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      Republicans Face Setbacks in Push to Tighten Voting Laws on College Campuses

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      Party officials across the country have sought to erect more barriers for young voters, who tilt heavily Democratic, after several cycles in which their turnout surged.Alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box, Republican lawmakers in a number of states have been trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students.In Idaho, Republicans used their power monopoly this month to ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification.But so far this year, the new Idaho law is one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters.Attempts to cordon off out-of-state students from voting in their campus towns or to roll back preregistration for teenagers have failed in New Hampshire and Virginia. Even in Texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on many college campuses, a new proposal that would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future.“When these ideas are first floated, people are aghast,” said Chad Dunn, the co-founder and legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. But he cautioned that the lawmakers who sponsor such bills tend to bring them back over and over again.“Then, six, eight, 10 years later, these terrible ideas become law,” he said.Turnout in recent cycles has surged for young voters, who were energized by issues like abortion, climate change and the Trump presidency.They voted in rising numbers during the midterms last year in Kansas and Michigan, which both had referendums about abortion. And college students, who had long paid little attention to elections, emerged as a crucial voting bloc in the 2018 midterms.But even with such gains, Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights program for the Brennan Center for Justice, said there was still progress to be made.“Their turnout is still far outpaced by their older counterparts,” Mr. Morales-Doyle said.Now, with the 2024 presidential election underway, the battle over young voters has heightened significance.Between the 2018 and 2022 elections in Idaho, registration jumped 66 percent among 18- and 19-year-old voters, the largest increase in the nation, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. The nonpartisan research organization, based at Tufts University, focuses on youth civic engagement.Gov. Brad Little of Idaho gave his approval to a law that bans student ID cards as a form of voter identification.Kyle Green/Associated PressOut of 17 states that generally require voter ID, Idaho will join Texas and only four others — North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee — that do not accept any student IDs, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a group that tracks legislation.Arizona and Wisconsin have rigid rules on student IDs that colleges and universities have struggled to meet, though some Wisconsin schools have been successful.Proponents of such restrictions often say they are needed to prevent voter fraud, even though instances of fraud are rare. Two lawsuits were filed in state and federal court shortly after Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, signed the student ID prohibition into law on March 15. “The facts aren’t particularly persuasive if you’re just trying to get through all of these voter suppression bills,” Betsy McBride, the president of the League of Women Voters of Idaho, one of the plaintiffs in the state lawsuit, said before the bill’s signing.A fight over out-of-state students in New HampshireIn New Hampshire, which has one of the highest percentages in the nation of college students from out of state, G.O.P. lawmakers proposed a bill this year that would have barred voting access for those students, but it died in committee after failing to muster a single vote.Nearly 59 percent of students at traditional colleges in New Hampshire came from out of state in 2020, according to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts.The University of New Hampshire had opposed the legislation, while students and other critics had raised questions about its constitutionality.The bill, which would have required students to show their in-state tuition statements when registering to vote, would have even hampered New Hampshire residents attending private schools like Dartmouth College, which doesn’t have an in-state rate, said McKenzie St. Germain, the campaign director for the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, a nonpartisan voting rights group.Sandra Panek, one of the sponsors of the bill that died, said she would like to bring it back if she can get bipartisan support. “We want to encourage our young people to vote,” said Ms. Panek, who regularly tweets about election conspiracy theories. But, she added, elections should be reflective of “those who reside in the New Hampshire towns and who ultimately bear the consequences of the election results.”A Texas ban on campus polling places has made little headwayIn Texas, the Republican lawmaker who introduced the bill to eliminate all polling places on college campuses this year, Carrie Isaac, cited safety concerns and worries about political violence.Voting advocates see a different motive.“This is just the latest in a long line of attacks on young people’s right to vote in Texas,” said Claudia Yoli Ferla, the executive director of MOVE Texas Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that seeks to empower younger voters.Students at the University of Texas at Austin lined up to cast their ballots on campus during the 2020 primary. A new proposal would eliminate all college polling places in the state.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesMs. Isaac has also introduced similar legislation to eliminate polling places at primary and secondary schools. In an interview, she mentioned the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers — an attack that was not connected to voting.“Emotions run very high,” Ms. Isaac said. “Poll workers have complained about increased threats to their lives. It’s just not conducive, I believe, to being around children of all ages.”The legislation has been referred to the House Elections Committee, but has yet to receive a hearing in the Legislature. Voting rights experts have expressed skepticism that the bill — one of dozens related to voting introduced for this session — would advance.G.O.P. voting restrictions flounder in other statesIn Virginia, one Republican failed in her effort to repeal a state law that lets teenagers register to vote starting at age 16 if they will turn 18 in time for a general election. Part of a broader package of proposed election restrictions, the bill had no traction in the G.O.P.-controlled House, where it died this year in committee after no discussion.And in Wyoming, concerns about making voting harder on older people appears to have inadvertently helped younger voters. A G.O.P. bill that would have banned most college IDs from being used as voter identification was narrowly defeated in the state House because it also would have banned Medicare and Medicaid insurance cards as proof of identity at the polls, a provision that Republican lawmakers worried could be onerous for older people.“In my mind, all we’re doing is kind of hurting students and old people,” Dan Zwonitzer, a Republican lawmaker who voted against the bill, said during a House debate in February.But some barriers are already in placeGeorgia has accepted student IDs only from public colleges and universities since 2006, so students at private institutions, including several historically Black colleges and universities, must use another form of identification.Georgia has accepted student IDs only from public colleges and universities since 2006, a rule that means students at private institutions, like several historically Black colleges and universities, must use another form of identification. Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesIn Ohio, which has for years not accepted student IDs for voting, Republicans in January approved a broader photo ID requirement that also bars students from using university account statements or utility bills for voting purposes, as they had in the past.The Idaho bill will take effect in January. Scott Herndon and Tina Lambert, the bill’s sponsors in the Senate and the House, did not respond to requests for comment, but Mr. Herndon said during a Feb. 24 session that student identification cards had lower vetting standards than those issued by the government.“It isn’t about voter fraud,” he said. “It’s just making sure that the people who show up to vote are who they say they are.”Republicans contended that nearly 99 percent of Idahoans had used their driver’s licenses to vote, but the bill’s opponents pointed out that not all students have driver’s licenses or passports — and that there is a cost associated with both.Mae Roos, a senior at Borah High School in Boise, testified against the bill at a Feb. 10 hearing.“When we’re taught from the very beginning, when we first start trying to participate, that voting is an expensive process, an arduous process, a process rife with barriers, we become disillusioned with that great dream of our democracy,” Ms. Roos said. “We start to believe that our voices are not valued.” More

