Trans-Man Denied Name Change By Virginia Judge

Jacob Haley

One of the niche areas of my law practice is assisting transgender clients in securing amendments to their birth certificates once they have completed the sex reassignment process.  Virginia has no set form of petition for the process although statutory authority for such amendments and the Virginia  Code section is cited in the petitions and court orders I prepare.  I almost never get involved in securing court orders for name changes since typically the process is so easy that clients usually handle that process themselves, especially since a standard application form is available on the Virginia Judiciary web page in a fill in the blank PDF format.  Unless, apparently one is in Louisia County before judge, Timothy Sanner, who seemingly makes up his own rules that differ from the requirements of the Virginia Code.  Sadly, many judges in Virginia appear to feel that they can do whatever they want when it comes to LGBT clients and from my experience, the Judicial Review Commission never disciplines judges who abuse LGBT clients.  I was interviewed by GayRVA which has an article on the situation.  Here are highlights from that article:

A trans-man from Louisa County, Virginia, has been denied a name change by a Circuit Judge who, contrary to current Virginia law, said medical documentation was required for legal name changes.

Jacob Haley went to the Louisa County Courthouse in February of this year. When he handed the clerk the forms to change his legal name from his female birth name to his male name, the clerk, according to Haley, said ”more than likely (you’re) going to need a hearing, the judge is going to want to know the reasoning.”

Haley realized this might happen and asked if he would need to bring anything with him when he returned to court. He was told to bring “anything that would help explain the name change.”

Haley currently works two jobs and receives health care form one of his employers. But his health care does not cover transgender-related services, including hormone treatment or therapy. Unable to afford treatment, Haley has been working with local groups and has been raising funds independently. But it has not been easy. “It’s a struggle,” said Haley. “I’ve been trying to get money together since 2011 when I came out.”

The judge, Hon. Timothy Sanner, told Haley that in previous name-changing cases involving transgender individuals, a note from a doctor or some medical record was brought to help prove the need for a name change. According to Haley, Judge Sanner said “The prior case had been seen by a therapist for years, had been through hormone therapy, and had a letter and things to back their story up.”

Sanner then told Haley he would need to see paperwork from a medical professional before approving the name change.  ”[The judge said] the courts would like to see something of that nature,” Haley said. ”He didn’t say anything about the law.”

Medical documentation is required for changing genders on a birth certificate, and similarly for Virginia state ID’s like driver’s licenses. Hamar said the judge could have confused the two, but denying a simple name change because there is no doctor’s note is not in line with the law. “The forms are standardized, you print them out and pay your money, and you may or may not have to appear. You usually don’t even have to show,” according to Hamar.

Other transgender people in Virginia told GayRVA that they received their legal name changes in similarly simple circumstances. In an email, Ryan O’Donnell changed his name in 2010. “I did it through the mail, so I didn’t have to go before a judge, I just had to get the form notarized and send it to the county clerk’s office. I got the form back in a couple of weeks with no hassle… I have plenty of trans friends in Virginia who changed their names with little to no hassle.”

Haley has 60 days to go back before the judge with a medical letter. He’s not sure why the judge singled him out for this case, especially after hearing about the ease so many other trans individuals had with the name change process. ”It blows my mind that people can have their name changed to whatever they want,” said Haley, “but when it comes to someone needing their name changed for their mental health, they get roadblocked.”

When one reads the instructions to the application form for seeking a name change, when it comes to supporting documentation, the instructions state "None."  The only issues covered in the application are assurance that the name change is not being done for fraudulent purposes or to hide from creditors or probation officers.  Apparently none of this means anything to Judge Sanner who makes up his own rules - especially for LGBT petitioners.   Welcome to Virginia which has a well deserved anti-gay reputation.

Cuccinelli Financial Report Turns up Questions about Donor

Click on image to enlarge

It seems that soon to be crowned GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli just can't having ethical questions surround him, especially when money is involved - e.g., his long failure to disclose financial holdings in Star Scientific..  His latest financial report reflects an apparently nonexistent radio station as one of his donors.  NBC Decision 12 has details on the question of who actually gave the money to Kookinelli.  Here are highlights:. 

The financial forms are in from the first quarter of 2013 and we are starting to get a sense of who is funding the campaigns of both Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe. 

There are some interesting take aways. McAuliffe has a significant Union presence on his financial disclosure report. This is not a surprise for a Democratic candidate. It is worth noting though because of Virginia's right to work status.

