#LULAC

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

On August 20, a little before dawn, 87 year-old Lidia Martinez was abruptly jarred awake by an unexpected knock on her door. The longtime activist who for over 35 years has worked to expand voter registration among seniors and veterans in south Texas, cautiously peered out the door. Standing on her doorstep were nine police officers dressed in tactical gear and carrying firearms. After showing her a search warrant, Martinez’s home was searched as she was forced to stand outside in her nightgown in her driveway in full view of her neighbors. Martinez was later questioned for three hours after which the police seized her phone, computer, personal calendar and more.

[...]

These bad faith searches orchestrated by Paxton were predicated on the claim that the people being investigated were registering non-citizens to vote—despite zero evidence presented of wrongdoing. Very alarmingly, if Donald Trump and House GOP have their way, these types of raids would be happening nationwide with federal law enforcement under a GOP President.  That is why GOP House Speaker Johnson is now demanding the proposed SAVE Act be included in any deal to provide funding to keep the government open.

To be clear, federal and state law already makes it a crime for non-citizens to vote. But this new federal legislation would establish criminal penalties for registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentation proving U.S. citizenship.  That means that what we are seeing in Texas is coming attractions of what the GOP wants to do nationally.

Keep in mind despite Texas AG Paxton’s two year investigation, no charges  have been filed against any of the people whose homes were searched.  Indeed, there may never be charges because even Paxton’s basis for the search is BS. In his press release announcing the investigation, the Texas AG presents no evidence of wrongdoing. Instead, Paxton makes baseless claims like these organizations have set up voter registration booths outside state agencies where people could register inside. Paxton’s press release literally includes this question with no answer: “Why would they need a second opportunity to register with a booth outside?” But nowhere in his press release does he even allege any criminal conduct—only questions.

And Paxton—a close ally of convicted felon Trump—showed his bad faith earlier in August on a radio show when he peddled lies about non-citizens voting. Paxton declared, “There’s a reason Joe Biden brought people here illegally. I’m convinced that that’s how they’re going to do it this time, they’re going to use the illegal vote. Why were they brought in, why did he bring in 14 million people?” adding, “He brought them here to vote.”   That is nothing more than the type of BS you hear on Fox News. But now Paxton has weaponized government by targeting people registering those he believes will vote for Democrats. The backlash to Paxton’s actions have been swift. LULAC requested that the Department of  Justice investigate Paxton's office for Voting Rights Act violations. LULAC CEO Juan Proaño and the group's national president, Roman Palomares, summed up well what is really going in their letter to the DOJ: "These actions echo a troubling history of voter suppression and intimidation that has long targeted both Black and Latino communities, particularly in states like Texas, where demographic changes have increasingly shifted the political landscape.”

The Texas GOPs voter intimidation tactics are based on the faux outrage campaign against noncitizen voting.

[kp777]

Texas home raids in voter fraud inquiry aim to intimidate, civil rights group says

From the article:

One of the United States’ oldest Latino civil rights organizations is raising alarm after several of its members had their homes raided as part of a voter fraud investigation by the Texas attorney general’s office.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) wants the Department of Justice to investigate raids on at least three of its members in Texas. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement last week his office had executed multiple search warrants in Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, as well as neighboring Frio and Atascosa counties as part of an ongoing, two-year investigation. The office did not provide details of the investigation or respond to a request for comment.

Read more.

[just-here-for-the-moment]

Donate to LULAC!!

You can donate as little as $10.00 to help defend LULAC against the racist voter intimidation tactics of Ken Paxton and the current Texas leadership!! NO elected official should use law enforcement to suppress voting rights!!

Please help however you can! 🙏 Even if you can't donate, please reblog!

[tomorrowusa]

The US Department of State issues travel advisories regarding how safe it is for Americans to travel various countries. In a number of cases, the Level 4 “Do not travel” advisories are used to designate countries whose governments are openly hostile to the Americans such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Afghanistan.

So the NAACP, one of the oldest civil rights organizations in the US, issued a formal travel advisory advising African-Americans of the dangers of visiting Florida.

It says in part...

The travel advisory from the NAACP comes several days after The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) issued its own Florida advisory for Hispanics.

Last month, the group Equality Florida issued a memorandum with the title TRAVEL ADVISORY: FLORIDA MAY NOT BE A SAFE PLACE TO MOVE OR VISIT for people in the LGBTQ+ community. An excerpt...

And of course there’s Florida’s extremist war on reproductive rights.

Florida Passes Extreme 6-Week Abortion Ban

The DeSantis régime with its rubber-stamp legislature have declared war on anybody who is not a straight white male Christian fundamentalist Republican. It may not be a safe place for many Americans to visit or move to.

This is the DeSantis blueprint for the US if he becomes president.

The only way to defeat neo-fascists like DeSantis is to Vote Democratic and to never miss an election. A divided opposition is what let Hitler come to power after getting just 33.1% of the vote in the November 1932 Reichstag elections.

Fascists don’t grow out of fascism, they just keep piling it on. Look no further than Trump and Putin.

Complacency and fleeting crushes on third party candidates are what led to Trump in 2016. We don’t need a rerun – or a re-Ron – in our future.

