A Johnson County judge appeared skeptical Tuesday that a Kansas law imposing a 24-hour waiting period on women seeking abortions in Kansas would stand up to standards established by the state’s constitutional right to an abortion.

Judge Christopher Jayaram, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in 2021, heard arguments from attorneys representing Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and a pair of Kansas abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood. Tuesday’s hearing focused on the providers’ effort to block enforcement of the Women’s Right to Know Act while their lawsuit seeking the total overturning of the law moves through court.

The case will play a key role in determining the bounds of Kansas abortion law in the post-Roe era. Kansas has established itself as a key access point for abortion since voters last year overwhelmingly voted to retain the state-level right to an abortion.

The state constitution places an extremely high bar on any abortion restrictions requiring evidence that the restrictions are narrowly designed to serve a compelling state interest.

The results of the case could send a signal to lawmakers about how far they can go in regulating and restricting the procedure beyond rules applied to other medical care.

Dave Wasserman
@Redistrict

I've seen enough: in a major victory for the pro-choice side, Ohio Issue 1 (a measure to raise the threshold to pass a state constitutional amendment to 60%) fails.

The Supreme Court handed down a brief order on Tuesday that will prevent violent criminals and other individuals who are not allowed to have guns from evading a federal law requiring background checks for gun buyers. The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the Court’s three Democratic appointees.

The case, known as Garland v. VanDerStok, concerns so-called “ghost guns,” dismantled firearms that are sold in ready-to-assemble kits.

Federal law typically requires anyone purchasing a gun to submit to a background check. It also requires guns to be marked with a serial number that can be used to track the weapon if it is used in a crime. These laws apply to “any weapon ... which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” It also applies to “the frame or receiver of any such weapon,” the skeletal part of a firearm that houses other components, such as the barrel or trigger mechanism.

Thus, if someone purchases a series of firearm parts to assemble a gun at home, they are still supposed to face a background check when they purchase the gun’s frame or receiver.

Ghost guns are often sold as kits, a collection of gun parts that can be assembled into a functional gun. Often, the frame or receiver in this kit is sold in an unfinished state — though, according to the Justice Department, these incomplete frames and receivers are often very easy to finish. In some cases, a ghost gun buyer can build a working gun after drilling a single additional hole in the kit’s frame. In other cases, they merely need to sand off a small plastic rail.

Judge Reed O’Connor, who is known for handing down dubiously reasoned opinions that implement Republican Party policies, ruled that these ghost gun kits are immune from the laws requiring serial numbers and background checks. Recall that these laws apply to “any weapon” that can be “readily converted to expel a projectile.” O’Connor reasoned that “weapon parts ... are not ‘weapons,’” only a fully complete firearm is. And thus the kit as a whole does not count as a “weapon.”

Steven Mazie
@stevenmazie

BREAKING: by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court grants the Biden administration’s request to keep in place a regulation regarding build-your-own “ghost guns”

Adam
@pulvinator

The Cato Institute (as a party) is seeking a TRO against ED granting some loan forgiveness.
If you are boggled how they could possibly be suffering the kind of imminent harm a TRO is meant to address, you are in good company

courtlistener.com
Temporary Restraining Order – #7 in Cato Institute v. Cardona (E.D. Mich., 1:23-cv-11906) –...
Temporary Restraining Order

Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration's plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Michigan, the groups argue that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July, just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan pushed by President Joe Biden.

It asks a judge to rule the cancellation illegal and stop the Education Department from carrying it out while the case is decided. The suit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute.

The Education Department called the suit “a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt.”

“We are not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families,” the department said in a statement.

It’s part of a wave of legal challenges Republicans have leveled at the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce or eliminate student debt for millions of Americans. Biden has said he will pursue a different cancellation plan after the Supreme Court decision, and his administration is separately unrolling a more generous repayment plan that opponents call a “backdoor attempt” at cancellation.

The Texas attorney general's office has filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court, effectively blocking a judge's hours-old order that temporarily lifted a ban on emergency abortions.

A day earlier, a Texas district judge had ruled in favor of a group of women and doctors who sued the state over medical exceptions in its abortion laws. The women argued that medical exceptions in the state's abortion bans lack clarity, putting patients in danger during medically complicated pregnancies.

The appeal blocks the judge's ruling in favor of the patients and doctors, for now, kicking the decision to the all-Republican state Supreme Court.

"Texas pro-life laws are in full effect," the attorney general's office said in a press release on Saturday. "This judge's ruling is not."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Efforts by the Biden administration have been helping create new factory jobs as part of a push to bring high-speed internet to the whole country -- jobs that coincidentally help to back up President Joe Biden's messaging for the 2024 elections.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Thursday that up to 200 new manufacturing jobs would be coming to the swing state of Wisconsin. The workers at the Sanmina factory in Kenosha County are to make parts for Nokia that help to connect customers to broadband internet.

Nokia's choice to move production to the U.S. came after an extended engagement with the Commerce Department over how to deliver on the “Buy America" rules in the government's $42.5 billion investment to provide universal internet services.

“Whereas in the past, many of those jobs would have been created overseas, President Biden and I required that the materials and products used in these projects, from steel to electronics to fiber optic cable, must be made in America, by workers in America,” Harris said in her speech at the factory.

The White House is directing Cabinet agencies to bring federal workers back into the office more frequently in the coming months, according to an internal email obtained by CNN.

The email, sent to Cabinet secretaries by White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, cites the end of the Covid-19 public health emergency and the benefit of increased productivity from in-person work.

“This is a priority of the President – and I am looking to each of you to aggressively execute this shift in September and October,” the email reads.

The directive was first reported by Axios.

Ahead of the expiration of the public health emergency on May 11, the Biden administration issued guidance saying that the federal workforce needed to “substantially” increase in-person work. The White House Office of Management and Budget’s April guidance called on each department – which set their own work requirements for employees – to design and implement its own plans to promote more in-office work but stopped short of calling for any specific requirement.

House Republicans have taken aim at federal teleworking policy, passing the SHOW UP Act that would force agencies to reinstate pre-pandemic work policies.