The Gov Hub Newsletter: April 28, 2025

Three good news bears stories to help you not crash out and a handful of dumpster fires

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Gov Hub
April 28, 2025

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Welcome to The Gov Hub Newsletter by Girl and the Gov® – a Dem tent weekly that shares action items you can do from your phone, good political news, civic engagement tools and topics, and a little dose of political goss too, right to your inbox.  

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GOOD NEWS BEARS

Positive political wins [yes, those do exist]

WASH. STATE GOV. FERGUSON SIGNS BILL THAT WILL ENSURE MEDICAL DEBT DOES NOT APPEAR ON CREDIT REPORTS: Taking effect on July 27, 2025, a new law in Washington State will prohibit collection agencies from reporting medical debt to credit agencies. The new law originated as SB. 5480 and aims to prevent medical debt from impacting the ability for Washington state residents to seek care, housing, or go after meeting other life needs. The bill’s sponsor hopes that the legislation is picked up at the federal level and can help the over 20 million people in the U.S. that have medical debt.

AZ GOV. HOBBS ANNOUNCES $1M IN APPRENTICESHIP GRANTS AWARDED; $3M IN FUTURE FUNDING: The BuildItAz Apprenticeship Initiative, which focuses on creating and sustaining the apprenticeship-to-long-term career pipeline in Arizona, has been has had $1M in grants awarded to seven grantees. Building on the Initiative’s existing success, the $1M in grants will connect Arizonans with high quality, industry-led career training in the construction field. Next up in Gov. Katie Hobb’s goal in doubling the number of construction apprentices in the state by 2026, is a third round of funding to come at $3M.

25 GRANTEES TO RECEIVE ILLINOIS STATE FUNDS TO REVITALIZE ‘MAIN STREET’: Announced by Illinois Governor Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, 25 grantees will receive funds through two programs focused on breathing new life into the state’s downtowns. The first program, the Rebuild Illinois Downtowns and Mainstreets [RDMS] is the distributor of $20M of funds, while the second program, the Research in Illinois to Spurt Economic Recovery [RISE] will distribute $10M. Per the Governor’s Office, the program “provides grants for construction, repair and modernization of public infrastructure and amenities to boost jobs, improve quality of life and stimulate economic activity for communities that have experienced historic disinvestment.” The full list of recipients and the revitalization projects they’re supporting can be viewed here.

CHRONICALLY ONLINE

Politics meets social media

  • Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Cory Booker conducted a sit-in at the Capitol Steps yesterday. They invited stakeholders to come share their stories ahead of a budget bill that if passed will have devastating consequences to Americans on Medicaid. Amongst those that shared their personal anecdotes was this family whose medically disabled child depends on Medicaid.

  • Dieux Skin co-founder Charlotte Parler chatted with Congresswoman Kelly Morrison [MN-D] about how with the current Trump tariffs, Dieux Skin might not be able to stay in business. They also chatted about how small businesses do not have the funds to buy access to the President to beg for exemptions, like Apple did recently.

  • A man in grossly fitting white jeans and bizarrely visible neon blue socks, who also happens to be the Lt. Governor of Indiana, propped himself on his desk to go on weird rant about the ⅗’s Compromise “was a great move.” In other words, he defended recognizing slaves as ⅗’s of a person… 

  • Congressman Jim Himes [CT-D], who is the top Dem on the House Intelligence Committee, shared that he thinks Hegseth is “out of his depth” in his role as SecDef. He also noted on the sitch and job at-large “it’s probably the hardest job in Washington. A genius would struggle to do that job well, and Pete Hegseth is not that genius.”

  • IL Gov. Pritzker shared that the Democrats need to “castigate [Republicans] on the soapbox and punish them at the ballot box” at a fundraiser in NH this weekend. He also called for mass protests against the Trump Admin. 

HEALTH & WELLNESS

In the club, we’re all sick

  • In the midst of a continuing opioid epidemic, the Trump Admin has proposed cutting the grant that gives Narcan to first responders, as well as training programs that teach first responders how to administer the life saving medication. The $56M grant falls within RFK Jr.’s jurisdiction and is run through the Department of Health and Human Services’ agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

  • Trump’s USDA is nixing a rule proposed during the Biden Admin that was designed to reduce salmonella and thus food poisoning amongst consumers. The rule would’ve required poultry companies to keep salmonella levels under a specific threshold and test for six different strains; violation would have required that the product be pulled. To recap: the USDA is being pick-me…for food poisoning?

  • The Women’s Health Initiative, a decades-long study, which was launched in the 90s because the majority of medical research had been done with men, is being shut down by the Trump Admin. Translation for the girlies: if you felt like there weren’t medical answers to your questions, this was the study that was helping to get those answers for you. 

  • Trump fanboy turned interim U.S. attorney in DC has sent letters, dubbed “vaguely threatening” to three medical journals. The letters question the medical journals on whether they allow political bias to influence their publishing decisions, and make known the potential for the journals to be prosecuted. 

EXTREMISM

…that’s the tweet [or the x]

  • The Trump Admin’s deportation train has resulted in the deportation of several U.S. citizen children. One of the citizens deported is a two-year-old with a rare form of metastatic cancer  and was deported without medication or consultation from the child’s doctors. Another two-year-old was deported with their pregnant mother to Honduras, which according to a federal judge in Louisiana was done without due process; the women’s lawyer also shared that ICE is mischaracterizing the mother’s wish to be deported with her child – and the child’s lawyer is sharing details on ICE’s failure to rectify.