[el-ffej]

Ditto

"if voting worked they'd make it illegal"

meanwhile, in the real world:

[sataniccapitalist]

Latino Rights Groups Urge DOJ to Investigate TX Attorney General for Raiding Homes of LULAC Leaders

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing accusations he is using his office to suppress Latino voters in the state. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the country's oldest Latino civil rights group, is calling on the Justice Department to investigate Paxton over a series of police raids on the homes of LULAC members, state lawmakers and other community leaders in the San Antonio area last week. Previously, Paxton had tried and failed to shut down the Houston-based and immigrant-led civil rights group Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha (FIEL) by claiming it engaged in electioneering. We're joined by the director of FIEL, Cesar Espinosa, and the CEO of LULAC, Juan Proaño, who both share how their organizations have been impacted by the attorney general's harassment and intimidation. Proaño calls the targeting of Latino leaders and organizations a pattern of "blatant discrimination" and says, "We see these as tactics essentially for Republicans to stay in control of the government in Texas."

[macwantspeace]

I read all about Ken Paxton doing attacks on the Hispanic GOTV people. LULAC got targeted. This is voter suppression. I decide to donate to LULAC. Follow a link. Find the button for donate. Select All Squares With Traffic Lights. This is donator suppression. I did manage to complete a donation.

[w0rldwanderlust]

Warnings Are Out About Florida

NAACP Issues Warning for Visitors to Florida

Warnings are going out from civil rights group to tourists: Don’t go to Florida. The NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and Equality Florida are united in issuing travel advisories. They’re warning minority groups that Florida, a heavily tourist-centered state, is unsafe. The state of Florida “devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Keeley at NCRM:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened to sue two large, Democratic-leaning counties should they proceed with their plan to mail voter registration forms to eligible voters who are currently unregistered. Bexar and Harris counties have proposed using third-party vendors to mail the forms. Though the plan is to only send them to people who are eligible to be registered, Paxton said that the forms could fall in the hands of those who are ineligible to vote, which would “encourage” them to register illegally, according to KSAT-TV. “At worst, it may induce the commission of a crime by encourage individuals who are ineligible to vote to provide false information on the form,” Paxton said, according to KENS-TV. “Either way, it is illegal, and if you move forward with this proposal, I will use all available legal means to stop you.”

Bexar and Harris counties both have high Latino populations, with nearly 20% of all Texan Latinos living in Harris County, according to The Hill. Paxton has faced accusations of specifically trying to suppress the Latino vote. Following raids on the homes of Latino voting activists, the League of United Latin American Citizens called for an inquiry into alleged civil rights violations, according to USA Today. At least six LULAC volunteers had their homes raided by police, and had voter registration materials seized, along with phones, computers and other electronic devices, USA Today reported. Paxton said the search warrants were “part of an ongoing election integrity investigation” into “allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting that occurred during the 2022 elections.” LULAC says one of the people raided was Lidia Martinez, an 87-year-old member of the organization. On August 20, her home was raided, and she was interrogated for hours, according to LULAC. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2022 elections in Texas or elsewhere in the United States. Paxton’s most recent probe, despite the raids, has led to no charges thus far, according to the Texas Tribune.

Texas AG Ken Paxton (R) is a jackboot fascist disgrace to the Lone Star State and America.

[not-safe-for-democracy]

Source

IG: meidastouch

Source

Texans who may have been wrongly removed from the state's voter registration list or whose voter registrations have been suspended have little time to reverse course as Republican leadership announced the purge of more than 1.1 million names from their voter rolls.

Source

Voter suppression and intimidation efforts underway in key Republican controlled states

[mariacallous]

[readingsquotes]

Now Paxton has shifted his mode of attack, enlisting the help of a Republican DA who “referred” a case to his office. I’m curious to know on what grounds, and whether there was any coordination at work. Paxton has now used that referral as a pretext to conduct raids on the homes and offices of Latino voting activists claiming “voter fraud.” Among the targets are Democratic leaders and election volunteers. They’ve had their cell phones, computers and documents seized, and ordinary citizens are now embroiled in costly criminal cases.

Make no mistake: The charges are political and are intended to intimidate and to suppress votes under the guise of “secure elections.” Latino civil rights groups have asked the Justice Department to intervene.

...

Paxton’s latest deplorable move

With the courts telling him he couldn’t pursue election fraud charges on his own, Paxton shifted gears. He enlisted the help of Republican District Attorney Audrey Gossett Louis in the 81st Judicial District in Texas. That includes Atascosa and Frio Counties, where some of the recent raids were conducted.

The New York Times published an account of some of the raids. Some raids were conducted on actual candidates running for office:

On Tuesday…officers raided the home of Cecilia Castellano, a Democrat running against Don McLaughlin, the former mayor of Uvalde, for a state House seat, taking her cellphone. Ms. Castellano described her experience as “very frightening” and said she still did not know why she was targeted. “This is all political,” she said.

Police also broke down a door and raided the home of Manuel Medina, a consultant for Castellano’s campaign. Medina is also chair of the Tejano Democrats, a group advocating for greater Hispanic representation in the Democratic Party.

Elderly residents were also targeted, including Lidia Martinez, an 87-year old retired educator in San Antonio:

Nine officers, seven of them men, some with guns in their holsters, then pushed open the door and marched past a living room wall decorated with crucifixes, she said. “I got scared,” she recalled in an interview on Sunday, speaking in both English and Spanish. “They told me, ‘We have a warrant to search your house.’ I said, ‘Why?’ I felt harassed.” Ms. Martinez said that the officers told her they came because she had filled out a report saying that older residents were not getting mail ballots. “Yes, I did,” she told them. For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of LULAC, the civil rights group, helping Latino residents stay engaged in politics. Much of her work has included instructing older residents and veterans on how to fill out voter registration cards. “I go to a lot of senior events; I explain to them what they have to do,” she said. “I’ve been involved in politics all of my life.”

Reactions from Latino elected leaders have been swift and, understandably, full of outrage. State Senator Roland Gutierrez could barely contain his anger, claiming “Crooked Ken Paxton” had targeted and terrorized seniors in his district.