Cuccinelli's donor base was, as expected much different than McAuliffe's. His biggest haul came from the Republican Governor's Association which ponied up $1 million, almost half of his entire report. Cuccinelli also took a $25,000 check from Foster Friess, a major conservative donor during the 2012 presidential campaign. Friess, who was a big supporter of Cuccinelli ally Rick Santorum, drew some heat when we went on cable news and said that in his day pregnancy was prevented when "gals put it (an aspirin) between their knees and it wasn't that costly."

Also in Cuccinelli's report is a $2,500 contribution from a company that calls itself "KHSE LLC". KHSE lists their address as 6915 Wolf Run Shoals Road Fairfax Station, VA. They claim to be a radio station. The trouble is there is no such thing as a radio station called KHSE anywhere in Virginia or Fairfax Station. 

A Google search of KHSE doesn't turn up much either, especially in Virginia. In fact the only KHSE listed as a radio station anywhere on the internet is a Wikipedia entry for a station that doesn't appear to be broadcasting.

According to the Cuccinelli campaign officials, much like the McAuliffe situation, it is a case of an honest mistake. In this situation, the donor provided the correct information and the campaign incorrectly assumed it was a radio station. They submitted their filing information as such.   A spokesperson for the campaign said that KHSE is actually an investment firm not a radio station. They plan to fix the filing.

However, the campaign could not provide any information as to who runs the company. It is also difficult to find any other information about KHSE the investment firm either.  .  .  .  .   Much like our search of State Coroporation Commission Records of KHSE the radio station, nothing turned up in a search for KHSE the investment firm.

Mississippi Man Arrested for Ricin Tainted Letters to Obama and Seator Wicker

1999 Photo of Paul Kevin Curtis as Elvis

The FBI reports that a Tupelo, Mississippi area man has been arrested for mailing letters containing deadly ricin to President Obama and Mississippi U. S. Senator Wicker.  If the name Tupelo sounds familiar, that's because it is home base for the virulently anti-gay hate group, American Family Association, which on its webpage this morning had headlines columns such as "Liberal Media, Obama's Front Line" and a piece claiming that Army officials have labeled Christian groups as "domestic terror groups.    While nothing links AFA to the suspect, it does give a sense of the local mindset in that part of Mississippi.  The Tupelo Daily Journal has a detailed article on the suspect, Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, who seems to be some kind of conspiracy nut cases based on the article.  Here are some excerpts:

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested by the FBI and Lee County authorities today at his home after an investigation by multiple local, state and federal officials. With Curtis in police custody, different versions of the his life continue to unfold, some wacky and entertaining and others conspiratorial, threatening and violent.

[T]he divorced man was also known in many online communities and others locally for criticizing the North Mississippi Medical and state Rep. Steve Holland for alleged crimes.

As a janitor working in a cleaning service, he claimed to have insider information. Combing through his online postings including Facebook and message boards and interviews with people who have had altercations with him, Curtis sounds more and more conspiratorial.

“I’m on the hidden front lines of a secret of a secret war,” Curtis posted on his Facebook profile at 2 a.m. today. “A war that is making Billions of dollars for corrupt mafia related organizations and people. (bone, tissue, organ, body parts harvesting black market)”

Curtis’ phone number listed on his Facebook profile was disconnected.

In online postings, Curtis ends letters with a phrase similar to those found in letters to President Obama and Sen. Wicker.

“This is Kevin Curtis and I approve this report,” he posted in an online rant against the NNMC on September 2007.

The Washington Post has more information and coverage of other scares at Congress.  Here are highlights:

By Wednesday night, authorities had arrested Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Miss., as a suspect in the ricin mailings, the FBI said in a statement. Curtis also sent a third letter to a Mississippi justice official, the FBI said. He is well known to law enforcement as a frequent letter-writer to lawmakers, two officials said.

Suspicious envelopes were hand-delivered to the Capitol Hill offices of senators from Alabama and West Virginia, prompting evacuations of their staffs, and lockdowns of many more. Two other senators — from Arizona and Michigan — reported that authorities were investigating suspicious letters delivered to district offices in their home states.

In all, five senators, including some in the thick of contentious negotiations over gun-control and immigration bills, were sent into emergency mode. Another wave of anxiety swept through the Capitol just before lunchtime when a bag left in the entranceway of a Senate building brought a bomb squad racing toward Capitol Hill. Police ordered thousands of staffers and aides not to leave their offices.

After two tense hours, the package was cleared, as were two letters delivered earlier to the offices of Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.).

 It will be interesting to see if Curtis had ties with the Teabagistan crowd or not.
 

