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      DeSantis Slams Biden Climate Policy: ‘An Agenda to Control You’

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      The Florida governor delivered an address in Texas that favored oil and gas development over climate agreements and electric vehicles.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Wednesday unveiled an energy plan in the heart of oil country, criticizing electric vehicles and global climate agreements, promising lower fuel prices and pushing for more oil and gas development.In a policy rollout at an oil rig site in Midland — a West Texas city that derives much of its economy from oil production — Mr. DeSantis seemed to make a general-election argument, promising to roll back several of the Biden administration’s climate initiatives, calling them “part of an agenda to control you and to control our behavior.”“They’re trying to circumscribe your ambitions. They are even telling our younger generations to have fewer children, or not to even have children, on the grounds that somehow children are going to make our climate and planet unlivable — and that’s wrong to say,” he told a crowd of a few dozen rig workers and reporters.Mr. DeSantis mentioned his chief rival in the Republican primary, former President Donald J. Trump — whom he trails by a wide margin in the polls — only once.That didn’t stop Mr. Trump’s campaign from taking a shot at the governor for his remarks. Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, used expletives in calling Mr. DeSantis a “candidate that just steals from President Trump’s policy book” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, during the governor’s remarks.In a lengthy, six-pronged policy outline, Mr. DeSantis promised to remove subsidies for electric vehicles, take the U.S. out of global climate agreements — including the Paris accords — and cancel net-zero emission promises. He also vowed to increase American oil and natural gas production and “replace the phrase climate change with energy dominance” in policy guidance.Mr. DeSantis spoke from behind a lectern that read “$2 in 2025,” a nod to his campaign’s promise to lower gas to $2 in the first year of his administration (a number not seen consistently since the George W. Bush administration). His remarks — delivered above the sounds of heavy machinery — paired standard Republican energy policy, blasting foreign energy dependence and blue state regulations, with criticism of the Biden administration’s focus on reducing carbon emissions and incentivizing clean energy.The Biden campaign criticized Mr. DeSantis’s plan.“This is a deeply unserious and impractical plan that won’t actually lower gas prices to $2 per gallon and is chock-full of the climate denialism that defines the MAGA Republican Party,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement. “Voters need look no further than DeSantis’s own state — where his agenda is leading to skyrocketing energy costs for his constituents and natural disasters are causing tens of billions of dollars in damages — to know what DeSantis’s plan would mean for the country.”Mr. DeSantis calls his plan “Freedom to Fuel,” and it includes a segment on automobiles, an industry segment that has also put Mr. Biden under scrutiny by Republicans, with autoworkers on strike. The United Auto Workers began targeted strikes last week over contract talks. In a recent op-ed piece in The Des Moines Register, Mr. DeSantis promised to “stand with our farmers” by opposing electric vehicles and supporting biofuel usage, a nod to the state’s large agricultural industry.But asked Wednesday if he believed that fossil fuels contributed to climate change, Mr. DeSantis deflected — which he has done repeatedly, most notably on the Republican debate stage last month.“The climate clearly has changed — you can judge that, I think, objectively. I think the question is, is what policy posture are we going to take from that?” he said, pointing to his own proposal as the “most practical way to reduce global emissions.”During his visit to Texas, Mr. DeSantis is also attending several high-dollar fund-raising events across the state over the next few days. But while he has had fund-raising success among Texas donors in the oil and real estate industries, some large donors nationally have expressed hesitation. And his fund-raising in the state has not necessarily translated to grass-roots support: The Oil and Gas Workers Association, based out of nearby Odessa, Texas, announced Wednesday that it would endorse Mr. Trump.Jimmy Gray, a Midland oil rig worker since 1979 who supported Mr. Trump in the last election, said after the event that he was impressed by Mr. DeSantis but remained undecided in the Republican presidential contest. “I’ve seen a lot of policies in a lot of administrations, and a lot of things change throughout that time, but one thing that hasn’t really changed is that in order for us to decrease costs across the country, energy — in whatever form that is — has to be done right,” he said.“Ron DeSantis made some good points — he’s got me interested,” he added. “I just would like to see a different direction than what we’ve got now.” More

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      Texas teacher fired for showing Anne Frank graphic novel to eighth-graders

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      A Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary to her middle school class, in a move that some are calling “a political attack on truth”.The eighth-grade school teacher was released after officials with Hamshire-Fannett independent school district said the teacher presented the “inappropriate” book to students, reported KFDM.The graphic novel, written by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, adapts the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank, who wrote while hiding in an annexe in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.The district sent an email to parents on Tuesday, notifying them that the book, which district officials say was not approved, would no longer be read.“The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student’s teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us,” read the email, reported KFDM.By Wednesday, district officials had emailed parents, informing them that the teacher had been fired following an investigation into the incident.