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      Costly Court Race Points to a Politicized Future for Judicial Elections

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      A crucial election for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has drawn tens of millions of dollars in spending, turning an officially nonpartisan contest into a bare-knuckle political fight.MADISON, Wis. — It is a judicial election like no other in American history.Thirty million dollars and counting has poured into the campaign for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, with TV ads swamping the airwaves. The candidates leave no illusions that they would be neutral on the court. And the race will decide not only the future of abortion rights in Wisconsin, but the battleground state’s political direction.Yet in other ways, the contest resembles an obscure local election: There are no bus tours or big rallies. Out-of-state political stars are nowhere to be found. Retail politicking is limited to small gatherings at bars that are not advertised to the public in advance.The result is a campaign — officially nonpartisan but positively awash in partisanship — that swirls together the old and new ways of judicial politics in America, and that offers a preview of what might be to come. It is the latest evidence, after the contentious recent confirmation battles and pitched decisions on the U.S. Supreme Court, that judges increasingly viewed as political are starting to openly act political as well.Officials in both parties believe the Wisconsin race could lead to a sea change in how State Supreme Court races are contested in the 21 other states where high court justices are elected, injecting never-before-seen amounts of money, politicization and voter interest.“If you elect a candidate who is focusing on politics and agenda and values, that’s going to reward that behavior, and it will just repeat,” said Shelley Grogan, a state appellate court judge in Wisconsin who is backing Daniel Kelly, the conservative candidate for the Supreme Court, and plotting a future high court run of her own.Judge Grogan was alluding to the fact that Justice Kelly’s liberal rival, Janet Protasiewicz, has been far more open about her political views, seeking to turn the April 4 general election into a single-issue referendum on abortion, which is now illegal in Wisconsin. And she appears to have the advantage, with a lead in private polling and a major fund-raising and advertising edge.Justice Kelly, who served for four years on the court before being ousted in a 2020 election, has a long conservative record and endorsements from Wisconsin’s largest anti-abortion groups. But he has centered his campaign on the argument that he is not a political actor and will decide cases solely based on the Wisconsin Constitution, a message that even some conservatives worry is less compelling than Democrats’ pleas to protect abortion rights.Judge Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, has emphasized her support for liberal issues and her opposition to conservative policies. She is, she says, sharing her values without explicitly stating how she would rule on particular cases.But few are fooled. During their lone debate last week, Judge Protasiewicz barely bothered to disguise how she would rule on the state’s 1849 abortion ban, a challenge to which is expected to reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court this year.Sarah Godlewski, a Democrat who was appointed this month as Wisconsin’s secretary of state, said last week at a stop in Green Bay that “when we’re talking about abortion, when we’re talking about reproductive freedom, we’re going to be able to win on these messages.”Janet Protasiewicz, the liberal candidate in the race, has been remarkably open about her political views.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesWhoever wins will earn a 10-year term and be the deciding vote on a four-to-three majority on the court, which is likely to rule on voting issues before and during the 2024 presidential election. If Judge Protasiewicz wins, Democrats are certain to challenge the state’s gerrymandered legislative maps — and during the campaign, she has called them “rigged.”The Protasiewicz strategy is to pound away on advertising to energize Democrats while depressing Republican support.“For the typical voter, 90 percent of what they learn about this election is probably going to wind up being from campaign ads,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the state Democratic Party.Virtually all of the state’s Democratic players are united behind Judge Protasiewicz’s campaign — with some notable exceptions.In Milwaukee, the Black community organizing group BLOC, which formed in 2017, has refused to back Judge Protasiewicz because she sentenced the son of one of the group’s leaders to 20 years in prison for a 2019 hit-and-run crash that killed 6- and 4-year-old sisters.“It’s obviously not ideal, as it is for all the marbles,” said Angela Lang, BLOC’s executive director. “But it is one that I have to stand in. I would not force folks who have had family members locked up by her to be put in the position of supporting her.”Wisconsin Republicans face more familiar divisions.Some conservative voters have been turned off by the torrent of negative ads about Justice Kelly, said Matt Batzel, the Wisconsin-based executive director of American Majority Action, a conservative grass-roots training group.Mr. Batzel’s canvassers, who typically focus on conservative homes, found that in a suburban Milwaukee State Senate district that is also holding a special election on April 4, two-thirds of people who said abortion was their top issue in the race said they were in favor of abortion rights.“‘Let’s interpret the Constitution as written and follow the rule of law’ hasn’t historically motivated that many people,” Mr. Batzel said.Daniel Kelly, the conservative candidate, has centered his campaign on the argument that he is not a political actor, a message that even some conservatives worry is less compelling than Democrats’ pleas to protect abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesDuring the debate, Justice Kelly insisted he had not made up his mind on how he would rule on the challenge to the 1849 law.“Dan is such a purist that he doesn’t want to appear to be a politician,” said David Prosser, a conservative former justice on the court.Republican legislative leaders in Wisconsin, aware that abortion rights are a potent motivator for Democrats, have sought to create some exceptions to the 1849 law, but the effort has made little headway.“The Republican Party should have passed an abortion bill and put it on the governor’s desk a long time ago,” said Van Mobley, the Republican village president of Thiensville, who was the first Wisconsin elected official to endorse Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign. “They still haven’t. So I don’t think that that’s very helpful to create a climate for us.”Justice Kelly’s biggest hurdle may be the financial disparity — which is the result of campaign finance rules written by Wisconsin Republicans in 2015.Before then, the state provided modest public funding for statewide judicial campaigns and capped the amount of money candidates for any office could receive from the state parties.But that year, Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-led Legislature passed a law allowing individual donors to give unlimited amounts to the state parties and allowing the state parties to transfer unlimited sums directly to candidates.This, combined with the fund-raising acumen Mr. Wikler brought for Democrats when he became party chairman in 2019, has put Republicans at a significant financial disadvantage in races where their billionaire donors do not underwrite candidates.Republicans now find themselves bemoaning the spending imbalance that has allowed Judge Protasiewicz to broadcast more than $10 million in television ads while Justice Kelly has spent less than $500,000 on them.Judge Grogan lamented that Republicans did not have access to the national fund-raising network that has propped up the Protasiewicz campaign. But she declined to say whether it had been a mistake for Republicans and Mr. Walker to lift the cap on contributions to state parties, and would not offer an opinion about whether donors should be allowed to make unlimited contributions.“What we should not let money do in the state of Wisconsin is buy a seat on any court,” Judge Grogan said. “Outside money should not buy a seat on a Wisconsin court. The voters in Wisconsin should decide.” More

