Greene County Democrat

Category: Education

  • Newswire: AARP and NNPA reveal concerns of older Black women voters

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    The pandemic has accelerated an economic crisis that has disproportionately impacted older women.
    Their concerns could shape the election, as this voter group has had one of the highest turnout rates for decades, especially for Black women.

    AARP and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) have highlighted new findings from a national poll and focus group that explored the priorities and concerns of Black women aged 50 and over.

    Researchers said the findings highlight how older Black women plan to vote in the all-important 2022 midterm elections.
    The findings also revealed what Black women over 50 views as the country’s top issues, including inflation, the economy, and the increasingly polarized political environment.

    Researchers also noted that the findings show that candidates should not take these voters for granted – most haven’t decided which candidates to support yet. Their votes will likely determine the balance of power in Congress.

    “At AARP, our mission is to make sure that the most important issues facing older adults get the attention and action they deserve. We know that voters aged 50 and older are the largest voting bloc in the country and that women aged 50 and up are a particularly critical cohort in elections,” stated Lisa Simpson, multicultural engagement, disparities, and equity director, at AARP.

    “This is especially true for Black women, who are one of the most active voting blocs in the U.S. electorate,” Simpson said.
    While women aged 50 and over make up a quarter of the voting-age population, they cast 30% of all ballots in the 2020 election.

    In addition, more than eight in ten (83%) registered women voters in this age group voted.
    Meanwhile, Black women are only about 7% of the population but have voted at or above 60% in the past five presidential cycles.

    Black women have had tremendous influence in critical swing states like Wisconsin, Texas, and Florida.
    They led the way for women of color in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election, representing almost 17% of the state’s electorate and 84% of turnout by women of color.
    And in a recent election survey for AARP Pennsylvania, 79% of older Black women said they are “extremely motivated to vote” in the upcoming midterm election. “Despite all this, their votes are often taken for granted, and their concerns are ignored or not really understood,” Simpson noted.

    AARP’s survey found that Black women aged 50 and over are more optimistic about the economy than women of other races and ethnicities. The majority (56%) say the economy is working well for them, compared to 52% of 50-plus women who say the economy is not working well for them.

    In Pennsylvania, the AARP survey yielded similar results: 46% of Black women aged 50 and over said the economy is working well for them, compared to just 33% of 50-plus women overall.
    However, they still have financial worries.

    “This is truly some fascinating research,” said NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
    “It’s critical that we, as journalists, do our part to ensure elected leaders are listening by spreading the word on what truly matters to older Black women voters because we know they’ll be at the polls in November.”


  • Newswire: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn-in as first Black woman on U.S. Supreme Court

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn-in by Chief Justice John Roberts,
    her husband Richard Jackson is holding Bibles

    Last Thursday, June 30, 2022, Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson officially joined the U.S. Supreme Court, marking a historic first for an African American woman.
    After receiving the required two oaths – Chief Justice John Roberts administered the constitutional oath, and outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer, provided the judicial oath – Jackson joined a court in turmoil.
    Protests have erupted with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, and other controversial decisions by the high court, including expanded gun rights at a time where the nation has witnessed nearly a deadly mass shooting each day.
    Judge Jackson’s ascent to the bench still provides hope, she remarked.
    “It took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Jackson asserted earlier.
    “It is an honor of a lifetime to have this chance to join the court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level, and to do my part to carry out shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward, into the future.”
    The court’s new term begins in September and Jackson immediately will help decide momentous opinions like the federal government’s jurisdiction over wetlands; an Alabama voter suppression law, and affirmative action cases that challenge admission policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard.
    Jackson has stated she’ll recuse herself from the Harvard case because she served on the school’s board of overseers.