“As you may be aware, following concerns regarding curricular selections in your student’s reading class, a substitute teacher has been facilitating the class since Wednesday, September 13, 2023,” said the district to parents, adding that a search for a new instructor was under way.District officials have not released details about the incident, including which school the teacher taught in.Eighth-grade students were reportedly shown a section of the graphic novel where Frank reflected on her own genitals and wanted to see a female friend’s breasts, according to KFDM.Discussions of sexuality were included in the original written version of Anne Frank’s diary, but were edited out in subsequent reprints.A spokesperson for Hamshire-Fannett ISD declined to comment on the incident during a phone call with the Guardian.Notably, this particular graphic novel has been subject to book bans before.A Florida high school removed the graphic novel after a chapter of Moms for Liberty, an extremist advocacy group, objected to the book’s sexual contents and claimed it did not teach the Holocaust accurately, the Associated Press reported.The graphic novel was also removed from Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth’s Keller independent school district.The latest firing in Texas comes as education laws restricting teaching of race, sexuality and other topics are being implemented in classrooms across the US.The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed legislation in 2021 severely limiting how educators can teach topics of race and gender. Texas has also banned more books than any other state, with more than 430 books banned in Texas schools.Clay Robison, a spokesperson with the Texas State Teachers Association, called the latest incident “troubling” to the Guardian.“No teacher should be fired for teaching the Diary of Anne Frank to middle school students,” Robison said. “Teachers are dedicated to teaching the truth, the whole truth,” he said, emphasizing the diary’s importance.Robison added that many Texas teachers are experiencing fear, anger and anxiety about navigating restrictions in the classroom.“It’s a political attack on truth,” Robison said of legislative attempts to limit education. “It’s not a woke agenda. It’s not a liberal agenda. It’s a truth agenda.” More

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      ‘My Vote Was Rejected’: Trial Underway in Texas Over New Voting Law

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      Voting rights advocates say the law, intended to curb fraud, is impeding people with disabilities, older voters and non-English speakers.For years, Stella Guerrero Mata, a 73-year-old retired school bus driver who lives near Houston, has been able to cast her vote through the mail with little hassle. Ms. Mata, who uses a cane to walk and suffers from a long list of ailments, including diabetes, worsening eyesight and back pain, expected the 2022 midterm elections to be no different.But sometime after she placed her ballot in the mail, she received a letter with news that left her angry and confused. Her ballot was not accepted because she had failed to include her driver’s license number and the last four digits of her Social Security number, a requirement of a contested new voting law that was approved in 2021.“My vote was rejected,” Ms. Mata said, adding that she had realized it was too late for her to correct her mistake. “It made me feel angry, because my voice was not being heard.”Ms. Mata was one of several voters to testify in a trial, now underway in San Antonio, over the state’s sweeping election overhaul, known as S.B. 1. The law was passed by a Republican majority even after Democratic lawmakers staged a 38-day walkout, leaving the state in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the bill from coming to a vote.Since it went into effect, critics have raised concerns that the law would impede voters with disabilities, elderly voters and voters who do not speak English. The federal trial, now entering its second week, is providing an unusual opportunity to hear directly from voters who wanted to cast a vote but were not able to do so.A coalition of voting rights groups, including MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, claim in their lawsuit that the law hurts people who vote by mail, those who use the help of aides known as assisters to vote and those who rely on community organizations to learn about where and how to vote.The law added new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; made it harder to use voter assisters; set criminal penalties for poll workers if they are too forceful in reining in people at polling places; and banned 24-hour voting and drive-through voting, measures that were notably used in Harris County during the pandemic.Lawyers representing the state countered that the new rules prevent potential voter fraud and that voters seem to be adapting better with every passing election. Election integrity means that voters “are going to have confidence in the process,” said Ryan Kercher, a lawyer for the state. In addition, Mr. Kercher said, the law allows for expanded early-voting hours to encourage more voter participation.During cross-examination, another lawyer for the state, Will Wassdorf, pointed out to Ms. Mata that she had entered the required information in an application for a mail ballot, but that she did not do so when she mailed the actual ballot. Mr. Wassdorf then directed her attention to a video screen that showed the entries she had left blank.“Do you understand that that’s why your ballot was rejected?” he asked her.“Now I do. At this time, yes,” she replied.An example of a new mail-in ballot request requiring a driver’s license number and the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number.Sergio Flores/ReutersAsked by one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Fátima Menéndez, if she would have the confidence to cast a vote by mail in 2024, Ms. Mata replied that she was not sure. “I feel like it would not be counted at all,” she said.A parade of election officials from Dallas, Austin, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley also testified that they found many of the new regulations confusing and vague and that they often struggled to explain them to equally confused voters.“I did not know what to tell voters,” said Dana DeBeauvoir, a county clerk in Travis County, home to Austin, who oversaw several elections before she retired. Ms. DeBeauvoir described the purported problem of voter fraud as “a unicorn,” at best, “ones and twos out of millions of votes, and in most cases unintentional.”Mr. Kercher seized on that during cross-examination. “Even though voter fraud is a unicorn, we still have to be vigilant,” he said.“I always was,” she replied.The judge in the case, Xavier Rodriguez, of the Western District of Texas, is expected to listen to testimony for the next few weeks before issuing an order.Judge Rodriguez previously found one part of the law to be unlawful: its requirement that voters write down either the last four digits of their Social Security number or a driver’s license’s number when requesting to vote by mail and that election workers be able to match one of the numbers with the voter’s registration records.Judge Rodriguez, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled that the requirement violated the Civil Rights Act because elections officials may be turning away voters who otherwise qualify to vote by mail but have a hard time providing the extra information.The A.C.L.U. of Texas said that about 40,000 submissions for mail-in voting ballots have been rejected for errors connected to this requirement.Nina Perales, a lawyer with MALDEF, argued during her opening statement that voters with disabilities are among the most affected.