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      in US Politics

      Wyoming becomes first US state to outlaw use of abortion pills

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      Wyoming has become the first US state to outlaw the use or prescription of medication abortion pills after the governor, Mark Gordon, signed into law a bill that was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this month.The crux of the two-page Wyoming bill is a provision making it illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion”.So-called “morning-after” pills, prescription contraceptive medication used after sex but before a pregnancy can be confirmed, are exempted from the ban.The measure also includes an exemption for any treatment necessary to protect a woman “from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health”, as well as any treatment of a “natural miscarriage according to currently accepted medical guidelines”.Violation of the ban is to be treated as a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $9,000.The measure stipulates that a woman “upon whom a chemical abortion is performed or attempted shall not be criminally prosecuted”.In a statement, Wyoming ACLU advocacy director Antonio Serrano criticised the governor’s decision to sign the law.“A person’s health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions – including the decision to have an abortion,” Serrano said.The governor said he was also allowing enactment, without his signature, of a separate bill passed by state lawmakers to prohibit conventional abortion procedures except when necessary to protect the health and life of the mother, or in case of rape or incest. Exception is also permitted to end a pregnancy if doctors determine there to be a lethal abnormality of the foetus.Wyoming’s new law comes as a rightwing push to crack down on medication abortions gathers momentum, with a federal judge in Texas currently considering a nationwide ban on the abortion pill mifepristone in response to a lawsuit by anti-abortion groups.A two pill combination of mifepristone and another drug is the most common form of abortion in the US.Medication abortions were the preferred method for ending pregnancy in the US even before the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the ruling that protected the right to abortion for nearly five decades.Since that decision last June, abortion restrictions have been up to states and the landscape has shifted quickly. Thirteen states are now enforcing bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy, and one more, Georgia, bans it once cardiac activity can be detected, or at about six weeks’ gestation.Courts have put on hold enforcement of abortion bans or deep restrictions in Arizona, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. Idaho courts have forced the state to allow abortions during medical emergencies.Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      in Elections

      In Iowa, Kamala Harris Says Republicans Won’t Stop at Abortion

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      “If politicians start using the court to undo doctors’ decisions, imagine where that can lead,” Ms. Harris said at a discussion on abortion with local lawmakers and medical officials.DES MOINES — Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday that a lawsuit seeking to overturn federal approval of a widely used abortion pill amounted to an attack on “our public health system as a whole.”During her first trip to Iowa as vice president, Ms. Harris portrayed Republican attempts to impose a nationwide ban on abortion as immoral and extreme.“If politicians start using the court to undo doctors’ decisions, imagine where that can lead,” Ms. Harris said as a judge in Texas considered whether he would issue a preliminary injunction that could take the pill, mifepristone, off the market.Ms. Harris has taken a lead role on abortion as President Biden prepares to announce an expected run for re-election. Without the votes in Congress to enshrine abortion protections into law, the White House hopes Ms. Harris can help sustain the sort of anger that motivated Democratic voters during the midterm elections.In her appearance Thursday at Grand View University, Ms. Harris framed the abortion issue as part of a broader struggle for health care and privacy, a strategy aimed at galvanizing the broadest coalition of voters.“This is not only about reproductive health,” Ms. Harris said, adding that overturning F.D.A. approval for abortion medication could set a dangerous precedent, potentially affecting the availability of other medications.The last-minute trip to Iowa, planned by the vice president’s team only in the past few days, is part of a push by Ms. Harris to get out into the country more to overcome an impression from allies and critics alike that she has not forged a definitive role in the administration.Top Republicans have flocked to Iowa in recent weeks in anticipation of the 2024 Iowa caucuses, including former President Donald J. Trump; former Vice President Mike Pence; Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador; Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Democrats have overhauled their primary calendar, replacing Iowa with South Carolina as the party’s first nominating contest. But the rush of Republicans to Iowa presented an opportunity for Ms. Harris to call attention to restrictions that could be imposed by Republican-led legislatures.“We need to show the difference that while Republicans are taking health care rights away from them, we in the Democratic Party are saying that is not acceptable,” said Elizabeth Naftali, a deputy finance chair of the Democratic National Committee.Ms. Naftali said that Democrats could not allow a “steamroll by Republicans” just because the primary calendar had changed.Most abortions are now banned in more than a dozen states following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. While Iowa has not banned abortion, it is one of many states the administration fears could soon enact more severe abortion restrictions.Last year, the Iowa Supreme Court found that there was no right to an abortion under the state’s constitution. A ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy has been blocked by a state judge since 2019 but Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, has appealed the decision to the higher court. The state currently bans abortion after 20 weeks.Most Iowans — 61 percent — believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll last fall. Thirty-three percent say it should be illegal in most or all cases, and 6 percent are not sure.“We have just seen a lot of panic and fear among patients who are worried,” said Mazie Stilwell, the director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa.White House officials acknowledged that there was only so much that they could do to protect abortion access without Congress, but many abortion advocates are calling for policies that would protect both medical officials providing abortions and those seeking them.“What I know feels frustrating for me and many organizers on the ground is we keep having meetings but there’s not any action,” said Renee Bracey Sherman, the founder and executive director of the reproductive rights advocacy group We Testify.No major policy announcements came on Thursday. But Ms. Harris described those pushing for abortion restrictions as “extremist so-called leaders who purport and profess to hail themselves as a beacon of freedom and opportunity.”Stefanie Brown James, a co-founder of the Collective PAC, an organization dedicated to electing African American officials, said such blunt messaging would be imperative for both Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden in the months ahead.“In the event Kamala Harris continues to be his second in command, it’s important for her now to be out having conversations as much as it is for him to be,” Ms. James said. “This issue is not going away anytime soon.” More

