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Tag: Constitutions

  • North Korean leader urges greater nuclear weapons production in response to a ‘new Cold War’

    North Korean leader urges greater nuclear weapons production in response to a ‘new Cold War’

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    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an exponential increase in production of nuclear weapons and for his country to play a larger role in a coalition of nations confronting the United States in a “new Cold War,” state media said Thursday.

    The Korean Central News Agency said Kim made the comments during a two-day session of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament which amended the constitution to include his policy of expanding the country’s nuclear weapons program.

    The Supreme People’s Assembly’s session on Tuesday and Wednesday came after Kim traveled to Russia’s Far East this month to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and visit military and technology sites.

    The trip sparked Western concerns about a possible arms alliance in which North Korea would supply Putin with badly needed munitions to fuel his war on Ukraine in exchange for economic aid and advanced Russian technologies to enhance North Korea’s nuclear and missile systems.

    As North Korea slowly ends its pandemic lockdown, Kim has been actively boosting his partnerships with Moscow and Beijing as he attempts to break out of diplomatic isolation and join a united front against Washington. He has described the world as entering a “new Cold War” and that North Korea should advance its nuclear capabilities in response.

    KCNA’s reports on Kim’s comments came a day after North Korea c onfirmed the release of U.S. Army Pvt. Travis King, who is now being flown back to America, two months after he sprinted across the heavily fortified border into the North.

    King’s relatively swift expulsion defied speculation that North Korea might drag out his detention to squeeze concessions from the United States, and possibly reflected the North’s disinterest in diplomacy with Washington.

    KCNA said members of the assembly gave unanimous approval to a new clause in the constitution to “ensure the country’s right to existence and development, deter war and protect regional and global peace by rapidly developing nuclear weapons to a higher level.”

    North Korea’s “nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything,” Kim said in a speech at the assembly. He stressed the need to “push ahead with the work for exponentially boosting the production of nuclear weapons and diversifying the nuclear strike means,” KCNA said.

    Kim pointed to what he described as a growing threat posed by a hostile United States and its expanding military cooperation with South Korea and Japan, accusing them of creating the “Asian version of NATO, the root cause of war and aggression.”

    “This is just the worst actual threat, not threatening rhetoric or an imaginary entity,” he said.

    Kim urged his diplomats to “further promote solidarity with the nations standing against the U.S. and the West’s strategy for hegemony.”

    Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest level in years as North Korea has test-fired more than 100 missiles since the start of 2022 and the U.S. has expanded its military exercises with its Asian allies, in tit-for-tat responses.

    Last year, the assembly passed a new nuclear doctrine into law which authorizes pre-emptive nuclear strikes if North Korea’s leadership is perceived as under threat.

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  • Australian PM ‘confident’ Indigenous people back having their Parliament ‘Voice’

    Australian PM ‘confident’ Indigenous people back having their Parliament ‘Voice’

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    CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s prime minister said Tuesday he was confident that Indigenous Australians overwhelmingly support a proposal to create their own representative body to advise Parliament and have it enshrined in the constitution.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s remarks came as Tiwi Islanders cast their votes on making such a constitutional change. They were among the first in early polling that began this week in remote Outback communities, many with significant Indigenous populations.

    The Oct. 14 referendum is to decide on having the so-called Indigenous Voice to Parliament enshrined in the constitution.

    “I’m certainly confident that Indigenous Australians will overwhelming be voting ‘yes’ in this referendum,” Albanese told reporters in the city of Adelaide. He said his confidence was based on opinion polling and his interactions with Indigenous people in remote Outback locations.

    He blamed disinformation and misinformation campaigns for polls showing that a majority of Australians oppose the Voice.

    Some observers argue the referendum was doomed when the major conservative opposition parties decided to oppose the Voice. Opposition lawmakers argue it would divide the nation along racial lines and create legal uncertainty because the courts might interpret the Voice’s constitutional powers in unpredictable ways.

    “What has occurred during this campaign is a lot of information being put out there — including by some who know that it is not true,” Albanese said.

    No referendum has ever passed without bipartisan support of the major political parties in the constitution’s 122-year history.

    Leading “no” campaigner Warren Mundine rejected polling commissioned by Voice-advocates that found more than 80% of Indigenous people supported the Voice. Mundine fears the Voice would be dominated by Indigenous representatives hand-picked by urban elites. He also shares many of the opposition parties’ objections to the Voice.

    “Many Aboriginals have never heard of the Voice, especially those in remote and regional Australia who are most in need,” Mundine, an Indigenous businessman and former political candidate for an opposition party, told the National Press Club.

    Indigenous Australians account for only 3.8% of the Australia’s population so are not expected to have a major impact on the result of the vote. They are also Australia’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority.

    Voice proponents hope to give them more say on government policies that effect their lives.

    In the three weeks until Oct. 14, Australian Electoral Commission teams will crisscross the country collecting votes at 750 remote outposts, some with as few as 20 voters,

    The first was the Indigenous desert community of Lajamanu, population 600, in the Northern Territory on Monday.

    Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Roger on Tuesday visited Indigenous communities on the Tiwi Islands off the Northern Territory’s coast. The islands have a population of around 2,700.

    Thousands of votes were expected to be collected Monday and Tuesday from 64 locations across the Northern Territory and the neighboring states of Western Australia and Queensland.

    Andrea Carson, a La Trobe University political scientist who is part of a team monitoring the referendum debate, said both sides were spreading misinformation and disinformation. Her team found through averaging of published polls that the “no” case led the “yes” case 58% to 42% nationally — and that the gap continues to widen.

    This is despite the “yes” campaign spending more on online advertising in recent months than the “no” campaign. The “no” campaign’s ads targeted two states regarded as most likely to vote “yes,” South Australia, where Albanese visited on Tuesday, and Tasmania.

    For a “yes” or “no” vote to win in the referendum, it needs what is known as a double majority — a simple majority of votes across the nation and also a majority of votes in a majority of states. A majority of Australian states is four out of six.

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  • Oregon judge to decide in new trial whether voter-approved gun control law is constitutional

    Oregon judge to decide in new trial whether voter-approved gun control law is constitutional

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon judge is set to decide whether a gun control law approved by voters in November violates the state’s constitution in a trial scheduled to start Monday.

    The law, one of the toughest in the nation, was among the first gun restrictions to be passed after a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year changed the guidance judges are expected to follow when considering Second Amendment cases.

    Measure 114 has been tied up in federal and state court since it was narrowly passed by voters in November 2022, casting confusion over its fate.

    The law requires people to complete a gun safety training course and undergo a criminal background check in order to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. The measure also bans high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

    Circuit Court Judge Robert S. Raschio will preside over the trial this week in Harney County, a vast rural area in southeastern Oregon. Raschio temporarily blocked the law from taking effect in December after gun owners filed a lawsuit arguing it infringed upon the right to bear arms under the Oregon Constitution.

    The Oregon measure was passed after a Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 created new standards for judges weighing gun laws and fueled a national upheaval in the legal landscape for U.S. firearm law.

    The ruling tossed aside a balancing test judges had long used to decide whether to uphold gun laws. It directed them to only consider whether a law is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation,” rather than take into account public interests like promoting public safety.

    Since then, there has been confusion about what laws can survive. Courts have overturned laws designed to keep weapons away from domestic abusers, felony defendants and marijuana users. The Supreme Court is expected to decide this fall whether some decisions have gone too far.

    In a separate federal case over the Oregon measure, a judge in July ruled it was lawful under the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut appeared to take into account the Supreme Court’s new directive to consider the history of gun regulations.

    Immergut found large-capacity magazines “are not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.” Even if they were protected, she wrote, the law’s restrictions are consistent with the country’s “history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety.”

    She also found the permit-to-purchase provision to be constitutional, noting the Second Amendment “allows governments to ensure that only law-abiding, responsible citizens keep and bear arms.”

    The plaintiffs in that federal case, which include the Oregon Firearms Federation, have appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Ten states have permit-to-purchase laws similar to the new Oregon measure: Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, according to data compiled by the Giffords Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

    Eleven states and Washington, D.C. limit large-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, Illinois and Vermont, according to the Giffords center. The bans in Illinois and Vermont apply to long guns.

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  • Mississippi should restore the voting rights of former felons, Democratic candidates say

    Mississippi should restore the voting rights of former felons, Democratic candidates say

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    JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi should stop defending a Jim Crow-era portion of its state constitution that permanently strips voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, the Democratic nominees for two statewide offices said Thursday.

    Greta Kemp Martin faces first-term Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Ty Pinkins faces first-term Republican Secretary of State Michael Watson in the Nov. 7 election.

    Kemp Martin said a panel of federal appeals judges made the correct decision Aug. 4 when they ruled that Mississippi’s ban on voting after conviction for crimes including forgery and bigamy is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    The disenfranchisement is “a continued punishment for people who have served their sentence to the state of Mississippi,” Kemp Martin said Thursday. “And they deserve the right to be able to enter their community and participate in one of our most sacred rights.”

    Fitch, who represents Watson in court, filed papers Aug. 18 asking the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the panel’s ruling and to continue allowing the permanent disenfranchisement of some residents.

    Kemp Martin said if she is elected attorney general, she will drop the request for a rehearing. If the panel’s ruling stands, tens of thousands of Mississippi residents would regain voting rights after they finish serving their sentences.

    Pinkins, appearing at a Vicksburg news conference with Kemp Martin, said regaining the right to vote is vital for people who have left prison.

    “You’re not a full citizen if you can’t exercise that fundamental right,” Pinkins said. “Secretary of State Michael Watson and Attorney General Lynn Fitch — they have been fighting so that we can’t overturn that archaic law.”

    The Associated Press sent emails to spokespeople for Fitch and Watson on Thursday, seeking response to comments by their challengers.

    The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit is widely considered one of the most conservative federal appeals courts. Fitch asked the full court — with 16 active judges — to reconsider the case, saying the 2-1 ruling by the panel conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and rulings in other circuit courts. Attorneys challenging the ban filed papers Aug. 31, disagreeing with Fitch.

    A separate lawsuit used a different argument to challenge Mississippi’s prohibition on voting by people with felony convictions — and in 2022, the 5th Circuit ruled against those plaintiffs. That lawsuit argued the lifetime disenfranchisement was designed to keep Black people out of power. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would not consider that case, allowing the ruling to stand.

