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Ohio Democrats, voting rights activists to hold voting rights rally at statehouse on June 24....Read this article for more information....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

23 June 2021

Kathy

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com,

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

COLUMBUS, Ohio- Pushed by Ohio Democratic lawmakers seeking legislative changes in voting laws at both the state and national level, Civil and voting rights groups across the state, including the Cleveland NAACP, the National Action Network and Black Voters Matter, will join progressive organizations like Our Revolution Ohio and dozens of allied organizations on Thursday, June 24 from 10 am to noon for a voting rights rally at the Ohio statehouse in Columbus in support of pro voter state and federal legislation. (For more information on the voting right rally call 567-302-1801).

Organizers said the groups participating in Thursday's rally also want amendments to current laws that stifle voting for Ohio's marginalized community and disproportionately impact minority voters, mainly Black people.

Ohio is among several states were rallies are being held relative to voting rights, rights that voting advocates and policy makers say are under attack by Republicans and the right-wing establishment who use the excuse of wanting accountability in voting in working tirelessly to strip away and gerrymander the Black vote, and to water down the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

Buses and cars will be departing from Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Elyria, Springfield, Toledo and Youngstown to head to tomorrow's rally. CDC transportation guidelines will be in effect. For more information, call (567) 302-1801.

Organizers said in a press release that the protest is to also push for automated voter registration, online voting, voter education, multiple offsite drop boxes for voting, and for elections to be adequately funded.

Protesters want Congress to pass both the John Lewis Act and the For the People Act, which, in a party-line 50-50 vote by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, did not reach the 60-vote threshold required to end a filibuster and advance.

Both voting rights bills have been introduced by Democratic federal lawmakers as not one Republican backed the controversial For the People Act on Tuesday, proposed legislation that would expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, limit partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders

The rally also comes behind the fight by Democrats and progressive and Civil Rights groups against new state laws passed by Republican-dominated state legislatures nationwide that Democrats say are a broader effort to undermine Black and minority voters in places like Georgia where the state legislature there passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, originally known as Georgia Senate Bill 202.

Adopted in March of this year amid outcries from Democrats and voting and civil rights groups the Georgia law makes it harder to vote and, in large part, limits voter identification requirements on absentee ballots and the use of ballot drop boxes, expands early in-person voting and bars officials from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms.

It also reduces the amount of time people have to request an absentee ballot, and makes it a crime for outside groups to give food or water to voters waiting in line.

Republicans control both the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives, and each and every statewide office, including the governor's office and the offices of the state treasurer and state attorney general, aside from three seats on the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court.

All of those statewide offices and at least one seat on the Ohio Supreme Court are up for grabs in 2022 and so is the U.S. Senate seat that Republican Rob Portman is giving up next year, the other U.S. senate in Ohio seat held by Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat.

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL

City Club of Cleveland's 11th congressional district candidates' Democratic primary debate is June 22 as to the race to fill the congressional seat vacated by U.S. Secretary of HUD Marcia L. Fudge..Front-runners Nina Turner and Shontel Brown included

21 June 2021

Kathy

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The City Club of Cleveland will hold a virtual debate on Tuesday, June 22 with eight of the 13 11th congressional district congressional candidates for the Democratic primary for the special election of Aug. 3 to fill the seat left vacant in March when then congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge joined President Joe Biden's cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The special general election where the Democratic and Republican winner of the primary will square-off is Nov 2.

The online debate begins at 5:30 pm.

The livestream will be available beginning at 5:30 p.m. To watch the debate live online CLICK HERE.

A debate between the two Republican primary challengers was canceled.

This year's 11th congressional district candidates' debate by the City Club is being held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Democrats debating at 5:30 pm are front-runners former Ohio senator Nina Turner and Cuyahoga County Councilwoman and County Democratic Party Chairwoman Shontel Brown, former Ohio senators Shirley Smith and Jeff Johnson, former state representative John E. Barnes Jr., Tariq K. Shabazz, Will Knight, and Dr. Seth Corey, a Cleveland Clinic physician and researcher at the Lerner College of Medicine.

