February, 02 2022, 01:39pm EDT
NARAL Pro-Choice America Asks TX-28 Voters: Do You Want a Fraud or a Fighter?
Nation’s leading reproductive freedom advocacy group releases digital ad buy in support of Jessica Cisneros.
WASHINGTON
Today, just 12 days before voting begins in the primary election in Texas' 28th Congressional District, NARAL Pro-Choice America released digital ads in English and Spanish in support of reproductive freedom champion Jessica Cisneros. This digital ad buy, which is part of a six-figure program, exposes Cisneros' opponent, Representative Henry Cuellar (TX-28). Rep. Cuellar has made clear that his constituents cannot trust him to protect South Texans' fundamental freedom to make their own decisions about their families and futures. Instead, he supports attacks on their fundamental rights and efforts to push access to abortion care out of reach.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Deputy Political Director Courtney Federico released the following statement:
"The residents of Texas' 28th Congressional District need a fighter in office who will champion reproductive freedom. That fighter is Jessica Cisneros. For the last five months, Texas Republicans have bucked the constitution and instead turned neighbors against one another with their vigilante-enforced ban on abortion. Rep. Henry Cuellar is in lockstep with Republicans--stripping Texans of their freedom for his own political gain. Instead of protecting abortion access by voting to pass the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), he turned his back on his constituents when it mattered most. With so much at stake for reproductive freedom, we need a champion. NARAL is working hard through this primary to ensure Cisneros can be that champion."
This week, NARAL Pro-Choice America committed to deploying three members of its organizing staff to TX-28 until election day to fuel on-the-ground efforts to elect Cisneros, as well as committing to making 25,000 direct voter contact calls, knocking on 3,000 doors, sending 10,000 texts, recruiting 150 volunteers, and holding 10 events to mobilize voters in TX-28 ahead of election day.
Cisneros is a champion for reproductive freedom and is challenging anti-choice Rep. Cuellar for the second time. An immigration and human rights attorney from Laredo, Texas, Cisneros dedicated her career to fighting for her community. NARAL endorsed Cisneros in September of 2021--just days after Texas' vigilante-enforced ban on abortion (SB 8) went into effect. Cisneros previously earned NARAL's endorsement in her 2020 primary bid, where she received 48% of the vote, losing by a very narrow margin.
In the wake of SB 8, the U.S. House passed the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), a critical piece of legislation that would safeguard the legal right to abortion should Roe v. Wade fall. Instead of upholding his constituents' right to make their own decisions about pregnancy and parenthood, anti-choice Rep. Cuellar was the only Democrat to vote no.
Rep. Cuellar has a long history of using his power to undermine reproductive freedom in Congress. Rep. Cuellar voted in support of Trump-era attacks on the Title X family planning program. He was the only Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee in 2021 to support the discriminatory, anti-choice Hyde Amendment, which bans coverage of abortion care for those who receive their health insurance through Medicaid.
NARAL Pro-Choice America fights for reproductive freedom for every body. Each day, we organize and mobilize to protect that freedom by fighting for access to abortion care, birth control, aid parental leave, and protections from pregnancy discrimination.
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Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
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Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
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"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
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PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
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"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
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