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'Woefully insufficient': Federal judge accuses Justice Department of evading 'obligations' to comply with deportation flights request; WA caregivers rally against Medicaid cuts; NM's state methane regulations expected to thwart federal rollbacks; Governor, critics call out 'boilerplate' bills from WY 2025 session.

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Trump faces legal battles over education cuts, immigration actions, and moves by DOGE. Farmers struggle with USDA freezing funds. A Georgetown scholar fights deportation, and Virginia debates voter roll purges ahead of elections.

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Cuts to Medicaid and frozen funding for broadband are both likely to have a negative impact on rural healthcare, which is already struggling. Plus, lawsuits over the mass firing of federal workers have huge implications for public lands.

WA youth in juvenile justice system could still vote

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Thursday, October 31, 2024   

Some young people who are in Washington state's juvenile justice system could have the opportunity to vote in this year's election.

Young people locked up in Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families juvenile rehabilitation community facilities who are voting age and will be transferred to Department of Corrections facilities at age 25 are eligible to vote.

Kelly Olson, policy manager for the advocacy group Civil Survival, along with the organization Free The Vote Washington, has been registering people to vote in the facilities. She talked about convincing young people why they should vote.

"The fact that just about everybody that had anything to say about them being inside that facility is from an elected position," Olson pointed out. "The prosecutor, the judge, the legislators that made the laws that they broke that put them there."

Olson noted Free The Vote Washington educates people in the facilities on historic efforts to disenfranchise voters, especially people of color and people who are incarcerated. People who have juvenile convictions and misdemeanors retain their right to vote in Washington state.

Olson stressed the biggest barrier is coordinating the voter registration drives, which have to include staff at the facilities despite the fact many juvenile facilities face staffing issues. She added resources for looking into candidates and measures on the ballot can also be hard.

"Unfortunately, they have limited access to internet and other types of ways that you might research somebody," Olson acknowledged. "We did also recommend maybe talk to their family and talk to other people, but to really review the voter guide."

Olson explained some young people in juvenile facilities had the chance to go to Olympia this year to advocate for a bill which would reduce lengthy sentences for juvenile offenses in some cases, which Olson said has also motivated some of them to vote.

"Understanding that, being able to convince these legislators about their bill, that had them more interested," Olson observed. "I think just getting them engaged in the process is a big part of getting them interested in voting."


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