#State Legislature

[saywhat-politics]

2 of Hobbs' picks to head Arizona agencies face dismissal by GOP lawmakers over social issues

KJZZ | By Camryn Sanchez

Published March 28, 2025 at 3:17 PM MST

The governor’s picks to lead two of Arizona’s agencies are in hot water after grilling by a Republican-led committee.

Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) leads a Senate committee on director nominations, known as DINO, tasked with vetting Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ prospective agency heads.

On Thursday, he questioned interim Department of Insurance Director Barbara Richardson about her participation on a diversity, equity and inclusion-related committee.

“Clearly there are concerns with, I think, judgment in terms of participation on some of those committees that we talked about and the message that that sends to the regulated industry,” Hoffman said.

[ivygorgon]

Hey everyone,

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Cheers!

[darkfrog24]

Most of the laws Americans live under day to day are state laws, passed by state legislatures like this one. This might not make international news, but it's huge.

[michigantopnews]

Subpoena For Election Docs - Michigan GOP Asks...What is Jocelyn Benson Hiding?

Michigan’s House Oversight Committee issues a subpoena for election docs to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for election training documents amid transparency concerns. Election Training Materials Controversy Escalates In a dramatic escalation of political tensions, Speaker Pro Tem Rachelle Smit (R-Martin) announced Tuesday that the House Oversight Committee formally subpoenaed Michigan…

[themoderatespeaks]

Can someone who actually works for an elected official (or personally knows this stuff in general) answer this:

Here in 2025 (technology-wise I mean), how can we communicate most effectively with our elected officials?

The wordier version:

We now have a lot of easy/quick ways to contact elected officials like ResistBot, etc... How effective is that in terms of actually getting the attention of the official/their team? Does that rack up the numbers and effect we are hoping for? Does the obvious canned text work against the effectiveness of the numbers?

And in general these days, what is the most effective way for a single person to contact that official? Paper letter, email, direct text to their office, using canned text via ResistBot, some other way?

Also, do you have any advice for that message to actually be read/accepted/noticed by the official's office staff? I know we're supposed to keep it short and specific, but what else in terms of first impression, etiquette, material, professionalism vs candid emotion, etc? Advice for pleading with an official who already agrees with you but you want more action? Advice for reaching an official who disagrees on the issue already? How is 5calls changing the landscape for handling volume right now?

Any up-to-date advice would be great thank you!

[ajunicetryagain]

Say it with me: Local elections matter

[subsidystadium]

The Minnesota Twins want to stay put for decades to come...in exchange for taxpayer money on a yearly basis

The Minnesota Twins love playing in Minnesota. Team representatives talked to local media this week and brought up their desire to play in the state for “decades to come”. In fact, the team wants to put pen to paper to stay at their current ballpark until 2059! In return, the team doesn’t want anything big or flashy. They just want a lot of taxpayer money given to them every single year. No big…

[iasguidance]

P V Narasimha Rao Case: Bribery vs Parliamentary Privileges

Context: A 5-judge Constitution Bench, presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, has referred the matter of Sita Soren Case to a larger 7-judge Bench that will assess the interpretation of Articles 105(2) and 194(2) of the Indian Constitution. Sita Soren Case She was accused of accepting a bribe to vote for an independent candidate in the 2012 Rajya Sabha elections. Sita Soren, an…

[tomorrowusa]

Minnesota has had a narrow Democratic trifecta since early 2023. Since then, the legislature has been cranking out progressive legislation with Gov. Tim Walz signing it.

A new measure authored by first-term State Rep. Leigh Finke (DFL-66A) would prevent educational institutions and local governments from removing Pride flags and related symbols.

Minnesota schools, colleges and local governments would be barred from removing rainbow pride flags, banners or posters under a bill moving through the state Legislature. The proposal advanced through the House Local Government Finance and Policy Committee on Tuesday and is set to move to a full floor vote after LGBTQ+ advocates said it would provide support for the community. GOP lawmakers said it was an overstep. “The bill does not require anyone to display rainbows, nor does it supersede policies that prohibit the display of all banners, flags or posters,” said bill author Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul. “It just prohibits rainbows from being singled out and banned in schools, libraries and other government spaces.”  Several states are weighing bills that take the opposite approach and would prohibit pride flags from being flown in classrooms and other settings.  “The rainbow is a sign of hope and affirmation to the 2SLGBTQIA community — my community,” Finke continued. “For those outside of the queer community, it may seem trivial to legislate the definition and presence of rainbows. But in our community, depending on the circumstance, the value of a publicly-visible rainbow on a doorway or window or classroom is literally impossible to overstate.”

Minnesota seems to be competing with Illinois to be the Anti-Florida or Anti-Tennessee of the Midwest. 😎

BTW, in Minnesota the Democrats are known as the DFL for Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party – the result of a party merger in the 1940s.

Minnesota is another example of what can happen when Republicans loose control of a state legislature.

Find out who represents you in your legislature. If it's a MAGA Republican then contact your local or state Democratic Party to ask about helping to flip the district(s) or the entire legislative chamber.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

[actual-nobody]

1. Minor error to point out, but I think you mean the second link (Reading Rocket) being the old one

2. While I can only assume that you made this statement on my specific reblog because I was one of the more recent ones, I did not say that the article was only bad because it was old. I also said it was because the pie chart seemingly contradicts a statement. The article says that only 4 textbooks in educator schools were acceptable for general reading courses. However, the pie chart says that 51 of them (23% of the sample) are acceptable.

Additionally, the article appears to not even be the original study, so any claims it makes have to be taken with some salt. However. I will admit that I was wrong about the article not crediting the original study, since I completely missed the contact information for the National Council on Teacher Quality, who made the original study (I also completely missed the date stated, May 2006).