Ohio's 11th congressional district includes most of Cleveland and several of its eastern suburbs of Cuyahoga County, a largely Black pocket of Akron, and a few staggering suburbs of Summit County.

It is one of two majority-minority congressional district's in Ohio that is specifically protected under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Cuyahoga County is a Democratic stronghold and is a 29 percent Black county.

It is the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties, behind Franklin County, which includes the city of Columbus, the state capital and Ohio's largest city.

The last three congresspersons who have represented Ohio's 11th congressional district have been Black Democrats, namely former congressman the late Louis Stokes, who is Ohio's first Black congressperson, the late Stephanie Tubbs -Jones, who succeeded Stokes, and Fudge, who followed Tubbs-Jones into office and served 12 years in Congress before accepting Biden's invitation earlier this year to lead HUD.

Also dubbed "America's Citdal of Free Speech," the City Club of Cleveland is a cozy non-partisan debate club in downtown Cleveland that was founded in 1912.

It traditionally uses a luncheon format with a question and answer session with its speakers and guests but sometimes branches out to hosts forums in larger places like the convention center where former president Barack Obama spoke in 2015, a speech that came during his second term in office and one that highlighted his economic policies.

Since its founding the renowned City Club has hosted an array of public policy issues and notable people, including mayoral and gubernatorial candidates, and other sitting U.S. presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Other prominent speakers include former archbishop Desmond Tutu, Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks, Jimmy Hoffa, the late U.S. senator Robert Kennedy, and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who would not agree to his speech being publicized.

Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday and a celebration of the full emancipation of slaves in the U.S.

19 June 2021

Kathy

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Today, Sat., June 19, is the Juneteenth National Independence Day Holiday, which is historically known as Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Emancipation Day, a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.

In short, Juneteenth is the celebration of the full emancipation of slaves in the U.S.

This year's Juneteenth celebrations, from dancing to music to poetry and cultural events, and even Civil Rights protests, come on the heels of passage by Congress of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, federal legislation that President Joe Biden signed into law on June 17 that makes Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Originating in Galveston, Texas, Jueenteenth has been celebrated annually on June 19 in various parts of the United States since 1866.

Its commemoration is on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865 announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas

Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared an end to slavery in the Confederate States, slavery was still legal and practiced in two Union border states – Delaware and Kentucky – until December 6, 1865, when ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished chattel slavery nationwide.

Juneteenth celebrations first involved church-centered community gatherings in Texas and later spread across the South, becoming more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s and often centering on a food festival. (Source: Wikipedia)

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

U.S. Supreme Court rejects conservative challenge to Obamacare for a third time, this time on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the legal action....Obama and President Biden comment...By editor Kathy Wray Coleman

18 June 2021

Kathy

Pictured is former President Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, WASHINGTON, D.C- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a conservative challenge to Obamacare, former president Barack Obama's signature universal healthcare initiative that is officially known as the Affordable Care Act, a federal law that lawmakers adopted in 2010 that brought about sweeping and revolutionary changes to the nation's healthcare system coupled with accessibility to heath care insurance to millions of ill-fated Americans.

The court, in a 7-to-2 decision, reversed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judgment out of New Orleans that upheld a district court ruling that found the plaintiffs in the case had standing to bring a challenge to the Affordable Care Act brought by Texas and 17 other Republican-led states, the administration of former President Donald Trump and two individuals.

In short, the high court, in California vs. Texas, said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the legal action before the trial court, and that the Fifth Circuit erred in upholding the order of standing by the district court.

While the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled on standing it never reached the merits of the case. Hence, it did not address the Fifth Circuit's finding that upheld the district court ruling that determined the provision of the Affordable Care Act that reduced the monetary penalty against individuals who fail to secure minimal health insurance to a zero amount to be unconstitutional.

