Welcome to our October special election edition of the Rapp Up!

This month we continue our special election focus, beginning with an in-depth look at the threat to personal privacy rights — including but not limited to reproductive rights. Think you already know all about that? Maybe not!

Then, In Other Election News, we link to a troubling report about how the extreme right is planning to systematically pressure election workers, in part by wrongly contesting voter registration on a mass scale. And, then, a study of how Republican politicians often ignore their constituents’ priorities when they vote. And more! So it is a full issue. Enjoy!

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The Problem:  Our personal decisions concerning our health, our family and who we can love and marry are under attack right now by Republican politicians all over the country. Thankfully, Republicans in the Virginia legislature do not have the votes to do so.  However, a Republican victory in Congress this November will give Republicans an entirely new tool for attacking our liberties.

Fact #1:  26 Republican-controlled states have enacted or intend to enact legislation that severely restricts a woman’s control over her pregnancy.  Federal and state courts dominated by Republican nominees have often supported those decisions. To learn more about the dramatic impact of this trend, click here, Axios, Oct 7, 2022

Fact #2: Healthcare workers are being branded as criminals for as little as providing FDA-approved medications or facilitating transportation for women. In some cases, doctors are afraid to even say the word “abortion”.  This has especially hurt women who cannot afford to travel far to get medical help. Read more from this health-care newsletter in Missouri, Statnews, July 5, 2022

Fact #3:  Similarly, some Republican state legislators are proposing new laws that would invalidate same-sex marriages and even restrict the availability of basic contraception.  To learn more, click here, Pew Trusts, July 7, 2022,

Fact #4: If Republicans win both the House and the Senate this November, they will at the very least seek to pass new national controls to restrict your reproductive rights.  The threat is real. Read more here, Forbes, May 2, 2022

Why can’t we fix this? We can. And the Democrats in Congress tried to do so repeatedly. Many pieces of legislation providing these personal freedoms have been proposed and enacted by Democrats in the House. 

But… the Republicans in Congress refused to go along.  They have overwhelmingly voted “No” on these bills: 209 of 211 voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act prohibiting restrictions on abortion services; 195 of 211 voted against the Right to Contraception Act; and 157 of 211 voted against Marriage Equality. 

The Bottom Line: The radical right is driving the Republican party on these issues.  And the right doesn’t care that most Americans disagree with them.  That means even Republican politicians who try to duck these issues on the campaign trail will eventually vote for the most abhorrent legislation -- when their party tells them to.  

What this means for your vote: In short, if the Republicans win control of either the House or the Senate, there will be no escaping new attacks on your personal freedoms at the national level.  If the Democrats win, they will stand firm against the radical right’s agenda and seek to pass protection of personal decisions on these essential life matters. Either way, your vote will send a signal!

Right-Wing Extremists want your vote — tossed out! It turns out that right-wing extremists’ efforts to disrupt our elections are both highly-organized and very well funded. On Oct. 5th, the right-wing organization Look Ahead America announced plans to contest massive numbers of voter registrations in 11 states - including Virginia. Additionally they plan to share voter names with local vigilante groups — who will then be empowered and encouraged to intimidate voters. In addition, the huge burden that these challenges will place on our local election officials will not only strain their resources to the breaking point, but no doubt push some of them to resign. And then? Well, Look Ahead America will no doubt be ready to offer their own partisans to replace them! To learn more, read here Democracy Docket, Oct. 7, 2022

Right-wing election deniers want to run our elections! In a related story, election deniers in multiple states are running this year for key state government positions where they could control the election process. That would allow them unparalleled opportunities to swing the system in their favor. And wreak havoc during the 2024 elections… To learn more, read here, Washington Post, Sept. 19, 2022

Are Republican Politicians Out of Sync with Their Voters? Looks like Republican law politicians are out of sync with Republican voters on many issues that Democrats are trying to enact, according to a survey by the Economist Magazine. 83% of Republicans support a $35 cap on the monthly price of insulin, yet only seven Republican senators voted for it. Nearly half of Republicans are in favor of guaranteed family leave and free pre K school, yet Republican politicians vote routinely against these. Even the right to gay marriage, universal healthcare and government funding of community colleges get support from a third of Republicans, yet GOP politicians uniformly vote against these too. To learn more, read here, The Economist, Oct. 4, 2022

Trump’s Mismanagement of Covid Unemployment Relief cost $45 Billion! The Labor Dept’s Inspector General recently reported that fraudsters stole $45 billion from the Unemployment Relief program during the Covid crisis, using among other things the social security numbers of 205,000 dead people. To be sure, the expansion of unemployment authorized by Congress also helped tens of millions of Americans survive. But what were Trump’s Secretaries of Labor doing to prevent fraud? Well… his first labor secretary (Alexander Acosta) was forced to resign after it was learned he had given a notorious child sex exploiter a very lenient plea deal. And his second one (Eugene Scalia) was too busy cutting regulations that protect American workers. Luckily, the Biden administration has been going after the fraudsters — it has already charged 1,000 fraudsters and is still investigating more. To learn more, read here. (Washington Post, Sept. 23, 2022)

The Red States’ Murder Problem… Republican politicians like to claim that Democratic-run cities are beset by crime. It turns out, however, that 8 out of 10 states with the highest murder rates went for Trump in 2020! In fact, the top five states for murder (all red states) had 2-3 times the murder rates of New York and California. In short, red states have a significant murder problem - they just don’t like to talk about it. Not that murders are not too high everywhere in America — after all, when there are too many guns around, that is what happens. And which party wants us all to buy even more guns? To learn more, read more here, The Third Way, March 22, 2022