Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC

NEW: The Supreme Court VACATES the 4th Circuit's stay against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, thereby allowing construction to continue. No noted dissents.

Here's a link: https://supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/072723zr_j4ek.pdf

Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC

NEW: The Supreme Court VACATES the 4th Circuit's stay against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, thereby allowing construction to continue. No noted dissents.

Here's a link: https://supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/072723zr_j4ek.pdf

Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC

NEW: The Supreme Court VACATES the 4th Circuit's stay against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, thereby allowing construction to continue. No noted dissents.

Here's a link: https://supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/072723zr_j4ek.pdf

This November, Ohio voters will have the opportunity to decide if they have a constitutional right to have an abortion.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced Tuesday that the ballot measure aimed at amending the Ohio Constitution to legalize and protect reproductive healthcare, including abortion, had enough signatures to make the November ballot, our news partners at WCPO in Cincinnati reported.

Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights submitted over 700,000 signatures in favor of adding the proposal to the ballot. Nearly 496,000 were deemed to be valid, which was more than the 413,446 needed to do so, the Associated Press reported.

The amendment says that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.”

If passed, it would prohibit the state from “directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere” with anyone trying to exercise that right.

A coalition of Texas bookstores and national bookseller associations filed suit on Tuesday over House Bill 900, which aims to ban sexually explicit material from school libraries.

HB 900 passed in the Legislature and was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this year. It is set to go into effect on Sept. 1 and requires book vendors to assign ratings to books based on the presence of depictions or references to sex. In school libraries, books with a “sexually explicit” rating will be removed from bookshelves. And students who want to check out school library books deemed “sexually relevant” would have to get parental permission first.

Plaintiffs in the suit include two Texas bookstores, Austin’s BookPeople and West Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop, as well as the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

They are suing defendants Martha Wong, chair of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission; Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education; and Mike Morath, commissioner of the Texas Education Agency.

According to the official complaint, which was filed in an Austin federal court, the plaintiffs argue that HB 900 violates the First and 14th amendments by regulating speech with “vague and overbroad” terms and targeting protected speech.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Vanderbilt University Medical Center is being sued by its transgender clinic patients, who accuse the hospital of violating their privacy by turning their records over to Tennessee's attorney general.

Two patients sued Monday in Nashville Chancery Court, saying they were among more than 100 people whose records were sent by Vanderbilt to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. His office has said it is examining medical billing in a “run of the mill” fraud investigation that isn't directed at patients or their families. Vanderbilt has said it was required by law to comply.

The patients say Vanderbilt was aware that Tennessee authorities are hostile toward the rights of transgender people, and should have removed their personally identifying information before turning over the records.

Tennessee has stood out among conservative-led states pushing myriad laws targeting transgender people, enacting some of the nation's most anti-LGBTQ restrictions, even as families and advocates have voiced objections that such policies are harmful. The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of everyone at the clinic whose private medical records were released to Skrmetti.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Kim Reynolds can proceed with an appeal on a temporary block on the state’s new, restrictive abortion law, the Iowa Supreme Court said Tuesday.

Reynolds announced her intentions to appeal last week and said it was “just a matter of time” before lawyers for the state filed the request, which they did Friday. The Iowa Supreme Court had to say whether the request could move forward.

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure to ban most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy during a July 11 special session, and the law went into effect days later, immediately after Reynolds signed it. The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic launched a legal challenge and Judge Joseph Seidlin on July 17 granted their request to pause the law as the courts assess its constitutionality.

Abortion remains legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the new law is on hold.

Reynolds is asking the state Supreme Court to override the lower court’s ruling and allow the law to go back into effect. The full court considered Reynolds' application for appeal, but a spokesperson declined to say whether all the justices will also consider the appeal itself.

A Black man who was elected mayor in Alabama in 2020 has filed a lawsuit alleging that white politicians in the town have blocked him from taking on the role.

Per CBS News, 57-year-old Patrick Braxton alleges in a federal civil rights lawsuit (alongside his fellow plaintiffs, whom he had appointed as council members) that acting Newbern mayor Haywood Stokes III "met in secret to adopt a special election ordinance” with his own council members to reinstate himself as mayor.

Furthermore, Braxton alleges, Stokes "did not bother to qualify" via paperwork as a mayoral candidate. When Braxton himself decided to run for the office, the suit states, Stokes also provided him with false info regarding the qualification process.

🧵 Last week, I traveled to rural Newbern, Alabama, a predominately Black town of about 275 people.In 2020, Patrick Braxton became the first Black mayor after being the only one to submit the qualifying paperwork. For three years, he's suffered harassment and intimidation. pic.twitter.com/EhN4SgJ1P1

— Aallyah Wright (@aallyahpatrice) July 19, 2023

The Justice Department on Monday filed suit against the State of Texas over its installation of a floating barrier meant to stop people from swimming across the Rio Grande, arguing that the interlocking buoys placed in the river by the state violated federal law.

The suit comes after Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who heralded the installation of the 1,000-foot barrier this month, refused a request from the Justice Department to remove the buoys voluntarily, vowing instead to fight in court to keep them in place. Mr. Abbott has blamed President Biden for the large numbers of migrants crossing the border illegally.

“If you truly care about human life, you must begin enforcing federal immigration laws,” Mr. Abbott wrote in a letter to President Biden on Monday. “In the meantime, Texas will fully utilize its constitutional authority to deal with the crisis you have caused.”

The federal government argues that Texas is in violation of a section of the federal Rivers and Harbors Act that prohibits the placement of structures in waterways without federal approval.

The emerging legal fight represents the first time that the Justice Department has directly challenged Mr. Abbott over his effort to enforce immigration laws, sending thousands of National Guard troops and state police officers to block migrants from crossing into Texas. The multibillion-dollar program, begun more than two years ago, is known as Operation Lone Star.