News

Volunteers Needed

📣 Scribe (or two) to take meeting notes

• HRCD is looking for a member or two to take meeting notes twice a month.

• Meetings are one hour long, on Thursday evenings, and are hybrid, so you can do this from home.

• Invite a friend to "job-share" it and you've got a back-up system for travel, kiddo's soccer game, etc.!

• Sound right for you? Get in touch and we can talk.
  

Bring on the Good News!

• Democratic AGs, including OR's Dan Rayfield, sue Trump administration for slashing billions of already awarded funding.

• Public lands are safe from being sold off in the reconciliation bill. 

• A court in Costa Rica ordered the government to release about 200 people, including 80 children, who were flown to a detention center there from the U.S. by the Trump administration in February.

• Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, outside medical groups are organizing to form their own unbiased, independent vaccine panel.

• Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect behind the fake electors scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House following his 2020 election loss, has been disbarred in New York.

• The Governor of Delaware Matt Meyer signed an executive order declaring the entire state a sanctuary for gender affirming care.

• Protesters—some in wheelchairs—were arrested in the halls of Congress while rallying against GOP cuts to Medicaid.

• Since Zohran Mamdani won on Tuesday night, almost 5000 young people have reached out to Run For Something to explore a run for local office.

• The Charlotte City Council voted 6-3 to remove Tesla from a list of pre-approved electric vehicles the city can purchase.

• A student-led group in LA is delivering groceries to people sheltering at home amidst ongoing immigration raids. In fact, the Los Angeles community is standing with the immigrant community in all kinds of ways.

• A federal judge in D.C. ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot categorically deny asylum claims from people crossing the southern border, striking down a change made on President Trump’s first day in office. The ruling rejected the idea, repeatedly put forth by President Trump, that extraordinary powers were justified to curtail immigration at the southern border.

• The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a 1849 abortion ban. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republican prosecutors in Wisconsin said they intended to enforce the old law.

• The OR legislature just passed Senate Bill 243, banning bump stocks and rapid-fire devices, and allowing local governments to ban the concealed carry of guns in public buildings.

• Oregon and Washington have sued the Trump administration for sharing Medicaid files with federal immigration enforcement officials.

• Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones won Saturday’s mayoral runoff in San Antonio, despite Republicans going all in to ensure their candidate's victory. This is a big win for Texans in one of the largest cities in the country.

• Polls for Trump continue to worsen. A new Quinnipiac University poll released last week found Trump’s approval down at 38%, with 54% disapproving. Bluesky

• The American Bar Association (ABA) dropped a massive federal lawsuit last week against the White House, naming the Office of the President, and each and every high level government department along with every cabinet official. The list of named defendants alone goes on for eight pages. The complaint is for declaratory and injunctive relief in order to protect firms that haven’t yet been targeted but remain afraid of taking any action that could put them on the wrong side of the regime. Why name so many defendants? "If you name every department and every cabinet official, any injunctions or orders that the courts issue will apply to each and every part of the government." [Status Kuo, 6/18/2025]

• The full bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the president’s appeal challenging the civil verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll. Bluesky

• A federal judge halted provisions in President Donald Trump’s anti-voting executive order issued earlier this year in a lawsuit filed by 19 Democratic-led states.

• Our US Senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, published data showing the threat to rural hospitals, including service reductions and closures, from Trump’s big budget-busting bill.

• Amidst Trump’s insults to and service reductions for veterans, Rep. Maxine Dexter has introduced the  Every Veteran Housed Act, to expand access to life-saving resources for homeless veterans.

• Senior voters are turning out in force to protest Trump—and could be Democrats' secret weapon.

• A federal judge halted Trump order tying state transportation grants to immigration actions.

• And lots more HERE!