“Adding more steps to the voting process and requiring more forms makes voting more difficult, and it reduces the number of ballots cast,” Ms. Perales said. “This imposes significant and more obstacles for disabled voters and will cause disabled voters to be disenfranchised.”The new voting law became a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott after former President Donald J. Trump claimed he lost the 2020 election because of election fraud, a claim that has been discounted by judges around the country. Nevertheless, Mr. Abbott threatened to call a special session of the Legislature until lawmakers sent him the voting bill to sign.The legislation followed a series of voting changes adopted in several urban areas across Texas, places largely dominated by Democrats, that were designed to make it easier for eligible voters to cast ballots. Houston, for example, drew national attention by offering 24-hour drive-through voting at the height of the pandemic.The defense has not yet begun presenting a case. Much of the first week was taken up by voters and election officials, called by the plaintiffs, who detailed their struggles with the new rules.Toby Cole, a lawyer who lost the use of his arms and legs after an accident when he was 18 and votes with the help of an aide, testified that he felt uncomfortable sharing his medical information with poll workers when voting in person, a method he prefers, in order to have an aide assist in casting his ballot.Mr. Cole said he knows of many fellow voters with disabilities who may choose not to vote in person or at all because they do not feel comfortable sharing why they qualify for extra assistance.He has been able to vote, he said, only “because I’m persistent.”Kirsten Noyes More

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      Anti-choice states aren’t satisfied. Now they want to punish traveling for abortions | Moira Donegan

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      How free can any woman be in a country where her right to control her body and family depends on the jurisdiction where she happens to live? Republicans are looking to find out. Over the past few weeks, as Republican officials in anti-choice states seek to make their abortion bans enforceable and compel women into childbirth, a new front has opened up in the abortion wars: roads. The anti-choice movement, through a series of inventive legal theories and cynical legislative maneuvers, is now attacking women’s right to travel.In a court filing last month, the Alabama attorney general, Steve Marshall, wrote that he believed his office had a right to prosecute those who help women travel across state lines in search of an abortion. The filing comes in a lawsuit from two women’s health clinics and an abortion fund, which sued Marshall after he publicly stated his intention to criminally investigate organizations like theirs, which provide financial and logistical help to pregnant patients seeking to leave the state. In his response, Marshall unequivocally stated that Alabama, which bans all abortions with no rape or incest exemption, views any effort to help women cross state lines as a “criminal conspiracy”.“An elected abortion performed in Alabama would be a criminal offense,” Marshall’s office writes. “Thus, a conspiracy formed in the state to have that same act performed outside the state is illegal.” The filing goes on to dismiss the free speech, expression and association claims of the fund and the two clinics.Meanwhile in Texas, two counties and two cities have passed laws banning so-called “abortion trafficking” – that is, the transport or assistance of anyone seeking an abortion – on the roads that pass through their territories. The “trafficking” in this moniker refers to the fetus: “The unborn child is always taken against their will,” Mark Lee Dickson, the architect of these bills, told the Washington Post. Like Texas’s SB 8, the bounty-hunter ban that outlawed abortions in Texas at six weeks before the fall of Roe, these travel bans are also enforced via lawsuits by private citizens – the law is designed to allow those who are displeased by an abortion to sue the friends, feminists and allies of the pregnant patient who helped her to get one.Dickson and his political partner, the SB 8 architect Jonathan Mitchell, are pushing the provision in border cities and towns along major interstate highways. And like SB 8, the law is less likely to be used by strangers to prevent abortions than by abusers to punish ones that already happened. As an example of the ideal use of his bill, Dickson told the Washington Post that a husband who did not want his wife to get an abortion could use it to sue the friend who offered to drive her – thus somewhat giving away the game that the goal of such a provision is to ensure that men’s private domination and abuse of women is recognized as a right enforceable by civil law.Texas and Alabama are not alone. Earlier this year, Idaho became the first state to criminalize abortion-related travel when it enacted a law making it a felony to help a minor cross state lines for an abortion. Meanwhile, Missouri made headlines last year when Republicans introduced bills that would criminalize anyone helping state residents to obtain abortions elsewhere.Is any of this constitutional? No. But that doesn’t mean the laws will be struck down. The novel enforcement mechanism of the Texas laws, in particular, which are enforceable not by the state or municipality but only by the lawsuits of private citizens, make it hard for any pro-choice group to get standing to challenge them. That’s the point: the bills are constructed to evade judicial review. And though Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for one, has said that he would disapprove of anti-choice states’ attempts to prevent women’s travel, the supreme court, including Kavanaugh, has already blessed abortion ban by civil suit with its sanction of SB 8.But the point of these laws is not, exactly, to enforce them, except perhaps in the event when they are used by domestic abusers to further their control and torment of the women they’ve imprisoned – as is already happening. The real point is to chill legal conduct, and to prevent the people, mostly women – the sisters, friends, abortion fund staffers, colleagues and local feminists who any abortion patient might turn to for help – from acting on their own moral convictions.The law is punitive, not preventive: it is designed not to intervene in abortions before they happen so much as to punish them after the fact. It is designed, too, to frighten: the very vagueness of these laws, and the fear of punishments for violating them, will inevitably keep those who would assist an abortion from doing so. The point is to threaten with humiliating, ruinous lawsuits and life-altering criminal prosecutions any woman who might act on her conviction that another woman deserves to control her own body. The point is to punish and declare illegal women’s friendship, confidences and feminist solidarity itself.In their attempts to keep women walled inside anti-choice states, and to criminalize both friendship and flight, the abortion travel bans have been compared to the 19th century’s fugitive slave law. I for one believe that American chattel slavery does not make a good comparison; its horrors fail as metaphor. But one does not need to draw any moral equivalence to see the parallels of the emerging political divide. An untenable conflict is arising between states where women are free to control their bodies and states where they are not, and the latter group is not respecting the laws of the former.The nation cannot sustain this division, and it will not: either abortion will soon become legal nationwide, or it will soon be banned nationwide. For their part, the anti-choice movement seems very confident which direction we’re heading.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      The Contagious Corruption of Ken Paxton