    The suit that the Supreme Court declined to hear was based on arguments about equal protection. Plaintiffs said that the authors of the Mississippi Constitution in 1890 stripped voting rights for crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit, including forgery, larceny and bigamy.

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  • Missouri constitutional amendment would ban local gun laws, limit minors’ access to firearms

    Missouri constitutional amendment would ban local gun laws, limit minors’ access to firearms

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    A newly proposed constitutional amendment would prohibit St. Louis and other Missouri cities from cracking down on guns

    BySUMMER BALLENTINE Associated Press

    September 8, 2023, 6:56 PM

    COLUMBIA, Mo. — The Democratic stronghold of St. Louis and other cities in the Republican-leaning state of Missouri would be blocked from cracking down on guns under a newly proposed constitutional amendment.

    A petition for a November 2024 vote on the proposal, filed this week, also would require parents’ permission for minors to use and carry firearms. Missouri currently has no age restrictions on gun use and possession, although federal law largely prohibits minors from carrying handguns.

    The proposed measure makes exceptions to the parental permission rule in case of emergencies and for members of the military. Each branch of the military requires that people be at least 17 years old in order to enlist.

    Paul Berry, a suburban St. Louis Republican, filed the proposal with the secretary of state’s office in response to efforts by the city to sidestep the state Legislature and impose restrictions on gun use.

    “Constitutional rights should apply to all individuals of the state or the country equally, regardless of your zip code or your financial status or the style of community that you live in,” Berry said.

    St. Louis is annually among the cities with the nation’s highest homicide rates. City leaders have been trying for years to persuade Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature to enact stricter gun laws, but without success. The state has among the most lenient gun laws in the nation.

    In February, the Missouri House voted down a bipartisan proposal that would have put limits on when and where minors may carry guns. St. Louis officials renewed calls for action after one teenager was killed and 10 others were hurt at a downtown party that devolved into a shootout on June 18. Survivors ranged from ages 15 to 19.

    While Missouri lawmakers passed a law in 2014 preventing cities and counties from enacting any gun policies, another constitutional amendment filed by St. Louis advocates would work around that law by enshrining in the constitution local governments’ right to adopt their own gun rules.

    Berry is challenging those proposals in court.

    He needs to gather signatures from 8% of voters in six of the state’s eight congressional districts to get the proposals on the ballot in 2024.

    Berry, a 45-year-old businessman, also on Friday announced he is running for lieutenant governor in 2024 in a GOP primary that includes state Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder.

    Berry previously lost several bids for St. Louis County executive and the state Legislature. He failed to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner in 2022.

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  • DeSantis’ redistricting map in Florida is unconstitutional and must be redrawn, judge says

    DeSantis’ redistricting map in Florida is unconstitutional and must be redrawn, judge says

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    A Florida redistricting plan pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis violates the state constitution and is prohibited from being used for any future U.S. congressional elections since it diminishes the ability of Black voters in north Florida to pick a representative of their choice, a state judge ruled Saturday.

    Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh sent the plan back to the Florida Legislature with instructions that lawmakers should draw a new congressional map that complies with the Florida Constitution.

    The voting rights groups that challenged the plan in court “have shown that the enacted plan results in the diminishment of Black voters’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in violation of the Florida Constitution,” Marsh wrote.

    The decision was the latest to strike down new congressional maps in Southern states over concerns that they diluted Black voting power.

    In June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Republican-drawn map in Alabama, with two conservative justices joining liberals in rejecting the effort to weaken a landmark voting rights law. Not long after that, the Supreme Court lifted its hold on a Louisiana political remap case, increasing the likelihood that the Republican-dominated state will have to redraw boundary lines to create a second mostly Black congressional district.

    In each of the cases, Republicans have either appealed or vowed to appeal the decisions since they could benefit Democratic congressional candidates facing 2024 races under redrawn maps. The Florida case likely will end up before the Florida Supreme Court.

    Every 10 years — following a once-a-decade census — lawmakers in all 50 states, including Florida, redraw political boundaries.

    DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, was criticized for essentially drawing Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, who is Black, out of office by carving up his district and dividing a large number of Black voters into conservative districts represented by white Republicans.

    In an unprecedented move, DeSantis interjected himself into the redistricting process last year by vetoing the Republican-dominated Legislature’s map that preserved Lawson’s district. He called a special session, submitted his own map and demanded lawmakers accept it.

    In their lawsuit, the voting rights groups claimed the redrawn congressional map violated state and federal voting rights protections for Black voters.

    Florida’s population of 22.2 million is 17% Black. Under the new maps, an area stretching about 360 miles (579 kilometers) from the Alabama border to the Atlantic Ocean and south from the Georgia border to Orlando in central Florida is only represented by white members of Congress.

    The Florida judge rejected defense arguments from Republican lawmakers that the state’s provision against weakening or eliminating minority-dominant districts violated the U.S. Constitution.

    Marsh wrote: “The court finds that defendants have not satisfied their burden in this case.”

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    Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

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  • A central Kansas police force comes under constitutional criticism after raiding a newspaper

    A central Kansas police force comes under constitutional criticism after raiding a newspaper

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    MARION, Kan. — A small newspaper and a police department in Kansas are at the center of a dispute over freedom of speech that is being watched around the country after police raided the office of the local newspaper and the home of its owner and publisher.

    Officials with the Marion Police Department confiscated computers and cellphones from the publisher and staff of the Marion County Record in the Friday raid, prompting press freedom watchdogs to condemn the actions of local authorities as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s protection for a free press. The police searches were apparently prompted by a complaint from a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, who accused the newspaper of invading her privacy after it obtained copies of her driving record, which included a 2008 conviction for drunk driving.

    Newspaper publisher and co-owner Eric Meyer maintains that the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and Police Chief Gideon Cody’s record are the main reason for the raids. Newell says the newspaper targeted her after she ordered Meyer and a reporter out of her restaurant earlier this month during a political event.

    “This is the type of stuff that, you know, that Vladimir Putin does, that Third World dictators do,” Meyer said during an interview with The Associated Press in his office.

    Cody said Sunday that the raid was legal and tied to a criminal investigation.

    The raids occurred in a town of about 1,900 people, nestled among rolling prairie hills, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, making the small weekly newspaper the latest to find itself in the headlines and possibly targeted for its reporting.

    Last year in New Hampshire, the publisher of a weekly newspaper accused the state attorney general’s office of government overreach after she was arrested for allegedly publishing advertisements for local races without properly marking them as political advertising. In Las Vegas, former Democratic elected official Robert Telles is scheduled to face trial in November for allegedly fatally stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German after German wrote articles critical of Telles and his managerial conduct.

    Meyer said one Record reporter hurt her finger when Cody wrested her cellphone out of her hand during the raid of the newspaper. The newspaper’s surveillance video showed officers reading that reporter her rights while Cody watched, though she wasn’t arrested or detained. Newspaper employees were hustled out of the building while the search continued for more than 90 minutes, according to the footage.

    Meanwhile, Meyer said, police simultaneously raided his home, seizing computers, his cellphone and the home’s internet router. He worked with his staff Sunday to reconstruct stories, ads and other materials for its next edition Wednesday.

    Both Meyer and Newell have said they’ve fielded messages — and some threats — from as far away as London in the aftermath of the raids.

    Newell said she threw Meyer and the reporter out of the event for Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner at the request of others who are upset with the “toxic” newspaper. On the town’s main street, one storefront included a handmade “Support Marion PD” sign.”

    LaTurner’s office has not returned phone messages left since Sunday at his Washington and district offices seeking comment.

    While Newell accused the newspaper of unlawfully seeking information on the status of her driver’s license, the newspaper countered that it received that information unsolicited, which it verified through public online records. It eventually decided not to run a story because it wasn’t sure the source who supplied it had obtained it legally. But the newspaper did run a story on the city council meeting, in which Newell herself confirmed she’d had a DUI conviction and that she had continued to drive even after her license was suspended.

    A two-page search warrant, signed by a local judge, lists Newell as the victim of alleged crimes by the newspaper. When the newspaper asked for a copy of the probable cause affidavit required by law to issue a search warrant, the district court issued a signed statement saying no such affidavit was on file, the Record reported.

    Cody, the police chief, indicated that probable cause affidavits were used to get the search warrants. When asked for a copy, Cody replied in an email late Sunday that the affidavits would be available “once charges are filed.”

    Cody defended the raid on the newsroom, saying there is an exception to the federal requirement for a subpoena — not just a search warrant — to do so “when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.”

    Cody, who was hired in late April as Marion’s police chief after serving 24 years in the Kansas City police, did not give details about what that alleged wrongdoing entailed and did not respond to questions about how police believe Newell was victimized.

    Press freedom and civil rights organizations have said that police overstepped their authority with the raids.

    Both Meyer and Newell are contemplating lawsuits — Newell against the newspaper and Meyer against the public officials who staged the raid.

    Meyer also blames the home raid for stressing his 98-year-old mother enough to cause her death on Saturday. Joan Meyer was the newspaper’s co-owner.

    As for the criticism of the raid as a violation of First Amendment rights, Newell said her privacy rights were violated, and they are “just as important as anybody else’s.”

    ——-

    Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ___

    Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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  • A central Kansas police force comes under constitutional criticism after raiding a newspaper

    A central Kansas police force comes under constitutional criticism after raiding a newspaper

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    MARION, Kan. — A small central Kansas police department is facing a torrent of criticism for raiding a local newspaper’s office and the home of its owner and publisher, seizing computers and cellphones, and, in the publisher’s view, stressing his 98-year-old mother enough to cause her weekend death.

    Several press freedom watchdogs condemned the Marion Police Department’s actions as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s protection for a free press. The Marion County Record’s editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, worked with his staff Sunday to reconstruct stories, ads and other materials for its next edition Wednesday, even as he took time in the afternoon to provide a local funeral home with information about his mother, Joan, the paper’s co-owner.

    A search warrant tied Friday morning raids, led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell. She is accusing the newspaper of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record and suggested that the newspaper targeted her after she threw Meyer and a reporter out of restaurant during a political event.

    While Meyer saw Newell’s complaints — which he said were untrue — as prompting the raids, he also believes the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role. He said the newspaper was examining Cody’s past work with the Kansas City, Missouri, police as well.