  • Newswire: People for the American Way offers plan to reform police departments, law enforcement

    By Barrington M. Salmo

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – The continued scourge of police violence against African-Americans is one of the most contentious issues in this country. According to statistics provided by People for the American Way (PFAW), in 2021 alone, police officers killed at least 1,134 people, with African Americans making up at least 23 percent of those killed, despite being only 13 percent of the US population. Racism is at the core of policing in this country, from colonial-era slave patrols to the post-Reconstruction vigilantism of the Ku Klux Klan to “order maintenance” policing of the late 20th century, Ben Jealous and his research colleague Dr. Niaz Kasravi contend.
    In the aftermath of national and global protests following the murder of George Floyd by a quartet of Minneapolis police officers in 2020, Jealous said PFAW partnered with Covington & Burling LLP, and the Avalan Institute for Applied Research and consulted closely with law enforcement and policing experts, social justice activists, elected officials, community leaders produce a blueprint for reducing police violence titled, “All Safe: Transforming Public Safety.”
    “We are very proud to unveil All Safe: Transforming Public Safety as a guide for local communities to take solutions to our public safety crisis into their own hands. Let’s face it: the federal government has failed to act on meaningful public safety legislation,” Jealous, president of People For the American Way and former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said in an exclusive press briefing for African American journalists. “Meanwhile Black and brown people are dying at the hands of police officers. This has to stop. We can seed true, nationwide change by putting the right tools into the hands of communities now and building on their success, to create an unstoppable movement for public safety transformation.”
    Jealous and Kasravi announced release of the report. Kasravi – founder and director of the Avalan Institute and editor-in- chief of All Safe – said the report provides concrete policy proposals for the transformation and implementation of public safety programs at the local level.
    “We know that this. We know that it’s time for a change because the tradition approach just hasn’t worked. Right? For centuries, this country has relied on “tough on crime,” over-policing, and law and order policies,” Kasravi explained. “And more moderate reforms around training and recruitment, of course are necessary and needed, but they are not the answer, the foundational answer to a long-term change that we need. We are in America, the #1 incarcerator in the world with roughly five percent of the world’s population but we have 25% of its prisoners because of centuries on overreliance on police and systems of incarceration …”
    Jealous, echoed Kasravi’s comments that described the report as “the most comprehensive vision for transformation of public safety in our country.” He credited Ithaca, New York’s three-term Mayor Svante Myrick with embracing the report’s provisions and implementing many of the proposals on the ground and in real life.
    “We have to build the criminal reform movement from the bottom up,” said Jealous, a trained criminologist who grew up in a family in law enforcement.
    He described the challenge of achieving meaningful change with America’s mélange of police departments – 16,000 local individualized police departments – each agency with its own rules and regulations.

    “I figured out when I was at the NAACP that about 85 percent of African Americans live in 500 of these jurisdictions which means when it comes to saving Black lives, we really have to reform 3-5 percent of law enforcement agencies in the US,” Jealous said.
    Among the report’s proposals is changing police departments to public safety departments led by civilians with half the department comprised of typically armed officer and the other half made up of unarmed officers who are social work experts catering to the needs of the drug-addicted, homeless and mentally ill.
    “We don’t train these folks because that’s not what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said, referring to police officers ill-equipped to handle non-crime issues. “It’s shoot to kill and everything else. It would mean 60 percent of the officers we have now, radically less numbers carrying guns.”
    Kasravi elaborated. “This report is the most comprehensive report that we’ve been involved with or seen produced. It’s a handbook for elected officials with a large range of policy options to respond to the public demand from police reform,” she said. “There are two co-equal teams of armed and unarmed individuals. The public safety model is a win on all fronts: it reduces the risk of harm and armed encounters; people are treated more humanely; this addresses medical and psychological needs; puts less stress on officers; and increased trust in the community.”
    Kasravi said the model also saves communities more money and increases efficiency and effectiveness as communities move towards “the vision we all want.”
    “It’s a local fight in every jurisdiction, a fight police must take up. No size fits all. There are different models and ways to respond,” Kasravi said.
    The report presents facts and statistics which illustrate the current states of affairs and the challenges of effecting police reform:

    • Police violence disproportionately affects communities of color. In 2021, while Black people accounted for only 13 percent of the US population, 28 percent of people killed by the police were Black. Another 19 percent were Latinx.
    • Of the estimated 240 million calls made to 911 each year, studies have found that 90 percent of calls involve situations that are nonviolent before police are called.
    • Police unions have erected barriers to prevent removal for those officers accused of misconduct. At the state level, unions have passed police officer “bills of rights,” which provide broad protections for officers which are not provided to other people in similar situations.
    In addition, the report’s researchers showed that over-policing is encouraged as police brass demand that officers meet quotas which is one evaluation tool. And also that police recruitment strategies attract aggressive men and women.
    “A comprehensive study analyzing the recruiting materials used by the 200 largest police departments in the United States found that: 42.7 percent contained some display of drawn firearms; 34 percent portrayed military-style weapons; 32 percent showed officers in tactical vests; and 27.7 percent depicted paramilitary policing units,” the report said.
    Key tenets of the report are to remove police officers from schools; eliminate unnecessary misdemeanors and fines and fees; and ending the use of “excess” military equipment by law enforcement.
    Jealous said PFAW focused on small college towns, like Ithaca, New York, where supporters and those connected to or affiliated with PFAW coalesced around the police reform policy proposals. The bedrock of the report is to restructure, hold responsible, remove, and recruit as a means of change, all the while addressing “the underlying issues and concerns that shape the organization’s public safety programs and make specific suggestions for transforming both how we think of public safety and our public safety programs.”
    Their focus, Kasravi and Jealous said, has been at the local level because they contend that while a system overhaul will only come when state and federal officials move on it, “at the local level, executive, legislative, and judicial authorities can take steps immediately to reduce police violence.”
    But as it has in the past, the post-Floyd effort to secure meaningful reform fizzled because of the lack of political will, raw, hyper-partisan politics and an unwillingness of national politicians to accede to the real demands of African Americans. Yet Jealous and Kasravi argue that even in the face of these and other challenges, it is imperative for the Black and brown communities most affected to devise new ways to confront, address and change the status quo as it relates to policing in America.
    “It’s time for a fresh approach to the delivery of public safety in this country, because the hard truth is that what we have been doing hasn’t worked,” Kasravi said. “We have some of the most highly armed police forces and the greatest rates of incarceration in the world. If those strategies worked, we should be the safest nation in the world. But we all know that’s not the case. It’s time to transform our approach, and this report offers a range of options for communities to do that – and to improve and save lives, starting now.”
    The release of the report coincides with People For the American Way kicking off it’s “Big Ideas” Summit in Atlanta this week. Civil Rights leaders, grassroots activists, elected officials and faith leaders will gather from around the US and mayors and other local officials have the option of taking All Safe recommendations back to their own communities to implement them.

  • Newswire: African abortion rights based on Roe vs Wade now at risk after Supreme Court decision

    Maternal care in Senegal

    June 27, 2022 (GIN) – In Africa, where the risk of dying from an unsafe abortion is the highest in the world, Roe v Wade has long been an important weapon in the arsenal of those fighting to liberalize abortion laws and make the procedure safer for women and girls despite it rarely being invoked by name. 

    Human rights lawyer Stephanie Musho, a Kenyan, pointed to the case of Tunisia which liberalized their law limiting abortions just nine months after the Roe v Wade ruling – allowing women to access the service on demand.

    Cape Verde allowed for abortion on request prior to 12 weeks gestation which aligns with Roe v Wade holding of the same.

    “US policies on abortion,” she wrote in Al Jazeera, “whether we like it or not, significantly influence how seriously governments around the world take the issue of unsafe abortions.”

    A surprising number of decisions reveal African courts referencing the Roe v Wade ruling. In a recent decision by the High Court of Kenya in Malindi, abortion care was called a fundamental right under the Kenyan Constitution and arbitrary arrests and prosecution of patients and healthcare providers for seeking or offering such services were outlawed.

    The court relied upon the principles set out in previous SCOTUS (Supreme Court of The United States) decisions including Roe v Wade; Griswold v Connecticut; Eisenstadt v Baird; and Rochin v California among others. 

    “Thus the move by SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade will also put the right to abortion in further jeopardy in my own country,” warned Musho.

    Still, Kenya’s High Court’s ruling was greeted with applause from Evelyn Opondo, senior regional director for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights, who called it “a victory for all women, girls, and health care providers who have been treated as criminals for seeking and providing abortion care… The Court has vindicated our position by affirming that forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or to seek out an unsafe.”

    Now, some 30 years after Roe v Wade, the African Union has finally adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, known as the Maputo Protocol, Musho wrote in the CommonDreams news site. 