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      Let’s talk about leadership again. Last week, I wrote about Vivek Ramaswamy and the power of unprincipled leaders to exploit civic ignorance. This week, I want to address the power of leadership to shape character and the problem of corruption in the era of Trump. And for this discussion, we’ll turn to Texas.A very good thing is belatedly happening in the Lone Star State. Republicans are on the verge not merely of expelling one of their own from office, but of expelling someone with the most impeccable of MAGA credentials. The suspended Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is facing an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate, and if the early votes are any indication, it’s not going well for him. He’s already lost a number of motions to dismiss the case by margins approximating the two-thirds majority that will be necessary to convict him — and this is an upper chamber that Republicans control 19 to 12.Paxton faces impeachment in large part because seven of his top deputies blew the whistle on him in 2020, claiming that he had engaged in bribery and abuse of office. The charges against Paxton, to which he pleads not guilty, center primarily on his relationship with an investor named Nate Paul. Paxton is accused of providing favors to Paul, including using the power of his office in an attempt to stop foreclosure sales of Paul’s properties, ordering employees not to assist law enforcement investigating Paul and even providing Paul with “highly sensitive information” about an F.B.I. raid on his home.And what did Paxton get in return? Paul reportedly helped Paxton remodel his home and employed Paxton’s mistress. (Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, is a Republican state senator who is attending the hearings but is barred from voting on the charges against her husband.)But that’s hardly the complete list of Paxton’s misdeeds. He’s still facing criminal charges — which I’ve long considered questionable — stemming from a 2015 state indictment for securities fraud, and his treatment of the whistle-blowers is also under public scrutiny. Soon after coming forward, every whistle-blower either resigned, was fired or was placed on leave. When they sued for retaliation and improper firing, Paxton attempted to use $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to settle the lawsuit.In addition, following the 2020 election, Paxton filed one of the most outrageous lawsuits in the entire Republican effort to overturn the presidential result. He sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seeking an order preventing those states from voting in the Electoral College. The suit was so transparently specious that Texas’ respected then-solicitor general, Kyle Hawkins — who was appointed to the post by Paxton — refused to add his name to the complaint. The Supreme Court dismissed the case without even granting it a hearing.Naturally, none of these scandals truly hurt Paxton with Texas Republican voters. He won his 2022 primary runoff against George P. Bush by 36 points. He defeated Democrat Rochelle Garza in the general election by 10 points. Texas primary voters — like Republican primary voters in many other states — decided once again that character is irrelevant so long as their candidate fights the right enemies.But that’s not the end of the story. What’s happening now is a Texas-size version of the civil war that rages across the right. Is it possible for Republicans to police their own, or does Paxton’s devotion to Donald Trump and his zealous commitment to the culture wars excuse his misconduct, however egregious? Is it possible for Republicans to potentially start the slow and painful process of healing the G.O.P.?I date my interest in the moral power of leadership back to 1998, when I was shocked that a number of my progressive friends could shrug their shoulders not just at Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern (though I could see their argument that his adultery was a personal matter) but also at his dishonesty under oath. The country was at peace and prosperous, they noted. Besides, weren’t Republicans hypocrites? Newt Gingrich was an adulterer. Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican and speaker-designate to succeed Gingrich, also confessed to extramarital affairs and stepped down.In the midst of these revelations, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant denomination — gathered at its annual convention in Salt Lake City and tried to make the simple case to the American people that character counts. It passed a resolution on the moral character of public officials containing this memorable line: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”Putting aside the words about God’s judgment, I suspect that a broad range of Americans, regardless of faith, would agree with the basic premise: Corruption is contagious.But why? Consider the relationship between leadership and our own self-interest. Most of us belong to organizations of some type, and unless we’re leading the organization, our income, our power and even our respect within the community can depend a great deal on the good will of the men and women who lead us. In very tangible ways, their character creates our path through our careers, our churches and our civic organizations.Thus, if a leader exhibits moral courage and values integrity, then the flawed people in his or her orbit will strive to be the best versions of themselves.But if a leader exhibits cruelty and dishonesty, then those same flawed people will be more apt to yield to their worst temptations. They’ll mimic the values of the people who lead them.Let me use an analogy I’ve used before: Think of a leader as setting the course of a river. It’s always easier to swim with the current. Yes, you can swim against the current for a while, but eventually you’ll exhaust yourself, and you’ll either yield to the current or leave the stream altogether.And what is the moral current of Trumpism? For Donald Trump’s supporters, tactics