  • Among the heartbreaking deportation and family separation stories, is also this one, where a new mom was deported to Cuba when she went to her check-in appointment with ICE, a strategy that’s being used more and more. The mom is married to a U.S. citizen and her child, who is still breastfeeding, is also a U.S. citizen.

  • A judge in Wisconsin [Hannah Dugan] was arrested by the FBI and charged for allegedly obstructing ICE agents from arresting an undocumented immigrant. Per descriptions of the event, Dugan had told the ICE agents that they had come with the wrong type of warrant. The arrest has further put the Trump Admin’s attack on judges in the limelight, something that Wisconsin residents protested this weekend.

  • AG Pam Bondi has hit uno reverse on a Biden-era policy that protected journalists and their sources. The policy had prevented federal officials from going after journalists' records, as well as requiring their testimony in leak investigations. The Trump DOJ has noted that the scope for which reporter records could be subpoenaed is now broader in qualification as well.

  • GOP Congressman Scott Perry [PA] wants to do two things – impeach federal district judges that he deems to have gotten in the way or are getting in the way of “Trump’s agenda,” and defund the federal courts, which he also seems to think are cock blocking the MAGA to-do list. 

FULL SEND…TO A FRIEND

Stories that are guaranteed to make it to the group chat

  • The polls are in and Trump’s first 100 days is crashing and burning according to his latest approval rating — coming in with a historic low, even beating his prior incredibly low record. Obvi, his response has been to have a toddler tantrum that probs reminds most moms of the ‘terrible two’s’ on Truth Social, where he called everything a lie and called for the pollsters to be investigated.

     

  • Former VP Harris is set to be the keynote speaker at EMERGE’s Gala on Weds, which if you don’t know is one of the OG orgs that trains and recruits female candidates to run for office. The announcement has only accelerated speculation on whether Harris will run to be California’s next gov, and if she does, if this will be her launchpad.

  • Trump has signed an executive order that will require all commercial truck drivers to speak English. The DOT’s Sean Duffy will be in charge of making sure no one violates the "English-only” decree as if there’s nothing else he could be doing…like making sure air travel is safe.

  • ICYMI, the Trump Admin nixed funding for CASA/GAL aka court appointed special advocates and guardians that are trained volunteers that are appointed by judges to advocate on behalf of children [and their interests] that are currently in the foster care system. The sole purpose of CASA/GAL is helping kids without guardians through the incredibly confusing legal system – it’s also Theta’s philanthropy.

  • Hegseth requested a make-up studio be built for him at the Pentagon using taxpayer dollars, which btdubs is gender affirming care. It’s also an interesting move for someone who has been quoted on record as not being down with women in the combat roles. It’s all the wilder when you learn that his phone number was found all over the internet including on betting sites, like the same phone number used for his SignalChat HQ, and he’s worried about his make-up routing. 

CATACLYSMIC CORRUPTION

Mostly stories that involve Elon and his besties

  • Putting the suss in suspicious, Trump announced that top investors in his $TRUMP coin would be invited to be guests at a private dinner with him in May. The pay-to-play scheme, which serves up a collab called ‘corruption x potential violation of gov ethics,’ resulted in the coin surging in value [$100 million+] after Trump made the announcement, putting money directly into the Trump family’s hands.  

  • On one hand, a new club co-founded by one of the Trump sons that aims to bring together the ultra-rich tech bros and brass with the ultra-rich members of Trump’s cabinet spells trouble and likely way too much gold-plated decor. On the other hand, that could also mean being able to go out in DC without having to run into any of those hooligans. It’s all how you slice it…

  • The FAA, the agency that in a normal era regulated Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, has been a key target for the unelected South African largely in charge of DOGE. In the name of money, not efficiency, Elon has allegedly been hard at work trying to get Starlink contracts with the FAA, a play that involves NDA’s, Project Lift, and a scavenger hunt for the taxpayer dollars to make it happen..

BACK ON OUR BILLSH*T

Bills, bills, bills

COLORADO, RIDE-SHARE SAFETY: Colorado State Rep. Jenny Willford introduced a bill that would require Uber and ride-share companies to enhance their safety protocols, including requiring background checks on their drivers. Uber’s response? We’re going to leave Colorado if it passes. Perhaps, drop into their comment section and tell them to support bill 1291. 

NEW YORK, PERSONAL DATA: Low key, high key companies use your personal data to alter the prices that they serve you, often raising the price based on said date. In NY, state Senator Rachel May has introduced the Preventing Algorithmic Pricing Discrimination Act, which if passed, would ban this practice in the state.

THE ACTION ITEMS

Get ‘em done from your phone

ACTION 1 - NIH

The Ask: Tell Congress to stop funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health [NIH].

The Background: Cuts in health research = cuts in your healthy future. Don’t let RFK Jr take away research that can save lives and change lives.

ACTION 2 - MEDICAID

The Ask: Tell Congress NO to cuts on Medicaid.

The Background: Over 72 million Americans depend on Medicaid for health care coverage. Cuts to Medicaid is a death sentence to many of the people it serves.

KEY READS

Important stories from around the USA

  • AP: Things to know about the US coal industry and proposed changes under the Trump administration

  • USA Today: Mugshot posters of immigrant arrest line the driveway of White House

  • Roll Call: Former Rep. George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison

  • Vox: The Turmoil at 60 Minutes, briefly explained

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