    The protocol explicitly requires countries to authorize medical abortions in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, or where the continued pregnancy endangers the health of the mother – a provision that draws from the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women which based its argument on access to safe abortion on Roe v Wade.

    Today, of the 55 member countries in the AU, 49 have signed the protocol and 43 have ratified it.

    Since South Africa’s legalization of abortion on demand been a decrease in deaths from clandestine abortions (those provided outside of designated facilities), but the number of deaths following abortions are still quite high according to statistics gathered in Gauteng province—5% of maternal deaths following childbirth are abortion related, and 57% of these are related to illegal abortions. w/pix of Senegalese teen mom 

  • Local Democratic Primary election shows mixed results: Sheriff Joe Benison, Commissioners Garria Spencer (District 1) Allen Turner Jr. (District 4) win; others in runoff on June 21st

    Sheriff Benison, Garria Spencer and Allen Turner Jr.

    In yesterday’s May 24th primary election there were some local winners but many races with multiple candidates were pushed into second round runoffs, scheduled for June 21st.

    In unofficial returns for Greene County, incumbent Democratic Sheriff Jonathan “Joe” Benison was re-nominated with 1,511 votes (57.47%) over challengers Jimmie Benison with 783 votes, Hank McWhorter with 175 and Beverly Spencer with 160. Benison like most local Greene County nominees has no Republican opposition in the November general election.

    In the District 1, Greene County Commission race, Garria Spencer was nominated with 339 votes (67,4%) with 164 votes (32.6%) going to challenger Shelia R. Daniels. This contest was for the seat held by the late Lester “Bop” Brown.

    In the District 4, Greene County Commission contest, incumbent Allen Turner Jr. with 338 votes (53.91%) defeated two challengers Christopher Armstead with 196 (31.26%) and Malcom Merriweather with 93 (14.83%) of the votes.

    The District 5, Greene County Commission race will feature a runoff between incumbent Roshanda Summerville with 199 (41%) votes and Marvin Childs with 190 (39%), Sharlene French 69 votes and Anikia Coleman Jones with 28 trailed behind the leaders.

    In the Greene County Board of Education District 1 contest, Dr. Carol P. Zippert led with 207 (40.8%) votes to an unofficial tie between challengers Robert Davis and Fentress “Duke” Means, each with 150 votes (29.6%). Zippert will be in a runoff with one of her opponents, who is officially certified in the final count, which will deal with any contested or provisional votes cast in this race.

    A poll watcher who monitored the Absentee Box counting, indicated there were six votes disqualified for lack of proper signatures and witnesses on the affidavit and one vote rejected by the counting machine because of voting for two people in one race. This ballot was counted in the District 1, BOE race, for Robert Davis Jr., but is not reflected in the unofficial totals,
    which are derived from the thumb drive taken from each machine.

    In the Greene County Board of Education District 2 race, there will be a runoff between: Brandon Merriweather 177 (41.65%) votes and Tameka King 140 (32.94%). Incumbent Kashaya Cockrell was edged out with 108 (25.41%) of the votes.

    In the race for State Representative, District 72, in Greene County, Curtis Travis received 1,445 (59%) votes to 1,004 (41%) for Ralph Howard. In the full district, which includes Hale County, and parts of Tuscaloosa and Bibb counties, Travis received 3,101 votes ( 52.7%) to 2,785 votes (47.3%) for Howard.

    In statewide races on the Democratic side, there will be a runoff between Yolanda Flowers and State Senator Malika Sanders Fortier for Governor, with the winner to face current Governor Kay Ivy, who won the Republican primary with 65% of the vote against challengers Lynda Blanchard and Tim James. In Greene County, Malika Sanders Fortier led the ticket with 961 (43%) votes to 671 (30%) for Flowers, with others trailing behind.

    In the statewide race for U. S. Senate, Democrat Will Boyd led in Greene County and the state by 65% to win without a runoff. Boyd will face the winner of a Republican state runoff between Katie Britt (45%) and Mo Brooks (29%) to fill the vacant seat left by the retirement of Senator Richard Shelby.