that would normally be utterly unacceptable on moral grounds instead become urgent priorities. In this moral calculus, Paxton’s absurd lawsuit against Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin isn’t a mark of shame, but rather a badge of honor.Paxton’s aggressive loyalty to Trump, in other words, acts as a form of indulgence that grants him license in his personal and professional life. Paxton’s acknowledged sins, including his affair, are cheap and tawdry. Yet a constellation of Republican stars are rallying to his side, led by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ted Cruz and Steve Bannon. Because he’s a fighter. He goes to war against the left, and if the age of Trump teaches us anything, it’s that the current of his leadership flows eternally toward conflict and self-interest, consequences be damned.It’s hard to overstate how much this ethos contradicts the Christianity that Paxton purports to proclaim. In fact, scriptures teach that the role of the godly man or woman isn’t to yield to power, but to confront power when that power is corrupt. The mission is to swim against the cultural current. That brings me to one of the most grievous abuses of scripture during the Trump presidency — the constant comparison of Trump to King David.Trump is flawed, his supporters acknowledge. But so was David, they argue, and God blessed David. Scripture calls him a man after God’s own heart. But David’s virtues did not excuse his vices. In one of scripture’s most memorable passages, the prophet Nathan not only directly confronted the king but also declared a harsh judgment for David’s sins. And what was David’s response? Repentance. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he said. He then penned a poignant, penitent psalm. “God, create a clean heart for me,” he begs. “Do not banish me from your presence,” he pleads.Does any of that sound like Donald Trump? Does that bear any resemblance to the religious right in the age of Trump? Of course not. The contagious corruption of a broken president and a broken party has turned the hearts of millions of Christians away from scripture’s clear moral commands. They have chosen not to swim against the tide.But the battle is not lost, not entirely. In Ken Paxton’s office there were people who had the courage to confront their leader. They put their careers on the line to confront Texas’ legal king. And even if Paxton himself doesn’t have the integrity to repent and accept the consequences, there are other Republican leaders who can impose consequences themselves. They can start the process of altering the current of the Republican river, away from corruption and deception and back toward integrity and respect for the rule of law.The trial of Ken Paxton may well be the most important political trial of the year. It is in Austin that the G.O.P. directly confronts the enduring legacy of Donald Trump and asks itself, will we completely remake ourselves in his malign image? Or do we possess enough lingering moral fortitude to resist his leadership and at least begin respecting the truth once again?America needs two healthy political parties, and not just because healthy parties create better policies. Healthy parties create better leaders, and better leaders can help repair the fabric of a party, a nation and a culture that has been torn and frayed by a man who told America that the road to power was paved with mendacity, self-indulgence and conflict. Defeating Trump and his imitators is the first step onto a better path. More

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      Mark Gonzalez Seeks to Challenge Senator Ted Cruz in Texas

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      Mark Gonzalez, facing a conservative effort to remove him from the district attorney’s office in Nueces County, Texas, resigned and announced his campaign for the Senate.Mark A. Gonzalez, a progressive district attorney in Nueces County, Texas, took an unusual tack when he came under fire from conservatives who didn’t like how he was doing his job.He resigned — to run for the United States Senate.Mr. Gonzalez announced Tuesday that he would join a large field of candidates in the Democratic primary to challenge Senator Ted Cruz next year, the most prominent of whom is Representative Colin Allred. In an interview, Mr. Gonzalez said his decision was directly tied to efforts to remove him from his elected office.“Prior to that, I hadn’t really had any more taste or want for politics,” he said. But “with the petition and some of the stuff that’s been going on at least statewide, it just kind of — I don’t know if the word is just angered me or incited me or something — and so I just decided that I don’t want to represent or try to represent just Nueces County. I want to represent Texans that want change.”He said the other issues that animated him included preserving abortion rights and voting rights, and combating conservative efforts to limit the teaching of subjects like the United States’ racial history.His campaign announcement video highlights Mr. Cruz’s decision to leave Texas for a vacation in Cancún in 2021 while the state was dealing with a disastrous winter storm, and contrasts that decision with a clip of Mr. Gonzalez during the same storm, asking Nueces County residents to notify his office of any incidents of price gouging. Mr. Cruz, a Republican seeking a third term in the Senate, fended off an unexpectedly fierce challenge from Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, in 2018. He won that race by about 2.5 percentage points, two years after Donald J. Trump had won the state by nine points.It will be an uphill battle for any Democrat to unseat Mr. Cruz given Texas’ partisan leanings, but his is one of the few Republican-held Senate seats — along with one in Florida — that Democrats may target amid a tough 2024 map. By contrast, Republicans see pickup opportunities in eight red or swing states. Democrats currently control the Senate by a narrow margin.Mr. Gonzalez does, however, have a record of winning difficult races. He was elected in Nueces County, home to the city of Corpus Christi, in 2016 and 2020, even as Mr. Trump narrowly won the county. He previously said he would not run for re-election as district attorney.“I think that more Texans probably can identify with a guy like me,” he said when asked what set him apart from the other Democratic candidates — a guy like him meaning, among other things, someone from a low-income family who has a criminal record.He added: “We have strong family values, we believe in small government, but I also believe in opportunity and giving people chances, and I think most Texans feel that way.”In his announcement video and his resignation letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Mr. Gonzalez took the unusual step of emphasizing an element of his background that many candidates might have sidestepped: a drunk-driving arrest when he was 19. In the resignation letter, he said he had taken responsibility and pleaded guilty, then been dismayed to see the same charges dismissed for a defendant who, unlike Mr. Gonzalez, could afford a lawyer.“It dawned on me that the wealthy and well-connected have a different criminal legal system applied to them and accusations against them than everyone else does,” he wrote. “My ignorance of the system was detrimental to my life and has been to so many others just like me.”Mr. Gonzalez also drew attention to an effort by conservative activists to remove him from office, which his resignation has made moot. The conservative petition accused him of incompetence and official misconduct.The petition was both specific and broad. Specifically, it accused him of mishandling two capital murder cases. But it also accused him of having “intentionally nullified duly enacted laws of his oath of office,” reflecting a growing pattern of right-wing attempts to remove progressive prosecutors who have used their discretion to seek lower sentences or to decline to charge certain crimes.“They want to use me as a sacrificial lamb to send a foreboding message to other duly elected D.A.s in Texas who exercise their discretion,” Mr. Gonzalez wrote of state Republicans in his resignation letter.“I will not be used that way, nor will I run from a fight,” he added. “Quite the opposite, in fact.” More

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      Texas law aims to punish prosecutors who refuse to pursue abortion cases

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      After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, district attorneys from major counties in Texas vowed not to vigorously prosecute people under the state’s anti-abortion laws.Now, Texas has a plan to punish them if they don’t fall in line.On Friday, Texas will enact Senate Bill 20, a law that forbids prosecutors from adopting a “policy” of refusing to prosecute particular types of crimes, such as abortion cases. Under the new law, these policies constitute “official misconduct” and could lead to prosecutors being removed from office.This kind of legislation flies in the face of prosecutors’ normal ability to choose whether and how to pursue cases, said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, an organization that works to support local prosecutors. Krinsky called the new law “scare tactics”.“This is not about seeking to see enforcement of laws,” said Krinsky, a former federal prosecutor. “This is about trying to erode the rights of individuals to make choices around their own personal healthcare. And that is incredibly sad, because the collateral damage of that political agenda is the erosion of democratic principles.”Laws like Senate Bill 20 are the latest volley in a long series of battles about the role of small government in regulating abortion. Before the supreme court overturned Roe and abolished national protections for abortion rights, opponents of the procedure had long argued that states should be allowed to write their own abortion laws. Now, however, some powerful anti-abortion groups like Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America are calling for federal abortion restrictions, such as a 15-week ban.Texas is far from the only state where prosecutors have said that they will refuse to go after people for violating abortion bans. Within days of Roe’s overturning, 90 elected prosecutors released a statement – organized by Fair and Just Prosecution –publicly announcing that they would “refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions”. (US abortion bans typically penalize individuals who provide abortions or help others get the procedure, rather than abortion patients.)Of those 90 prosecutors, five are district attorneys from Texas, which currently outlaws almost all abortions. Three of those prosecutors’ offices did not immediately return a request for comment on the new Texas law or what it may mean for their pledge. One declined to comment.Wesley Wittig, a spokesperson for the Fort Bend county district attorney, Brian Middleton, said that Middleton’s office reviews every case.“We do not, and have not, had any policies that categorically refuse to consider a specific type of crime,” Wittig said in an email. Fort Bend county includes parts of the Houston metropolitan area.The Nueces county district attorney, Mark Gonzalez, whose jurisdiction includes Corpus Christi, Texas, told Rolling Stone this week that he still believed no one should be prosecuted for making a personal decision like having an abortion. But, Gonzalez added: “We don’t have any actual policies in place that say: ‘We will not take this case or take case.’”Republicans in at least three other states introduced legislation this year that would undermine prosecutors’ power to refuse to pursue abortion cases. But Democrats are also trying to curtail local officials’ ability to handle abortion cases: Earlier this summer, the Democratic Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, signed an executive order stripping local prosecutors of their ability to charge abortion providers. More

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      Abortion providers on two years of Texas ban: ‘We’re living in a devastating reality’

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      Nearly a year before the US supreme court eviscerated Roe v Wade, the court allowed an unprecedented abortion ban to take effect in Texas, serving as a harbinger of what was to sweep over the rest of the country.The most restrictive abortion law at the time, with no exception for rape, incest, or lethal fetal abnormality, Senate Bill 8 barred care after six weeks of pregnancy, and carried a private enforcement provision that empowered anyone to sue a provider or someone who “aids or abets” the procedure.The move successfully wiped out almost all abortion care in the second-most populous state in the US. When Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization hit, the state doubled down, criminally banning all care and solidifying itself as the largest state in the US to outlaw abortion.In the two years since, Texas abortion providers – some of the first in the US to experience a nearly post-Roe world – reflect on the devastating and lasting effect of the severe law, the trauma they felt denying patients care, and the struggle they faced when deciding whether or not to flee the state or stay put.Dr Jessica Rubino: ‘The law forced me to be a bad doctor’ When Senate Bill 8 took effect, Dr Rubino felt like she was on a “sinking ship”. The abortion provider and family medicine specialist was forced to turn away dozens of patients at Austin Women’s Health Center – including one who was experiencing kidney failure. At the same time, patients below the six-week mark were rushing to choose abortion care before it was too late, leaving thoughtful decision-making behind.“I had to tell people there’s nothing I can legally do for you, unless you’re on death’s doorstep,” said Rubino. “The law forced me to be a bad doctor.”