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      in US Politics

      The right is stealthily working to remove Americans’ access to abortion medication | Moira Donegan

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      This week a Republican-appointed federal judge weighed whether to grant an injunction that could remove mifepristone, the drug used in most American abortions, from the market nationwide. And the hearing almost happened in secret.US district court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had initially planned to keep Wednesday’s hearing in the case – in which a group of rightwing anti-abortion groups are suing the FDA to reverse its 20-year-old approval of mifepristone – quiet. In a conference call with lawyers for the anti-choice groups and the Department of Justice, Kacsmaryk asked attorneys not to disclose the existence of the hearing (“This is not a gag order,” he said repeatedly), and said that the event would only be made public late on Tuesday to minimize popular awareness. “It may even be after business hours.” The judge’s courtroom in Amarillo, Texas, is hours away from any major city. It was only because of a press leak that the hearing was known to the public at all.It was just one of many of the alarming irregularities in the lawsuit, in which Kacsmaryk seems poised to grant the plaintiffs’ wish and issue an injunction that will radically reduce access to abortion nationwide.For one thing, the plaintiffs’ standing is exceptionally shaky: it’s not clear why the collection of abortion opponents – including one doctor, George Delgado, whose attempt to design an abortion-reversal clinical trial sent 25% of the test subjects to the hospital – have standing to sue the FDA. It’s especially unclear why they have standing to sue in Amarillo; the federal judicial district has become a popular venue for rightwing litigation in part because Kacsmaryk, an exceptionally conservative jurist willing to publish poorly reasoned, policy-driven opinions, is the only federal judge there.For another thing, the plaintiffs’ requests are exceptionally far-reaching. The anti-abortion groups want Kacsmaryk to declare the FDA’s approval of mifepristone illegal, even though the drug has been available in the US, and proven to be safe, for more than 20 years, and even though a judicial reversal of FDA approval for a medication would be highly unusual and only dubiously legal. At the hearing on Wednesday, lawyers for the plaintiffs acknowledged that there was no precedent for the court to order the suspension of a long-approved medication. If Kacsmaryk approves the injunction – and all indications are that he will – the drug could become inaccessible nationwide, even in Democratic-controlled states where abortion is legal.For another thing, the plaintiffs’ claims are so profoundly divorced from fact that it is difficult to believe that they are being made in good faith. The anti-abortion groups – including the doctor whose study sent women to the hospital – say that they are challenging the drug because they believe, falsely, that mifepristone is unsafe. Lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the rightwing legal outfit that is representing the plaintiffs and which is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, pursued this idea on Wednesday in court. “How many more women have to die?” attorney Erik Baptist asked.In fact, no one dies from mifepristone. One of the most aggressively studied and tested drugs in the world since its creation in France in 1987, mifepristone, which blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone and stops a pregnancy from progressing, has been found effective and overwhelmingly safe; it has a lower rate of serious complications than Tylenol. One study found that “significant adverse outcomes” occurred in less than 1% (0.65%) of mifepristone patients; the most common of these was continued pregnancy.What women do die from – died from in massive numbers before Roe, and will die from again, if medication abortion becomes unavailable – is illegal surgical abortions.Since Dobbs, the abortion rights movement has correctly been aiming to de-stigmatize illegal, self-managed abortions, encouraging women to stock up on the pills in advance so that they have them if they need them. The idea was that women shouldn’t be scared to use the pills: mifepristone, taken together with the contraction-inducing drug misoprostol, is so overwhelmingly safe and effective that women who could access the pills could confidently and secretly manage their own abortions, even in ban states. But if medication abortion becomes inaccessible, women may attempt more dangerous methods to self-induce. This is the real reason anti-abortion groups are targeting mifepristone: not because it endangers women, but because it keeps them safe.The injunction doesn’t necessarily have to end medication abortion in America as we know it. For one thing, there are already groups, both foreign and domestic, that are mailing abortion medication, including mifepristone, to all 50 states, regardless of local law. Women’s solidarity, inventiveness and determination will always outmatch punitive anti-abortion regimes. For another, an established misoprostol-only protocol for abortion has already been proven effective.Some abortion providers have already signaled their intention to switch to misoprostol-only; the drug is available over the counter in Mexico. But though they are effective, misoprostol-only abortions are also significantly more painful than those conducted with mifepristone. For the anti-abortion groups in court, that’s likely part of the point.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in Elections

      In Wisconsin, Liberals Barrage Conservative Supreme Court Candidate With Attack Ads

