Last August, Red Wine & Blue sued the state of Ohio. And this Tuesday, we won!
Our issue? A new state law that requires voters to provide additional proof of citizenship in order to cast a ballot. We, along with the Ohio Alliance of Retired Americans, argued the new law violates the National Voter Registration Act — and this past Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. agreed.
Judge Oliver ruled that Ohio’s new law unfairly limits folks who are eligible to vote but don’t have easy access to the ID documents the state is now demanding. A 2025 University of Maryland study estimated that 21 million Americans don’t have access to the documents required to prove citizenship. And what do you know, most of those 21 million are women, people of color, and lower-income communities.
Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the new voter ID law in March 2025 as part of a transportation bill, slipping in new rules that would make it harder to vote. But Ohioans noticed! Secretary of State Frank LaRose is appealing the decision (of course), but the clock is ticking before the Buckeye State’s voter registration deadline of October 5th.
No matter what state you’re in, let’s make sure everyone we know is registered to vote! You can check your registration here.
In other good news, Meta (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) agreed on Wednesday to pay up to $18 billion and make their platforms safer for kids.
The changes Meta agreed to include daily usage limits and “enhanced age assurance measures.” There’s more work to be done to protect young people from the damage that social media does to their mental health, but this is a good start. In the meantime, the money will go toward youth mental health programs and crisis intervention services.
The case was brought by a bipartisan group of 29 Attorneys General, from California to Kentucky, and it’s an important example of the work that state Attorneys General can do. When you see an AG race on your ballot, make sure you don’t skip it!
And just as opposition to Meta knows no party lines, so does opposition to data centers. Turns out, most Americans care more about their health and household budget than they do about making tech billionaires even richer! Shocking, right?
This week, the win was in deep red Vermillion County, Indiana. (And when we say “deep red,” we mean it — the county voted for Trump in 2024 by 71%.) County commissioners voted 3-0 to reject a data center proposal during a meeting on Tuesday night with more than 350 neighbors in attendance.
Public comment at the meeting lasted for more than three hours. Every person who spoke was against the data center, concerned about noise, water pollution, energy costs, and more. “We’ve been showing up for months and months and months and kind of growing in numbers,” said one resident. “This is the first time that where people felt like they were listened to.”
Real change is happening, especially on the local level! We don’t have to wait for the midterms to see it — it’s happening every day across the country. If you want to find a local squad to help you make change in your area, just look for a Red Wine & Blue Network group near you.