Driver's license for immigrants and more news from the states

Happy Veterans Day. We’ll wrap up today’s edition with news of a long-delayed honor for a groundbreaking Black Marine.

But first, we’ll start in Tennessee, where a court is blocking a new policy that would refuse driver’s licenses to legal immigrants. We’ll also continue looking at fallout from last week’s elections, including Democrats considering how to wield power in Arizona and more results in Alaska’s slow count.

In Idaho, the capital city puts a sweeping moratorium on data centers as nationwide backlash grows, and Stateline looks at how communities are also resisting new battery farms.

And in Washington, D.C., a huge new freshman class arrives on Capitol Hill while election deniers face an uncertain future after an undeniable blue wave.

Tennessee officials must continue to issue driver’s licenses to immigrants who possess valid federal work permits while a legal challenge to a new state policy rejecting the documents as valid continues, a court ordered Tuesday,  Tennessee Lookout reports.

The decision extends a temporary restraining order that has blocked the abrupt change in state policy since last week, while a legal challenge brought by the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition and six immigrants continues in court. 

Hundreds of Tennessee residents have been denied temporary licenses and license renewals since the department first began implementing the new rules, according to immigrant advocates. Thousands more in Tennessee are at risk of losing the ability to legally drive to jobs, school, doctors and grocery stores if the new policy continues. 

“Regardless of where they were born, Tennesseans rely on the ability to drive in order to work, care for their families, and access the basic needs of life — groceries, medical appointments, their children’s education,” a statement by Spring Miller, senior legal strategy director at the Tennessee Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, said. 

More immigration coverage:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mary Peltola, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Republican U.S. House Rep. Nick Begich III came closer to clinching victory in Alaska’s general election as the Alaska Division of Elections added almost 25,000 ballots to the state tally on Tuesday night, Alaska Beacon reports.

With 245,470 first-choice ballots counted, Peltola now leads incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan by 4,250 first-choice votes, or 48.8% to 47.1%. That’s an increase of more than 1,600 votes from Monday.

If the race goes to a ranked choice runoff between Peltola and Sullivan preliminary, partial data published by the Division of Elections and analyzed by the Beacon shows Peltola winning that matchup as well.

The Associated Press estimates about 84% of all ballots have been counted. A separate, independent estimate posted on Twitter found at least 37,000 votes remaining to be added to the statewide tally. 

In Arizona, meanwhile, Democrats will have a level of control unseen for 60 years, with control of the state legislature and all statewide offices. But even as they celebrate, some in the party are urging caution and prudence in choosing what policies to pursue, Arizona Mirror reports. 

“The upshot of everything is that we’re going to be able to do whatever we want,” Sam Richard, a Democratic lobbyist, told the Mirror. “The real question, I think, becomes what is prudent to do, and what is it that we’re really after?”

After spending years filing bills in a Republican-controlled legislature, only to see them die without even being considered, Republican political consultant Barrett Marson said Democrats are more than ready to make an impact. 

“There’s going to be a substantial realignment in policies, from over the last 30, 40 years,” he said. “Everything will be on the table, but some things will be very hard to do.”

And in Mississippi, just as we were closing up this edition, news broke that Democrat Scott Colom has unseated Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, our partners at Mississippi Today reported.

More election news:

New Jersey: President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer is facing an ethics complaint over a nondisclosure agreement she brokered for a server at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.

Washington: The state Supreme Court is considering major rule changes that could lead to lower, and less, bail set for criminal defendants. 

Ohio: Despite bipartisan support and public pressure, a bill to raise the age for marriage to 18 is stalled in the Legislature.

South Dakota: The state Supreme Court is considering whether a man who’s spent 42 years in prison for a double murder should have a chance to convince a jury he never should’ve been there.

North Carolina: The state Supreme Court is weighing two cases concerning the Democratic governor’s powers to make appellate court appointments and fill state commission vacancies. 

Oklahoma: The state Supreme Court tossed out a controversial law that made it more difficult for residents to get their issues on the ballot.

Virginia: Democratic leaders say their 2027 legislative priorities include medical debt relief, limits on classroom screen time and tougher oversight of data centers and artificial intelligence.

Montana: The Public Service Commission has approved the $15.4 billion NorthWestern Energy and Black Hills Corp. merger.

Indiana: The state agency responsible for protecting vulnerable children expects to need a cash infusion of $300 million in the coming months.

Kentucky: Republican lawmakers and the Democratic governor are against feuding over the state fair board, this time over representation from the state Farm Bureau.

Florida: The spiritual adviser to several death row inmates is urging the incomingRepublican governor to pause further executions.

Michigan: A lawmaker has introduced legislation that would make it a crime for drivers to intentionally direct vehicle exhaust at other people.