    “This is the type of stuff that, you know, that Vladimir Putin does, that Third World dictators do,” Meyer said during an interview in his office. “This is Gestapo tactics from World War II.”

    Cody said Sunday that the raid was legal and tied to an investigation.

    The raids occurred in a town of about 1,900 people, nestled among rolling prairie hills, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, making the small weekly newspaper the latest to find itself in the headlines and possibly targeted for its reporting.

    Last year in New Hampshire, the publisher of a weekly newspaper accused the state attorney general’s office of government overreach after she was arrested for allegedly publishing advertisements for local races without properly marking them as political advertising. In Las Vegas, former Democratic elected official Robert Telles is scheduled to face trial in November for allegedly fatally stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German after German wrote articles critical of Telles and his managerial conduct.

    Meyer said that on Friday, one Record reporter suffered an injury to a finger when Cody wrested her cellphone out of her hand, according to the report. The newspaper’s surveillance video showed officers reading that reporter her rights while Cody watched, though she wasn’t arrested or detained. Newspaper employees were hustled out of the building while the search continued for more than 90 minutes, according to the footage.

    Meanwhile, Meyer said, police simultaneously raided his home, seizing computers, his cellphone and the home’s internet router.

    But as Meyer fielded messages from reporters and editors as far away as London and reviewed footage from the newsroom’s surveillance camera, Newell was receiving death threats from as far away, she said. She said the Record engages in “tabloid trash reporting” and was trying to hush her up.

    “I fully believe that the intent was to do harm and merely tarnish my reputation, and I think if had it been left at that, I don’t think that it would have blown up as big as it was,” Newell said in a telephone interview.

    Newell said she threw Meyer and the Record reporter out of the event for Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner at the request of others who are upset with the “toxic” newspaper. On the town’s main street, one storefront included a handmade “Support Marion PD” sign.”

    The police chief and other officials also attended and were acknowledged at the reception, and the Marion Police Department highlighted the event on its Facebook page.

    LaTurner’s office did not immediately return phone messages left Sunday at his Washington and district offices seeking comment.

    Newell said she believes the newspaper violated the law to get her personal information as it checked on the status of her driver’s license following a 2008 drunken driving conviction and other driving violations.

    The newspaper countered that it received that information unsolicited, which it verified through public online records. It eventually decided not to run a story because it wasn’t sure the source who supplied it had obtained it legally. But the newspaper did run a story on the city council meeting, in which Newell herself confirmed she’d had a DUI conviction and that she had continued to drive even after her license was suspended.

    A two-page search warrant, signed by a local judge, lists Newell as the victim of alleged crimes by the newspaper. When the newspaper asked for a copy of the probable cause affidavit required by law to issue a search warrant, the district court issued a signed statement saying no such affidavit was on file, the Record reported.

    Cody, the police chief, defended the raid on Sunday, saying in an email to The Associated Press that while federal law usually requires a subpoena — not just a search warrant — to raid a newsroom, there is an exception “when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.”

    Cody did not give details about what that alleged wrongdoing entailed.

    Cody, who was hired in late April as Marion’s police chief after serving 24 years in the Kansas City police, did not respond to questions about whether police filed a probable cause affidavit for the search warrant. He also did not answer questions about how police believe Newell was victimized.

    Press freedom and civil rights organizations said that police, the local prosecutor’s office and the judge who signed off on the search warrant overstepped their authority.

    “It seems like one of the most aggressive police raids of a news organization or entity in quite some time,” said Sharon Brett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, adding that it seemed “quite an alarming abuse of authority.”

    Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that the raid appeared to have violated federal law, the First Amendment, “and basic human decency.”

    “The anti-press rhetoric that’s become so pervasive in this country has become more than just talk and is creating a dangerous environment for journalists trying to do their jobs,” Stern said.

    Meyer said he has been flooded with offers of help from press freedom groups and other news organizations. But he said what he and his staff need is more hours in the day to get their next edition put together.

    Both he and Newell are contemplating lawsuits — Newell against the newspaper and Meyer against the public officials who staged the raid.

    As for the criticism of the raid as a violation of First Amendment rights, Newell said her privacy rights were violated, and they are “just as important as anybody else’s.”

    ——-

    Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ___

    Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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  • Lawsuit targets Wisconsin legislative districts resembling Swiss cheese

    Lawsuit targets Wisconsin legislative districts resembling Swiss cheese

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    MADISON, Wis. — If Wisconsin state Rep. Jimmy Anderson wants to visit residents in some of the northern neighborhoods he represents, he first must leave his own district — twice.

    From his Fitchburg home in suburban Madison, Anderson must exit his 47th Assembly District, pass through the 77th District, reenter the 47th District, then head north through the 48th District to finally reach a cluster of homes assigned like a remote outpost to his district.

    Unusual? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes.

    Unconstitutional? Perhaps.

    Though the Wisconsin Constitution requires legislative districts “to consist of contiguous territory,” many nonetheless contain sections of land that are not actually connected. The resulting map looks a bit like Swiss cheese, where some districts are dotted with small neighborhood holes assigned to different representatives.

    Wisconsin’s nationally peculiar practice of detached districts is cited as one of several alleged violations in a recent lawsuit seeking to strike down current Assembly and Senate districts and replace them before the 2024 election.

    Like similar cases in states ranging from North Carolina to Utah, the Wisconsin lawsuit also alleges partisan gerrymandering is illegal under the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and free speech.

    Though such claims have had mixed results nationally, Democrats hope the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s new liberal majority will deliver a resounding rejection of gerrymandering that has given Republicans a lopsided legislative majority.

    But the challenge to noncontiguous districts could provide judges a way to decide the case without ever addressing whether partisan gerrymandering is illegal.

    “It could be that this gives the court a completely neutral basis for deciding the maps are no good,” said Kenneth R. Mayer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

    Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most tilted nationally, with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote, according to an Associated Press analysis. In other states, such as Nevada, Democrats have reaped a disproportionate advantage from redistricting.

    Most states are guided by at least four traditional principles for reshaping state legislative districts after each decennial census. Those include districts being nearly equal in population, compact and contiguous and following the boundaries of cities and counties. “Contiguous” generally is understood to mean all parts of a district are connected, with some logical exceptions for islands.

    In some states, mapmakers have gotten creative by using narrow strips of roads or rivers to connect otherwise distinct parts of a district. But few have gone so far as Wisconsin in treating contiguous as a loose synonym for “nearby.”

    Wisconsin’s detached districts are ”profoundly weird,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Marymount University Law School in Los Angeles who created the All About Redistricting website.

    Anderson’s legislative district, for example, includes more than a dozen remote territories scattered around the Madison area that are disconnected from the district’s main portion in Fitchburg, McFarland and Monona. That makes door-to-door canvassing particularly challenging for Anderson, who uses a wheelchair that must be repeatedly loaded and unloaded from a van.

    The situation also is confusing for his remote constituents whose neighbors are represented by someone else, Anderson said.

    “It just doesn’t serve the people that live in those little bubbles to not have the same kind of community cohesion and interests being represented,” he said.

    Gabrielle Young, 46, lives in one of the “land islands” Anderson represents. But until she was contacted by lawyers filing the redistricting lawsuit, Young said she had no idea Anderson had to travel through another district to campaign in her neighborhood. Young agreed to serve as a plaintiff in the lawsuit alleging the disconnected districts violate the state constitution.

    “I could have gone the rest of my life living here not realizing it was happening, but that doesn’t make it OK,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

    Among other things, the lawsuit cites an 1892 case in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court stated districts “cannot be made up of two or more pieces of detached territory.” Yet the practice proliferated over time, with 55 of the 99 Assembly districts and 21 of the 33 Senate districts now composed of disconnected portions, according to the lawsuit.

    “Clearly, at some point, things sort of went awry,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that helped bring the lawsuit.

    “It seems pretty clear to me that you have to enforce the words as they are written,” Gaber added.

    That has not always been the case.

    In 1992, a federal judicial panel considering a Wisconsin redistricting lawsuit essentially endorsed detached legislative districts. Wisconsin’s Democratic-led Legislature and Republican governor had failed to agree on new districts following the 1990 census. The court was left to pick among various plans submitted by the parties. Republican plans proposed districts with literal contiguity, but the judges opted for a Democratic approach that did not.

    The federal judges said legislative districts containing disconnected “islands” of land were similar to towns that had been legally permitted to annex noncontiguous areas.

    “Since the distance between town and island is slight, we do not think the failure of the legislative plan to achieve literal contiguity a serious demerit,” the judges wrote in 1992.

    The political roles are reversed 30 years later. Republicans, who now control the Legislature, proposed Assembly and Senate maps with disconnected districts that the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted last year. Democrats, who control the governor’s office, are backing the legal challenge.

    “The districts are constitutional because they are legally contiguous,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement to The Associated Press alluding to prior court rulings. He declined further comment.

    Though contiguity requirements have a long national history in redistricting, they have not always been explicitly defined, thus leaving room for interpretation, said Micah Altman, a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose specialties include redistricting.

    Criteria such as contiguous and compact districts must be balanced with other principles, such as distributing the population equally and not splitting municipalities and counties among districts, he said.

    “Turning one knob on the system makes you have to turn down the other knob at least a bit,” Altman said.

    In the case of Anderson’s district, the disconnected sections likely have not made much difference in the partisan composition of his voters. Anderson is a Democrat, and so are the majority of Madison-area voters.

    But redistricting experts say there still is potential for politicians to rig the map to their favor by drawing remote sections of districts.

    “When you allow mapmakers to draw districts that are noncontiguous, you give them even more flexibility to perpetrate abuse,” Levitt said.

    ___

    Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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  • Lawsuit targets Wisconsin legislative districts resembling Swiss cheese

    Lawsuit targets Wisconsin legislative districts resembling Swiss cheese

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    MADISON, Wis. — If Wisconsin state Rep. Jimmy Anderson wants to visit residents in some of the northern neighborhoods he represents, he first must leave his own district — twice.

    From his Fitchburg home in suburban Madison, Anderson must exit his 47th Assembly District, pass through the 77th District, reenter the 47th District, then head north through the 48th District to finally reach a cluster of homes assigned like a remote outpost to his district.

