Connecticut advocates are calling on the General Assembly to pass the state s Voting Rights Act. The bill would enshrine the protections of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, and eliminate certain barriers to voting specific to Connecticut. The bill would provide new legal tools to fight discriminatory voting rules, expand language assistance for voters with limited English, and adopt strong protections against voter intimidation. .
By Jessica Pishko for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the Pulitzer Center-Public News Service Collaboration. Last summer, the sheriff of Coryell County in Central Texas took to an elevated platform in a small Las Vegas ballroom and made an unusual announcement: He was a “born-again sheriff,” he said, having “realized that I wasn’t doing my job 100%.” Sheriff Scott Williams runs a 92-bed jail and provides security for the courthouse in Gatesville. He oversees around two dozen employees. .
Some 50 Texas sheriffs and numerous elected officials have attended trainings on the unsupported notion that sheriffs can single-handedly overrule state and federal law. The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement is now investigating.