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      Giuliani Is Served Arizona Indictment Notice After His 80th Birthday Party

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      After trying to reach him for weeks, officials served him the notice as he left his 80th birthday party. He is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.Rudolph W. Giuliani was served with a notice of his indictment in the Arizona election interference case on Friday night, becoming the last of the 18 defendants to receive the notice after nearly a month of unsuccessful attempts by the authorities.The indictment against Mr. Giuliani, Donald J. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and others includes conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges related to their attempts to change the results of the 2020 election in the state in favor of Mr. Trump, according to prosecutors. Among the other defendants are Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, along with all of the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf to keep him in power despite his defeat there.Richie Taylor, a spokesman for Kris Mayes, Arizona’s attorney general who brought the indictment, said that Mr. Giuliani was served on Friday night at around 11 p.m. in Palm Beach County, Fla., as he left his 80th birthday party. “The agents by no means disrupted his event. They waited to serve him outside as he left,” Mr. Taylor said.Mr. Giuliani’s spokesman, Ted Goodman, confirmed in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Giuliani was served “after the party, after guests had left and as he was walking to the car.”“He was unfazed and enjoyed an incredible evening with hundreds of people, from all walks of life, who love and respect him for his contributions to society,” Mr. Goodman said. “We look forward to full vindication soon.”Mr. Giuliani is expected to appear in court on Tuesday unless the court grants a delay, Mr. Taylor said. A trial in the Arizona election interference case has been tentatively set to start in mid-October.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Arizona supreme court delays enforcement of 1864 abortion ban

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      The Arizona supreme court on Monday granted a motion to stay the enforcement of an 1864 law that bans almost all abortions, a win for reproductive rights activists in the swing state.The state’s highest court agreed to the Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes’s request for a 90-day delay of the near-total ban, further pushing back enforcement of the 1864 legislation after a repeal of the ban was passed earlier this month.The stay will last until 12 August. A separate court case on the legislation which granted an additional 45-day stay means the law cannot be enforced until 26 September, Mayes said in a statement.“I am grateful that the Arizona supreme court has stayed enforcement of the 1864 law and granted our motion to stay the mandate in this case for another 90 days,” she said.Mayes added that her office is weighing the “best legal course of action”, including a petition to the US supreme court.The latest decision comes two weeks after the Democratic Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, signed a law to repeal the ban.But the most recent repeal can only take place 90 days after the Arizona legislative session ends, possibly allowing for a small window when the ban could be enforced.Last year’s session ended on 31 July, NBC News reported. If lawmakers adhere to that timeline, the ban could be in effect for approximately a month, until late October.Hobbs has said that she will not prosecute any medical practitioners under the 1864 law.The Arizona supreme court rejected a motion from Planned Parenthood Arizona on Monday to hold off on enforcing the 1864 ban until the repeal takes effect.On the latest court ruling, the reproductive health organization vowed to continue fighting to “[ensure] all Arizonans can access the care they need in a safe, caring environment”, according to a statement.“We will not be intimidated or silenced by anti-abortion extremists, because our bodies and our autonomy are at stake.”In Arizona, abortion is currently banned after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The 1864 abortion law bans nearly all abortions, except to save a woman’s life. The US civil war-era law does not make exceptions for rape or incest.Residents of the swing state will probably vote on a referendum on abortion come November after a coalition of reproductive rights organizations collected enough signatures to get the issue on the 2024 ballot. More

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      On a Day of Graduations, Berkeley’s Protests Stand Out

