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Parties Take Sides in Texas Voter Roll Analysis

About 58,000 votes have been cast in Texas in the past two decades by non-citizens who were in the country legally. That's according to the state's Republican secretary of state, David Whitley, who said Friday his findings will lead to a redoubled effort by his office to ensure "accuracy" of voter rolls.

A civil rights group and the Democratic Party warned that Whitley and the state GOP were using questionable statistics to alarm voters. They told the Dallas Morning News they suspected Whitley's aim was to conduct an improper purge of legitimate voters from the rolls in the second most populous state, which is inexorably moving from red to purple on the national political map thanks to urbanization and a steadily increasing Latino population.


Whitley developed his findings by comparing voter registration records against Department of Public Safety records of about 95,000 non-citizens with green cards or work visas who obtained driver's licenses. However, "in an advisory to election administrators and voter registrars on Friday, the secretary of state's director of elections said that 95,000 non-citizens with matching voter registrations should be considered 'WEAK' matches. The advisory used all capital letters," The Morning News reported.

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Chicago South Siders impacted by air pollution can help shape future environmental policy
factory chimney emitting smoke
Photo by Ria on Unsplash

Chicago South Siders impacted by air pollution can help shape future environmental policy

Communities in the southwest and southeast sides of Chicago impacted by the adverse effects of air pollution from truck traffic, warehouses, and factory operations have the opportunity to change their future. But what exactly are they experiencing, and how can they change it?

For the greater part of the last year, officials, including State Sen. Javier Cervantes (D-1) and 12th Ward Ald, Julia Ramirez and others from organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund have been drafting Senate Bill 838. The bill aims to curb environmental injustices, such as air pollution caused by heavy truck traffic and industrial practices, that overburden Chicago’s Southwest and Southeast communities.

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Behind the “Lie of the Year,” some bitter truths

Diners watch as Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump, and Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, debate for the first time during the presidential election campaign on September 10, 2024 at the Bar Tabac in New York City.

(Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

Behind the “Lie of the Year,” some bitter truths

As it has been doing yearly since 2009, the fact-checking organization PolitiFact has chosen the Lie of the Year (2024). There was an abundance of nominees.

And, it turns out, they chose the same whopper I identified as a top contender months ago: President-elect Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that Haitian migrants were eating the household pets of Springfield, Ohio.

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Moderate voices are vanishing. Here’s how to get them back.
Moderate voices are vanishing. Here’s how to get them back.

Moderate voices are vanishing. Here’s how to get them back.

Fifty years ago this month, the US Congress established the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, which brings together service-minded college juniors who span the ideological spectrum – from Neil Gorsuch, now a Supreme Court Justice, to Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight, to Bill Gates, who served as the Chair of Maricopa County Board of Supervisors during the 2020 presidential election. The scholarship is intended to serve as a living memorial to our 33rd President’s commitment to public service by building a diverse community committed to upholding public institutions.

After receiving the scholarship in 1997, I spent two intense summers with my fellow Trumans, soaking in diverse viewpoints, debating policy, wrestling with ethical dilemmas, and dreaming about how we might serve our country. During the Clinton impeachment's seemingly unprecedented partisan tensions, we discussed running on cross-partisan slates – not promising to always agree, but committing to respectful engagement and understanding our differences. Twenty-five years later, watching my 17-year-old son write about losing his faith in politics, I wonder what happened to that vision.

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