    State Amendment for an $85 million bond issue for State Parks and historical places, won in Greene County by a vote of 2,167 (85%) yes to 378 (15%) no. It was also successful statewide by a margin of over 65% yes votes.

     More election results including for the county Democratic Executive Committee, to follow after the votes are officially certified next week.

  • Newswire: Medicaid issues, not Medicare’s, get fixes in Biden budget;

    By Associated Press
    Medicaid issues are turning up as winners in President Joe Biden’s social agenda framework even as divisions force Democrats to hit pause on far-reaching improvements to Medicare.
    The budget blueprint Biden released Thursday would fulfill a campaign promise to help poor people locked out of Medicaid expansion across the South due to partisan battles, and it would provide low-income seniors and disabled people with more options to stay out of nursing homes by getting support in their own homes. It also calls for 12 months of Medicaid coverage after childbirth for low-income mothers, seen as a major step to address national shortcomings in maternal health that fall disproportionately on Black women.
    No Consensus on Lower Prescription Drug Prices

    But with Medicare, Democrats were unable to reach consensus on prescription drug price negotiations. Polls show broad bipartisan support for authorizing Medicare to negotiate lower prices, yet a handful of Democratic lawmakers—enough to block the bill—echo pharmaceutical industry arguments that it would dampen investment that drives innovation. Advocacy groups are voicing outrage over the omission, with AARP calling it “a monumental mistake.” Some Democratic lawmakers say they haven’t given up yet.
    The immediate consequence: Without expected savings from lower drug prices, Medicare dental coverage for seniors is on hold, as is vision coverage. The Biden framework does call for covering hearing aids, far less costly. Also on hold is a long-sought limit on out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare recipients.
    While Medicare has traditionally been politically favored, Medicaid was long regarded as the stepchild of health care programs because of its past ties to welfare. Just a few years ago, former President Donald Trump and a Republican-led Congress unsuccessfully tried to slap a funding limit on the federal-state program.
    In that battle, “many people realized the importance of Medicaid for their families and their communities,” said Judy Solomon of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income people. “I think there was a new appreciation of Medicaid, and we are seeing that.”
    As Medicaid grew to cover more than 80 million people, nearly 1 in 4 Americans, it became politically central for Democrats. Biden’s Medicaid-related provisions have a strong racial justice dimension, since many of the people who would benefit from access to health insurance in the South or expanded coverage for new mothers across the land are Black or Hispanic.
    Expanding Medicaid has been the top policy priority for Democrats in Deep South states for years, citing the poverty and poor health that plagues much of the region. The decision by some Republican-led states to reject expansion of Medicaid under the Obama health law meant that 2 million poor people were essentially locked out of coverage in a dozen states, and another 2 million unable to afford even subsidized plans. Texas, Florida, Georgia and Alabama are among the Medicaid hold-outs.
    Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff campaigned on closing the Medicaid coverage gap, and it was their election that put the Senate in Democratic hands this year. Warnock made getting a Medicaid fix his signature issue.

    Back to Obamacare
    “Georgians showed up in historic numbers to change the shape of our federal government, and many did so with the hope that Washington would finally close the circle on the promise of the Affordable Care Act [otherwise known as Obamacare] and make health care coverage accessible to the hundreds of thousands of Georgians who are currently uninsured,” Warnock, the state’s first Black U.S. senator, said in a statement Thursday.
    Delivering a big achievement is most urgent for the freshman, as he faces reelection next year in a quest for a full six-year term. Multiple Republican opponents including former football great Herschel Walker are vying to face him. Warnock argues that it’s unfair that Georgians can’t access the federally subsidized care available to residents of 38 other states that expanded Medicaid, calling it “a matter of life and death.”
    Under the Biden blueprint eligible uninsured people in states that have not expanded Medicaid could get subsidized private coverage through HealthCare.gov at no cost to them. The fix is only funded for four years, a budgetary gimmick intended to make the official cost estimates appear lower. Biden would also extend through 2025 more generous financial assistance that’s already being provided for consumers who buy “Obamacare” plans.
    Another major element of Biden’s framework would allocate $150 billion through Medicaid for home- and community-based care for seniors and disabled people. That’s less than half the money Biden originally had sought for his long-term care plan, but it will help reduce waiting lists for services while also improving wages and benefits for home health aides.
    The plan “marks a historic shift in how our country cares for people with disabilities and older Americans,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “Getting this crucial care won’t just be for the lucky few who can get off a wait list.”
    About 4 million people receive home and community-based services, which are less expensive than nursing home care. An estimated 800,000 people are on waiting lists for such services.
    The coronavirus pandemic underscored the importance of a viable home care option for elders, as nursing homes became deadly incubators for COVID-19.
    In a coda of sorts, the Biden framework also provides permanent funding for Medicaid in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico. And it would permanently reauthorize the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, avoiding periodic nail-biting over coverage for nearly 10 million kids.

