A Quick Glance at Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Residing in Seattle, Washington, Noah Genatossio graduated with a bachelor’s degree with an emphasis in political science from the University of Washington and then went to work in politics. He served as a campaign intern for Bill Bryant and later a congressional intern for U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Noah Genatossio is especially interested in foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers serves as Washington State’s current 5th Congressional District representative. Originally from Salem, Oregon, McMorris Rodgers first got into politics in 1994 and has worked her way up into the U.S. House of Representatives. There was some speculation in 2016 that former president Donald Trump was considering McMorris Rodgers to be the nation’s next Secretary of Interior, but he ended up selecting Ryan Zinke, a congressman from Montana.

While in office, McMorris Rodgers’ top priorities are providing the best healthcare and benefits to America’s veterans, better support for people with disabilities, and developing a clean renewable energy solution that is innovative and affordable for Americans.

States Watch Political Parties to Determine Self-Direction

 Noah Genatossio, a resident of Seattle, Washington, is a graduate of the University of Washington (UW).

In August 2022, a Seattle Times article discussed a shift in the rationale for how states make legal/legislative decisions. The discussion was a part of a book UW professor Jake Grumbach wrote regarding this change.

Previously, states looked to other states for precedence to create and establish policies that were designed to fit the needs of the residents. In this way, states became laboratories of democracy, as Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in his opinion about a case regarding the right of the state to tax two ice salesmen.

However, Grumbach argues that today’s federalism has exchanged this strategy for one where states look to national political parties for policy, ideology, and objective guidance. According to Grumbach, the only problem with this is that it makes the government less representative, responsive, and democratic.

The Kansas 2020 race illustrates this point. During the campaign, the Senate leader was taped promising donors to draw congressional districts to get more Republicans elected at the national level. However, he said donors first needed funding to elect more Republicans at the state level. Furthermore, 19 states passed laws making it more difficult to vote in 2021, only two of which were not Republican controlled.

This year Democrats have become more proactive in Illinois, Oregon, and Nevada by drawing their own gerrymanders to offset the work of Republicans. This is another example of how party action in one state can facilitate party action in other states.

Ultimately, this type of policy does threaten the traditional democracy practiced in the US. With pressures at the national level, state legislatures working at the ground level with residents might not be representing their interests if they are too in tune to party activity.

Holocaust Hero Saved over 600 Children

A graduate of the University of Washington, Noah Genatossio is currently a legal assistant at Colvin & Hallett in Seattle. He also served as a campaign intern for Bill Bryant for Governor and a diamond summer intern at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Additionally, Noah Genatossio is interested in history and taught Holocaust history at the Temple Beth Am in North Seattle.

The Holocaust continues to remind people of the tragedies during the second world war. Fueled by anti-semitism, which represents hostility and hatred toward Jews, Hitler killed over 10 million people because of their race and political inclinations. During these events, multiple people tried to save people from concentration camps and lived to tell the stories, one of which is Johan van Hulst. Johan van Hulst was a dutch teacher who saved over 600 Jews children during the second world war.

While serving as a teacher at the Reformed Teachers’ Training College, Johan van Hulst turned the school into an anti-Nazi resistance center. Just across the school, in a theater, the Nazis were preparing a deportation center for Jews, and Johan van Hulst managed to smuggle children from the theater with the help of his colleagues by arranging cargo transports for food. Instead of food, the teacher hid and transported children out of Amsterdam, which was German-occupied at the time.

Strategies Against Criminal Charges

A resident of Seattle, Washington, Noah Genatossio is an alumnus of the University of Washington, where he majored in political science. He currently serves as a legal assistant at Colvin & Hallett, where he helps lawyers with criminal defense. For legal professionals like Noah Genatossio, part of their research involves finding information for defense strategies.

For a person to be convicted of a crime in the US, they have to be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt; as such, one of the most common defense strategies is to establish reasonable doubt. The lawyer’s objective is to find arguments for why the prosecutor’s claims are not viable. Some approaches they use include finding errors in police evidence or questioning a witness’ credibility and intention.

Another typically used defense is the alibi. If a lawyer can find and reveal evidence that showcases the fact that their client was somewhere else, doing something else during a crime, there is no basis upon which to accuse them. As such, all criminal charges are withdrawn.

Depending on the offense and the individual’s medical history, a lawyer may also consider an insanity plea. This is an option only when the defendant can produce psychiatric records that indicate that their actions were a result of not being able to tell right from wrong. If the court accepts this defense, the defendant does not receive jail time; instead, they undergo treatment at a psychiatric facility.