More Wednesday Male Beauty

The Rise of the Post-Christians - More Dark Clouds Ahead for the GOP

This blog has looked at the rise of the so-called "nones" - those who claim no allegiance to any institutional religious denomination or church.  The nones are increasing in numbers and are especially prevalent among the under 30 generations.  Indeed, they make up 20% of the American population.  But there is another phenomenon that ought to be terrifying both the Christofascists and their political whores in the Republican Party - the rise of the so-called" post Christians."  The two groups combined spell good news for American and those of us who are sick and tired of the civil laws incorporating Christofascist ignorance and bigotry.    A piece in the Center for Inquiry looks at the findings of a new Barna study that looks at the rise of the "post Christians."  Here are highlights:

It is still said that America is a Christian nation. Really?

The rise of the Nones – people who don’t regard themselves as belonging to any religion – has risen to around 20% of America. What has not gotten as much attention is the rise of the “post-Christian” population, which includes most of the Nones and probably includes an even larger number of Americans. 

Post-Christians are people who either never were Christians, or people who no longer accept core views about Christianity. Like the Nones, these post-Christians may still be religious in some sense, and may believe in a god as well. But they don’t think or behave like Christians, and they are quite aware of ways that they have moved beyond traditional Christianity. Many people fall into both categories, moving beyond both Christianity and all organized religiosity as well.  

The Barna Group has been polling about religiosity for a while. Their numbers describing the most and least Bible-minded cities was released here: http://cities.barna.org/americas-most-and-least-bible-minded-cities/

 

How many Americans might we be talking about? Surely the percentage of post-Christians is much higher than the Nones at 20%.

61 out of 96 major metropolitan areas in America registered post-Christian levels higher than 30%, including most major cities -- from Boston (53%), New York City (51%), Philadelphia (42%), Baltimore (39%), Washington DC (40%), and Miami (45%) and across the country in Buffalo (52%), Cleveland (37%), Pittsburgh (40%), Detroit (35%), Cincinnati (33%), Chicago (42%), Minneapolis (42%), St. Louis (36%), Kansas City (33%), and Houston (33%), all the way west to Denver (49%), Phoenix (46%), Seattle (49%), San Francisco (53%), Los Angeles (44%), and San Diego (51%). Many cities in more conservative regions rise to levels close to 30%, such as Atlanta (29%), Indianapolis (28%), New Orleans (26%), Dallas (25%) -- and even Nashville (21%) has a higher percentage rate than the national figure for the Nones.

  

Christianity is evidently evolving quickly, and it will have to continue to change dramatically if it wants to catch up to where post-Christians are heading.

 

Needless to say, the GOP - captive as it is to the Christofascists who want to go backwards in time - will find itself less and less attractive to both nones and post-Christians.   Likewise, the GOP's competitiveness in larger metropolitan areas will continue to plummet. In my view, the demise of conservative Christianity and today's GOP cannot occur soon enough.

A U.S. Senate in the Grip of the Gun Lobby

Today in a shameful act that I find disgusting, the U. S. Senate defeated a bi-partisan authored effort to bring some minimal sanity to America's gun control laws.  The winner today was the NRA and the gun manufacturers for which it constitutes a front organization.  The losers were the nearly 90% of Americans who support background checks and minimal efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.  It goes without saying that GOP senators led the charge to kill the legislation.  Not surprisingly the families of children massacred at Sandy Hook elementary are outraged.  Similarly outraged is a victim of gun violence herself, former Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords who has let loose with an op-ed in the New York Times.  The piece deserves a full reading.  Here are highlights:

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them..

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count. 

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them. 

We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending. 

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences. 

Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.

Very well said.

Will Columbia Out Pace the USA on Gay Marriage?

France, Uruguay and now New Zealand have all but finalized gay marriage within the last week.  Meanwhile, the USA sits on its proverbial thumbs and the U.S. Supreme Court likely dithers trying to find a way to dodged addressing the fact that equality under the law remains a sham in this country so long as LGBT citizens are denied equal rights.  Making the situation even more embarrassing for American hubris is the fact that now Columbia may surge ahead of it in granting full equality under the law.   Why, because Columbia's highest court ruled 2 years ago that the Colombian legislature had until June 20, 2013 to fix the unequal treatment afforded to LGBT citizens.  That's right, 2 years ago.  The Columbia Law and Business Post has details on a vote to be held by the Columbia Senate today.  Here are details:

Why Is This Debate Happening Now?  The Colombian Constitutional Court issued a ruling in 2011 (Sentencia C577/11) that requires the Congress to act by June 20, 2013, or else same-sex couples can present themselves to legal notaries to contract for their legal rights. The Court ruled that same-sex couples have equal legal rights to found a family, but there is a “deficit of legal protection” for such couples under current law, and ordered the Congress to eliminate that deficit by June 20, 2013. The Court previously ruled that the right given to heterosexual couples to a legally recognized non-marital union must be accorded to same-sex couples.