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people applauded after the Boise City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to place a six-month moratorium on the construction of large new data centers in Idaho’s capital city. (Photo by Clark Corbin/Idaho Capital Sun)

The moratorium went into effect immediately, and applies to all data center projects that are 100,000 square feet or larger, or use 20 megawatts of power. 

Passing the moratorium means Boise will not accept or process any applications for large data centers that fall within the moratorium’s parameters.

Everyone who spoke during the public hearing either supported the data center moratorium or asked city leaders to go even further. 

“Just please don’t sell off our future to the highest bidder,” Sydney Hair told the Boise City Council. “I am very concerned about this. AI has taken so much from my generation and it is taking so much from the planet.”

Read more from Idaho Capital Sun.

More data center coverage:

As Republicans grasp for answers following their stunning losses, election officials, voting rights advocates and researchers are watching to see whether Trump will lead the party toward false narratives around election fraud or to accept normal explanations, such as voter dissatisfaction and poor campaign messages, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

The path they choose could help determine whether the country moves past an era defined by Trump’s election denial after his 2020 loss. 

But the president has sent mixed signals.

As the scale of GOP losses became clear last week, he initially pledged to accept the results.

That changed over the weekend. On Truth Social, Trump shared posts from others suspicious of the results. By Monday, he had grown more explicit.

“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong???” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and former official in the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, now a senior fellow at the Secure Democracy Foundation, voiced concern this week that election denialism will become a tactic of politicians moving forward.

“I was sort of surprised and pleased about the president’s initial responses,” Sterling said in an interview. “But I also took it with a grain of salt, knowing that he can go 180 in an hour, depending on who he’s talking to.”

The dozens of Democrats who flipped the House majority are in Washington, D.C., for several days as part of new member orientation, the D.C. Bureau reports. The onboarding tradition for both parties features training sessions and programming, as well as a class photo on the U.S. Capitol steps and a room lottery to determine their office spaces. 

In early January, the new members will be sworn in, and Democrats will spend the next two years attempting to deliver on the issues they spent months campaigning on — ranging from lowering the high cost of healthcare to enacting anti-corruption efforts to trying to overturn the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law. 

Rep.-elect Oliver G. Gilbert III, set to represent Florida’s historically Black-dominated 24th Congressional District, said “we have a lot to do, but I know we’re up to the task.

“This country is 250 years old, and we’re the greatest country in the history of the world, but our greatness is always tomorrow, it’s not yesterday, so it’s what we make it, and so, we’re going to make it something better in this Congress,” he said.  

More from the D.C. Bureau: Democrats, industry groups press for immigration changes post-midterms

In the race to meet the nation’s growing power demands, states and utilities are rapidly building new “battery farms” that can store energy for when customers need it most. But as the facilities grow, so too does community opposition, Stateline reports.

The electricity stored by such systems nationwide has grown tenfold since 2022, and it’s projected to double again by the end of 2028. State lawmakers and renewable energy advocates say battery storage is urgently needed to stabilize the grid and support the transition to clean power. 

But in some communities, residents are wary of proposals to build industrial battery systems in their neighborhoods, noting that battery fires can produce toxic smoke and are difficult to extinguish. Amid increasing backlash, nearly 200 communities have passed or proposed moratoriums to block battery farms from being built near them.

“They’re making us collateral damage,” said Phoenix Artemisia, an activist in Watsonville, California, who has helped lead efforts to oppose a proposed battery storage facility there. “We have 12 schools within two miles of us here, but these out-of-state developers are telling us what we’re going to do in our backyard.”

U.S. Marine Corps Maj. James Capers Jr. led his nine-man reconnaissance team to safety following an ambush during the Vietnam War, and stepped off the overweight helicopter several times while it struggled to evacuate as his squad pulled him back on board.

Those actions led to Capers, 88, in June of this year, becoming the 34th South Carolina-born military member to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, South Carolina Daily Gazette reportss. It came more than 59 years after he was severely injured in the firefight and took nearly two decades of supporters fighting on his behalf for the recognition.

Capers, born in Bishopville, was the first Black man to command a Marine recon company and the first enlisted Black Marine officer to earn a battlefield commission. And in the fall of 1967, still recovering from his combat injuries, he was the first Black Marine to appear on a national recruiting poster, only six years after the corps became fully integrated.

Bishopville celebrated with a parade in Capers’ honor and a museum exhibit telling his story. The town in the Pee Dee region is raising money for a bronze monument to Capers and Army Cpl. James Davidson Heriot, another Medal of Honor recipient from Bishopville killed in World War I.

“When I first learned Major Capers’ story, I was struck by the magnitude of his sacrifice and the extraordinary valor he displayed in service to our country. It became clear to me that his actions deserved the highest recognition our nation can bestow,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, who sponsored legislation calling for the recognition. “Major Capers’ courage, devotion to his fellow Marines, and unwavering commitment to duty serve as an enduring example for future generations.”

More Veterans Day coverage: