Taniel Profile picture
Jul 22, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Major news today: Progressive challenger Emily Gallagher ousted Joe Lentol, who's been in New York's Assembly since 1974 (!!!), in the June Dem primary.

Here's a profile of Gallagher from December: "“I try to choose battles that are activist battles." brooklyneagle.com/articles/2020/…
This comes just a few days after the news of the win by Marcela Mitaynes over another longtime incumbent, Félix Ortiz, also in Brooklyn (#AD51.)

Mitaynes is a "tenant organizer and Sunset Park community activist" who was endorsed by DSA, & by AOC.
brooklynpaper.com/breaking-democ…
AND a third recent call: Jessica González-Rojas, a progressive challenger backed by the WFP, has ousted Assemblymember Michael DenDekker, in a district in Queens (#AD34).

Here's a profile of her work asking for a rent freeze & protections in April: vogue.com/article/jessic…
4️⃣th in this series of left wins in NYC: Khaleel Anderson, a 24-year old community organizer backed by the WFP, has prevailed in Southeast Queens. (His runner-up in this crowded open race was endorsed by Queens Dem Party.)

A profile from November: qns.com/story/2019/11/…
Time for a 5️⃣th win for the left in a NY election: Zohran Mamdani, a housing advocate backed by DSA, has ousted an incumbent Assemblymember in Astoria in the June Democratic primary (confirmed today).

A profile from June: qchron.com/editions/queen…

Result: queenseagle.com/all/dsa-backed…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Taniel

Taniel Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Taniel

Apr 9
Don't sleep on this: *2* state justices who just voted to make all abortion illegal in Arizona are on the ballot this year.

They're each up for retention, as I had detailed here last week: boltsmag.org/your-state-by-…
I skipped the headline story here assuming you've seen it elsewhere, but if not: the Arizona supreme court just declared abortion illegal. 12news.com/article/news/p…
Katie Hobbs, a Democratic governor, would have the power to appoint replacement if the justices are not retained. (Still, note that in Arizona governors choose within a list proposed by a commission.)
Read 5 tweets
Apr 4
A thread about a messed up situation in Mississippi.

It's on how state officials have voided direct democracy thru an absurd excuse, and how they keep refusing to yield that power back to people.
The state constitution gives people the right to ballot initiatives.

It outlines how they should do so, & how they should collect signatures in each of MS's five congressional districts.

The language was written into the constitution in 1992.
In 2000, Mississippi lost a congressional district, down to four.

No one saw a problem with that until 2021: the state supreme court effectively said that, since there were no longer 5 districts in which to collect signatures, no ballot initiative could be valid.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 5
Tomorrow is extraordinary busy election day... and you may have missed critical battles.

So here's a thread with the 15 races I'll watch most closely, across 4 states. It has some of everything: school boards, local politics, DAs, voting rights...

1️⃣ Let's start with the Arkansas supreme court races.

Because they're so odd. 2 seats, 4 sitting justices running for them, none of which are their current occupants, plus two outsiders. Depending on the results, the big winner may be Huckabee Sanders.

boltsmag.org/arkansas-supre…
2️⃣ Moving over to the Texas court of criminal appeals:

Ken Paxton & his far-right allies are targeting 3 GOP judges (Sharon Keller, Barbara Hervey, and Michelle Slaughter) who were part of a ruling that restricted Paxton’s ability to prosecute elections. texastribune.org/2023/12/13/ken…
Read 17 tweets
Feb 10
not all about the Santos seat and Trump/Biden: there are a ton of critical elections coming up literally in coming weeks.

here are just four you should know about.
1. the former sheriff of Los Angeles, ousted after protecting police abuse, is trying a comeback in 3 weeks: boltsmag.org/los-angeles-co…
2. Cleveland's March primary for prosecutor is one of the most interesting of the spring, with two very distinct visions of criminal justice between the incumbent & his challenger. wrote a bit about it here. boltsmag.org/ohio-prosecuto…
Read 6 tweets
Dec 7, 2023
Dems won full control of Michigan in the midterms, for the first time in 38 years.

Then? In the last few weeks, Michigan adopted into law a big range of voting rights reforms.

Let me count 7 different ways. ⬇️
1️⃣ Michigan will be automatically registering people to vote when they leave prison.

It'll add them to voter rolls, then send them a mailer notifying them, & ppl can opt out.

It's 1st such law in the nation, a big milestone to reduce marginalization. boltsmag.org/michigan-autom…
There's more in that automatic voter registration law!

2️⃣ Michigan will be switching to a system referred to as *back-end* voter registration.

It's a little complicated to explain, but @alex_burness lays it out here: boltsmag.org/michigan-autom…
Image
Read 9 tweets
Nov 13, 2023
NEW: It was just confirmed that Dauphin County, PA, home to Harrisburg , flipped to Democratic control in last week's elections. For the first time in 100+ years.

GOP incumbent conceded this am, h/t @pennslinger.

One reason this matters? Ballot access. See next tweet.
County officials in PA have a lot of discretion to design voting procedures. For instance, many GOP-run counties (like Dauphin) haven't allowed ballot curing.

I talked to the Dem who won last week about how he plans to expand ballot access: boltsmag.org/democrats-penn…
Two things he mentioned: (1) wanting to expand the number of ballot drop boxes, & (2) wanting to make sure ballot curing is allowed & that the county proactively reaches out to people to inform them of a mistake.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(