HOUSTON - With approval of Congress by the American public at a dismal 13 percent, representatives are buffering themselves from angry constituents. The August recess is normally town-hall-meeting season, but a recent survey found only 44 percent of U.S. House members are hosting public events, though they are taking place in Texas at a slightly higher rate.

To try to keep control of their meetings, some Congress members around the country are charging attendance fees, banning cameras, or asking police to remove demonstrators.

Republican Rep. Pete Olson of Sugar Land faced hundreds of Houston-area residents at two town-hall meetings this weekend. While the congressman intended to respond only to pre-screened questions, a vocally-rowdy audience was determined to push him beyond his main talking points: cutting the debt and deficit spending.

Pasadena resident Steven Halvorson, who is a volunteer with the Texas Organizing Project, attended both forums.

"His whole thing was just 'cut, cut cut' - that was all it was. And he said that we were just angry. I think people should be angry if they're going to lose their funding, if they're going to lose Medicare, if they're going to lose their Social Security."

Halvorson, who calls himself a progressive activist, says liberal proposals for more government investment in jobs and infrastructure have taken a back seat to the notion that balancing the budget is the best way to address the jobs crisis.

Halvorson however thinks that, as voters digest the consequences of cuts-only recipes, they are beginning to demand that alternative approaches be debated.

"This is the first time in a long time that I've actually seen us make an impact and get somebody to actually get frustrated and I think have to come back and answer hard questions. Because I don't know that he'll be able to keep going to these meetings and not answer some of the questions that the progressives are trying to ask."

Halvorson, who is a medical research lab scientist, disagrees with Olson's town-hall statements that federal stimulus spending did not save Texas jobs.

"I actually kept my job two more years because my boss was funded from stimulus money that kept me and a handful of our staff employed for another two years. Now we don't know what we're going to do."

Unless Congress passes another major jobs program, he predicts, many Texas jobs saved by government spending will be lost within the next year or two.

Rep. Olson plans two additional town-hall meetings in Sugar Land and Richmond this evening and Wednesday, August 31.

Town-hall survey results are at nolabels.org



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Pennsylvania is among the states where massive protests and tent encampments opposing the war in Gaza are growing.

Elez Beresin-Scher, a sociology student at Bryn Mawr College, is at the Free Gaza encampment on campus. She explained there are about 44 tents full of students who have been sleeping there since Saturday night.

She spoke to Sonali Kolhatkar on the TV and radio show Yes! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali.

"We are here because our college has $5 million of its endowment invested in Israeli technology," Beresin-Scher pointed out. "We know that this money is complicit in the genocide of Palestinians; over 30,000 Palestinians have been murdered by the State of Israel."

Beresin-Scher added they are calling on the college and the university president's office to divest Israeli holdings and endorse a cease-fire resolution passed by 89% of the student body about a month ago. She added they will be at the encampment indefinitely until their two demands are met.

Pro-Israel groups argued the war is justified given the massacre perpetrated by Hamas, which kicked off the most recent violence. Beresin-Scher noted they are taking a significant risk but they believe genocide is occurring in Palestine and they want to see it end.

"We're recognizing that Palestinian students have been murdered, or are not able to continue their education because every university in Gaza has been bombed, has been destroyed," Beresin-Scher emphasized. "That's the perspective that we're coming from."

Beresin-Scher has been a member of Jewish Voice for Peace since her freshman year, and said it is upsetting to hear the encampments are being portrayed as anti-Semitic. She noted it is something she has never encountered as someone who has organized with Students for Justice in Palestine.

This story was produced based on original reporting by Sonali Kolhatkar for Yes! Media.

Massive protests and tent encampments opposing the war in Gaza are growing at universities across California, with classes canceled at the University of California-Los Angeles Wednesday, after tensions boiled over into violence there.

Police arrested 25 students at California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt Tuesday.

An organizer named Rithik from the Students for Gaza encampment at San Francisco State University recently spoke to Sonali Kolhatkar for her TV and radio show Yes! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali.

"Students everywhere are appalled at the current genocide occurring in Gaza that is being perpetrated by Israel and backed by the United States," Rithik stated. "We understand that our taxpayer money is not going towards our own education, but rather to fund this genocide and wars of aggression across the world."

At San Francisco State, students are demanding the California State University System divest any holdings in companies selling arms to Israel, assurances the student protesters will not be sanctioned by the school, and for the university president to make a statement opposing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and declaring the war a genocide.

Pro-Israel groups argued the war is justified given the massacre perpetrated by Hamas, which kicked off the most recent violence. They also worry Jewish students will feel intimidated on campus. However, a Jewish student named Jacob at San Francisco State said it has not been his experience.

"I don't think we've ever felt that any of the actions being taken in the name of anti-Zionism and anti-colonialism are antisemitic," Jacob asserted. "Never felt unsafe, never felt unwelcome in these spaces. Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism."

San Francisco State President Lynn Mahoney has emphasized the university's support for peaceful protest and said the university has already taken steps to divest.

This story was produced based on original reporting by Sonali Kolhatkar for Yes! Media.


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A new report showed turnover among California chief election officials reached 57% in 2022, a record high. It then declined this year to 40%.

Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles partnered with the Bipartisan Policy Center to analyze the data from 18,000 jurisdictions nationwide.

Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Elections Project for the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the jobs of election workers have become significantly harder in recent years.

"Today, election officials must manage everything from cybersecurity risks posed by foreign adversaries to people who are doubting the outcome of elections, to information technology, legal disputes, political pressures," Orey outlined.

The turnover rate is defined as the percentage of jurisdictions in a state where the chief local election official changed within the prior four years. It has been an issue in California for decades. The turnover rate stood at 41% back in 2004. But things got much worse after 2020, when election officials became targets of threats and harassment, often spurred by former President Donald Trump's evidence-free claims about a rigged election.

Orey noted she expects this year's presidential election to go smoothly, because dozens of states, including California, have done a lot to "beef up" the elections workforce.

"Sixty-five percent of local election officials have experience running a presidential election," Orey pointed out. "Where there are new officials, we find that they have an average of eight years of experience in an election office. So all in all, we see that election officials are well-prepared to administer the 2024 presidential election."

The report recommended better funding for elections offices, higher salaries and more training in order to attract and retain a highly skilled election workforce.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.


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