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      Daniel Kelly, the conservative candidate for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, promised that help was on the way. But his campaign has already been outspent on TV by $9.1 million to nothing.As conservatives in Wisconsin seek to maintain control of the State Supreme Court in an all-important election for a crucial swing seat, they would appear to be fighting uphill.The conservative candidate, Daniel Kelly, is trailing in limited private polling of the race. Abortion rights, which powered Democrats in the midterm elections, are driving the party to shovel enormous sums of money into the campaign. And perhaps most significantly, Justice Kelly’s campaign has been outspent by a staggering margin on television since the Feb. 21 primary: $9.1 million to nothing.But Justice Kelly, who sat on the court before losing re-election in 2020, appears unfazed. He told supporters on Sunday in northwest Wisconsin that help was on the way from unidentified outside groups in his race against Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge opposing him in the April 4 election.“Because there are nationwide organizations that care about the rule of law, about the constitutional order, and they are spending to promote our campaign, you should start seeing the effects of them this coming week,” Justice Kelly told a gathering of the Northland Freedom Alliance in Webster, Wis. “Right now, it’s kind of wall-to-wall Janet. And I object to that. There, I’m told the cavalry is on the way. And so hopefully, they’ll have some good and smart and true ads.”Wisconsin is at the midway point of a six-week general election for a seat that will determine the balance of the State Supreme Court. Victory by Justice Kelly would preserve conservatives’ sway over the court, which they have controlled since 2008, while success by Judge Protasiewicz would give Wisconsin liberals an opportunity to legalize abortion rights and invalidate the state’s Republican-drawn gerrymandered legislative maps, as well as roll back other measures put in place by the court and G.O.P. lawmakers.The New York Times obtained a recording of Justice Kelly’s remarks, in which he addressed an array of issues likely to be decided in the high-stakes race and estimated that his campaign would raise $2 million to $2.5 million. He also again sought to draw a contrast with Judge Protasiewicz, who has been remarkably open about her political views, by asserting that his comments articulating his judicial philosophy do not constitute broadcasting his personal political positions.“I don’t talk about my politics for the same reason I don’t campaign on who the Packers’ next quarterback should be,” he said. “It has no effect on the job.”While Justice Kelly promised that the cavalry was on the way, it’s unclear whether it will be enough to turn the tide of the battle.Only one national organization has spent anything on television to support the Kelly campaign: the super PAC Fair Courts America, which is backed by Richard Uihlein, the conservative billionaire. So far in the general election, Fair Courts America has spent $2.3 million on TV ads. This week, it began a further $450,000 in statewide radio advertising, but the group has not yet committed to investing more in the race, according to a person familiar with Mr. Uihlein’s decisions who was not authorized to speak publicly.The biggest pro-Kelly spender, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s business lobby, has spent $3.4 million on his behalf so far. Nick Novak, a spokesman for the group, declined to comment on the group’s future plans. A Fair Courts America spokesman did not respond to messages on Tuesday. The flood of Protasiewicz ads have attacked Justice Kelly for his opposition to abortion rights, past statements attacking Social Security and his association with Republican attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, among other issues.Mr. Kelly’s spokesman, Ben Voelkel, said Mr. Kelly was filming a television ad on Tuesday. He predicted the Kelly campaign and its allies would soon catch up with Judge Protasiewicz and Democrats in overall television spending, but at the same time suggested the millions of dollars spent of television time was wasted in a relatively low-turnout April election.“We’re reaching out to voters in a lot of different ways,” Mr. Voelkel said. “They are spending millions of dollars for an election that’s not going to have a big turnout. We’ve taken a slightly different approach.”Wisconsin’s municipal clerks began placing absentee ballots for the Supreme Court election in the mail this week, and in-person ballots can be cast starting next Tuesday. Private polling conducted by officials on both sides of the race shows Judge Protasiewicz with a lead over Justice Kelly in the mid-to-high single digits. Mr. Voelkel disputed that Justice Kelly was trailing but declined to reveal the campaign’s figures.The court election is formally a nonpartisan contest, but there is little mystery about where the candidates stand politically. The bulk of Judge Protasiewicz’s campaign money has come from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which can transfer unlimited amounts under state law. Justice Kelly has worked as a lawyer for the Republican National Committee, which hired him to focus on “election integrity” issues for the party during and after the 2020 election.On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton endorsed Judge Protasiewicz. Justice Kelly was endorsed by President Donald J. Trump during the justice’s 2020 re-election campaign, which he lost.In the last three weeks, the Protasiewicz campaign has spent $9.1 million on television advertising, and outside groups supporting her have spent $2.03 million, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.The imbalance on Wisconsin’s television airwaves is even greater than the spending figures suggest.Because the Protasiewicz campaign is able to buy television advertising at about one-third the rate of independent expenditure groups, she alone has broadcast more than three times as many TV advertisements in Wisconsin as the pro-Kelly groups combined, according to AdImpact’s data.“Dan Kelly has been relying on extreme right-wing groups to save his campaign with millions of dollars in ads that lie about Judge Janet Protasiewicz’s record,” said Sam Roecker, a spokesman for the Protasiewicz campaign.The election is already the most expensive judicial race in American history, with at least $27 million spent so far on television alone. A 2004 contest for the Illinois Supreme Court previously had the most spending, at $15 million, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.In an interview on the eve of the primary last month, Justice Kelly said he had not received any private spending commitments from Mr. Uihlein and had not spoken with him since last summer. More