  • Doug Jones meets with ANSC delegation to discuss plans and priorities

    IMG_2039

    ANSC delegation members who met with Senator Doug Jones are left to right: Dr. Carol P. Zippert; John Zippert, ANSC State President; Gus Townes; Senator Doug Jones; Karen Jones; Attorney Everett Wess; Robert Avery; Attorney Faya Rose Toure; Attorney Sharon Wheeler; Senator Hank Sanders.

    Special to the Democrat
    By John Zippert, Co-Publisher

    Doug Jones, Alabama’s newly elected Senator, met with a delegation of Alabama New South Coalition members on Saturday, January 6, 2018, in Birmingham. All of ANSC delegation members played an active role in the ‘Vote or Die Campaign’ to register, educate, mobilize and turnout voters in the December 12, 2017 Special Election, in which Jones defeated Judge Roy Moore.

    Jones was coming off his first week in Washington D. C. where he was sworn-in to his new position. Jones was accompanied to the swearing-in ceremony by former Vice President, Joe Biden. Jones was sworn-in along side Tina Smith, a new Senator from Minnesota, who will fill the un-expired term of Senator Al Franken who resigned. Smith was accompanied to the swearing-in by former Vice President Walter Mondale, from Minnesota.
    Jones thanked the ANSC and the Vote or Die Campaign for their support and help in winning a closely fought contest with Judge Roy Moore. He said he appreciated “the early and continuing efforts of ANSC, ANSA and Vote or Die from the beginning of the race, starting at the first primary and continuing all the way through.”
    Members of the ANSC delegation expressed congratulations and support to Senator Jones and indicated that they realized that “ a movement orientation was needed not just an ordinary political campaign, to create the excitement and interest, to generate the kind of turnout that was required to win this election.”
    Jones said that he would work to represent all of the people of Alabama and he was looking for priority issues to work on that would unite voters – Black and white, urban and rural – in the state.
    Jones said he was definitely going to push for reauthorization of CHIP – Children’s Health Insurance Program, which serves 150,000 children in Alabama and 9 million nationwide.
    Another priority was working to keep rural hospitals open, which would help places in north Alabama, as well as the Alabama Black Belt, from losing their hospital and having to travel long distances for medical services. Jones said he would work with Congresswomen Terri Sewell, who has proposed adjustments to raise the low reimbursement rates paid to rural hospitals under Medicare and Medicaid.
    Jones said building, repairing and improving infrastructure, including more than roads and bridges, and extending to water and waste water systems, broadband communication services and other community facilities. He said that he was trying to get assigned on Senate committees that dealt with these issues.
    Jones indicated that he does not support cuts to “entitlement programs” like Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps which help low income people to balance the budget.
    On Monday, it was announced by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that Senator Jones would serve on the: Housing, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), Banking, Homeland Security and Government Affairs (HSGAC) and Aging Committees.
    Senator Jones assured the ANSC delegation that he would have an active and robust staff around the state to provide information and constituent services to people in Alabama. He was still staffing his offices and was still receiving resumes from persons interested in serving on his staff in the state and in Washington. As reported last week, he has chosen Dana Gresham, an African-American, to serve as Chief of Staff. Jones indicated that he might develop a mobile office to travel to rural and more remote communities to provide services to constituents that cannot easily travel to offices in larger cities.
    Senator Jones said that he would continue to communicate on a regular basis with the delegation about the upcoming state elections in 2018 and his own re-election campaign in 2020. Jones said that he would participate in the upcoming Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, the first weekend in March, and other activities related to supporting voting rights.