    Unusual? Yes. Inconvenient? Yes.

    Unconstitutional? Perhaps.

    Though the Wisconsin Constitution requires legislative districts “to consist of contiguous territory,” many nonetheless contain sections of land that are not actually connected. The resulting map looks a bit like Swiss cheese, where some districts are dotted with small neighborhood holes assigned to different representatives.

    Wisconsin’s nationally peculiar practice of detached districts is cited as one of several alleged violations in a recent lawsuit seeking to strike down current Assembly and Senate districts and replace them before the 2024 election.

    Like similar cases in states ranging from North Carolina to Utah, the Wisconsin lawsuit also alleges partisan gerrymandering is illegal under the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and free speech.

    Though such claims have had mixed results nationally, Democrats hope the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s new liberal majority will deliver a resounding rejection of gerrymandering that has given Republicans a lopsided legislative majority.

    But the challenge to noncontiguous districts could provide judges a way to decide the case without ever addressing whether partisan gerrymandering is illegal.

    “It could be that this gives the court a completely neutral basis for deciding the maps are no good,” said Kenneth R. Mayer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

    Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most tilted nationally, with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote, according to an Associated Press analysis. In other states, such as Nevada, Democrats have reaped a disproportionate advantage from redistricting.

    Most states are guided by at least four traditional principles for reshaping state legislative districts after each decennial census. Those include districts being nearly equal in population, compact and contiguous and following the boundaries of cities and counties. “Contiguous” generally is understood to mean all parts of a district are connected, with some logical exceptions for islands.

    In some states, mapmakers have gotten creative by using narrow strips of roads or rivers to connect otherwise distinct parts of a district. But few have gone so far as Wisconsin in treating contiguous as a loose synonym for “nearby.”

    Wisconsin’s detached districts are ”profoundly weird,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Marymount University Law School in Los Angeles who created the All About Redistricting website.

    Anderson’s legislative district, for example, includes more than a dozen remote territories scattered around the Madison area that are disconnected from the district’s main portion in Fitchburg, McFarland and Monona. That makes door-to-door canvassing particularly challenging for Anderson, who uses a wheelchair that must be repeatedly loaded and unloaded from a van.

    The situation also is confusing for his remote constituents whose neighbors are represented by someone else, Anderson said.

    “It just doesn’t serve the people that live in those little bubbles to not have the same kind of community cohesion and interests being represented,” he said.

    Gabrielle Young, 46, lives in one of the “land islands” Anderson represents. But until she was contacted by lawyers filing the redistricting lawsuit, Young said she had no idea Anderson had to travel through another district to campaign in her neighborhood. Young agreed to serve as a plaintiff in the lawsuit alleging the disconnected districts violate the state constitution.

    “I could have gone the rest of my life living here not realizing it was happening, but that doesn’t make it OK,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

    Among other things, the lawsuit cites an 1892 case in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court stated districts “cannot be made up of two or more pieces of detached territory.” Yet the practice proliferated over time, with 55 of the 99 Assembly districts and 21 of the 33 Senate districts now composed of disconnected portions, according to the lawsuit.

    “Clearly, at some point, things sort of went awry,” said Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that helped bring the lawsuit.

    “It seems pretty clear to me that you have to enforce the words as they are written,” Gaber added.

    That has not always been the case.

    In 1992, a federal judicial panel considering a Wisconsin redistricting lawsuit essentially endorsed detached legislative districts. Wisconsin’s Democratic-led Legislature and Republican governor had failed to agree on new districts following the 1990 census. The court was left to pick among various plans submitted by the parties. Republican plans proposed districts with literal contiguity, but the judges opted for a Democratic approach that did not.

    The federal judges said legislative districts containing disconnected “islands” of land were similar to towns that had been legally permitted to annex noncontiguous areas.

    “Since the distance between town and island is slight, we do not think the failure of the legislative plan to achieve literal contiguity a serious demerit,” the judges wrote in 1992.

    The political roles are reversed 30 years later. Republicans, who now control the Legislature, proposed Assembly and Senate maps with disconnected districts that the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted last year. Democrats, who control the governor’s office, are backing the legal challenge.

    “The districts are constitutional because they are legally contiguous,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement to The Associated Press alluding to prior court rulings. He declined further comment.

    Though contiguity requirements have a long national history in redistricting, they have not always been explicitly defined, thus leaving room for interpretation, said Micah Altman, a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose specialties include redistricting.

    Criteria such as contiguous and compact districts must be balanced with other principles, such as distributing the population equally and not splitting municipalities and counties among districts, he said.

    “Turning one knob on the system makes you have to turn down the other knob at least a bit,” Altman said.

    In the case of Anderson’s district, the disconnected sections likely have not made much difference in the partisan composition of his voters. Anderson is a Democrat, and so are the majority of Madison-area voters.

    But redistricting experts say there still is potential for politicians to rig the map to their favor by drawing remote sections of districts.

    “When you allow mapmakers to draw districts that are noncontiguous, you give them even more flexibility to perpetrate abuse,” Levitt said.

    ___

    Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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  • The failed Ohio amendment reflects Republican efforts nationally to restrict direct democracy

    The failed Ohio amendment reflects Republican efforts nationally to restrict direct democracy

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — After Ohio voters repealed a law pushed by Republicans that would have limited unions’ collective bargaining rights in 2011, then-GOP Gov. John Kasich was contrite.

    “I’ve heard their voices, I understand their decision and, frankly, I respect what people have to say in an effort like this,” he told reporters after the defeat.

    The tone from Ohio Republicans was much different this past week after voters resoundingly rejected their attempt to impose hurdles on passing amendments to the state constitution — a proposal that would have made it much more difficult to pass an abortion rights measure in November.

    During an election night news conference, Republican Senate President Matt Huffman vowed to use the powers of his legislative supermajority to bring the issue back soon, variously blaming out-of-state dark money, unsupportive fellow Republicans, a lack of time and the issue’s complexity for its failure.

    He never mentioned respecting the will of the 57% of Ohio voters across both Democratic and Republican counties who voted “no” on the Republican proposal.

    The striking contrast illustrates an increasing antagonism among elected Republicans across the country toward the nation’s purest form of direct democracy — the citizen-initiated ballot measure — as it threatens their lock on power in states where they control the legislature.

    Historically, attempts to undercut the citizen ballot initiative process have come from both parties, said Daniel A. Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida.

    “It has to do with which party is in monopolistic control of state legislatures and the governorship,” he said. “When you have that monopoly of power, you want to restrict the voice of a statewide electorate that might go against your efforts to control the process.”

    According to a recent report by the nonpartisan Fairness Project, Ohio and five other states where Republicans control the legislature — Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri and North Dakota — have either passed, attempted to pass or are currently working to pass expanded supermajority requirements for voters to approve statewide ballot measures.

    At least six states, including Ohio, have sought to increase the number of counties where signatures must be gathered.

    The group found that at least six of the 24 states that allow ballot initiatives have prohibited out-of-state petition circulators and nine have prohibited paid circulators altogether, the group reports.

    Eighteen states have required circulators to swear oaths that they’ve seen every signature put to paper. Arkansas has imposed background checks on circulators. South Dakota has dictated such a large font size on petitions that it makes circulating them cumbersome.

    Sarah Walker, policy and legal advocacy director for the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, said Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere are restricting the ballot initiative process in an era of renewed populism that’s not going their way. She said conservatives had no interest in amending the ballot initiative process when they were winning campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s.

    “Since then, you’ve seen left-leaning organizations really developing their organizational skills and starting to win,” she said. “The reason given for restricting the ballot initiative is often to insulate the state from outside special interests. But if lawmakers are interested in limiting that, there are things they can do legislatively to restrict those groups, and I don’t see them having any interest in doing that.”

    Aggressive stances by Republican supermajorities at the Ohio Statehouse — including supporting one of the nation’s most stringent abortion bans, refusing to pass many of a GOP governor’s proposed gun control measures in the face of a deadly mass shooting, and repeatedly producing unconstitutional political maps — have motivated would-be reformers.

    That prompted an influential mix of Republican politicians, anti-abortion and gun rights organizations and business interests in the state to push forward with Tuesday’s failed amendment, which would have raised the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority to a 60% supermajority.

    Another example is Missouri, where Republicans plan to try again to raise the threshold to amend that state’s constitution during the legislative session that begins in 2024 — after earlier efforts have failed.

    Those plans come in a state where state lawmakers refused to fund a Medicaid expansion approved by voters until forced to by a court order, and where voters enshrined marijuana in the constitution last fall after lawmakers failed to. An abortion rights question is headed to Missouri’s 2024 ballot.

    Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is among Republicans in the state who cast Issue 1 as a fight against out-of-state special interests, although both sides of the campaign were heavily funded by such groups.

    He called the $20 million special election “only one battle in a long war.”

    “Unfortunately,” he said, “we were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant ‘for sale’ sign still hangs on Ohio’s constitution,” said LaRose, who is running for U.S. Senate in 2024.

    Fairness Project Executive Director Kelly Hall said Ohio Republicans’ promise to come back with another attempt to restrict the initiative process “says more about representational democracy than it does about direct democracy.”

    She rejected the narrative that out-of-state special interests are using the avenue of direct democracy to force unpopular policies into state constitutions, arguing corporate influence is far greater on state lawmakers.

    “The least out-of-state venue is direct democracy, because then millions of Ohioans are participating, not just the several dozen who are receiving campaign contributions from corporate PACs, who are receiving perks and meetings and around-the-clock influence from corporate PACs,” she said.

    “Ballot measures enable issues that matter to working families to actually get on the agenda in a state, rather than the agenda being set by those who can afford lobbyists and campaign contributions.”

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  • Proposed constitutional change before Ohio voters could determine abortion rights in the state

    Proposed constitutional change before Ohio voters could determine abortion rights in the state

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio concludes a hastily called and highly charged special election Tuesday, a contest that could determine the fate of abortion rights in the state and fuel political playbooks nationally heading into 2024.

    On the ballot is Issue 1, a proposal to raise the threshold for passing future changes to the state’s constitution from a simple majority to 60%. But more passionately in the sights of the proposal’s backers — including Republican officeholders — is a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that calls for enshrining access to reproductive care in the state’s foundational document.

