Cotton set to speak to pro-Israel group
WASHINGTON --U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton is to speak at a Zionist Organization of America dinner in New York City today.
The organization, which was started in 1897, calls itself "the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States."
Cotton, a Republican from Dardanelle, is to receive the Dr. Miriam & Sheldon Adelson Award, which is named after the casino owners and Republican mega-donors.
Others scheduled to appear include former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz and former White House staff member Steve Bannon.
The meal, which begins with a kosher buffet reception and ends with a gourmet dinner, is named after Justice Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2013, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee spoke at the event.
Two Arkansans join immigration protest
Two Hispanic college students from Arkansas traveled to Capitol Hill last week and called on Congress to pass immigration legislation.
Fernando Gutierrez, a junior at University of Arkansas Fort Smith, and Xochitl Shields, a sophomore at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, joined a protest in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.
Although some activists were arrested for engaging in unlawful protests, the two Arkansans complied with U.S. Capitol Police orders and were not charged.
Gutierrez, 20, was brought legally to Arkansas by his parents when he was 4 or 5 years old. But they stayed in the country after their visa had expired instead of returning to Mexico, he said.
Forcing young adults like him to leave the country makes no sense, he said.
"These students that grew up in America ... America's all they know," he said. "To throw them under the bus like that is just completely wrong. There needs to be a solution."
Shields, 19, moved from El Salvador to Arkansas when she was 5 years old.
She has obtained a green card, she said. But she remembers what it was like to live in limbo, not knowing whether she would be allowed to stay or be forced to return.
"I didn't know if I was going to go to college," she said. "If you're not legal, it's difficult to get scholarships."
"I'm from Springdale so the Latino population there is fairly big," she said. "I know so many students ... that had my grades and had the same potential and just couldn't fulfill it because of their legal status."
Virginia vote elates Democratic activist
A North Little Rock Democrat traveled to Virginia last week to help defeat Robert Marshall, a Republican state legislator who had claimed to be his state's "chief homophobe."
She returned home satisfied with Tuesday's results.
Sarah Scanlon, who ran Democrat Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign in Arkansas, worked to elect Democratic transgender trailblazer Danica Roem to the state House of Delegates.
The Arkansan, who later served as Sanders' national LGBTQ outreach director, said she performed basic get-out-the-vote tasks in Manassas, roughly 30 miles southwest of the nation's capital.
"Knocking on doors, making phone calls, recruiting others to knock on doors. Recruiting others to make phone calls," Scanlon said. "Anything that's necessary to help the candidate win."
Once the polls had closed, Scanlon awaited the results at Roem's victory party.
She stayed long enough to hear Roem's victory speech.
"It was wall-to-wall people and there were a lot of really happy supporters of Democrats there," she added.
Planning to visit the nation's capital? Know something happening in Washington, D.C.? Please contact Frank Lockwood at (202) 662-7690 or flockwood@arkansasonline.com. Want the latest from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Washington bureau? It's available on Twitter, @LockwoodFrank.
SundayMonday on 11/12/2017