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      At the University of California, Berkeley, hundreds of soon-to-be graduates rose from their seats in protest, chanting and disrupting their commencement. At Virginia Commonwealth University, about 60 graduates in caps and gowns walked out during Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s speech. At the University of Wisconsin, a handful of graduates stood with their backs to their chancellor as she spoke.After weeks of tumult on college campuses over pro-Palestinian protests, many administrators prepared themselves for disruptions at graduations on Saturday. And while there were demonstrations — most noisily, perhaps, at U.C. Berkeley — ceremonies at several universities unfolded without major incident. Many students who protested did so silently.Anticipating possible disruptions, university administrators had increased their security or taken various measures, including dismantling encampments, setting aside free speech zones, canceling student speeches and issuing admission tickets.Some administrators also tried to reach agreements with encampment organizers. The University of Wisconsin said it had reached a deal with protesters to clear the encampment in return for a meeting to discuss the university’s investments.Some students, too, were on edge about their big day — many missed their high school graduations four years ago because of the pandemic and did not want to repeat the experience.In 2020, David Emuze and his mother had watched his high school graduation “ceremony,” a parade of senior photos set to music on Zoom, from their living room in Springfield, Ill. This time, he and his classmates at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign heard that other schools, like the University of Southern California and Columbia University, had canceled their main-stage commencements altogether because of campus unrest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Candidates for Federal Office Can Raise Unlimited Funds for Ballot Measures

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      The Federal Election Commission quietly issued an advisory opinion last week allowing candidates to raise unlimited money for issue-advocacy groups working on ballot measures in elections in which those candidates are on the ballot.The opinion, issued in response to a request from a Nevada-based abortion rights group, could significantly alter the landscape in the fall in terms of the capacity that candidates aligned with these groups have to help them raise money.The decision applies to all federal candidates, but with a presidential election taking place in six months, the biggest attention will fall to that race. If Mr. Biden can solicit money for abortion-rights ballot measures, he can add to an already-existing fund-raising advantage that his team currently has over Mr. Trump.The decision, released publicly last week but little noticed, could affect turnout in battleground states like Nevada where razor-thin margins will determine the election. In Arizona, an abortion rights group said it had the number of signatures required to put a referendum on the ballot. Florida — a state that has voted reliably for Republicans in recent presidential races — has a similar measure on the ballot.The advisory opinion means that both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump can raise money for outside groups pushing ballot measures. In the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, abortion ballot measures are expected to be a key focus for Democrats this fall.“I think it’s quite significant,” said Adav Noti, of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, calling it an enormous change from prohibitions put in place by the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill in 2002.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Missouri and South Dakota Join States Pursuing Abortion Rights Referendums

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      Both states are reliably Republican and have abortion bans that are among the strictest in the nation.Two more states with near-total abortion bans are poised to have citizen-sponsored measures on the ballot this year that would allow voters to reverse those bans by establishing a right to abortion in their state constitutions.On Friday, a coalition of abortion rights groups in Missouri turned in 380,159 signatures to put the amendment on the ballot, nearly double the 172,000 signatures required by law. The Missouri organizers’ announcement followed a petition drive in South Dakota that announced on Wednesday that it, too, had turned in many more signatures than required for a ballot amendment there.Both groups are hoping to build on the momentum of other states where abortion rights supporters have prevailed in seven out of seven ballot measures in the two years since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had established a constitutional right to abortion for nearly five decades.Groups in about 10 other states have secured spots on the ballot for abortion rights measures or are collecting signatures to do so. Those include Arizona and Nevada, swing states where Democrats are hoping that voters who are newly energized around abortion rights will help President Biden win re-election.South Dakota and Missouri are reliably Republican states. But their bans are among the strictest in the nation, outlawing abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman.Missouri, where post-Roe polls show that a majority of voters want abortion to be legal in all or most cases, appears to offer abortion rights groups the bigger chance of success. But both measures face significant hurdles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Boxing, tacos and TV: Democratic Senate contender aims to win back Latino voters