    The measure was clearly resonating with voters, who turned out in huge numbers during the early voting period, which ended Sunday. The number of advance ballots cast — a combination of mail and early in-person ballots — hit nearly 700,000, more than double the early vote during the state’s two previous midterm primary elections in 2022 and 2018.

    Ohio’s August elections have historically focused on local issues and been plagued with chronically low turnout.

    The Republican lawmakers who backed Issue 1 maintained that the measure was not about thwarting the fall abortion amendment, despite reinstating an August special election just like the ones they had only recently voted to eliminate.

    Raising the bar for passing citizen-led constitutional amendments could make it difficult, if not impossible, for the fall proposal to succeed, based on polling figures. Voters in several states, even deeply conservative ones, have affirmed abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, though usually with less than 60% of the vote.

    AP VoteCast polling last year found that 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal.

    Out-of-state money has poured into both sides of the contest over the 60% threshold, even as both supporters and opponents say one of their main goals is to keep special interests from having more influence over state policy than average Ohioans.

    The campaign in favor of Issue 1, Protect Our Constitution, has told voters that raising the threshold will keep deep-pocketed interest groups from pushing redistricting, gun control and minimum wage policies on Ohio. One Person One Vote, the opposition campaign, argues that raising the threshold for passing future amendments would prioritize the interests of Ohio’s increasingly conservative GOP supermajority at the statehouse over those of everyday voters.

    But abortion rights are at the epicenter of the fight, as Ohio and other states have been given control of their own abortion policies following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last summer. Ohio’s ban on most abortions had been placed on hold under Roe and then allowed to take effect briefly after the court overturned it. Since then, it has been frozen again while a challenge alleging it violates the state constitution plays out.

    The abortion amendment would give individuals the right to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including on contraception, fertility treatment, abortion and miscarriage care, until a fetus is viable outside the womb.

    At the same time, a broad bipartisan coalition opposes Issue 1 for other reasons. Former Ohio governors and attorneys general of both parties have come out against the constitutional change, calling it poor public policy. If passed it would reverse 111 years of direct democracy that has the potential to affect future citizen-led ballot efforts.

    Protect Women Ohio, the campaign against the fall abortion question, has spent millions on the August election — airing ads suggesting the measure not only codifies abortion, but could pressure children into receiving gender-affirming care and undercut parental rights.

    Several legal experts have said there is no language in the amendment supporting the ads’ claims, but it follows a pattern through this election cycle of misinformation and fear-mongering being used to sway voters.

    Issue 1 opponents have aired ads and mobilized a large coalition, including voting rights, labor, faith and community groups, as well as the state Democratic Party.

    It was because of chronically low turnout that lawmakers voted just last year to scrap summer elections, prompting an unsuccessful lawsuit alleging this year’s August special election violated the new law and calling further into question if it was brought back solely to thwart abortion rights for Ohioans.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ___

    Samantha Hendrickson is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Ohio voters will decide on abortion access in November ballot

    Ohio voters will decide on abortion access in November ballot

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio voters will have the opportunity this fall to decide whether to guarantee access to abortion in the state, setting up a volatile fight rife with emotional messaging and competing factual claims.

    State officials said Tuesday that a ballot measure to change the state constitution had enough signatures. It would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.” In language similar to a constitutional amendment that Michigan voters approved last November, it would require restrictions imposed past a fetus’ viability outside the womb, which is typically around the 24th week of pregnancy and was the standard under Roe v. Wade, to be based on evidence of patient health and safety benefits.

    “Every person deserves respect, dignity, and the right to make reproductive health care decisions, including those related to their own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion free from government interference,” Lauren Blauvelt and Dr. Lauren Beene, executive committee members for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

    Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose determined that Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights submitted nearly 496,000 valid signatures, more than the 413,446 needed to put the question before voters on Nov. 7. The coalition submitted more than 700,000 signatures in total.

    It remains to be seen what percentage of the Ohio electorate needs to support the amendment for it to pass. That will depend on the outcome of an Aug. 8 special election called by Statehouse Republicans to determine whether to raise the threshold for passing future constitutional changes from a simple majority in place since 1912 to a 60% supermajority. AP VoteCast polling last year found 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal.

    The August ballot measure also would eliminate the 10-day curing period when citizen-led campaigns may submit additional signatures if they fall short the first time, and increase the number of counties where signatures must be collected from 44 to all 88. But those provisions would come too late to impact the abortion issue, which has already faced both legal and administrative hurdles to now be poised for a vote.

    Abortion remains legal in the state up to 20 weeks’ gestation, under a judge’s order issued in a lawsuit challenging a ban once cardiac activity can be detected, or around six weeks into pregnancy, which is before many women even know they are pregnant. The Republican attorney general has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the stay.

    Ohio’s anti-abortion network has signaled it is ready to fight the November proposal, vowing a vehement and well-funded opposition campaign.

    Opponents of the measure have advanced an argument that, because the amendment protects “individuals,” it has the potential to trump Ohio’s parental consent laws around abortion. The proposal’s authors reject that legal theory. Opponents have also suggested in advertisements that the measure would open the door to gender transitioning surgeries for all ages, matching national political messaging that experts deem misleading.

    Amy Natoce, press secretary for Protect Ohio Women, the official opposition campaign, said the group will “continue to shine a light on the ACLU’s disastrous agenda until it is defeated in November.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is on the November campaign’s executive committee and serves as part of Ohioans United For Reproductive Rights’ legal team.

    “Ohioans are waking up to the dangers of the ACLU’s anti-parent amendment and they are terrified — and rightfully so,” she said in a statement.

    The proposal joins others around the nation that have been motivated by last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion it once protected, leaving abortion policy to individual states.

    In the first statewide test following that decision, Kansas voters resoundingly protected abortion rights last August. In November, five other states — California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont — either enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions or rejected constitutional restrictions on the procedure.

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  • Maine aims to restore 19th century tribal obligations to its constitution. Voters will make the call

    Maine aims to restore 19th century tribal obligations to its constitution. Voters will make the call

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    Voters in Maine will likely be the ones to decide whether to restore long removed language about the state’s obligations to Native American tribes to printed versions of its constitution

    ByPATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press

    FILE – Clarissa Sabattis, Chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseets, foreground, and other leaders of Maine’s tribes are welcomed by lawmakers into the House Chamber in this March 16, 2023 file photo, at the State House in Augusta, Maine. Voters in Maine will likely be the ones to decide whether to restore long removed language about the state’s obligations to Native American tribes to printed versions of its constitution. The Maine Legislature is poised to give its final approval on Tuesday, July 25 to a proposal to restore the language that requires Maine to honor treaties the state inherited from Massachusetts when it became its own state more than two centuries ago. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, files)

    The Associated Press

    PORTLAND, Maine — Voters in Maine will likely be the ones to decide whether to restore long removed language about the state’s obligations to Native American tribes to printed versions of its constitution.

    The Maine Legislature is poised to give its final approval on Tuesday to a proposal to restore the language that requires Maine to honor treaties the state inherited from Massachusetts when it became its own state more than two centuries ago. The language has always applied, but was removed from printed versions of the constitution in 1876.

    Statewide voters would have to approve of the change to the constitution for it to take place. The date of the referendum has not yet been set.

    The restoration of the language to the printed constitution would improve transparency and illuminate Maine’s debts to Native American tribes, said Democratic House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross. The language is not in the official online version of the Maine Constitution either, though it can be read elsewhere, such as in the Maine State Library.

    “For decades, the history of the state’s treatment of the Wabanaki people has been concealed and disregarded – even in our most formal and guiding documents,” Ross said. “Transparency is critical to truly have an elected government that decides on how we live, what the norms of our society are, and ultimately who gets to participate.”

    Lawmakers easily approved the proposal earlier in the legislative session and are scheduled to take a final vote on Tuesday, which could be the final day of the session.

    The language compels Maine to “assume and perform all the duties and obligations of” Massachusetts upon becoming a state, which it did in 1820. It does not make reference to specific obligations.

    Lawmakers are preparing to send the constitutional change to voters at a time when tribes in the state are seeking greater autonomy. The legislature voted in June to let most federal laws apply to Wabanaki tribes in a move designed to put them on equal footing with other federally recognized tribes in the U.S.

    Democratic Gov. Janet Mills opposed that proposal and vetoed it, saying she feared it could lead to lawsuits. Mills also opposed the restoration of the treaty language to the printed constitution. Her office said in testimony that the change had the potential to create confusion.

    Tribal groups have urged passage of the restoration of the language and characterized it as overdue. John Dieffenbacher-Krall, executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance, said in testimony that restoration “would make our Maine Constitution more transparent increasing the likelihood current and future residents of this state do understand the obligations of the State of Maine to the Wabanaki Nations.”

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  • Uzbekistan’s leader poised for landslide victory in presidential election

    Uzbekistan’s leader poised for landslide victory in presidential election

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    Uzbekistan is holding a snap presidential election, a vote that follows a constitutional referendum that extended the incumbent’s term from five to seven years

    FILE – Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev speaks during the presidential inauguration ceremony in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016. Uzbekistan holds a snap presidential election on Sunday, July 9, 2023, a vote that follows a constitutional referendum that extended the incumbent’s term from five to seven years. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected in 2021 to a second five-year term, the limit allowed by the constitution. (AP Photo/Anvar Ilyasov, File)

    The Associated Press

    MOSCOW — Uzbekistan is holding a snap presidential election Sunday, a vote that follows a constitutional referendum that extended the incumbent’s term from five to seven years.

    President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected in 2021 to a second five-year term, the limit allowed by the constitution. But the amendments approved in April’s plebiscite allowed him to begin the count of terms anew and run for two more, raising the possibility that he could stay in office until 2037.

    The 65-year-old Mirziyoyev is set to win the vote by landslide against three token rivals.

    “The political landscape has remained unchanged, and none of the parliamentary political parties stand in open opposition to the president’s policies and agenda,” the elections observer arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a pre-voting report.

    Since coming to power in 2016 after the death of longtime dictatorial leader Islam Karimov, Mirziyoyev has introduced a slew of political and economic reforms that eased some of the draconian policies of his predecessor, who made Uzbekistan into one of the region’s most repressive countries.

