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Do you want a fair vote? listen
to these communities.
Subject: June 7 article: “For black Texans of a certain age, the right to vote is ‘a central part of their being’.”
The three white, male, state-elected officials are very certain (Senate Law 7) would apply to all equally.
That is dismissive to the members of the minority and disabled communities who say otherwise.
If Texas really wants fair voting practices, we should listen to those with lived experience. The government makes it clear that it wants change. Do we do it right or not at all.
Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, Austin
Congress should make children
Eating guidelines permanent
For one in four children who are hungry in Texas today, summer is usually the hungriest time of the year. Things may look different this summer, however, as new benefits and temporary exemptions help reach even more children. For example, they allow parents to collect meals for the week or organizations to drop off meals at a child’s home.
But these measures are temporary.
It is time for Congress to update and modernize its summer meal programs by consistently implementing policies that fed as many children as they did during the COVID crisis, such as additional summer grocery discounts and meal service options that break down transportation barriers.
Sens. Cruz and Cornyn have the opportunity to support proven solutions such as a nationwide Summer Electronics Benefits Transfer program and non-communal meal options through the Child Nutrition Approval Process or the American Families Plan Proposal. Hungry kids in Texas and across the country can’t wait.
Stacie Sanchez Hare, director of No Kid Hungry Texas, San Antonio
Literature has a lot to teach.
Take a look at Texas, for example.
The current Republican Party and its practitioners in the Texas legislature are the stuff that great literature is made of.
In the novel “1984” the brainwashed public believes “war is peace”. In 2021, after the safest election in history, “electoral integrity” laws will be called for.
“The Handmaiden’s Tale” is reminiscent of the “Heartbeat Law,” while the voter suppression laws recall that, in the words of “Animal Farm,” “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
“The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” demonstrates the impact of decisions like those of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to limit the amount of wind and solar energy fed into the grid. And since shootings become a weekly occurrence, I’d recommend Elizabeth Crook’s Monday, Monday, a novel about the shooting at the University of Texas Tower when we were horrified by mass shootings. We will undoubtedly see more with permissionless weapon-carrying.
Yes, literature has a lot to teach us. We choose not to study.
Lynda West, Austin
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