DNC Chair Tom Perez released the following statement on Rep. Barbara Lee’s (CA-13) new leadership role as co-chair of the House Steering and Policy Committee:
“Congratulations to Congresswoman Barbara Lee on her new leadership role overseeing the House Steering and Policy Committee. Rep. Lee is without a doubt one of the toughest and most dedicated Democrats in Congress. She has spent her career fighting tirelessly for equality, justice, and a brighter future for all Americans, and she understands what it takes to get things done.
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California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris has never been known to pull-punches.
Harris is viewed by those who know her as someone who’s “as tough as they come.” And, she knows that any bid for president in 2020 against the bombastic Donald Trump will take a bit of rhinoceros skin to deal with.
“It’s a very serious decision,” Harris told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski during an onstage conversation at the Know Your Value conference in San Francisco. “Over the holiday, I will make that decision with my family.”
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By CASH MICHAELS
[Editor’s Note – Our reporter was the ONLY member of the press to accompany the NCNAACP delegation to Washington last week to lobby against the Thomas Farr judicial confirmation, and was with them every step of the way as they met with two Democratic senators, and four Republican Senate staffs – including that of SC Senator Tim Scott.
This is his EXCLUSIVE account of how the NC NAACP delegation tirelessly, but successfully, accomplished their mission.]
They were on a mission from North Carolina.
Just after 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 28th, a bus carrying over thirty members from eleven branches of the North Carolina NAACP, made its way from Raleigh to Washington, D.C. to lobby U.S. senators not to confirm Pres. Trump’s nomination of Raleigh attorney Thomas Farr to a federal judicial bench in the state’s Eastern District.
That district is comprised of 44 counties from Wake to New Hanover, with court held in six cities.
The Eastern District is also home to approximately 32 percent of North Carolina’s African-American population, with 28 out of 44 counties having populations of color as high as 50 percent.
That has always rankled North Carolina’s civil rights community, and Trump nominating Raleigh Attorney Thomas Farr in 2017 didn’t help.
Farr was already well-known as a campaign attorney for the late segregationist Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and had been associated with the NCGOP’s so-called “ballot security” Black voter suppression initiative in 1990, where over 120,000 post cards were sent to Black Democrats across the state, erroneously threatening them with “five years in jail” if they were found to be voting outside of their assigned precincts.
A federal consent decree ultimately forced the Helms campaign to stop the illegal and racially intimidating practice
In later years, attorney Farr carved out a reputation for defending companies against claims of racial and sexual discrimination. And after Republicans won majorities in the NC General Assembly in 2011, and later began passing voter photo ID legislation and skewed redistricting plans – Farr represented GOP legislative leaders, legally defending schemes that were later ruled unconstitutional for their apparent intent to disenfranchise Black voters.
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