House approves measure by Rep. Andy Levin allowing congressional staffers to unionize
May 11, 2022, 5:01 AM ET
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Texas GOP passes bills allowing Abbott appointee to take over Democratic county's elections
May 30, 2023
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo on Sunday warned that Republican state legislators had made a "shameless power grab" by passing a pair of bills aimed at allowing the state government to take control of elections in the Democratic stronghold, which includes Houston.
Senate Bill 1933 passed on Sunday as the state's legislative session came to a close, with lawmakers sending to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott's desk a bill that could give Secretary of State Jane Nelson—who was nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate—the authority to run elections under circumstances in any county with more than 3.5 million residents.
The legislation was passed two days after Senate Bill 1750, which also applies to counties above that population threshold and would abolish the nonpartisan county elections administrator position.
Harris County, which President Joe Biden won by 13 points in 2020, is the only county is Texas with a population above 3.5 million, making both bills apply only to its elections.
Hidalgo denounced the legislation as two "election subversion bills" and warned that they will set a "dangerous precedent" for Republican governors who wish to take control of voting in heavily Democratic counties.
"These bills are not about election reform," said Hidalgo at a press conference last week, as the legislation was advancing. "They're not about improving voters' experience. They are entirely about suppressing voters' voices. The reasoning behind these bills is nothing but a cynical charade."
Hidalgo and other officials said at that event that they plan to file a lawsuit against Abbott's administration if the governor signs the bills into law. The Texas Constitution bars state lawmakers from passing laws that apply only to specific jurisdictions, but Republicans' use of a population threshold instead of naming Harris County itself in the legislation may be used at their defense if the lawsuit moves forward.
S.B. 1750 requires Harris County to change how its elections are overseen starting September 1, when Houston will be two months away from voting for its next mayor. Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and County Assessor Ann Harris Bennett will oversee elections in the county starting in September.
If, after Hudspeth and Bennett take over, Nelson finds "good cause to believe that a recurring pattern of problems with election administration or voter registration exists in the county," the secretary of state would be permitted to take legal action to remove the two women from office and to install members of her staff in the county's election offices.
Republicans have said Harris County didn't have enough poll workers in the March 2022 primary and that polling locations opened late and ran out of ballots during the November 2022 general election.
"The fact of the matter is, there has not been a single successful lawsuit that proves that there were any kind of problems," said Hidalgo on Sunday. "And I hope that anybody talking about this understands that you are amplifying exaggerations and rumors when you repeat the excuses that these folks are using."
The legislation was passed two-and-a-half months after Abbott's administration announced its takeover of the Houston Independent School District, which has made recent improvements in academic performance that were achieved despite chronic underfunding.
"Houstonians," Emily Eby French, a staff voting rights attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said last week, "will soon live in a different Texas than the rest of us."
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The children -- who were aged 13, 9, 4 and 11 months when they went missing -- have wandered in the jungle since a light aircraft crash in Colombia's southeast on May 1 claimed the lives of the three adults on board: their mother Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, the pilot, and an Indigenous leader.
Of the kids, there was no sign.
Satellite images have since revealed a path the kids took from the plane wreck, and rescuers have come across some of their belongings, a makeshift shelter and a half-eaten fruit.
Last week, they found a pair of shoes and a diaper.
"Based on the evidence, we concluded that the children are alive," rescue team leader General Pedro Sanchez told W Radio on Monday.
"If they were dead, it would be easy to find them because they would be still" and the sniffer dogs would find them, he added.
On the morning of May 1, a Cessna 206 airplane left a jungle area known as Araracuara heading for the town of San Jose del Guaviare in the Colombian Amazon.
Minutes after starting the 350-kilometer (217-mile) journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars.
Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane stuck vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.
But the children -- Lesly (13), Soleiny (9), Tien Noriel (4) and baby Cristin were missing.
Some 200 soldiers and Indigenous people with knowledge of the terrain were combing a dense jungle area of some 320 square kilometers (124 square miles) -- about double the size of Washington, DC.
The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children's own Indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.
The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military has dropped food parcels and bottled water for the children.
Jaguars, pumas, snakes
On Sunday, the army placed powerful searchlights with a range of up to three kilometers in the area "so that the minors can approach us," search team member Colonel Fausto Avellaneda told the Noticias Caracol TV show.
Rescuers have also been broadcasting a message recorded by the children's grandmother, urging them to stay put so the soldiers can find them.
The general said the search team believed it had come to within 100 meters (328 feet) of the children, but storms, thick vegetation and marshy terrain prevented them from reaching the kids.
Air force helicopters and satellite images are being used in the search in an area home to jaguars, pumas, snakes and other predators, as well as armed groups that smuggle drugs and terrorize local populations.
With all hands on deck, members of the Indigenous community are holding traditional ceremonies "speaking to the jungle" and asking it to give up the children, according to the government.
The children are from the Indigenous Huitoto community, also spelled Witoto, known for living in harmony with the jungle.
Huitoto children learn hunting, fishing and gathering.
The kids' grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, has told AFP the children are well aquatinted with the jungle, but he feared "dark forces" were preventing their rescue.
On May 17, President Gustavo Petro said the children had been found alive, only to retract the announcement the following day, and apologize for the false information.
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Japan said Monday it had been informed by Pyongyang that a satellite launch could happen as early as this week, but Tokyo warned the North may in fact be planning a sanctions-defying ballistic missile test.
KCNA cited Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the ruling party's central military commission, as saying the "military reconnaissance satellite No. 1" would be "launched in June".
That satellite, along with "various reconnaissance means due to be newly tested, are indispensable to tracking, monitoring... and coping with in advance in real time the dangerous military acts of the US and its vassal forces", the statement said.
Citing "reckless" acts by Washington and Seoul, Ri said North Korea felt "the need to expand reconnaissance and information means and improve various defensive and offensive weapons" in an effort to bolster military preparedness.
The official also accused the United States of conducting "hostile air espionage activities on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity".
North Korea informed Japan it will launch a rocket between May 31 and June 11, identifying waters near the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and to the east of Luzon Island in the Philippines as warning areas, a Japanese coast guard spokesman told AFP.
Such zones are usually designated for falling debris or rocket stages.
In 2012 and 2016, Pyongyang tested ballistic missiles that it called satellite launches. Both flew over Japan's southern Okinawa region.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this month inspected the country's first military spy satellite as it was prepared for launch, and gave the green light for its "future action plan".
(AFP)
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