June 2021 - Newshacker

Juneteenth Now Officially a Federal Holiday

The United States now officially has one new federal holiday: Juneteenth. This holiday, which has been unofficially observed since it was established in 1866, is celebrated annually on June 19 and commemorates the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, after the end of the Civil War and almost two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

SCOTUS: Obamacare Lives Again (California v. Texas)

The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, has survived its third Supreme Court challenge. On Thursday, America’s highest court ruled in California v. Texas that allowed the entirety of the law as it currently exists to stay. It capped a decade-long attempt from the Republican Party to kill the largest overhaul to the U.S. health care system since Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

Decoding the Moves of Sen. Joe Manchin

Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from the very Republican state of West Virginia, may seem to be one of the last, if only, conservative-esque, centrist Democrats left in Congress. He seems to oppose many Democratic priorities, such as on abortion, increasing the minimum wage, and gun control, and always tries to act in a bipartisan way. Lately, he voiced his opposition to passing the For the People Act, a large, sweeping Democrat-backed voting rights reformed package also known as H.R. 1 or S. 1. However, despite this, he isn’t nearly as conservative or as Republican-friendly as he may first seem.

Texas Dems Defeat GOP Voter Suppression Bill For Now

In a stunning turn of events, members of the Democratic caucus of the Texas House of Representatives staged a dramatic walkout in a last-ditch effort to stop the Republican Party from passing one of the most severe voter suppression bills in the U.S. The walkout by all 67 Democrats in the state House meant that the Republican Party wouldn’t be able to form a 100-member quorum in the 150-member body, meaning that the bill was not able to be passed before the end of this legislative session, which ended on May 30.