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      in Elections

      Inside Ron DeSantis’s Politicized Removal of an Elected Prosecutor

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      The Florida governor accused the Democratic prosecutor of undermining public safety. But a close examination of the episode reveals just how fueled it was by Mr. DeSantis’s political aims.When Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced last summer that he had taken the extraordinary step of removing a local prosecutor from his job, he cast his decision as a bold move to protect Floridians.The prosecutor, Andrew H. Warren, a twice-elected state attorney for Hillsborough County and a Democrat, had signed a public pledge not to prosecute those who seek or provide abortions. Moreover, he was among a group of progressive prosecutors around the country who, in Mr. DeSantis’s words, think “they get to pick and choose which laws that they are enforcing,” the governor told reporters and handpicked supporters at a news conference.Those left-leaning prosecutors, he said, had “undermined public safety” and been “devastating to the rule of law.”Left unsaid, however, was that Mr. DeSantis and his advisers had failed to find a connection between Mr. Warren’s policies and public safety in his community.In fact, just the day before, writing in blue pen on a draft of an executive order, the governor had personally removed any mention of crime statistics justifying Mr. Warren’s suspension, after Mr. DeSantis’s lawyers lamented that they could find nothing in them to support the idea that Mr. Warren’s policies had done harm, according to internal documents and testimony.As he travels the country promoting a new book and his expected presidential campaign, Mr. DeSantis repeatedly points to his ouster of Mr. Warren as an example of the muscular and decisive way he has transformed Florida — and could transform the nation. He casts Mr. Warren as a rogue ideologue whose refusal to enforce the law demanded action.But a close examination of the episode, including interviews, emails, text messages and thousands of pages of government records, trial testimony, depositions and other court records, reveals a sharply different picture: a governor’s office that seemed driven by a preconceived political narrative, bent on a predetermined outcome, content with a flimsy investigation and focused on maximizing media attention for Mr. DeSantis.Andrew H. Warren, a Democrat who served as the state attorney for Hillsborough County, had signed a public pledge not to prosecute those who seek or provide abortions. Chasity Maynard/Tallahassee Democrat, via Associated PressTwo weeks after his removal, Mr. Warren sued the governor in federal court seeking his reinstatement. The lawsuit, which Mr. Warren appealed after it was dismissed in January, produced a significant quantity of discovery, which The New York Times reviewed in detail.Months before suspending Mr. Warren, Mr. DeSantis had ordered his staff to find progressive prosecutors who were letting criminals walk free. Under oath, his aides later acknowledged that they had deliberately avoided investigating Mr. Warren too closely, so that they would not tip him off and prompt him to reverse his policies — thwarting the goal of making an example of him. When contrary information did materialize, Mr. DeSantis and his lawyers dismissed or ignored it, the records show.Only after Mr. Warren was removed did the governor’s aides seek records from Mr. Warren’s office that might help justify Mr. DeSantis’s action.If the investigation into Mr. Warren was cursory at best, the preparation to remove him while simultaneously publicizing that ouster involved greater planning. And those plans were executed with military precision. The governor’s aides gave special attention to news outlets they referred to as “friendly.” Immediately after the news conference, DeSantis aides exerted influence over communications at the state attorney’s office, an independent county agency, working to ensure that the takeover did not result in negative coverage.And that night, the governor headlined Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to promote his move. Mr. Carlson opened with a 12-minute speech about prosecutors who disregard the law, then turned to an exclusive interview with the governor.“Ron DeSantis is the man who put an end to it today in the state of Florida,” Mr. Carlson said.Although Mr. DeSantis’s move was cheered in the conservative news media as a victory in his war on “wokeness,” a federal judge ruled in January that the governor had violated Mr. Warren’s First Amendment rights and the Florida Constitution in a rush to judgment. “The actual facts,” Judge Robert L. Hinkle wrote, “did not matter. All that was needed was a pretext.” Mr. DeSantis’s office, the judge said from the bench, had conducted a “one-sided inquiry” meant to target Mr. Warren. (The judge said he did not have the authority to reinstate Mr. Warren, who is appealing in state and federal court.)Mr. Warren, in an interview, said he believed Mr. DeSantis had disregarded the will of the voters in his county for political gain.“He’s willing to abuse his power to attack his political enemies,” Mr. Warren said.Mr. DeSantis, who declined to be interviewed, insists in his new book, “The Courage to Be Free,” that his action was justified by Mr. Warren’s public statements. He argues that prosecutors who want “to ‘reform’ the criminal justice system” should quit and run for the Legislature.In response to written questions, a spokesman for the governor referred to public statements and the trial record, adding, “Mr. Warren remains suspended from the office he failed to serve.”Like other Republicans, Mr. DeSantis has railed against prosecutors elected on platforms promising alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent crimes or avoiding the death penalty. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesIn recent weeks, Mr. DeSantis has indicated that he intends to target other prosecutors with whom he disagrees, lashing out at another Democratic state attorney.Gov. Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationThe Republican governor of Florida has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.Legislative Wish List: From immigration to gun rights to education, Florida lawmakers are advancing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s agenda, giving him a broader platform from which to launch a widely expected presidential campaign.A Rare Interview: Mr. DeSantis granted a rare interview to The Times of London. The paper is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire has already thrown its considerable influence behind the prospect of the governor’s 2024 bid.Rift with Disney: In the latest development in a battle between Mr. DeSantis and Disney, the governor has gained control of the board that oversees development at Walt Disney World, a move that restricts the autonomy of Disney over its theme-park complex.Earlier this month, he told donors at a private gathering in Palm Beach that because he’d won only 50 percent of the vote in his 2018 election, people had told him to tread lightly.“But I won 100 percent of the executive power,” he said, “and I intended to use it to advance an agenda that I campaigned on.”‘All roads led to Mr. Warren’Midway through a meeting with his closest advisers in December 2021, Mr. DeSantis abruptly asked a pointed question: Did they know of any prosecutors in the state who weren’t enforcing the law?The topic was not on the meeting’s agenda, but it hardly came out of the blue.Right-wing pundits and podcasters had for years railed against local prosecutors elected on platforms promising alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent crimes or avoiding the death penalty. The critics painted those prosecutors as agents of George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor, and as giving rise to a scourge of crime. One such prosecutor at the time, Chesa Boudin, was facing a recall election in San Francisco.A top DeSantis aide, Larry Keefe, set out to answer the governor’s question. A former United States attorney, Mr. Keefe’s title is public safety czar. But he has served in a broad role for the governor, executing high-profile projects including helping to coordinate the flight of scores of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in September.Mr. Keefe began by asking Florida sheriffs whether they knew of any progressive prosecutors. Several mentioned the state attorney from Hillsborough County. Communicating over encrypted text messages and personal email, Mr. Keefe assembled a dossier on Mr. Warren’s policies and charging decisions.Mr. Warren was the only prosecutor he scrutinized, Mr. Keefe said later in a deposition: “All roads led to Mr. Warren.”A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Warren, 46, was elected in 2016 promising to create a new unit to search for wrongful convictions, focus resources on prosecuting violent offenders, reduce prosecutions for first-time misdemeanors and curb the number of children charged as adults.Mr. Warren, who had been a frequent critic of Mr. DeSantis, has sued the governor over his removal. Octavio Jones/ReutersAfter Mr. DeSantis took office in 2019, Mr. Warren became a frequent critic. When the governor barred local governments from enacting their own Covid restrictions, Mr. Warren called the order “weak and spineless.” In 2021, he sought to organize opposition to a DeSantis-backed law that restricted political protests. In January 2022, Mr. Warren instituted a policy that made prosecutions of pedestrians and bicyclists for resisting arrest an exception rather than the rule, responding to studies that show the charge disproportionately affected Black people.Florida’s Constitution allows governors to suspend local office holders for reasons including “malfeasance” or “neglect of duty” until the Legislature votes on whether to permanently remove or reinstate them. Mr. DeSantis was the first Florida governor in many decades known to have suspended an elected prosecutor over a policy difference.By contrast, his predecessor, Rick Scott, publicly clashed with a prosecutor who refused to seek capital punishment and took death penalty cases away from her, but he did not force her from office.For months, Mr. Keefe’s dossier on Mr. Warren failed to cross the threshold to take action against him, Mr. DeSantis’s lawyers later testified. Then, in June, after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion, an advocacy group released a statement signed by Mr. Warren and 91 other prosecutors around the country.In it, they vowed to “exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide or support abortions.”Whether the pledge would have any practical impact in Hillsborough County was unclear. Criminal cases of any kind involving abortion had been exceptionally rare in Florida. A new law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy was being appealed.Florida legislators passed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but the measure has been held up in court.Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Warren told a TV reporter that the statement should not be read as a blanket policy: He would individually evaluate any cases that emerged. The governor’s aides saw the TV report and disregarded it, according to court records.Ryan Newman, the governor’s general counsel, and Ray Treadwell, Mr. Newman’s deputy, testified that the pledge was the evidence they needed. Mr. Warren had said he would not enforce abortion laws, and could therefore be considered negligent and incompetent.The lawyers discussed asking Mr. Warren to clarify whether his pledge would apply to existing abortion restrictions. But they decided not to, one later testified, because they worried that this would have “tipped him off” and given Mr. Warren a chance to walk it back, short-circuiting their effort to remove him.Records obtained through litigation show that Mr. Keefe and the lawyers began drafting the executive order suspending Mr. Warren.The tone of an early draft, written by Mr. Keefe in July, was highly partisan. The document named Mr. Soros six times, pointing to reports that Mr. Warren had received indirect support for his campaign from the billionaire Jewish philanthropist, a frequent target of conservatives and of antisemitic tropes.(In a deposition, Mr. Keefe said he had not known that Mr. Soros was Jewish, but said he was “concerned” that “one of Florida’s state attorneys had been co-opted” by the philanthropist.)In another draft, Mr. Treadwell highlighted a passage referring to Mr. Soros and wrote, “I would prefer to remove these allegations, but they may be valuable for the larger political narrative.”The signed executive order included no references to Mr. Soros.Editing out the dataOn July 26, Mr. Newman, Mr. Keefe and James Uthmeier, the governor’s chief of staff, met with Mr. DeSantis to present their plan, according to sworn deposition testimony.The governor was initially skeptical, transcripts show. He questioned whether Mr. Warren could be removed based on his signed pledge alone, lacking evidence that he had declined to prosecute an abortion-related crime.Mr. Newman argued that Mr. DeSantis should act while Mr. Warren’s refusal to prosecute was still hypothetical: It could be both impractical and unwise to wait to challenge Mr. Warren over a specific decision, Mr. Newman explained under oath at trial.Mr. DeSantis was persuaded. He asked for additional information about Mr. Warren’s record but gave a green light to charge ahead.Still, the governor seemed reluctant to hang Mr. Warren’s removal narrowly on the abortion pledge.In handwritten instructions on a draft of the executive order, he told his lawyers to list “non-abortion infractions first,” including language accusing the prosecutor of “acting as if he is a law unto himself.”Mr. DeSantis also crossed out three paragraphs packed with statistics about prosecution rates in Hillsborough County. Aides had dug up the data in hopes of showing a declining rate of prosecution during Mr. Warren’s tenure, but the numbers weren’t clear.“You can kind of tell we didn’t have any definitive proof of a correlation,” Mr. Treadwell later testified.In December, during a three-day trial over Mr. Warren’s removal, Judge Hinkle, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, said the evidence suggested that the goal of the governor’s review of Mr. Warren’s record was really “to amass information that could help bring down Mr. Warren, not to find out how Mr. Warren actually runs the office.”“A cynic would say, ‘I just needed one pelt — just needed to nail one pelt to the wall,’” the judge added.Mixed signals in the messagingThe day before he was suspended, Mr. Warren and his staff were putting the finishing touches on a major announcement set for the next day: indictments in two decades-old rape and murder cases.Aides to Mr. DeSantis were planning a starkly different event, the legal records show.Mr. Keefe was sending over talking points for Susan Lopez, a state judge who had agreed to replace Mr. Warren.“Love it!” Ms. Lopez texted Mr. Keefe. “Sounds like me!”Christina Pushaw, the governor’s spokeswoman at the time, teased the coming news on Twitter: “Major announcement tomorrow morning” from Mr. DeSantis, she wrote. “Prepare for liberal media meltdown of the year.” Her tweet alone generated headlines by Fox News and other conservative news outlets.But Mr. DeSantis wanted to avoid the appearance that his ouster of Mr. Warren was an overtly partisan act.Susan Lopez, left, agreed to replace Mr. Warren as state attorney for Hillsborough County. Chris O’Meara/Associated PressHe told Ms. Pushaw he was displeased with her tweet, she later testified, saying he wanted the public message to be about protecting Floridians from a dangerous prosecutor, adding that his decision “had nothing to do with the media.”Ms. Pushaw, a combative force on social media, called this the only time the governor had ever “reprimanded” her over her tweets.And Mr. Uthmeier, the governor’s chief of staff, warned another aide that Mr. DeSantis wanted them to tone down the “sensationalism.”“Every comment impacts what will be contentious litigation,” Mr. Uthmeier wrote in a text message disclosed in litigation.The heated language, however, was coming from the legal department, too. Mr. DeSantis’s general counsel, Mr. Newman, added language to the governor’s speech calling Mr. Warren “a woke ideologue masquerading as a prosecutor.”Under oath, Mr. Newman later said he did not believe the statement to be true. He wrote it, he said, “to channel what I think the press shop wants.”That press shop was in high gear as the governor’s office removed Mr. Warren. It discussed handing out copies of the executive order to friendly news outlets. Other aides, meanwhile, contacted Republican Party groups to to find DeSantis supporters to fill the room.A few minutes before 10 a.m. on Aug. 4, Mr. Warren received an email notifying him that he had been suspended. He rushed to his office, but Mr. Keefe soon arrived with an armed sheriff’s deputy and ordered him to leave, according to testimony from Mr. Keefe. Mr. Keefe texted the governor’s staff: “Warren is out of the building.” And the news conference began.‘We’ll put the nail in the coffin’With Mr. Warren out, the governor’s office stepped in. Mr. Keefe and Taryn Fenske, the governor’s communications chief, had already discussed in text messages what Ms. Lopez’s first steps should be, planning for the new state attorney to issue a memo rescinding Mr. Warren’s prosecution policies.A memo that Ms. Lopez sent out days later mirrored that plan, saying, “The legislature makes the law and we, as prosecutors, enforce it.” (She testified that she did not recall consulting with anyone other than her chief of staff.)Two aides to the governor were dispatched to the state attorney’s office in Hillsborough to “help make sure there’s no funny business over there,” Savannah Kelly Jefferson, director of external affairs, wrote in a text message to her staff.Mr. Keefe, who had stuck around at the state attorney’s office, told Melanie Snow-Waxler, the office’s chief communications officer, to cancel Mr. Warren’s news conference on the cold cases, she said in an interview. The office said its chief of staff had made the decision.He listened in on a speaker phone as she called one murder victim’s aunt to tell her not to come.“I was confused. I didn’t know what was going on,” Ms. Snow-Waxler, who was fired soon after for reasons that are in dispute, said in the interview. “This is not someone who has been your boss, but it’s not like I was given an option. It was an order.”A former DeSantis spokesman, Fred Piccolo, was brought in as a communications consultant for the state attorney’s office. In an interview, Mr. Piccolo said his job included keeping the prosecutor’s office on the same page with the governor’s office in publicly discussing Mr. Warren’s suspension. In a text message to colleagues, Ms. Fenske said she would lean on Mr. Piccolo to push back on Mr. Warren’s contention that his suspension was invalid: “We’ll put the nail in the coffin.”Six days later, as the controversy continued to generate headlines and Mr. Warren publicly blasted his dismissal, the Hillsborough County state attorney’s office received a curious piece of correspondence from the governor’s office, documents from a public records request show.It was from Mr. Treadwell, the governor’s deputy general counsel, making his first request for information from the prosecutor’s office that might reveal whether Mr. Warren had done anything wrong.Jonathan Swan More