“It was heartbreaking and soul-crushing,” she continued. “I was watching a healthcare disaster play out in real time, knowing that this law not only affects our state but is causing a ripple effect in every other state. With SB 8 – and even years before the law – we saw the writing on the wall with Roe and tried to warn everyone, but I’m not sure who was listening.”Rubino also recalled a conversation she had six months prior to SB 8 with colleagues across the state who appeared united, vowing to continue providing care despite the law’s consequences. People are going to die, she told them, we should take the “personal hit”. However, that wave of defiance never materialized. Rubino lacked critical mass.She soon fell into an “extreme” depression; it was difficult to get out of bed each day and she eventually sought mental health therapy and antidepressants. Her brain felt “broken”, she said. After Dobbs, she stopped performing abortion for nearly a year, exacerbating her gloom.“Having to deny patients the healthcare you are trained – and able – to give them is something you never get over. It’s not only medically unethical, it’s morally wrong,” said Rubino. “It was traumatizing, and it still haunts me.”SB 8, she said, was the tipping point for abortion providers in Texas like her who have been forced to navigate onerous laws over the years that compromise the care they give, including a mandatory sonogram and 24-hour waiting period that incorporates relaying erroneous medical information, bans on insurance coverage for care, restrictions on minors’ access to abortion, and more.In May, under the advice of attorneys and those closest to her, Rubino and her family left Texas with no plans to return. She worked at a clinic in Bristol, Virginia, where she largely served patients in banned southern states, before moving to DC in late August to help expand abortion services at a reproductive health clinic there.Rubino still struggles with the decision to flee Texas, while also acknowledging the legal inability to continue her calling.“There is a sense of guilt, of letting down the community I serve. Sometimes I feel like I gave up on these people,” she said.She also worries that a national abortion ban could once again pull her away from the community she now treats. She considers one day working in the UK or New Zealand.Rubino feels deeply anxious about the fate of the patients she has left behind and mentioned a recurring patient, a victim of domestic violence, whose partner blocked her access to birth control.“She’s going to call and I’m not going to be there,” said Rubino. “She’s not in a safe situation and we know staying pregnant can lead to more abuse, and even death by an abusive partner. The safest thing for her would be to get an abortion but now she’s not going to have that choice.”Dr Ghazaleh Moayedi: ‘Inhumane and illogical’ Testifying before Congress three separate times to oppose abortion bans and uplift the right to access, Dr Ghazaleh Moayedi has made her mark as an outspoken and passionate reproductive justice advocate for Texans.But the road wasn’t always clear for the doctor: unsure of what to do after graduating college, Moayedi’s friend recommended she take a nanny job. Her boss was Amy Hagstrom-Miller, the head of a network of abortion clinics and then major figure in Texas reproductive rights who would go on to lead several legal challenges against the state, including a 2016 US supreme court victory. Moayedi began working in Miller’s clinic, where she saw her interests collide.As a “brown, Muslim” n Iranian American woman who grew up in Texas, Moayedi quickly realized the majority of state abortion doctors – largely white men – did not reflect the diversity of the patients they treated, and vowed to fix that.“I could feel a palpable racial and cultural divide,” she said. “None of the doctors looked like the people we take care of. I wanted to be a provider that helped represent the communities we serve. I decided to go to medical school with that goal as a driving force.”Moayedi has worked in Texas abortion care since 2014, weathering the roller coaster of state abortion laws, including a 2020 order to ban abortion under the pretense of the Covid emergency, which, at the time, upended her plans to start her own practice.After SB 8, she transitioned her care to Oklahoma. When Oklahoma’s abortion law took effect, she switched gears, providing ultrasounds in Texas to those traveling to and from out-of-state abortion care. Moayedi then became uncertain if she could safely venture to states where abortion was still legal, as the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, encouraged local prosecutors to go after providers shortly after Roe fell. She and abortion funds sued the state for legal protection, and paused their services in the meantime.After securing a court victory, Moayedi has worked to build an abortion and miscarriage telemedicine practice, still in the process of getting off the ground. She is now licensed in 20 states – but only half allow abortion telemed. She also travels to Kansas, a safe haven state, to provide care.“I’ve had to really pivot quite a bit. It’s been absolutely wild,” she said. “My practice doesn’t look anything like I thought it would. For now, my goal is to stay in Texas but we’ll see what happens.”Moayedi says the law’s “inhumane and illogical” impact is especially pronounced when she is treating a patient in another state only to discover they’re from not just the same city as her, but the same neighborhood.“Here we both are, hundreds of miles away from our home and support system, just to receive healthcare,” she said. “Moments like those just hit you in the gut.”As a complex family planning specialist, Moayedi constantly worries for patients with “potentially catastrophic” high-risk pregnancies, especially as the Texas law offers only vague medical emergency exceptions, leading patients to near-death experiences. She receives calls from colleagues wondering if pregnant patients with complications, like C-section scar ectopic pregnancies, can receive care in Texas. She often refers them out of state to be safe.“I really don’t have words to describe the deep, deep pain I feel,” said Moayedi. “These laws are insulting, disgusting, cruel, and absolutely pointless.”The provider and advocate expresses disappointment with the federal administration, who she feels has failed to meaningfully protect abortion providers and patients since SB 8 took effect.“The Biden administration’s response has been a limp handshake,” she said. “We want to see tangible, bold action to restore or at least prevent the further erosion of reproductive rights. We need unwavering support – not a leader who can barely say the word ‘abortion’.”Kathy Kleinfeld: ‘SB 8 was meant to be a fear tactic that paralyzed care’ Kathy Kleinfeld will never forget the desperation that swept over Houston Women’s Reproductive Services after SB 8 took effect. Anxious patients begged her and her staff to perform abortion care past the six-week mark, even offering money under the table and other favors.