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      When one of the most celebrated Mexican boxers in history, Canelo Álvarez, steps into the ring against the undefeated Mexican fighter Jaime Munguía on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, excitement will be through the roof at a campaign event just 280 miles away.That’s because the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego, caught in one of the most critical US Senate races in the country against the former TV anchor Kari Lake, will be holding a watch party for the fight at JL Boxing Academy in Glendale, Arizona, complete with big screens inside, and a truck serving birria tacos and Mexican Cokes outside.The event on Cinco de Mayo weekend, expected to bring more than 100 largely Latino residents and families, is not just happening because Gallego is a boxing fan, but rather serves as evidence of how the campaign from the former US marine and Iraq combat veteran aims to reach Latino voters and Hispanic men who have eroded from the Democratic party in recent election cycles.“I remember leaving work sites with my cousins to gather with friends and family to watch epic boxing matches,” Gallego told the Guardian, citing famous boxing legends like Julio César Chávez, Mike Tyson and Oscar De La Hoya. “Far too often, politicians treat Latino voters as a box to check. Our campaign is different: we’re focused on community events – food tours, town halls in Spanish, and this weekend: boxing watch parties.”Latino voter support for Democrats nationally slipped 8 percentage points from 2016 to 2020, according to the firm Catalist. A 2022 survey of 3,600 exit-poll interviews with voters in battleground states, conducted by the progressive donor network Way to Win, found that 58% of Hispanic men supported Democratic candidates, compared with 66% of Latinas. Meanwhile, the Democratic political action committee Nuestro Pac found after the 2022 midterms that Hispanic men consistently lagged Latinas in Democratic support in battlegrounds by 8 to 12 points.Chuck Rocha, an adviser to Gallego’s campaign, said Gallego himself texted senior staffers in the fall with the idea for the event, recalling his message was that with the Canelo bout coming in 2024 it would be good to have a presence around the fight for boys and their fathers and families who love boxing.“We all know Latino men have been trending away from [Democrats], and Ruben Gallego is reflective of those men,” Rocha said, noting that Gallego had to sleep on a couch in his living room until he went away for college because his sisters shared a room together and he didn’t have a bedroom.“Ruben went off to war and served with men and women who are true blue-collar, working-class kids like him. We both know the reason Latino men are slipping from Democrats is because we’re not showing up in the places we need to, and not having conversations about things Latino men care about.”For its part, Lake’s campaign said Gallego’s events, and ads focused on Harvard and being a marine would not ultimately reach voters who are focused on inflation and border issues.“Broadly every group is facing problems with inflation and the border and our plan all along is as voters learn about Gallego’s record, they will like him less, no matter what events he does and no matter his biography,” said Alex Nichol, a Lake campaign spokesperson, noting Gallego’s votes with Joe Biden’s “deeply unpopular” policies on illegal immigration and the economy.A FiveThirtyEight analysis of Gallego’s votes in the 117th Congress found the Phoenix congressman was aligned with Biden 100% of the time.Reaching voters where they areStill, Gallego’s event is being lauded by veteran political organizers and operatives of both parties who stress that while most Latinos don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo, with the holiday often viewed as an excuse to drink margaritas and eat Mexican food, Hispanics who enjoy sports often look forward to the holiday as part of a major boxing weekend, when star Mexican prizefighters have high-profile bouts.“This brings politics and engagement into a place candidates often don’t think about,” said Tomas Robles, founder of Roble Fuerte Strategies, and an organizer for 14 years in Arizona who has worked to mobilize Latino voters. “So it’s doing what most politicians hope to do, which is reaching new people and communities with their message, who they haven’t been able to reach in the past.”Gallego has also put on a round table last week with Latino leaders on lowering prescription drug prices, a Maryvale, Arizona townhall last year entirely in Spanish, and a south Phoenix food tour with local influencer Señor Foodie.“The Canelo fight watch party, I would say, is smart, because he’s continuing to mine parts of the Latino vote that Lake will never even touch, so if he can get them to turn out that’s a net gain for him,” said Jaime Molera, who served as an adviser to the former Republican governor Jane Dee Hull and co-founded the Molera Alvarez consulting firm.While the Democratic party for the first time this cycle acknowledged its problem with reaching Latino men amid fear that they are gravitating to former president Donald Trump driven by his bravado and policies, Robles argues it’s an inaccurate view, and Hispanic men have instead been moved by what they perceive as “authenticity”.“He’s no doubt been to a bunch of events like the one his campaign is organizing, like the ones we went to in our 20s. He can have a 15-minute convo by the taco truck and it won’t have to be anything about politics, it will be about boxing,” he said.. “That is the connection politicians are eager to make but a lot of them don’t put themselves in the shoes of the people they’re trying to connect with.”View image in fullscreenGallego led by two points over Lake in a March Hill/Emerson poll 51% to 49% but has enjoyed larger leads in more recent polls. An average of 19 polls from the Hill finds Gallego leading by an average of 4.7%.Chuck Coughlin, who served as a campaign manager for former Republican governor Jan Brewer and is the president of HighGround which runs polls in Arizona, told the Guardian he spoke to Gallego before he ran and he shared that this was exactly the type of event he was going to do.Coughlin described a demographic divide within the Hispanic community between “older, traditional, Catholic, gun-owning, conservative-leaning” members and the more activist, immigration-focused generation that was baptized under the state’s hardline SB1070 immigration law over a dozen years ago.