Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 11

Distraught over orders to investigate trans kids’ families, Texas child welfare workers are resigning

While the attorney general’s office has gone to great lengths to defend the governor’s directive in court, the agency responsible for carrying out the investigations has been roiled by resistance and resignations as employees struggle with ethical questions they’ve never faced before.

More than half a dozen child abuse investigators told The Texas Tribune that they either have resigned or are actively job hunting as a result of the directive.

The employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, said they feel conflicted — unwilling to undertake what they see as discriminatory investigations and critical of the agency’s internal response to requests for guidance, but haunted by what a mass exodus of experienced child abuse investigators would mean for the state’s most vulnerable children.

Ex-police officer becomes second Jan. 6 defendant to be found guilty

A former police officer who stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection was found guilty on all charges after a trial jury reached a verdict Monday, per NBC News.

Robertson faced six charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, violent entry and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and entering and remaining on restricted grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon.

Florida Rejects Dozens of Math Textbooks Over Alleged References to CRT

Florida's not alone — 19 other states eye LGBTQ school bills

Florida’s newly enacted Parental Rights in Education bill — dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — has catapulted LGBTQ rights to the center of political discourse in recent months.

While Florida has been ground zero for this nationwide debate, 19 other states have introduced similar legislation that would prohibit how educators can talk about or teach LGBTQ issues in school this year, according to the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, an LGBTQ think tank that has been tracking the bills.

“The truth is, this has never been about Florida,” said Brandon Wolf, the press secretary for the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Florida, which sued DeSantis over the law last month. “It’s never been about one state but rather a policy objective from the furthest right wing of the Republican Party to try to roll back civil liberties and progress through fear and manipulation of their base.”

Alabama governor signs two anti-transgender bills into law

The governor of Alabama on Friday signed into law two controversial bills: one that criminalizes healthcare providers who offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth and another that requires students to use bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates.

The anti-gender-affirming care bill, described as the first legislation of its kind in the US, makes it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison to provide medical care including hormone treatment and puberty blockers to minors.

It also includes bans on gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth, which are extremely rare, and compels school personnel to disclose to a parent or guardian that a “minor’s perception of his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with the minor’s sex”.

Dan O’Dowd is running for office squarely as a means of bludgeoning the Tesla CEO. Could he screw up things for the incumbent? (Politico)

Dan O’Dowd, founder and chief executive of Green Hills Software and a self-described billionaire from Santa Barbara, has in recent days reserved nearly $650,000 in TV airtime to run in the state, according to data from ad-tracking services obtained by POLITICO. Separately, three people familiar with O’Dowd’s plans, including a national Democratic official working to protect Senate incumbents, told POLITICO that it’s just the start of a barrage of ads from O’Dowd targeting Musk and Tesla over its self-driving technology. Green Hills makes competing software to Tesla’s and O’Dowd has publicly derided Musk’s electric vehicles as poor performing and dangerous. Musk has responded with broadsides in kind.

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Others familiar with the rollout stressed that O’Dowd’s team has privately been adamant he’s not trying to unseat freshman Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who was appointed last year when Kamala Harris ascended to the vice president job. Instead, O’Dowd’s play for the Senate is likely being carried out as a cost-saving measure and to significantly enhance the likelihood that networks will air his TV spots. Running for office entitles him to the lowest available ad rate in the run-up to the election — a perk that could save him considerable money depending on the ultimate spend. But a bigger advantage, two people familIar with his plans said, is the higher degree of first amendment protection a political run could give him for his loaded claims against Tesla.