Author: Sky York Journal

Sky York Journal The Republican nominee for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives marched alongside neo-Nazis at the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a new Talking Points Memo investigation can reveal. Marshall Rawson — who won an upset victory in Florida’s District 10 Republican primary last month — attended the infamous Charlottesville rally, considered the largest white supremacist gathering in a generation, marching with the League of the South, a racist and antisemitic neo-Confederate group that advocates for the secession of southern states from the U.S.  Video footage reviewed by TPM shows Rawson and…

Sky York Journal As the Census Bureau wades deeper into politics, governance changes at an agency committee that handles data privacy, scientific analysis and stewardship issues have opened the door for Trump administration interference, current and former agency staffers told TPM. Some of the most significant changes have put President Donald Trump’s political appointees in leadership roles on the historically nonpolitical committee, just as the Bureau has emerged as a hot-spot for right-wing-driven policymaking. Former Census Bureau employees say the changes remove accountability mechanisms from Census Bureau decisionmaking and could make it easier for important data privacy policies to forgo…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Amanda Becker of The 19th. Meet Amanda and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. How many women does your employer have in management positions compared to industry peers? Are a retail chain’s Black workers as likely to be in public-facing roles as its White workers? Did a trucking company hire qualified women at the same rate it hired qualified men? It will be much more difficult to answer these and other questions related to gender, race and ethnicity in workplaces once President Donald Trump’s U.S. Equal Employment…

Sky York Journal The Supreme Court stayed a Missouri federal court order Thursday, blocking a maximal Republican gerrymander for the 2026 midterms — at least for now.  Litigation has been unfurling at lightning speed, and this latest development is a major loss for Republicans. On Wednesday, two contradictory developments occurred within hours of each other: a) the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling that Missouri could not use its new 7 Republican-1 Democrat gerrymander in the general election, and b) federal district court judge Stephen Clark ruled that Missouri can’t use any other map but…

Sky York Journal U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark denied Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ (R) request that he stop the Missouri Supreme Court from holding him in contempt.  “Numerous considerations counsel this Court against enjoining a state court of last resort, particularly before it even conducts a hearing,” wrote Clark, a Trump appointee, late Wednesday. “For starters, the Supreme Court of Missouri is a fellow court, and a court of a separate sovereign.” As the battle over Missouri’s congressional map has become fiercer, the clash between state and federal courts has befuddled even the lawyers involved in the case.…

Sky York Journal The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Missouri Republicans’ attempt to jam through a new gerrymander that would leave Democrats with only one House seat to their seven. Minutes later, U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark — a Trump appointee — handed down a temporary restraining order requiring Missouri to use the new maximal Republican gerrymander. The state is now under contradictory orders; an appeal of Clark’s ruling could come as soon as tonight. “We have a very clear Missouri Supreme Court decision and the state today says that decision is valid and in effect,” Chuck Hatfield, counsel for…

Sky York Journal This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Congressional candidate JoAnna Mendoza can quickly rattle off prices from the grocery store in the small town of Eloy, Arizona, where she grew up. A couple of months ago, a pound of ground beef was going for about $13, a tomato was $1.50 and “a freaking cucumber was like $3.”  She knows because she’s a single mom to a 10-year-old, and she’s struggled with the same things most working women are facing: finding…

Sky York Journal When longtime Indiana politician Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) lobbed a powerful allegation against the Census Bureau last October, what had been a low-profile, fringe GOP conspiracy theory burst to the fore. Banks said he believed the Census Bureau had injected errors in the decennial population count and survey which were so severe, they netted Democrats more representation in Congress at the expense of Republican seats. “The Biden admin used a shady ‘privacy’ formula,” Banks wrote on X, adding that the 2020 census “scrambled the data and miscounted 14 states. It included illegal immigrants and handed Democrats extra…

Sky York Journal Through much of the course of the U.S.’s war in Iran, the Trump administration has tried to avoid calling the conflict “a war.” Those efforts led to an odd moment in the White House briefing room Thursday when Vice President JD Vance seemingly tripped over his own efforts to downplay the hostilities.  “I wouldn’t call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting,” Vance said in response to a question about whether the war would be over before the midterm elections in November.  The comment from the vice president, who was filling the traditional press…

Sky York Journal A once controversial issue pushed only by the most progressive members of the Democratic Party is seemingly becoming a more common stance in the era of Donald Trump: reshaping the Supreme Court. The topic is top of mind for high-profile Democrats who are preparing for the possibility of regaining control of Congress or even having a trifecta in the coming months and years.  Some of these calls for Court reform remain vague and half-baked, and many lawmakers have yet to weigh in at all. But from congressional leadership to 2028 presidential hopefuls, a growing number of big…