The 2017 election cycle brought a stunning surge of diverse, progressive legislators, alders, mayors, district attorneys and others into state and local offices across the country. Over the next few weeks, the Monday Buzz will feature interviews with a sampling of this new wave of progressive leaders. Starting out the program today, Eight O’Clock Buzz […]
Ravi Bhalla: First Sikh Mayor in New Jersey’s History
With 55,000 people packed into a little over a square mile, Hoboken, New Jersey is the 4th-most densely inhabited city in the United States. Just a short ferry ride from Manhattan, Hoboken has seen its population soar over the past several years, as the once gritty, blue-collar birthplace of baseball, the Bethlehem shipbuilding yards and […]
Danica Roem: This is Who I Am
In January of 2017, Virginia’s 13th district delegate, conservative Republican Bob Marshall, authored a bill that would have mandated that people use bathrooms according to the gender shown on their birth certificates. The bill failed in committee, but was par for the course for the 26-year veteran of the Virginia House of Delegates, who once […]
The Current State of Progressive Politics
A little over a year since his election, and Donald Trump’s approval rating continues to hover between 34% and 38%. The November local and state elections saw a wave of Democratic victories, many coming from candidates representing the very minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ or transgender communities that the President disparages daily on Twitter. Even self-declared socialists […]
Andrea Jenkins: Election Winner, Transgender Historian, Activist
Up until this year, Andrea Jenkins was best known as a poet, multimedia artist, the University of Minnesota’s Oral Historian for the Transgender Oral History Project and LGBTQ activist. With the election on November 7th, Jenkins can now add another line to her resume: Minneapolis City Council member. Jenkins won her ward with almost 70% […]