That district court ruling on both standing and the constitutionality of the statute is now void, the court said, since there was no standing to bring the litigation before the trial court in the first place.

It is the third time that a Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare has survived legal scrutiny.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Stephen Breyer, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

Kavaunaugh, Coney-Barrett and Gorsuch are Trump appointees to the court, and Sotomayor and Kagan are Obama appointees.

Obama was elated and tweeted that "with millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it's here to stay."

President Joe Biden, who served as vice president with Obama from 2009-2017, was equally excited and promised to expand Obamacare.

The legal battle relative to Thursday's Supreme Court decision centers around the now defunct legal mandate in Obamacare that levied a monetary penalty against individual Americans who failed to get minimal health insurance, a mandate upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012 in NFIB vs.Sebelius as a valid exercise of Congress's power to levy taxes.

But the court amended its 2012 decision in 2017, nullifying the individual mandate by reducing the monetary penalty to a zero amount.

The plaintiffs in this most recent challenge to Obamacare, which in addition to state officials and Trump's former administration, includes two individual out of Texas, argued that Congress lacks authority to issue a zero tax dollar penalty on uninsured Americans and that, in turn, it violated the minimum essential coverage provision of the Act.

As such, the plaintiffs argued that because that provision is unconstitutional, the entire Affordable Care Act must also be deemed unconstitutional.

The district court agreed on the issue of unconstitutionality and so did the Fifth Circuit appeals court, except the appeals court agreed only in part and ruled that rendering one provision of the Affordable care Act unconstitutional does not, in this instance, make the entire Act unconstitutional.

Accordingly, it reversed the district court ruling that constitutionality could not be severed and said it could in fact determine that a provision of the statute had been violated without discarding the Affordable Care Act in its entirety.

The Supreme Court, however, never reached the question of constitutionality in its decision issued on Thursday and instead reversed the Fifth Circuit's decision that upheld the standing order by the district court.

More specifically, the Supreme Court said the case was never properly before the trial court because the plaintiffs in the case were not required to pay a monetary penalty for failing to get insurance and had no direct monetary losses or damages.

In authoring the court's 57 -page opinion Justice Breyer repeatedly emphasized that the plaintiffs in the case could not show that they had standing to proceed in the matter.

"We conclude that the plaintiffs in this suit failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants’ conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional," wrote Justice Breyer in writing for the majority. "They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act’s minimum essential coverage provision."

This latest court decision over one of the most controversial public policy measures in the country's history puts to rest for now a 10- year battle by Republicans in Congress to upend the Affordable Care Act.

The Supreme Court has, in effect, toppled former president Trump's campaign promise to end Obamacare and keeps intact public policy that defines, in part, the legacy of Obama, the nation's first Black president, and Trump's all so articulate predecessor.

Polls show that most Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act, a Kaiser Foundation tracking poll revealing that some 55 percent of Americans are okay with it, though at least a third want some type of changes, including less governmental intrusion and greater access to affordable healthcare.

Congressional Republicans, in large part, remain disgruntled with Obamacare.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland Ohio and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, and Obamacaresurvives.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 4.5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL

Indicted former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder expelled from the House of Representatives as a state representative in connection with a $60 million pay-to-play scheme....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com

16 June 2021

Kathy

Pictured is Larry Householder

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio lawmakers on Wednesday, both Republicans and Democrats alike, officially removed indicted former House Speaker Larry Householder from office, the House voting 75-21 to expel the embattled state representative in connection with a multi-million dollar pay-to-play scheme that has rocked Ohio Republicans and enraged Democrats who are the minority in both the House and Senate.He is the first member to be expelled from the Ohio House of Representatives in 164 years, his ouster coming behind federal racketeering charges related to House Bill 6.

Householder has denied the allegations.

He called his expulsion while his criminal case is pending undemocratic and said the basis for it, disorderly conduct, is ludicrous.

