There is just one Democratic House member left who is opposed to abortion rights. Texas' Rep. Henry Cuellar remains just terrible, and he faces a primary runoff election against fellow Democrat Jessica Cisneros later in the month. Cuellar also is clinging to office despite his home and offices being raided by the FBI in January as part of an apparent corruption investigation.
Now that the Supreme Court appears poised to mandate religious Alitoism as the only valid set of American moral beliefs, erasing federal abortion rights outright, Cuellar's level of terribleness takes on a new urgency—and there's a lot of it! At Jezebel, Susan Rinkunas walks us through the 2019 lawsuit against Cuellar filed by his one-time acting chief of staff.
In August of 2018, Kristie Small sent an email to Cuellar requesting maternity leave; Small was in her third trimester of pregnancy at the time. Not only did Cuellar refuse to sign off on the leave, he then fired her. Cuellar claimed that Small was working under a 90-day "probationary" period at the time to justify the firing. He also asked his staffers for written statements criticizing her job performance—after her request for leave and subsequent firing.
Two weeks after being fired, Small's pregnancy ended with a stillbirth.
Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court's leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
Jezebel's reporting adds the wrinkle of Cuellar's attempted coverup, in the form of asking his staff to give him after-the-fact performance reviews justifying Small's firing, but the lawsuit against Cuellar was reported on at the time. Cuellar settled the lawsuit after a judge found that Small's case raised "legitimate questions" and could proceed to a jury trial, but we don't know anything about that settlement because it imposed a gag order on Small and because, more broadly, our governing class is made up of extremely terrible people and making sure you don't hear details about the terribleness remains, as extremely icky Rep. Madison Cawthorn found out when he publicly claimed his fellow House Republicans were inviting him to drug orgies, one of the nation's top priorities.
But the short version is that Henry Cuellar remains a nasty piece of work, for a supposed Democrat, and that women continue to face rampant discrimination in the workplace for having the audacity to bear children, which Cuellar himself insists they must do while not inconveniencing him, personally.
If you're in Cuellar's district, vote. The Democratic primary runoff is on May 24. Please, please rid us of this congressional boil.
Click here to help Jessica Cisneros reach voters in TX-28 and defeat Henry Cuellar. The runoff is only a couple weeks away!
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