    Under Mirziyoyev, freedom of speech has been expanded compared with the total suppression of dissent during the Karimov era, and some independent news media and bloggers have appeared. He also relaxed the tight controls on Islam in the predominantly Muslim country that Karimov imposed to counter dissident views.

    At the same time, Uzbekistan has remained strongly authoritarian with no significant opposition. All registered political parties are loyal to Mirziyoyev.

    In April’s referendum, more than 90% of those who cast ballots voted to approve the amendments extending the presidential term.

    As part of his reforms, Mirziyoyev has abolished state regulation of cotton production and sales, ending decades of forced labor in the country’s cotton industries, a major source of export revenues. Under Karimov, more than 2 million Uzbeks were forced to work in the annual cotton harvest.

    Mirziyoyev has also lifted controls on hard currency, encouraging investment from abroad, and he moved to improve relations with the West that soured under Karimov. He has maintained close ties with Russia and signed a number of key agreements with China, which became Uzbekistan’s largest trading partner as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

    Like the leaders of other ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that have close economic ties with Moscow, Mirziyoyev has engaged in a delicate balancing act after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine, steering clear of backing the Russian action but not condemning it either.

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  • Amid criticism over his war on gangs, El Salvador’s President Bukele turns to sports

    Amid criticism over his war on gangs, El Salvador’s President Bukele turns to sports

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    SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele stood before tens of thousands of roaring sports fans with a message: I am not a dictator.

    “They say we live in a dictatorship,” Bukele said, but “ask bus passengers, people eating in restaurants, waiters. Ask whomever you want. Here in El Salvador, you can go anywhere and it’s totally safe. … Ask them what they think of El Salvador, what they think of our government, what they think of our supposed dictatorship.”

    In the opening ceremonies of the 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games, the remark was met with a burst of applause and, in some swathes of the remodeled stadium, chants of “Reelection!”

    The games have offered Bukele – the bitcoin-pushing 41-year-old leader who has sparked a sort of populist fervor in his Central American nation and beyond – an opportunity to showcase a safer El Salvador in the largest international event here since his government entered an all-out war against gangs. But the competition also comes as Bukele is accused of systematic human rights violations for that same crackdown and as his government takes steps that eat away at the country’s democracy.

    Observers worry events including the games – drawing athletes from 35 countries across the region – will allow Bukele to save face internationally and show voters he has global support as he seeks reelection despite a constitutional ban on terms of more than five years.

    Often referred to as “sportswashing” – the use of sports to divert attention from controversy and improve reputations amid wrongdoing – the tactic has been wielded by autocratic governments across the world for decades. The accusation was most recently slung at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his investment in golf, the World Cup and other international sporting events.

    “These are events that give oxygen to the government to distract attention from the huge problems we have and show a face of modernity to the world,” said Eduardo Escobar, executive director of Acción Ciudadana, an independent political watchdog group in El Salvador.

    A little more than a year ago, Bukele announced the nation would enter a state of emergency, a measure suspending constitutional rights in an effort to confront surging gang violence.

    Since, the government has detained 70,000 people – about one in every hundred Salvadorans – imprisoning them with little access to due process. The government has labeled them gang members, though as few as 30% have clear gang ties, according to human rights group Cristosal’s estimates.

    The moves have been met with an avalanche of international criticisms, including by the Biden administration.

    Simultaneously, crime in El Salvador has dipped to historic lows, and Bukele’s approval has soared, holding strong at 90% in June, according to a CID Gallup poll. Bukeleism has gained traction from Colombia to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic as politicians seek to mimic him and cash in on his popularity.

    The dip in violence opened the door for his government to host events including the games and the upcoming Miss Universe pageant. The opening ceremonies of the games flaunted the country’s newfound status, with dances lead by an AI-robot voice and a performance by American DJ Marshmello.

    For Sel Ramirez, a Salvadoran who has spent decades jumping between his country and the United States after fleeing civil war in the ′90s, it was like seeing an entirely new country. He’s among many here embracing Bukele fervor — he occasionally even dresses up as the president and walks around the city center.

    After Bukele’s opening speech, Ramirez stood outside the stadium with a crowd awaiting for the leader’s exit – a scene similar to those at Taylor Swift concerts. Yet steps away sit heavily armed soldiers and black armored cars with machine guns on tops.

    “I wonder if he’ll give me his autograph,” mused Ramirez, his eyes glued to the door from which the president would later depart.

    As the crowd waited, Defense Minister René Merino walked out to cheers. “El Salvador is a country in peace,” he told The Associated Press. “We are open to the world.” When asked by the AP about those imprisoned, he responded “no” and walked away.

    Ahead of the games, Bukele’s government slashed 70% of publicly elected positions, whittling down the number of congressional and local government seats. Bukele said the cuts would improve efficiency and crack down on corruption, the same reasons given for gutting El Salvador’s courts in 2021.

    Legal experts and other Salvadoran politicians say these are just the latest steps in a conquest to solidify power ahead of February’s election.

    “This is typical for autocratic governments,” said René Hernández Valiente, former head of the country’s constitutional court. “They are erasing the philosophies of our constitution.”

    The move will boost Bukele’s control of congress by 22%, according to estimates by watchdog group Acción Ciudadana. Other candidates told AP it left them scrambling by reshuffling the rules months before the vote.

    Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas, made the announcement that he’d seek reelection days into the games, on Twitter. It was an anticipated yet controversial move. In the tweet, at 1 a.m. local time, the party declared itself “invincible.”

    In the following days, Bukele’s Twitter account – his preferred means of communication, and a place where he once described himself as the world’s “coolest dictator” – posted videos of soccer matches, photos of tanned surfers, and clips of his opening speech. He posted little about his reelection campaign.

    The rise of social media has made it harder for leaders to present large sporting events as apolitical, but sportswashing usually works because athletic events are both highly visible and seen as a distraction from daily problems and politics, said Alan McDougall, a sports historian at the University of Guelph in Canada.

    “Successfully hosting an international event can give a regime confidence to kind of to act with impunity. Sport is a bit of a shortcut way to win yourself, not even popularity, just an acceptance,” said McDougall, who dates the use of athletics as a political tool to the 1930s, when a Mussolini-run Italy hosted the World Cup and the Olympics were held in Nazi Germany.

    And while many in El Salvador celebrate a new reality marked by roaring stadiums and fireworks, those suffering amid Bukele’s crackdown feel forgotten by the rest of their country.

    Among them is activist and union leader Ingrid Escobar, 40. When she left home one day in late June with her two kids to run errands, she saw men waiting outside in a gray truck criminologists later identified as one used by government security forces. The sight has become familiar over the past three months. So, too, has the fear.

    Unions, human rights groups, opposition politicians, researchers and journalists have said that as the election cycle heats up, Bukele’s government has intensified intimidation tactics. One union of government workers says at least 15 organizers have been detained, accused of public disorder and gang ties. About half are still imprisoned, according to the union.

    “The fear we have is that we’ll be the next ones he arrests despite never having broken the law,” Escobar said. “And for no reason other than we are denouncing the government, of being the voice of people who are too scared to speak out.”

    Bukele has said he’ll open a new prison “for the corrupt,” a label he often uses for opponents. Escobar worries that may mean her. She said she’s received death threats on social media. She now uses different vehicles, takes different routes to work. She fears for her kids and tries to shield them.

    That morning, she took a photo of the truck’s license plate and sent it to a colleague. Her children asked why, and she fibbed: “Oh, because I like the car.”

    Miles away, gymnasts flipped before judges, swimmers dove from starting blocks, and runners leaped hurdles in the same stadium where Bukele made his speech.

    Few knew about the radical changes the leader was making around them around them or the fears of everyday people like Escobar.

    “I’ve heard a little bit,” said Francisco Acuña, a 23-year-old gymnast from Costa Rica. “But I don’t really think about politics.”

    ———

    AP journalist Salvador Melendez contributed to this report.

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  • What will Biden’s new plan mean for borrowers set to begin paying back their student loans?

    What will Biden’s new plan mean for borrowers set to begin paying back their student loans?

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Following the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively kill Biden’s earlier student debt forgiveness proposal, the White House is trying again to ease the burden on those carrying student loans using a different legal approach.

    Biden’s original plan would have canceled up to $20,000 in federal student loans for 43 million people. Of those, 20 million would have had their remaining student debt erased completely.

    With repayments set to begin in October, many borrowers are wondering if they still have to pay. Here’s what to know about where the new Biden plan stands.

    An order by a Louisiana federal judge sets up a high-stakes legal battle over how the Biden administration can interact with social media platforms.

    Police are seen outside the White House grounds, Sunday night, July 2, 2023 in Washington. The White House was briefly evacuated Sunday evening while President Joe Biden was at Camp David after the Secret Service discovered suspicious powder in a common area of the West Wing, and a preliminary test showed the substance was cocaine, two law enforcement officials said Tuesday. (Anthony Peltier via AP)

    President Joe Biden has been briefed on the investigation into the discovery of cocaine on the lobby floor of the White House West Wing, and thinks it is “incredibly important” for the Secret Service to determine how it got there.

    FILE - The White House is seen, July 30, 2022, in Washington. The White House was briefly evacuated Sunday evening while President Joe Biden was at Camp David after a suspicious powder was discovered by the Secret Service in a common area of the West Wing, and a preliminary test showed the substance was cocaine, two law enforcement officials said Tuesday.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

    A preliminary test has shown that a suspicious substance found at the White House on Sunday was cocaine. That’s according to two law enforcement officials.

    FILE - President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy, Wednesday, June 28, 2023, at the Old Post Office in Chicago. Biden has long struggled to neatly summarize his sprawling economic vision. On Wednesday, the president gave a speech on “Bidenomics” in the hopes that the term will lodge in voters’ brains ahead of the 2024 elections. But what is Bidenomics? Let’s just say the White House definition is different from the Republican one — evidence that catchphrases can be double-edged. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

    President Joe Biden has long struggled to neatly summarize his sprawling economic vision. It’s been hard for voters to digest the mix of infrastructure spending, tax hikes on companies, tax credits for parents, tax breaks for renewable energy, grants to build computer chip factories, insulin price c

    WHAT IS THE NEW PLAN AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT?

    Under the proposed approach, the White House is now planning to use the Higher Education Act of 1965 — a sweeping federal law that governs the student loan program — to bring about relief for student borrowers.

    Biden said the authority of the act will provide “the best path that remains to provide as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.”

    The law includes a provision giving the education secretary authority to “compromise, waive or release” student loans.

    In its previous attempt to forgive student loans, Biden’s White House appealed to a bipartisan 2003 law dealing with national emergencies, known as the HEROES Act, for the authority to cancel the debt. The court’s 6-3 decision, with conservative justices in the majority, said the administration needed Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program.

    WHO WILL BE ELIGIBLE AND HOW MUCH DEBT WILL BE CANCELED?

    So far, it remains unclear which loan holders will qualify and how much of their debt will be forgiven. To figure it out, the Education Department will go through a process known as negotiated rulemaking.

    SHOULD BORROWERS STILL MAKE LOAN PAYMENTS?

    Hours after the Supreme Court decision, President Joe Biden announced a 12-month grace period to help borrowers who struggle after payments restart. Biden said borrowers can and should make payments during the first 12 months after payments resume, but, if they don’t, they won’t be at risk of default and it won’t hurt their credit scores. Interest will resume in September, however, and it will accrue whether borrowers make payments or not. Biden reiterated that it is not the same as the student loan pause, adding that “if you can pay your monthly bills, you should.”

    Experts at the Student Borrower Protection Center and Institute of Student Loan Advisors encourage borrowers not to begin to make payments again until the fall, when interest starts up again and the pause lifts, since there is no penalty for not doing so during the freeze. Instead, any savings that would have gone to payments can earn interest in those remaining few months.

    Finally, after the year-long grace period, if you’re in a short-term financial bind, you may qualify for deferment or forbearance — allowing you to temporarily suspend payment.

    To determine whether deferment or forbearance are good options for you, contact your loan servicer. One thing to note: Interest still accrues during deferment or forbearance. Both can also affect future loan forgiveness options. Depending on the conditions of your deferment or forbearance, it may make sense to continue paying the interest during the payment suspension.

    Following the year-long on-ramp offered by the Biden administration, if you don’t make student loan payments, you’ll risk delinquency and default, which will harm your credit score and potentially lock you out of other aid and benefits down the line.

    WHAT ABOUT DECLARING BANKRUPTCY?

    The Biden administration is also working to make a clearer path for borrowers considering bankruptcy.

    In November, the Justice Department announced a process with new guidelines for students with federal loans who are unable to pay. Under the new guidance, debtors will fill out an “attestation form,” which the government will use to determine whether or not to recommend a discharge of debt. If borrowers’ expenses exceed their income and other criteria are met, the government will be more likely to recommend a full or partial discharge of loans.

    HOW SOON COULD THE NEW PLAN HAPPEN?

    Get ready to wait.

    The overall idea is to create a new federal rule by gathering together lots of people with different views and hashing out the details. The goal is to reach a consensus, but the Education Department doesn’t need it to move forward.

    It’s possible the Biden administration will go through the process, fail to reach a consensus but still proceed with whatever it decides is the best cancellation plan.

    Still, this could take a long time. The absolute minimum for something like this would be about a year, according to Michael Brickman, who was part of multiple rounds of negotiated rulemaking as an education official for the Trump administration. There’s bureaucratic red tape to navigate, and the process is designed to slow things down and force a deliberate negotiation.

    The process of negotiated rulemaking requires a period for written feedback from the public, a public hearing (a virtual hearing is scheduled for July 18) and negotiating sessions.

    Given that the administration is just starting the process, Brickman said it’s possible it could take up to two years.

    Asked why the Education Department didn’t try this route from the start, Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged Friday that it “does take longer.”

    IS THIS PLAN ON FIRMER LEGAL GROUND?

    That’s up for debate.

    In a 2021 memo, the former top education lawyer for the Obama administration cast doubt on the president’s authority to enact mass student loan cancellation. The memo, from Charlie Rose, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and obtained by the AP, warned that “the more persuasive analyses tend to support the conclusion that the Executive Branch likely does not have the unilateral authority to engage in mass student debt cancellation.” Instead, it found that the education secretary’s authority is “limited to case-by-case review and, in some cases, only to nonperforming loans.”

    Some advocates had been urging Biden go this route all along, and the White House says it’s confident the plan will work. But it’s almost certain to face legal challenges. The Education Department has used the Higher Education Act to cancel student loans before, but never at the scale being discussed now. Backers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren have said the legal authority is clear, but lawyers for the Trump administration concluded in 2021 that mass student loan forgiveness was illegal. It could wind up being a gray area that courts need to sort out.

    Brickman, who is now an adjunct fellow at AEI, a conservative think tank, predicts a similar fate to Biden’s previous plan. “The Supreme Court has told them no, and yet they’re undeterred,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a population out there that really admires that. But at some point the Constitution is the Constitution, and you have to just kind of accept that.”

    ____

    The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

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  • A Utah city violated the First Amendment in denying a drag show permit, judge rules

    A Utah city violated the First Amendment in denying a drag show permit, judge rules

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    SALT LAKE CITY — The city of St. George must issue a permit for a Utah-based group that organizes drag performances to host an all-ages drag show in a public park, a federal judge ruled, calling the city’s attempt to stop the show unconstitutional discrimination.

    “Public spaces are public spaces. Public spaces are not private spaces. Public spaces are not majority spaces,” U.S. District Judge David Nuffer wrote in a Friday ruling granting the preliminary injunction requested by the group. “The First Amendment of the United States Constitution ensures that all citizens, popular or not, majority or minority, conventional or unconventional, have access to public spaces for public expression.”

    Southern Utah Drag Stars and its CEO, Mitski Avalōx, sued the city of St. George in May after the city denied the group permits for an all-ages show it aimed to host in a public park in April. A complaint filed in federal court accused city officials of “flagrant and ongoing violations of their free speech, due process, and equal protection rights,” and asked for St. George to reverse its decision and authorize a drag show at the end of June.

    The permit denial, Nuffer wrote in his ruling, was a pretext for discrimination.

    “Public officials take an oath to ‘support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Utah,’” Nuffer wrote. “They do not merely serve the citizens who elect them, the majority of citizens in the community, or a vocal minority in the community.”

    In a statement, the city of St. George said it is committed to ensuring public parks and facilities remain viable and open to residents and those who want to hold special events.

    “Our intent is always to follow the law both when we enact laws and when we enforce laws, and we will continue to do so,” the statement said. “We have read Judge Nuffer’s opinion and while we are disappointed in the result, we are currently evaluating our options in light of the ruling.”

    The lawsuit marked the most recent development in a fight over drag shows in St. George, Utah, a conservative city 111 miles (179 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. Since HBO filmed a drag show in a public park last year for an episode of its series “We’re Here,” the city has emerged as a flashpoint in the nationwide battle over drag performances as they’ve garnered newfound political scrutiny in Republican-controlled cities and states.

    Public events like drag queen story hours and the all-ages event that Avalōx intended to put together have been increasingly targeted in legislatures throughout the country. In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a ban on minors attending drag shows, and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a ban on people dressed in drag from reading books to children at public schools and libraries.

    In Utah, a proposal from a St. George Republican to require warning notices for events like drag shows or pride parades in public places stalled after advancing through the state House of Representatives in March. The proposal stemmed from the pushback that resulted from the HBO-produced drag show in St. George.

    City officials issued permits for the show over the objection from some council members and community activists. City Manager Adam Lenhard resigned months later after writing councilmembers to say that he could not legally deny the show permits, according to emails obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.

    Avalōx, who uses she and they pronouns, founded Southern Utah Drag Stars after the fallout, hoping to showcase drag for members of the LGBTQ+ community in a rural place where such forms of entertainment are often lacking.

    “I made it my mission to continue to do these events and not just one month out of the year, but to do so people that were like me when I was little … can see that there are queer adults that get to live a long and fulfilled life,” Avalōx said in an interview with The Associated Press. “My biggest ambition was to provide a public space where people can go to a park and enjoy a show that’s meant for everyone.”

    A city events coordinator told Drag Stars, Avalōx said, that the group could start advertising for the April show before obtaining a permit. The city council later denied the permit, citing an ordinance that forbids advertising before permit approval.

    The city now may not enforce any new advertising prohibitions against the group or its show, Nuffer ruled, ordering that the performance must “take scheduling precedence over any other event.”

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  • Youth environmentalists bring Montana climate case to trial after 12 years, seeking to set precedent

    Youth environmentalists bring Montana climate case to trial after 12 years, seeking to set precedent

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    HELENA, Mont. — Whether a constitutional right to a healthy, livable climate is protected by state law is at the center of a lawsuit going to trial Monday in Montana, where 16 young plaintiffs and their attorneys hope to set an important legal precedent.

    It’s the first trial of its kind in the U.S., and legal scholars around the world are following its potential addition to the small number of rulings that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change.

    The trial comes shortly after the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed measures favoring the fossil fuel industry by stifling local government efforts to encourage renewable energy while increasing the cost to challenge oil, gas and coal projects in court.

    By enlisting plaintiffs ranging in age from 5 to 22, the environmental firm bringing the lawsuit is trying to highlight how young people are harmed by climate change now and will be further affected in the future. Their testimony will detail how wildfire smoke, heat and drought have harmed residents’ physical and mental health.

    The plaintiffs’ youth has little direct bearing on the legal issues, and experts say the case likely won’t lead to immediate policy changes in fossil fuel-friendly Montana.

    But over two weeks of testimony, attorneys for the plaintiffs plan to call out state officials for pursuing oil, gas and coal development in hopes of sending a powerful message to other states.

    Plaintiff Grace Gibson-Snyder, 19, said she’s felt the impacts of the heating planet acutely as wildfires regularly shroud her hometown of Missoula in dangerous smoke and as water levels drop in area rivers.

    “We’ve seen repeatedly over the last few years what the Montana state Legislature is choosing,” Gibson-Snyder said. “They are choosing fossil fuel development. They are choosing corporations over the needs of their citizens.”

    In high school, Gibson-Snyder was an environmental activist who was too young to vote when she signed on as a plaintiff. The other young plaintiffs include members of Native American tribes, a ranching family dependent on reliable water supplies and people with health conditions, such as asthma, that put them at increased risk during wildfires.