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      in US Politics

      Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortion

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      Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortionProliferation of bills in Texas, Kentucky and elsewhere ‘exposes fundamental lie of anti-abortion movement’, experts sayFor decades, the mainstream anti-abortion movement promised that it did not believe women who have abortions should be criminally charged. But now, Republican lawmakers in several US states have introduced legislation proposing homicide and other criminal charges for those seeking abortion care.‘Sanctuary cities for the unborn’: how a US pastor is pushing for a national abortion banRead moreThe bills have been introduced in states such as Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Some explicitly target medication abortion and self-managed abortion; some look to remove provisions in the law which previously protected pregnant people from criminalization; and others look to establish the fetus as a person from the point of conception.It is highly unlikely that all of these bills will pass. But their proliferation marks a distinct departure from the language of existing bans and abortion restrictions, which typically exempt people seeking abortion care from criminalization.“This exposes a fundamental lie of the anti-abortion movement, that they oppose the criminalization of the pregnant person,” said Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice. “They are no longer hiding behind that rhetoric.”Some members of the anti-abortion movement have made it clear the bills do not align with their views, continuing to insist that abortion providers, rather than pregnant people themselves, should be targeted by criminal abortion laws.“[We] oppose penalties for mothers, who are a second victim of a predatory abortion industry,” said Kristi Hamrick, the chief media and policy strategist for Students for Life of America. “We want to see a billion-dollar industry set up to profit by preying on women and the preborn held accountable. The pro-life movement as a whole has been very clear on this.”A spokesperson for Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America echoed the same sentiment: that the organization unequivocally rejects prosecution of the pregnant person.The bills are likely to be controversial as they proceed, even within conservative circles: Republicans have frequently hit walls when trying to pass anti-abortion legislation, with lawmakers at odds over exactly how far bans should go.The reproductive justice organization If/When/How points out these bills are an indication of the different wings and splinter groups in the anti-abortion movement, increasingly evident since the Dobbs decision last year that overturned Roe v Wade.“What we’re seeing, post-Dobbs, is a splintering in tactics that abortion opponents are using, and emboldening on the part of more hardline” factions within the movement, said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How.“That has always been an undercurrent” in the movement, Diaz-Tello added. “As we see other abortion opponents declaring their opposition to criminalization of people who end their pregnancies, this is the opportunity for them to really step up and put those principles into action.”The bills being introduced in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina look to establish that life begins at conception. Each of these bills explicitly references homicide charges for abortion. Homicide is punishable by the death penalty in all of those states.Bills in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also explicitly target medication abortion, which so far has fallen into a legal grey zone in much of the country.A bill in Alabama has also been announced, although not yet been introduced, by Republican representative Ernest Yarbrough, that would establish fetal personhood from conception and repeal a section of Alabama’s abortion ban that expressly prevents homicide charges for abortion. The state’s current law makes abortion a class A felony, on the same level as homicide, but exempts women seeking abortions from being held criminally or civilly liable.Laws that establish fetal personhood also bring the risk of opening pregnant people up to battery and assault charges for endangering a fetus. Such charges have already been documented in hundreds of cases, using criminal laws championed in recent decades by the anti-abortion movement that recognize fetuses as potential victims.“It never starts or stops with abortion,” said Sussman of the far-reaching effects of fetal personhood laws.“That means that not getting prenatal care, not taking pre-natal vitamins, working a job that is physically demanding – all of those things could impose some risk to the fetus – and that could be a child neglect or child abuse case.”Such laws have been used to target pregnant people who have taken prescribed medication, taken illegal drugs or drunk alcohol while pregnant, even when there has been no adverse outcome on the fetus.Some of the bills, such as the one in Arkansas, allow a partner to file an unlawful death lawsuit against a pregnant person who has had an abortion.“The ways in which pregnant people could become a mere vessel for an entity that has separate and unique rights is becoming closer and closer to reality. And there are ways in which this could be used that we haven’t even contemplated yet,” said Sussman.TopicsUS newsAbortionLaw (US)Reproductive rightsRoe v WadeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More