While anti-police brutality protests, a pandemic, and a flunking economy is happening, also is big political change. As we #BlackedOut yesterday, American voters marched to the polls.
As reported by the New York Times, the victory for Ms. Jones, a Ferguson City Council member, came as another night of protests unfolded throughout the country over the killing of George Floyd and persistent police brutality against black Americans.
The councilwoman secured 54 percent of the vote while her opponent, Heather Robinett, earned 46 percent support.
“It’s just our time,” Jones, 65, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s just my time to do right by the people.”
When she was asked what her historic election would mean for Ferguson’s black residents, she said, “One word: inclusion.”
“I’ve got work to do — because when you’re an African-American woman, they require more of you than they require of my counterpart,” Ms. Jones said after her victory Tuesday night.
Iowa Republicans voted Tuesday to end the long and divisive congressional career of Rep. Steve King, whose hard-right views on immigration and abortion became part of the GOP mainstream over two decades in the House but whose deliberately polarizing rhetoric ultimately became a liability for his party. (From NYT)
“I called Randy Feenstra a little bit ago and conceded the race to him,” King said in a video posted to Facebook early Wednesday morning. “And I pointed out that there’s some powerful elements in the swamp that he’s going to have an awfully hard time pushing back against them.”
King has said that his words have been mischaracterized and taken out of context, blaming the media and Republican leaders for leading a vendetta against him.
“The Never Trumpers are the people who ginned this all up,” King said in a recent debate, speaking with an air of defiance about the Republicans “who want Steve King out of the way.”
In a statement published on Twitter, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, welcomed the news of King’s defeat, writing: “Goodbye, Rep. Steve King. You are certainly not the only white supremacist in federal government, but you were among the most prominent. It’s a shame Republicans held you up as long as they did.”
New York, our home state, has a primary on June 23rd. You are able to vote via absentee ballot by mail.