“They were crying and pleading with us, saying ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’” said Kleinfeld. “It was so heartbreaking, there was nothing we could do.”Patients – as well as clinic staff – held their breath during each ultrasound, hoping the pregnancy would fall under the state-mandated time frame. For those past the mark, Kleinfeld and colleagues became “dystopian travel agents” connecting patients with out-of-state care.After 30 years of providing abortion in Houston, Kleinfeld had never experienced anything so chaotic and devastating. Then Dobbs hit.“It felt like everything we experienced with SB 8 was magnified – it was like SB 8 on steroids,” said Kleinfeld. “The intensity, the confusion, the chaos all became so overwhelming.”While she was forced to halt abortion care, Kleinfeld did not want to leave her patients behind. One month after the fall of Roe, she regrouped, considerably downsizing her 5,000 sq-ft clinic and cutting her staff by more than half. She now provides pre- and post- abortion ultrasounds for those traveling out of state, as well as abortion clinic referrals. Her clinic is only one of two former independent abortion providers in Texas – and just a handful across the US – that have not closed or moved away.“We did not want to completely abandon pregnant people in Houston,” said Kleinfeld. “We felt it was still really important to adapt and provide this necessary service. It feels absolutely awful to not be able to offer abortion care, but at the same time, we feel grateful to be able to still help patients in whatever way we can.”Her clinic received around 1,200 visits this year, with most traveling to and from New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas.The fear unleashed by SB 8 two years ago still lingers today: Patients are scared to disclose that they want or have had an abortion; they are fearful to bring a partner or family member with them to a procedure out-of-state or even to the ultrasound at Kleinfeld’s clinic, worrying that a loved one may be in legal trouble for “aiding or abetting” care.“We still have to explain to patients all the time that it is not illegal to help someone obtain a legal abortion,” said Kleinfeld. “SB 8 was meant to be a fear tactic that paralyzed care and instilled anxiety in patients, and even after Dobbs, we are still seeing its impact.”Dr Alan Braid and Andrea Gallegos: ‘Waving our hands hands on top of a burning building’As a medical resident in 1972, Dr Alan Braid will never forget treating a 15-year-old girl in a San Antonio emergency room who was suffering from sepsis – a life-threatening blood infection – after a botched and illegal abortion, her vaginal cavity packed with rags. Braid and doctors did everything they could but the infection was so severe, she died a few days later from massive organ failure. That year, he saw another two teenagers die from illegal abortions.It was then that Braid realized that abortion care was vital and medically necessary, an inextricable component of overall healthcare. One year later, Roe would help solidify and protect Braid’s mission.For the next 45 years, he provided ob-gyn and abortion care in Texas. When Senate Bill 8 hit, it felt like 1972 all over again, he said.“To repeat history and expect a different outcome is insanity. Women will be injured and women will die – again – without access to healthcare,” said Braid.With a passion for reproductive rights, Andrea Gallegos joined her father’s practice as manager of Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services a few years ago. She describes the impact of SB 8 as “devastating” to patients, many of whom were saddled with multiple barriers to care. Even when staff would offer to pay for travel or the procedure itself, patients – still bound by the inability to find child care or time off work – couldn’t make the journey out of state.Braid felt like he had to fight back. In an act of overt defiance, the provider performed an abortion on a patient beyond the six-week limit. He was not only acting out of medical duty but hoped to invoke a legal challenge that would eventually halt SB 8.“I don’t think any of us really thought SB 8 would last – it’s so blatantly unconstitutional and just crazy, we figured the courts – even a court as conservative as the fifth circuit – would recognize the law needs to be stopped,” said Gallegos.While Braid’s intentional act of resistance attracted an outpouring of nationwide support, the lawsuits against him ultimately failed to halt SB 8, leaving the provider feeling largely defeated.He and his team continued to navigate the draconian law, routinely sending patients to their Tulsa, Oklahoma, clinic, where the caseload tripled within the first couple of months, placing a strain on the out-of-state provider.When Oklahoma’s governor signed into law an abortion ban – modeled after Texas’s SB 8 – in April 2022, Braid was forced to shutter the critical pipeline for Texans.“It felt like we were waving our hands on top of a burning building, trying to warn everyone else that this is what it’s going to look like for the rest of the country soon,” said Gallegos. “While we see the lack of access, the forced travel, the domino effect on surrounding clinics now everyday post-Dobbs, in Texas we were experiencing it first.”Following Roe’s demise, Braid was forced to close the doors to his San Antonio clinic and stopped practicing abortion care in Texas after nearly five decades. In May, he officially moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he has set up a clinic in the safe haven state.Gallegos relocated to Carbondale, Illinois, in July, a spot nestled between abortion-hostile states, to oversee a new clinic there.Leaving Texas – and friends and family behind – is deeply “bittersweet” for the father-daughter duo: there is a sense of “abandonment” but also a recognition that the move was necessary.“It’s not easy to completely start over but I know this is where I’m supposed to be,” said Gallegos.For the abortion providers, it’s also a painful reminder of the growing inequity of reproductive healthcare across the US.“It hits me hard knowing geography has played such a significant role in privilege to access to what I consider basic healthcare,” said Gallegos. “Geography should not determine if you can have a safe or dangerous pregnancy. We are living in a devastating reality.”Braid, now in his late 70s, describes working in New Mexico as “refreshing”, as he can “just be a doctor” and not “have to call attorneys” for guidance every step of the way, as he did in Texas.However, he has left his home state – and the place where he learned to be a physician so many years ago – with a tinge of regret, wishing he not only provided one abortion in violation of SB 8, but several more, convinced that the act of rebellion would have eventually led to a successful court battle that brought down the law. His daughter seeks to allay his remorse.“I remind my dad that the law was so unprecedented, so hard to predict and navigate, none of us knew what would happen,” said Gallegos. “In the end, the whole point of SB 8 was to elicit fear in abortion providers and sadly, that’s exactly what it did.” More