Art. 13 of the Constitution guarantees equality before the law. (This is also a human right guaranteed by the American Convention on Human Rights, which is binding on Colombia. See more about this below.) To allow marriage equality is to reconcile the marriage and equality clauses; to prohibit same-sex marriage is to ignore the equality clause altogether and to invent an intention for the family clause that never existed.

Marriage Equality is Good For Business. In the United States Supreme Court, a large group of well-known employers filed a brief arguing in favor of marriage equality. They include, among others:

Abercrombie and Fitch, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Aetna, Alaskan Airlines, Alcoa, American International Group, Apple, Cisco Systems, Clorox, eBay, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Levi Strauss & Co., Marsh and McLennan Companies, Morgan Stanley, NCR Corporation, Nike, Office Depot, Oracle, Qualcomm, McGraw-Hill Companies, Tiffany and Co., Xerox

These firms all have experience as employers being forced to implement separate systems of employment and benefits for same-sex employees and their partners, which offend their corporate policies of equality and advancement and competition based on merit alone. Those policies exist for a reason: to attract and promote the best workforce and clientele. Simply put, bigotry is bad for business.

Same-Sex Couples Are No Worse and No Better Parents   There is a “scientific consensus” by sociologists, pediatricians, doctors, pyschiatrists, psychologists, and social workers that the sexual orientation of parents has no effect on the sexual orientation of children or on children’s aptitude, happiness, or any other measure of performance. The leading, most respected organizations in these fields presented their research findings and official positions to the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of marriage equality,

Marriage Equality Is Important to Colombia’s Remarkable Progress  Colombia has made a remarkable comeback from a nearly failed narco-state, and in so many respects is a leader in Latin America.  The Americas, in turn, are in the vanguard when it comes to marriage equality. Canada, Argentina, and now Uruguay permit same-sex couples to marry, as do many states in the US, Mexico, and Brazil. In Mexico and Brazil, same-sex marriages are recognized nationally. Altogether (see the table at the end of this article), approximately 35% of the population of the Americas lives in a nation or political subdivision that permits same-sex couples to marry, and another 30% lives where same-sex marriages from elsewhere are officially recognized. That’s almost 70% of the Americas where same-sex marriage is okay.

Will Colombia be a forward-looking and fair country, or retrograde, unfair, and even violent?   .   .   .   .  If it fails to align with the “first world” countries and major multinational corporations supporting marriage equality, Colombia will marginalize itself as a backward-facing country whose progress has halted. 

The BBC reports on today's vote to delay the Senate decision until April 23rd:

The Colombian Senate decided to postpone the second debate on a draft law that would allow marriage between people of the same sex until next Tuesday, April 23.

The decision was taken by 35 votes in favor and 28 against, once the television broadcast of the debate was interrupted by "prior commitments" and while in the outskirts of Congress demonstrated groups both for and against the project.

By order of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, the Colombian Parliament has until June 20 to legislate on the subject.

Otherwise, always according to the Court ruling, same-sex couples could go to the notaries and courts competent to "legalize and solemnize" ties, although it is unclear whether such unions would have a range of marriage.

The questions posed in the Columbia Law and Business Journal apply to the USA and sadly, I have more faith in Columbia getting it right than America which continues to subvert its own Constitution by allowing religious based hate and bigotry trump the Constitution itself.   

Gay Iowa Teen Takes Own Life After Bullying

The hate merchants at the "family values" organizations, the Vatican and Catholic bishoprics and the Southern Baptist Convention have another scalp if you will to hang on their belts as a trophy to their "godliness" - Kenneth Weishuhn (pictured above), a high school freshman in Paullina, Iowa, who committed suicide after being subjected to anti-gay bullying.  What drove him to take his own life?  An atmosphere of hate and anti-gay bigotry and animus nurtured and justified by the "godly Christian"who continue to depict gays as perverts, diseased, and any number of horrible things.  The result of this incessant drumbeat is that the ignorant and gullible feel free to make the lives of others a living hell.  As I have said before, these people - Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, Brian Brown, etc., and those in the GOP who prostitute themselves to the Christofascists - literally have blood on their hands regardless of their disclaimers of any responsibility.   If indeed there is a Hell, these people have and deserve special reserved seats in my opinion.  Here are highlights from KTIV-4 TV:

PRIMGHAR/ PAULLINA, Iowa (KTIV) -  Kenneth Weishuhn was only a freshman at South O'Brien High School.   That's located in Paullina, Iowa.

