A group of Republican politicians, 153 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and a group led by actor Elliot Page have filed amicus briefs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court arguing against Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1, a ban on gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
The Supreme Court said in June that it would hear the case. A July 2023 ruling from the Sixth District U.S. Court of Appeals allowed the law to take effect.
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Tennessee’s law blocking the automatic withdrawal of professional organization dues for the state’s teachers has been blocked from going into effect Saturday.
A three-judge panel granted a temporary restraining order in the case and set a Zoom hearing for July 13.
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The Indiana Supreme Court issued a decision Friday that said the state’s abortion ban was constitutional in a 4-1 ruling, according to the text.
Senate Bill 1 was signed into law in 2022 and prohibited abortion with limited exceptions in the case of preventing “serious health risk of the pregnant woman or to save the pregnant woman’s life,” if the child is diagnosed with a “lethal fetal anomaly” or rape or incest, according to the bill’s text. The law was quickly halted by a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest before being vacated by the state Supreme Court, which ruled that the law did not violate the Indiana Constitution.
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Hawaii will not cooperate with other states’ civil or criminal investigations related to abortion under a new law signed by Gov. Josh Green.
Senate Bill 1, also known as Act 2, prohibits the issuance of a subpoena in connection with an out-of-state or interstate investigation related to abortion and bans any agency from providing information or spending time or resources to further such an investigation.
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A bill that would permanently extend Georgia’s prohibition on local governments requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for services was approved by the House Public Health Committee on Monday.
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The Georgia Senate voted Tuesday to permanently block governments across the state from denying services to unvaccinated residents.
Senate Bill 1 removed a sunset provision in state law to make permanent a prohibition against state and local governments requiring residents to provide proof of a COVID vaccination to access government services.
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Gov. Greg Abbott Tuesday signed Texas’ election reform bill into law, ending a months-long political fight over the controversial legislation.
Abbott, a Republican, traveled to Tyler, Texas to sign the Senate Bill 1, which repeals many of the voting measures that large cities in the state implemented amid the pandemic and overhauls the state’s mail-in voting and polling place systems.
Senate Bill 1 also bars election officials from sending voters unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to voters, threatening jail time if they do so.
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Embattled Michigan Gov. Gretchen Wilson (D), facing scrutiny for secret deals made with departing state employees and her COVID-19 nursing home policies, vetoed a bill that would have limited the executive power of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).
Senate Bill 1 would have capped emergency pandemic orders by MDHHS at 28 days, causing them to automically expire unless they were ectended by the legislature. But Whitmer, who was long ago stripped of her emergency pandemic powers by the Michigan Supreme Court, veteod the bill, ensuring that her executive branch has unfettered power to give mandate emergency orders.
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In an effort that Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof said was four years in the making, the Ohio Senate voted Thursday to trim government regulations to help businesses across the state.
The Senate voted to agree with House changes to Senate Bill 1, legislation that Obhof, R-Medina, said has been worked on by himself, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and state Sens. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, and Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, for years.
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The Ohio Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would require every state agency to cut its rules and regulations by 30 percent over three years in order to encourage economic growth. Senate Bill 1, sponsored by State Sens. Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) and Kristina Roegner (R-Hudson), requires that state agencies “amend or rescind rules identified in its inventory of regulatory restrictions as necessary to reduce the total number of regulatory restrictions by thirty percent.” “When a reduction of any percentage in regulatory restrictions, whether or not as specified in this section, has been achieved, the state agency may not adopt or maintain regulatory restrictions that would negate the reduction,” the bill adds. During Wednesday’s Senate session, Roegner noted that there are more than 246,000 restrictions on Ohio’s businesses, making Ohio third worst in the county for regulatory restrictions. “Although passed with the best of intentions, the accumulation of new laws and new regulations, over time, will slow economic growth. I’m guilty of it as well. We see a need in our district or in the state and we pass a law and then the rules promulgate and over the years it is like sludge in our economic engine,” she said.…
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