JACKSON, Miss (AP) — A Mississippi legal organization is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state’s provision permanently banning people convicted of certain felonies from voting.

The Mississippi Center for Justice is petitioning the Supreme Court two months after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down its lawsuit challenging voting restrictions set forth in Mississippi’s 1890 state constitution. If successful, the lawsuit could grant voting rights to thousands of people permanently banned from casting ballots as a result of felony convictions.

“At a time when our state and nation are struggling with the vestiges of a history of racism, it is important that the United States Supreme Court step in to address this remaining vestige of the malicious 1890 plan to prevent an entire race of people from voting in Mississippi,” said Rob McDuff, the attorney who brought the lawsuit for the Mississippi Center for Justice.

Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution strips voting rights from people convicted of 10 felonies, including forgery, arson and bigamy. The state attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level bad check writing.

Attorneys who challenged the provision had argued the authors of the state’s Jim Crow-era constitution showed racist intent when they chose which felonies would cause people to lose the right to vote, picking crimes they thought were more likely to be committed by Black people.

The lawsuit dates back to 2017. In a news release, MCJ said it filed the suit on behalf of two Black men — Roy Harness and Kamal Karriem. Harness is a military veteran who was convicted of forgery in 1986 and Karriem is a former Columbus city council member who was convicted of embezzlement in 2005, the organization said. Both men served their sentences but still cannot vote.

JACKSON, Miss (AP) — A Mississippi legal organization is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state’s provision permanently banning people convicted of certain felonies from voting.

The Mississippi Center for Justice is petitioning the Supreme Court two months after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down its lawsuit challenging voting restrictions set forth in Mississippi’s 1890 state constitution. If successful, the lawsuit could grant voting rights to thousands of people permanently banned from casting ballots as a result of felony convictions.

“At a time when our state and nation are struggling with the vestiges of a history of racism, it is important that the United States Supreme Court step in to address this remaining vestige of the malicious 1890 plan to prevent an entire race of people from voting in Mississippi,” said Rob McDuff, the attorney who brought the lawsuit for the Mississippi Center for Justice.

Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution strips voting rights from people convicted of 10 felonies, including forgery, arson and bigamy. The state attorney general issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking, felony-level shoplifting and felony-level bad check writing.

Attorneys who challenged the provision had argued the authors of the state’s Jim Crow-era constitution showed racist intent when they chose which felonies would cause people to lose the right to vote, picking crimes they thought were more likely to be committed by Black people.

The lawsuit dates back to 2017. In a news release, MCJ said it filed the suit on behalf of two Black men — Roy Harness and Kamal Karriem. Harness is a military veteran who was convicted of forgery in 1986 and Karriem is a former Columbus city council member who was convicted of embezzlement in 2005, the organization said. Both men served their sentences but still cannot vote.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -The three Republicans running for seats on the Ohio Supreme Court recently raised $800,787, compared to the Democratic candidates’ haul of $468,340, new campaign finance reports show.

The reports covered contributions to the candidates from Oct. 1 to Oct. 19. The reports due Thursday were the last disclosures before the Nov. 8 election.

The Republicans were boosted by hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash from the Ohio Republican Party, as well as Gov. Mike DeWine’s campaign fund, which gave $7,500 to each candidate, including to DeWine’s son Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine.

The Ohio Supreme Court races are among the most important yet relatively overlooked state races in the 2022 election. Justices wield vast amounts of power, being able to either validate or nullify laws, and the same for government and business practices that make a mark on people’s everyday lives.

Abortion bans and redistricting are among issues that will likely be heard by the next court. The court’s 4-3 Republican political balance could also flip as a result of the election.

The reports show that the Democratic candidates had more cash on hand to spend in the last days before Nov. 8.

The campaign finance reports do not show spending coming from outside groups. For instance, the Republican State Leadership Committee is running $2 million in television advertising against the Democratic candidates.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) has picked up a new endorsement in his Senate race — and it's coming from his independent opponent.

Speaking to NBC News, Stern said he wants to "make sure democracy doesn't fail," and he doesn't want voters to "waste a vote on me." Oz has the support of former President Donald Trump, and that was enough for Stern to reassess his campaign. "I could inadvertently hurt democracy, and I believe Fetterman is the better man for it," he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a 2.6% annual rate from July through September, snapping two straight quarters of contraction and overcoming high inflation and interest rates just as voting begins in midterm elections in which the economy’s health has emerged as a paramount issue.

Thursday’s better-than-expected estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of economic output — grew in the third quarter after having shrunk in the first half of 2022. Stronger exports and consumer spending, backed by a healthy job market, helped restore growth to the world’s biggest economy at a time when worries about a possible recession are rising.

At least 18 states are funding crisis centers that aim to dissuade pregnant women from getting abortions, and some of them are using federal grant money intended to help poor families to do so, according to a report by CNN Tuesday.

Some health care advocates say that the public funds are being misused, since the crisis centers clearly have a political mission but do not perform basic services such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, even as they provide highly controversial and sometimes deceptive advice.

“Pregnancy center leaders and their state government allies say the organizations deserve taxpayer funds because they provide pregnant women with resources like free diapers and ultrasounds,” CNN’s Casey Tolan, Majlie de Puy Kamp and Isabelle Chapman write. “But some of the centers also lie to women about the safety and potential risks of abortion, according to multiple studies, abortion rights activists, and women who have been to the centers.”

The Republican Party canvasser who was brutally beaten in Hialeah on Sunday did not say the attack was politically motivated when police officers first interviewed him that evening, according to a police spokesman.

An initial incident report said nothing about politics.

But on Monday morning, after talking to the victim’s father, Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted that the canvasser was attacked “by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood.”

When Hialeah police re-interviewed the canvasser, Christopher Monzon, hours after the Rubio tweet, he told them he did believe politics played a role in his beating. In a sworn statement Monday afternoon, Monzon — who was canvassing for the Republican Party of Florida and has long-standing ties to the white supremacist movement — said one of his attackers told him that “he could not pass through because he was a Republican,” a police report released late Tuesday shows.

“He didn’t mention it in the first interview. He did in the second,” Hialeah Police Department Sgt. José Torres told the Miami Herald. “We’re not going to say that the whole entire situation was politically motivated, but the guy was wearing a Marco Rubio shirt.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) have reached across the aisle to endorse each other, just two weeks ahead of the midterm elections.

Murkowski reportedly praised Peltola, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, at the state’s Federation of Natives convention Friday, saying she plans to rank the Democrat first on Alaska’s ranked-choice ballot system.

“I know that bothers some people who want me to be that rigid, partisan person, and I’m just not. … I do not toe the party line just because party leaders have asked or because it may be expected,” Murkowski said at the event, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Murkowski is also on the ballot for reelection — and Peltola has in turn endorsed her.

“I’m voting for her, so we’re even-steven,” Peltola said of Murkowski’s support, according to the The Washington Post.