Family and friends say the 14-year-old was happy.  But, beneath that smile, there was a lot of pain.  "He says, 'Mom, you don't know how it feels to be hated," said Jeannie Chambers.  Kenneth Weishuhn didn't know either, until he told his friends last month that he was gay.

"People that were originally his friends, they kind of turned on him," said his sister Kayla Weishuhn.

Teasing started in school, according Kayla, a sophomore.  She says it was the boys in her class, that bullied her brother over his sexuality.

"A lot of people, they either joined in or they were too scared to say anything," she said.  She says they took their teases online, to websites like Facebook, creating a hate group against gays and adding Kenneth's friends as members.  However, it was only the beginning, family say he started receiving death threats from South O'Brien students on his phone.

"When I'd question him about the phone calls, like he just blew it off, so I just thought everything was ok," said his mother.

According to Kenneth's mother Jeannie, those South O'Brien boys were given a warning, but she was never contacted by the school.  She's unsure whether she'll press charges against the students she says drove her son to his death.

"I really don't want to ruin somebody else's life, or take someone else's son or daughter from them.  But, I don't know what it's going to take to get it to stop," said Chambers.

What is it going to take.  I have a couple of ideas: (1) fire EVERY school administrator and teacher who refuses to take bullying seriously and expel students caught bullying others, and (2) all deference to Christofascists and "family values" organizations needs to cease immediately and decent people need to start treating them like the vile hate filled people they are in fact.  Call me terrible, but when I encounter one of these "godly Christian" folks, I want nothing to do with them and I immediately categorize them as foul and despicable individuals.  

Words fail to describe the rage I feel when I see beautiful lives like Kenneth Weishuhn's snuffed out so that horrible individuals can strut around feeling superior about themselves.  It makes me literally feel sick.  And each time I see and write about such suicides, I move further away from wanting to have anything to do with Christianity.  Conservative Christians are horrible modern day Pharisees and I feel certain that Christ would likewise find them a stain on His name.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

How Out of Touch is Today's GOP?

As a former Republican I shake my head in dismay almost daily when I see the den of insanity and bigotry that the GOP has become.  And the transformation of the GOP, in my view, traces directly back to the rise of the conservative Christians - those I call the Christofascists - who have brought their unique forms of hate and bigotry to the GOP.  Adding to the problem is the fact that these folks are not only hostile to the rights of other Americans, but also utterly detached from objective reality.  The result has been a Republican Party that increasingly lives in its own bubble/fantasy world and which is increasing out of touch with mainstream America.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the results of a new survey that finds the GOP increasingly in la la land vis-a-vis the majority of Americans.  Here are highlights:

I already touched on today’s new Post poll this morning, but there are a bunch of numbers in here that really deserve their own post..

To wit: It finds that only 23 percent of Americans — that would be fewer than one in four — believe the Republican Party is “in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today,” while 70 percent believe that it is “out of touch.” Among independents, those numbers are 23-70. Among moderates they’re 20-75.

By contrast, Americans say by 51-46 that Obama is in touch. Among moderates that’s 56-42 (he fares worse among independents, 44-53, though far better than Republicans).

At the same time, the poll finds the public siding with Obama and Democrats on many major issues surveyed. Americans disapprove of the sequester cuts, 57-35 — cuts that Republicans are describing as a “victory” for them. Americans support a path to legality for illegal immigrants by 64-32. In fairness, the poll doesn’t test citizenship specifically, so this finding is somewhat inconclusive, but a new CNN poll finds that 84 percent back a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have a job and pay back taxes.

Meanwhile, on guns, the new Post poll finds that Americans support a law requiring background checks on gun sales at gun shows or online by 86-13. A majority, 55 percent, believes it’s possible to make new gun control laws without interfering with gun rights.

At what point does failure to support proposals designed to address the problems facing the country — ones backed by majorities — create a serious enough general problem for the GOP, by contributing to an overall sense that the party has simply ceased being capable of compromising on solutions to the major challenges we face? The GOP’s awful “in touch, out of touch” numbers would seem to get at this.

But is there any point at which the party’s overall image — and its unpopular stances on specific issues — actually do begin to matter in some concrete way? Is there any point at which it becomes clear that the current GOP strategy — make a deal with Democrats on immigration, but nothing else — is insufficient?

Obviously, what needs to happen is that many who have continued to vote for the GOP out of habit or support for one specific issue need to realize that they are beginning to actively harm the country by empowering an insane and dysfunctional party.  The GOP needs to be punished at the ballot box for its wrong headed policies.