3. The age of a study is still relevant, however, since information referenced in a study can change with time. While I didn’t specifically bring attention to it, the following article:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/why-more-u-s-schools-are-embracing-a-new-science-of-reading

states that more schools are focusing on the science of reading, the superior form of teaching reading skills, due to demands from parents to try and get their children up to speed after the pandemic. While it isn’t an academic study, I can only presume that it’s a more accurate reflection of the problem today since it came out this year. I won’t say that you deliberately ignored an improvement in the situation, since the original post came out before the news article was published, but it still reflects progress.

Another thing that changed between then and now is that more than 50% of educator schools studied use the science of reading in their curriculums, as stated in this 2020 assesment by the National Council on Teacher Quality, the same group cited by the Reading Rocket article (the link leads to a summary page and link to download the assesment results).

https://www.nctq.org/publications/2020-Teacher-Prep-Review:-Program-Performance-in-Early-Reading-Instruction

It also states that there have been efforts to improve since the first assesments were published in 2013. This is progress towards fixing the problem your post talks about, even if it’d take a while for the effects to be felt, and even if the progress is stated, by the assesment itself, to be too slow for what’s at stake.

The age of an article doesn’t mean that the article itself is inferior, but that the information it presents is more likely to be inaccurate in the present.

If your purpose was to illustrate only the length of time that reading illiteracy has been an issue, I think it would’ve helped if you included an article that specifically talked about that subject, or had specifically brought attention to the date that the article you linked to was published. (Besides, you should’ve realized that we would need some help with reading, since you brought it up).

For anyone else reading whose in the US who cares about this, the most you can do is become a teacher yourself and/or to write to the members of your state’s legislature (part of the state government, not the federal government that gets all of the attention) and/or vote for the ones you can vote for who have a proven track record for making favorable policies. To find out which people represent you at the state level, search for “(your state here) legislature members” in a search engine, or use something like “who’s my representative (your state here)” instead, then look for a website that looks something like (your state here).gov

Quick question, genuine question:

Why on earth does "more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level" not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?

Are the implications of it unclear????

I'm serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!

If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!

If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.

This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!

Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????

I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I'm completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.

[queenvlion]

[frankwolftown]

Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures | American Civil Liberties Union

The more we track, the more we can fight back!

[potofsoup]

Guess who's excited to get their ballot in the mail tomorrow? Me! So I slapped together a quick comic, as well as a map based off of this and this. A list of when same day registration is available is at the bottom of this article.

But also: wow, early voting stuff is so confusing! For example, I get my ballot in the mail tomorrow, and I can immediately mail it back. But if I want to drop it off in person, I need to either go to a special ballot drop box by city hall, or wait for early in-person voting sites to open, which isn't until Oct 22nd for my state.

Or like, early voting in Louisiana is apparently from Oct 16 to Oct 29th? And then there's a week of no voting, and then polls open again on Nov 5th? Or like how the only day you can register and then immediately vote is Oct 26th?

Anyway, best way to figure out the info for your area is to check your state and county's election website. I've found usvotefoundation.org to have clear fact sheets for each state (including ID requirements, polling location finders, as well as direct links to state election websites): https://www.usvotefoundation.org/state-voter-information . You can also jump to each state's election websites via usa.gov, or by searching directly, though some websites are more confusing than others.

Happy voting!

Oh, and here's the voter registration deadlines map from last time, in case you haven't registered and want to register. Oct 7th is the last day for a bunch of states!

[tanadrin]

This article is interesting because (in criticizing a badly-argued claim that the 14th amendment to the US constitution might not confer birthright citizenship) the author points out something else I find quite interesting--that before the 14th amendment's passage, there was a pretty strong argument that birthright citizenship already was the legal default in the United States:

If this be a true principle—and I do not doubt it—it follows that every person born in the country is, at the moment of birth, prima facie a citizen; and he who would deny it must take upon himself the burden of proving some great disfranchisement strong enough to override the “natural-born” right as recognized by the Constitution in terms the most simple and comprehensive, and without any reference to race or color, or any other accidental circumstance.

Obviously this was in tension with the existence of slavery (as is so much else in the constitution), and would be until the passage of the 13th amendment. But AIUI the Radical Republicans in Congress thought that the 13th Amendment, just by virtue of abolishing slavery, already implied everything in the 14th and 15th amendments; they later enacted those as well, to clarify and support their goals, but these were seen as clarifying existing principles, and not creating new ones. Regardless, though, the ratification debates around the 14th amendment make its intent clear: even if birthright citizenship did not exist in the constitution before, the 14th amendment certainly created it.

[queenwendy]

Hey so, remember how we like to say “at least I live in a progressive state” whenever the republicans do something crazy?

Yeah, the republicans are doing crazy shit in Washington state now; a liberal bastion of the Pacific Northwest. For those who don’t know, I live in the PNW, so WA is pretty close to home.

This house bill is sponsored by a bunch of house republicans https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=1038&Year=2025&Initiative=false

Which, if you don’t wanna read it, HB 1038 is a bill to ban gender affirming care for minors (blockers, hrt, surgery—even tho minors don’t get it—the whole nine yards) with the typical exceptions so that doctors can “correct” intersex minors. This shit is repugnant and probably would’ve gotten me killed as a kid. If you live in Washington, go ahead and provide comments on it to vote no here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/1038

I hope Oregonians are keeping an eye out, because it will happen in Oregon too. Idaho’s moving to outlaw Gay Marriage, and the feds will support any and all of this regressive nonsense. Stay vigilant.