“For him to establish a beachhead with those people he would not be known to, coming from one of the lowest-turnout districts in the state, is smart,” he said. “His DNA – the story he tells on TV of having a hard-working single mom, going to college, being a marine in Iraq – that’s a working man’s story that they can relate to. I don’t think that story has been shared widely among those older Hispanics and this kind of event is a perfect place to allow himself to share those stories in an apolitical format with your tío and your family there.”Junior Lopez, 42, is the owner and trainer at JL Boxing Academy, who has trained fighters for more than 15 years, including current top contender David Benavidez. He said the primary thing people need to know about Latino men is that their number one priority is taking care of their families.In Lopez and men like him, Gallego has the opportunity to start a conversation on Saturday.“I’m not going to lie, I don’t follow too much of the political stuff,” he told the Guardian. “This is a good thing for me and for my people in the community to hear what he’s about and to understand what he’s fighting for.”One interesting wrinkle at the watch party: Benavidez, who Lopez trains, is ranked No 2 in ESPN’s super-middleweight ranking, behind Álvarez. Fans entering the watch party will walk by a giant poster of Benavidez, who is nicknamed the “Mexican Monster”, and has accused Álvarez of ducking a matchup with him. In some ways that makes this under-the-radar watch party in Glendale part of the orbit at the center of the boxing universe.And come November, Arizona too could be the center of the political universe, given the razor-thin margin in 2020 between Biden and Trump, and if Gallego is able to maximize his support with Latinos on his way to becoming the first Latino US senator in Arizona history.Rocha, who wrote a book called Tio Bernie about serving as the architect for Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly robust 2020 Latino outreach effort, said he was impressed by Gallego’s focus on Hispanics at this juncture in the campaign.“I’ve never seen a candidate more focused on maximizing the Latino vote than this candidate,” he said. “He’s from the community and has felt the pain they feel, and he has really good ideas.” More

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      ‘Chaos will be created’: Arizona court hears election-subversion case – with eyes on 2024

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      In a courtroom in Phoenix, Arizona, two elected officials who allegedly tried to subvert the county’s 2022 election tried to get a lawsuit against them thrown out in a case one of their defense attorneys called both “silly” and “scary”.The Cochise county supervisors, Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, appeared in court virtually, to defend themselves against charges of attempted election interference for their initial failure to certify the county’s election results.The implications of the case extend far beyond the rural county and the Phoenix courtroom 200 miles away.The state attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat, sought the charges in the deep-red border county, where election denialism has gripped part of the electorate. Those looking to sow doubt in elections found, to some degree, willing ears with the two Republicans on the board.View image in fullscreenTheir attorneys argue that the officials’ conduct did not actually delay the election results statewide. They also claim the two supervisors have legislative immunity for their votes, regardless of their underlying motivations. And, while the state has maintained that signing off on election results is a required duty not subject to supervisors’ discretion, the supervisors claim they don’t just serve as a “rubber stamp” on election results.The Arizona legislature’s Republican leaders filed a brief in the case aligning with the supervisors, saying that the lawsuit “portends further weaponization of legal and judicial processes for political retribution”.“What we’ve got is a rogue prosecution, a rogue prosecutor in a rogue prosecution, arguing, well, we’ll just take any legislative function – clearly, which it was, this vote – and we’re going to now read into it,” Dennis Wilenchik, Crosby’s attorney, said in a court hearing on 19 April.The lawsuit is part of a deeper conflict – a clash between a Democratic attorney general, narrowly elected in 2022, and Republicans who question election results in the state. The recent indictments against the Republican slate of Arizona fake electors, two of whom are sitting lawmakers, further the divide.Both Mayes and the Republican-controlled legislature allege the other side is playing politics instead of doing their job. The state house started a committee to investigate Mayes’ actions on various issues, including Cochise elections; the committee’s chair has said the group could recommend actions be taken against Mayes, including potential impeachment.The battle lines drawn in Cochise county extend far beyond its borders, into whether local elected officials can decide not to sign off on election results, into the fate of Arizona’s