,” he said in an interview in the Capitol afterward. “It really is just a disgraceful act of cowardice. . . . I really think it’s going to backfire on them.”

I hope this costs the Rs the majority in both houses this November. We only have to flip a few seats.