And he called it a disrespect to voters.

"They have taken away the vote of the 72nd house district and disenfranchised voters," Householder told reporters on Wednesday.

But House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat and one of a handful of Black women in Ohio's state legislature, said it was long overdue and should have been done sooner.

Republican Brian Steward co-sponsored the expulsion resolution and said Wednesday that if bribery, money laundering and racketeering are not disorderly conduct then what is.

House Speaker Robert Culp, a Republican and one time Householder ally, agreed, saying the expulsion was needed and that "now we can put this behind us."

The expulsion operates for a year and a half and Householder can run for office again, if he is vindicated on the pending public corruption and racketeering charges.

The House voted 90-0 in July of 2020 to remove him as speaker, a week after he and four other Republican affiliates, including former Ohio GOP chair Matt Borges, were arrested following an indictment regarding a $ 60 million pay-to-play scheme steeped in claims of bribery and money laundering involving FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron and two Ohio nuclear power plants.

While the House quickly got rid of him as its speaker, initial efforts to remove him from office altogether stalled.

Householder and Borges were two of the top influential Republicans in Ohio at one time, and until authorities came lurking around, including the FBI, and the IRS.

A Republican political consultant and ally to former Ohio GOP governor John Kasich who managed the 2014 campaign of auditor Dave Yost, Borges was chair of the state GOP party from 2013 until former president Donald Trump assumed office in January of 2017.

He is a Trump critic and lobbied against the former president's failed reelection bid last year.

Also arrested besides Housholder and Borges were Neil Clark of Grant Street Consultants, Oxley Group co-founder Juan Cespedes, and Jeffrey Longstreth, an adviser to Householder.

Described in a damning FBI complaint as widespread public corruption and conspiracy involving FirstEnergy Corp with bribery at the helm, prosecutors say the case is one of the worst bribery schemes in Ohio history.

At the center of the bribery investigation is Householder's relationship with FirstEnergy Corp officials and a $1 billion financial rescue, legislation dubbed House Bill 6 that added an additional fee to every electricity bill in the state, and that generated some $150 million to the energy company.

FirstEnergy helped finance Householder's election in 2018, the scorching FBI complaint says, coupled with bankrolling a successful effort led by the former House speaker to get the Republican-dominated general assembly to pass a bill that allocates $1.3 million for the troubled energy company.

That bailout bill came via the statewide electricity bill surcharge under HB6, which was supported by only 10 House Democrats.

A failed 2019 referendum seeking to repeal the legislation was also financed in part by the energy corporation.

HB 6 was eventually discarded by state lawmakers.

In March of this year Republican Gov, Mike DeWine signed into law such a repeal of HB6, a bipartisan effort pushed primarily in response to the bailout scandal.

Householder is also accused of using some $100,000 in bribery money, part of $500,000 in illegal monies the FBI confiscated from his personal accounts, for costs on his home in Florida.

His conspirators, including Borges, got millions too, the complaint says.

David DeVillers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, has called it one of the worst misuses of Ohio tax-payer money in American history, and public corruption and money laundering of mass proportions.

Nearly a half dozen others, practically all of them Republican operatives, have been arrested in connection with the now infamous bailout fiasco.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL

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Ohio Democrats, voting rights activists to hold voting rights rally at statehouse on June 24....Read this article for more information....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com,

City Club of Cleveland's 11th congressional district candidates' Democratic primary debate is June 22 as to the race to fill the congressional seat vacated by U.S. Secretary of HUD Marcia L. Fudge..Front-runners Nina Turner and Shontel Brown included

Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday and a celebration of the full emancipation of slaves in the U.S.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects conservative challenge to Obamacare for a third time, this time on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the legal action....Obama and President Biden comment...By editor Kathy Wray Coleman

Indicted former Ohio House speaker Larry Householder expelled from the House of Representatives as a state representative in connection with a $60 million pay-to-play scheme....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com

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