Last Week This Morning: Election crisis averted

Election crisis averted with bipartisan deal. Last week, lawmakers worked to address an election recount deadline issue that could have caused Arizonans’ votes for president not to be counted. Despite the issue being a problem of their own creation, Republican lawmakers attempted to hold the fix hostage to demand other unrelated policies that would harm voters. But finally, on Thursday, Democrats and Governor Hobbs negotiated a bipartisan deal that fixed the recount deadline problem while protecting against MAGA attempts to invalidate voters’ ballots.

 

Biden must address pregnancy criminalization. 150+ U.S. lawmakers are calling on President Biden to expand his focus on abortion and contraception to include a reproductive justice-centered agenda. In the post-Dobbs era, pregnancy surveillance and criminalization have led to pregnant people, and especially people of color, being unfairly targeted by law enforcement. In October, Brittney Watts, a 34-year-old Black woman from Ohio, was charged with a felony after a nurse reported her to police after she experienced a miscarriage in her home. In the letter, they call for three specific measures that can be enacted by federal officials to prevent pregnancy criminalization and to provide support to any person threatened by it.

ICYMI: Corporate greedflation. A recent report says that over half of U.S. “inflation” in the last year was actually caused by corporate greed. While many Americans struggled to afford necessities like groceries, corporations chose to continue charging more for goods even as their costs dropped. The report concludes that we need strong policies to reign in price-gouging corporations. Corporate shareholders should not be getting richer and richer as some folks are forced to choose between paying rent or being able to afford food and diapers.

 

 

Senate Elections Chair Wendy Rogers undemocratically silenceda voting rights advocate and community member who was attempting to give public testimony in support of a clean fix to the recount deadline issue.

 

 

 

Tell your Senator to vote NO on SCR1014. State Senator Anthony Kern introduced a resolution to let 47 Arizona lawmakers determine our election results instead of 3.5 million Arizona voters. Tell your lawmakers that Arizonans decide the outcome of our elections, not politicians.