    Some plaintiffs and experts will point to farmers whose margins have been squeezed by drought and extreme weather events like last year’s destructive floods in Yellowstone National Park as further evidence that residents have been denied the clean environment guaranteed under Montana’s Constitution.

    Experts for the state are expected to downplay the impacts of climate change and what one of them described as Montana’s “miniscule” contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions.

    Lawyers for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, tried repeatedly to get the case thrown out over procedural issues. In a June 6 ruling, the state Supreme Court rejected the latest attempt to dismiss it, saying justices were not inclined to intervene just days before the start of a trial that has been “literally years in the making.”

    One reason the case may have made it so far in Montana, when dozens of similar cases elsewhere have been rejected, is the state’s unusually protective 1972 Constitution, which requires officials to maintain a “clean and healthful environment.” Only a few other states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York, have similar environmental protections in their constitutions.

    In prior rulings, State District Judge Judge Kathy Seeley significantly narrowed the scope of the case. Even if the plaintiffs prevail, Seeley has said she would not order officials to formulate a new approach to address climate change.

    Instead, the judge could issue what’s called a “declaratory judgment” saying officials violated the state Constitution. That would set a new legal precedent of courts weighing in on cases typically left to the government’s legislative and executive branches, environmental law expert Jim Huffman said.

    Still, such a ruling would have no direct impact on industry, said Huffman, dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.

    “A declaratory judgment would be a symbolic victory, but would not require any particular action by the state government. So the state could, and likely would, proceed as before,” he said.

    Economist Terry Anderson, a witness for the state, said that over the past two decades, carbon dioxide emissions from Montana have declined, but that’s in part due to the shuttering of coal power plants.

    “Montana energy or environmental policies have virtually no effect on global or local climate change because Montana’s GHG (greenhouse gas) contributions to the global total is trivial,” Anderson said in court documents.

    He argued climate change could ultimately benefit Montana with longer growing seasons and the potential to produce more valuable crops.

    Supporters of the lawsuit predicted an overflow crowd when the trial starts Monday in Helena. They rented a nearby theater to livestream the proceedings for those who can’t fit in the courtroom.

    The case was brought in 2020 by attorneys for the environmental group Our Children’s Trust, which has filed climate lawsuits in every state on behalf of young plaintiffs since 2011. Most of those cases, including a previous one in Montana, were dismissed prior to trial.

    A ruling in favor of the Montana plaintiffs could have ripple effects, according to Philip Gregory, Our Children’s Trust attorney. While it wouldn’t be binding outside Montana, it would give guidance to judges in other states, which could impact upcoming trials such as one in Hawaii, Gregory said.

    Attempts to get a similar decision at the federal level were boosted by a June 1 ruling allowing a case brought by young climate activists in Oregon to proceed to trial in U.S. District Court. That case was halted by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on the eve of the trial in 2018.

    From 2011 through 2021, Our Children’s Trust brought in contributions of more than $20 million, growing from four employees to a team of more than 40 attorneys and other workers and about 200 volunteers, according to tax filings and the group’s website.

    Founder Julia Olson said securing the trials in Montana and Oregon marked a “huge step” forward for the group.

    “It will change the future of the planet if courts will start declaring the conduct of government unconstitutional,” she said.

    While Montana’s Constitution requires the state to “maintain and improve” a clean environment, the Montana Environmental Policy Act, originally passed in 1971 and amended several times since, requires state agencies to balance the environment with resource development.

    Lawmakers revised the policy this year to say environmental reviews may not look at greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts unless the federal government makes carbon dioxide a regulated pollutant.

    A key question for the trial will be how forcefully the state contests established science on human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, said Jonathan Adler, environmental law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. If the state doesn’t deny that science, the trial will deal with the question of whether courts can tell governments to address climate change.

    “I’m skeptical about that,” Adler said. “It really pushes the boundaries of what courts are capable of and effective at addressing.”

    To Gibson-Snyder, now a student at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, the court system became the only avenue to make change as a 16-year-old.

    Since then, “I’ve become maybe a bit disillusioned,” she said. “The question is not only can we create sustainable policy, it’s how can we dismantle the policy that’s actively harming Montana?”

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press writer Drew Costley contributed from Washington, D.C.

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  • Youth environmentalists bring Montana climate case to trial after 12 years, seeking to set precedent

    Youth environmentalists bring Montana climate case to trial after 12 years, seeking to set precedent

    [ad_1]

    HELENA, Mont. — Whether a constitutional right to a healthy, livable climate is protected by state law is at the center of a lawsuit going to trial Monday in Montana, where 16 young plaintiffs and their attorneys hope to set an important legal precedent.

    It’s the first trial of its kind in the U.S., and legal scholars around the world are following its potential addition to the small number of rulings that have established a government duty to protect citizens from climate change.

    The trial comes shortly after the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed measures favoring the fossil fuel industry by stifling local government efforts to encourage renewable energy while increasing the cost to challenge oil, gas and coal projects in court.

    By enlisting plaintiffs ranging in age from 5 to 22, the environmental firm bringing the lawsuit is trying to highlight how young people are harmed by climate change now and will be further affected in the future. Their testimony will detail how wildfire smoke, heat and drought have harmed residents’ physical and mental health.

    The plaintiffs’ youth has little direct bearing on the legal issues, and experts say the case likely won’t lead to immediate policy changes in fossil fuel-friendly Montana.

    But over two weeks of testimony, attorneys for the plaintiffs plan to call out state officials for pursuing oil, gas and coal development in hopes of sending a powerful message to other states.

    Plaintiff Grace Gibson-Snyder, 19, said she’s felt the impacts of the heating planet acutely as wildfires regularly shroud her hometown of Missoula in dangerous smoke and as water levels drop in area rivers.

    “We’ve seen repeatedly over the last few years what the Montana state Legislature is choosing,” Gibson-Snyder said. “They are choosing fossil fuel development. They are choosing corporations over the needs of their citizens.”

    In high school, Gibson-Snyder was an environmental activist who was too young to vote when she signed on as a plaintiff. The other young plaintiffs include members of Native American tribes, a ranching family dependent on reliable water supplies and people with health conditions, such as asthma, that put them at increased risk during wildfires.

    Some plaintiffs and experts will point to farmers whose margins have been squeezed by drought and extreme weather events like last year’s destructive floods in Yellowstone National Park as further evidence that residents have been denied the clean environment guaranteed under Montana’s Constitution.

    Experts for the state are expected to downplay the impacts of climate change and what one of them described as Montana’s “miniscule” contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions.

    Lawyers for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, tried repeatedly to get the case thrown out over procedural issues. In a June 6 ruling, the state Supreme Court rejected the latest attempt to dismiss it, saying justices were not inclined to intervene just days before the start of a trial that has been “literally years in the making.”

    One reason the case may have made it so far in Montana, when dozens of similar cases elsewhere have been rejected, is the state’s unusually protective 1972 Constitution, which requires officials to maintain a “clean and healthful environment.” Only a few other states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York, have similar environmental protections in their constitutions.

    In prior rulings, State District Judge Judge Kathy Seeley significantly narrowed the scope of the case. Even if the plaintiffs prevail, Seeley has said she would not order officials to formulate a new approach to address climate change.

    Instead, the judge could issue what’s called a “declaratory judgment” saying officials violated the state Constitution. That would set a new legal precedent of courts weighing in on cases typically left to the government’s legislative and executive branches, environmental law expert Jim Huffman said.

    Still, such a ruling would have no direct impact on industry, said Huffman, dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.

    “A declaratory judgment would be a symbolic victory, but would not require any particular action by the state government. So the state could, and likely would, proceed as before,” he said.

    Economist Terry Anderson, a witness for the state, said that over the past two decades, carbon dioxide emissions from Montana have declined, but that’s in part due to the shuttering of coal power plants.

    “Montana energy or environmental policies have virtually no effect on global or local climate change because Montana’s GHG (greenhouse gas) contributions to the global total is trivial,” Anderson said in court documents.

    He argued climate change could ultimately benefit Montana with longer growing seasons and the potential to produce more valuable crops.

    Supporters of the lawsuit predicted an overflow crowd when the trial starts Monday in Helena. They rented a nearby theater to livestream the proceedings for those who can’t fit in the courtroom.

    The case was brought in 2020 by attorneys for the environmental group Our Children’s Trust, which has filed climate lawsuits in every state on behalf of young plaintiffs since 2011. Most of those cases, including a previous one in Montana, were dismissed prior to trial.

    A ruling in favor of the Montana plaintiffs could have ripple effects, according to Philip Gregory, Our Children’s Trust attorney. While it wouldn’t be binding outside Montana, it would give guidance to judges in other states, which could impact upcoming trials such as one in Hawaii, Gregory said.

    Attempts to get a similar decision at the federal level were boosted by a June 1 ruling allowing a case brought by young climate activists in Oregon to proceed to trial in U.S. District Court. That case was halted by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on the eve of the trial in 2018.

    From 2011 through 2021, Our Children’s Trust brought in contributions of more than $20 million, growing from four employees to a team of more than 40 attorneys and other workers and about 200 volunteers, according to tax filings and the group’s website.

    Founder Julia Olson said securing the trials in Montana and Oregon marked a “huge step” forward for the group.

    “It will change the future of the planet if courts will start declaring the conduct of government unconstitutional,” she said.

    While Montana’s Constitution requires the state to “maintain and improve” a clean environment, the Montana Environmental Policy Act, originally passed in 1971 and amended several times since, requires state agencies to balance the environment with resource development.

    Lawmakers revised the policy this year to say environmental reviews may not look at greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts unless the federal government makes carbon dioxide a regulated pollutant.

    A key question for the trial will be how forcefully the state contests established science on human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, said Jonathan Adler, environmental law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. If the state doesn’t deny that science, the trial will deal with the question of whether courts can tell governments to address climate change.

    “I’m skeptical about that,” Adler said. “It really pushes the boundaries of what courts are capable of and effective at addressing.”

    To Gibson-Snyder, now a student at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, the court system became the only avenue to make change as a 16-year-old.

    Since then, “I’ve become maybe a bit disillusioned,” she said. “The question is not only can we create sustainable policy, it’s how can we dismantle the policy that’s actively harming Montana?”

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press writer Drew Costley contributed from Washington, D.C.

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