Extra! Extra! 2/26

Feb 27, 2023

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

As always, a LOT of great stuff happened this week and much of it flew under the radar. So check it out, celebrate it, and then share!

Boosting morale is an act of patriotism at a time like this. So let’s do that.

Then let’s get ready to make more victories tomorrow.

Jess

P.S. — I posted Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign launch video here to celebrate that she is being UTTERLY unequivocal about what she’s running to protect. That’s a victory for our team! 👏🏼

Read This 📖

Encouraging Signs For Democrats in 2023’s First Elections. Seriously. Read it!

Celebrate This! 🎉

Jennifer McClellan won her election in VA-04 by 49 points and will now be the first Black woman to go to Congress in Virginia! Rep. McEachin won by around 30 points in November against the same candidate, so we’re trending the right way, folks!

Janet Protasiewicz KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK in her Tuesday Wisconsin primary, being far-and-away the top vote-getter, and advancing handily to the general election!

Also, voter turnout jumped in Wisconsin's 2023 Supreme Court primary election. The results show an almost 4 percent increase in percentage points from the 2020 spring judicial primary and 2023 spring judicial primary! Folks. 👏🏼 Are. 👏🏼 Paying. 👏🏼 Attention. 👏🏼 To. 👏🏼 The. 👏🏼 Judiciary. 👏🏼 FINALLY! 👏🏼

More election news from Tuesday: in Kentucky, Cassie Chambers Armstrong defeated Republican Misty Glin by more than 50 points, earning about 77 percent of the total votes cast. She far outpaced Biden’s performance in her district and will join the heavily Republican Kentucky General Assembly.

Democrats picked up a seat in the near-evenly divided New Hampshire House of Representatives. Democratic candidate Chuck Grassie bested his Republican challenger David Walker after the two tied in November’s election with exactly 970 votes each.

A new poll, released last week, shows that two-thirds of voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming want their region to transition to 100 percent clean energy within the next decade and a half. And nearly 70 percent of voters would rather see public lands conserved than given over to fossil fuel development.

The Republic of the Congo has expanded its national park system to include “Djéké Triangle” — an unlogged forest filled with critically endangered gorillas that will now be offered new protections.

Lawmakers from both parties are speaking out in support of Senator John Fetterman’s decision to seek treatment for depression.

Biden’s approval ratings are the highest they’ve been in a year.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday that his office has made a criminal referral in response to the recent train derailment over the border in East Palestine, Ohio, and the aftereffects on the environment and nearby communities.

The National Labor Relations Board reversed two previous decisions, determining that employers can no longer bar laid-off employees from publicly disparaging their former companies as part of their severance agreements, nor can they stop employees from publicly disclosing the terms of such agreements.

Activists in Wyoming scored a huge victory this week and made Wyoming the first state controlled by a Republican trifecta to block an anti-trans healthcare ban.

The (newly flipped) Minnesota Senate passed Restore the Vote, a bill that returns voting rights to 50,000-plus persons currently on probation for felony offenses.

After more than a year of pressure from environmental groups, the outdoor retailer REI announced on Tuesday that it will ban hazardous “forever chemicals” from all its clothing and cookware by fall 2024. It’s pretty huge.

A court in South Korea recognized the rights of same-sex couples for the first time, saying a couple were discriminated against when they were denied health insurance.

Montana Senator Jon Tester announced he would seek a fourth term in a state that Trump carried 57-41 in 2020. Great news for Democrats!

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have been subpoenaed in the January 6 special counsel investigation. Good.

The Biden administration announced the first-ever U.S. offshore wind-energy lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, an area dominated by oil and gas production.

The White House announced a plan to reduce mortgage insurance fees charged to first-time home buyers, helping an estimated 850,000 borrowers save about $800 a year on the cost of a typical loan.

Twelve Democratic-led states have sued the FDA to challenge restrictions imposed on the distribution of the abortion pill mifepristone, saying the limits are not supported by evidence.

A federal judge ordered that Donald Trump and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray can be questioned under oath by attorneys for two former senior FBI employees who allege that they were illegally targeted for retribution after the FBI investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The share of Americans who feel abortion should be legal in all or most cases has gone up, according to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. Roughly two-thirds of American adults now take that view. The share saying that abortion should be illegal in all cases has dropped to 7%, down from 15% in 2010.