future and who controls it. The culmination of the case holds potential consequences for the 2024 election, when officials at the local level could try similar tactics to question results.View image in fullscreenPart of a patternAfter the 2020 election, activists in counties around the country turned up at meetings to allege that voter fraud stole the election from Donald Trump and demanded changes to how their elections are run.In Cochise county, these activists repeatedly brought up unsubstantiated claims about problems with tabulation machines that made their use in elections suspect. They wanted the county to count ballots fully by hand and throw out the machines.Crosby and Judd aligned with those activists, agreeing to a full hand-count. The idea invited a lawsuit, which led to a ruling that a full hand-count would be illegal in Arizona.The supervisors claimed they had lingering questions about the use of tabulation machines, specifically whether those machines had the proper certification, so they refused to certify the election. A court intervened, forcing certification. Judd eventually voted in favor of certifying results after the court ruling, but Crosby didn’t show up for the meeting.Personnel issues have plagued the elections office as these legal battles have played out. The county’s former elections director, Lisa Marra, opposed the hand count, and Crosby and Judd sued her personally in an attempt to get access to the ballots for a hand count. Marra eventually quit because of a “threatening” work environment, leading to a monetary payout.View image in fullscreenThe county is on its fourth elections director since the 2022 election, after the most recent director, Tim Mattix, left in April for personal reasons. The director before him, Bob Bartelsmeyer, was an election skeptic who stayed in the role for just five months after his conservative bonafides were repeatedly impugned by local far-right activists.Mayes’ office contends the two supervisors’ pattern of behavior leading up to delaying certification speaks to a plan to sow chaos in elections and question results.“This is a criminal conspiracy to obstruct the election,” the assistant attorney general Todd Lawson argued, “so that the secretary of state is unable to certify, and that chaos will be created, no one will know what will happen, and that people like the US House of Representatives, perhaps the Arizona legislature, will have to step in and declare election results, irrespective of who actually won.”Whatever happens in the case, now in Maricopa county superior court, it will almost certainly be appealed to a higher court.Crosby did not answer questions sent from the Guardian, responding: “No thanks.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJudd also did not respond, and her attorney said he had advised against her speaking with the media at this time.But Judd told Votebeat that she wasn’t a driving force for a hand count in the first place and voted for it because of what she was hearing from constituents.“You can ask anyone. I never pushed for it,” she said.A separate courtroom battle over the legality of hand counts, stemming from Mohave county, could affect whether Cochise and other jurisdictions pursue the elimination of voting machines in this year’s presidential election.In the Republican-dominated county, the supervisor Ron Gould sued Mayes after her office sent a letter warning supervisors against a full hand-count of the 2024 election, something the board there had been considering but ultimately voted against.Mayes warned that supervisors could face criminal prosecution if they proceeded with a hand count, as many counties across the country have tried to do since 2020.View image in fullscreenLegislature strikes backBefore the first meeting of the house ad hoc committee of executive oversight in early April, Mayes held a press conference and derided the legislature’s “outlandish personal attacks” on her and the attorney general’s office.“Perhaps our Republican senate president and speaker of the house aren’t very used to an attorney general who will actually roll up her sleeves and fight for Arizonans,” she said. “But that is what they have in me.”View image in fullscreenIn the house, Democrats skipped the meeting in protest. Representative Jacqueline Parker, the committee’s chair, said it would investigate Mayes’ actions to see whether she had weaponized her office or abused her authority, but it seemed the committee already believed she had.The Cochise county skirmishes were just one part of their opposition – they also mentioned her refusal to prosecute anyone who violated Arizona’s abortion ban and her unwillingness to defend laws on LGBTQ+ issues such as one outlawing trans girls from playing girls’ sports, among other concerns.One of the first records requests to Mayes’ office from the committee centered on Cochise county – in particular, an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by the attorney general when the board voted to move some election authority to the Republican county recorder, who had pushed for the hand count and cast doubt on elections.“We would like to better understand your motivation for targeting Cochise county and including such inflammatory and irrelevant material in your court filings,” the committee chairs wrote.Parker said in the initial hearing that she hoped Mayes cooperates with the records request because she would “really be interested in finding out why she’s only going after Cochise county and not other bad-acting counties like Pima or Maricopa, who have had, in my opinion, many, many more issues”.After Mayes announced the fake electors charges, Parker called on her to recuse herself from “any legal matters involving elected officials or candidates” because she has “prosecuted or threatened to prosecute public officials if they dare disagree with you”.Mayes’ office said the backlash doesn’t affect her work and that she “won’t let the partisan attacks by the GOP deter her from doing her job”. 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      Arizona senate passes repeal of 1864 near-total abortion ban

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      Arizona lawmakers have repealed the state’s 160-year-old statute banning nearly all abortions.The 1864 law, which was reinstated by the state supreme court three weeks ago, has made abortion a central focus in the battleground state and galvanized Democrats seeking to enshrine abortion rights.In the state senate, Democrats picked up the support of two Republicans in favor of repealing the ban. The Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is expected to ratify the repeal, which narrowly cleared the Arizona house last week after three Republicans joined with all the Democrats in the chamber.Dozens of demonstrators for and against the right to abortion gathered at the capitol before the vote, and others packed into the chamber’s gallery to watch. As senators began to vote, Republicans in the chamber voiced bombastic protests and criticisms in floor speeches.Antony Kern, a Republican who has been indicted as a fake elector in a plot to undermine the 2020 election results, said his fellow Republicans backing the ban were the “epitome of delusion”. He claimed the vote would take the state down a slippery slope towards acceptance of pedophilia, as supporters cheered from the gallery with silent claps. Kern also compared the chamber repealing the bill to Nazi Germany.Another Republican senator, JD Mesnard, played a sonogram recording of his child’s heartbeat on the floor. He said: “These will be fewer, these heart beatings.”Republican Shawnna Bolick gave a 20-minute speech in defense of her vote to support the repeal, covering stories about her own pregnancies, other pregnancies, and her critiques of the state’s Democratic governor. Ultimately, she said, repealing the ban would allow Republicans to maintain a less extreme version of abortion restrictions. She said: “We should be pushing for the maximum protection for unborn children that can be sustained. I side with saving more babies’ lives.”The civil-war era statute, which predates Arizona’s statehood, bans nearly all abortions, including those sought by survivors of rape or incest. It also imposes prison terms for doctors and others who aid in abortions. The law had been blocked by the 1973 supreme court Roe v Wade decisions that granted the constitutional right to abortion.“We are relieved that lawmakers have finally repealed this inhumane abortion ban – something extremist politicians refused to do for far too long,” said Victoria López, director of program and strategy for the ACLU of Arizona. “Unfortunately, cruel abortion bans like the law from 1864 have been at the center of political stunts for years, causing lasting harm to people who need abortions and their providers.”Last month, the state’s Republican-appointed supreme court justices suggested it could be reinstated since Roe was overturned in 2022.The repeal would not take effect until June or July, 90 days after the legislative session. Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has vowed not to enforce the ban in the meantime. Providers, including Planned Parenthood, have been preparing resources to help patients seeking abortions to travel out of state during the time that the ban is in effect.“Today’s vote by the Arizona senate to repeal the draconian 1864 abortion ban is a win for freedom in our state,” Mayes said.Once the 1864 measure is stricken, a 2022 statue banning procedures after 15 weeks of pregnancy would supplant it as the state’s ruling abortion law.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenAbortion rights advocates have emphasized that repealing the ban is not enough. “This is an important step, but our work isn’t done,” said Ruben Gallego, a US congressman from Arizona who is running for the US Senate. “Arizona women deserve better. That’s why we’re going to pass a constitutional right to abortion and defeat anti-abortion extremists.”Democrats have been pushing for a ballot measure in November that would enshrine the right to abortions in the state’s constitution. In the weeks since the ban was reinstated , the Arizona for Abortion Access effort saw its volunteers grow from about 3,000 to more than 5,000.“Nothing has changed about the need for the Arizona abortion access act,” the group organizing the ballot measure said following the passage of the repeal.The issue has placed enormous pressure on the Arizona GOP, from conservatives who support the ban and from swing voters who oppose the extreme measure. On the senate floor on Wednesday, Bolick, as she cast her vote in favor of the repeal, said: “I want to protect our state constitution from unlimited abortions up until the moment of birth.”In the key swing state – one that historically leaned Republican but backed Joe Biden in 2020 – the issue could help turn out more voters who could help flip the statehouse blue.Republican lawmakersare considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot, including a 14-week ban and a “heartbeat protection act” that would make abortion illegal after six weeks. No such measures have been introduced yet. More