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      Ted Cruz, US senator mocked for flight to Cancún, seeks airport police escorts

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      The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz, who achieved viral infamy in 2021 when he was seen at Houston airport for a flight to Cancún even as his state faced a historic and deadly spell of cold weather, this week moved a step closer to securing police escorts for lawmakers at airports.Under an amendment to the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization bill introduced by Cruz, members of Congress and other prominent officials, and some family and staff members, will be offered security escorts if they are deemed “currently … or previously … the subject of a threat, as determined by such applicable federal protective agency”.If passed by the House and Senate, the bill will fund the FAA for four years.But given Cruz’s scrape with viral fame over his flight to Mexico in February 2021 – a trip to join a family vacation he abandoned after one day, admitting his “obvious mistake” as tweets and memes proliferated – the senator faces criticism and mockery over his attempt to secure security guards for future airport trips.“Cancún Cruz wants to flee Texas in secret,” said Lose Cruz, a Democratic political action committee supporting Colin Allred, an NFL player turned US congressman now challenging Cruz for his Senate seat.Matt Angle, founder of the Lone Star Project, an anti-Republican Texas group, said: “Ted Cruz is still chapped over being caught sneaking to Cancún. He can’t get a damn thing done to improve the border or keep kids safe, but Ted figures out how to get private security covered by taxpayers. Self-serving. Soulless. Worthless.”Insisting the amendment was needed, Cruz told Politico of “serious security threats facing public officials”, adding: “It’s important that we take reasonable measures to keep everyone safe.”There have been prominent cases of lawmakers being accosted at airports. But Kevin Murphy, of the Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network, told Politico Cruz’s amendment would prove “a burden to airport police agencies” he said were not adequately funded.Melissa Braid, a spokesperson for Senate commerce committee Republicans, among whom Cruz is the ranking member, told the Dallas Morning News: “The airport security amendment was drafted in a bipartisan manner to address the growing number of serious threats against justices, judges, public officials and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.“It passed out of committee unanimously by voice vote and was included in the Senate’s bipartisan FAA Reauthorization bill.“With rising security incidents at airports, this amendment ensures that when law enforcement determines a threat exists, reasonable security measures will be taken to keep everybody safe.”Still, Cruz’s trip to Cancún seems sure to play a prominent campaign role.Earlier this week, Allred said: “We don’t need to ask where Ted Cruz stands when he’s challenged. We know. He stood in the airport lounge waiting to fly to Cancún while Texans froze in the dark. It’s time for him to go on a permanent vacation from the Senate.” More

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      South Carolina Republicans can use discriminatory map for 2024, court rules

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      A federal court will allow South Carolina Republicans to use their congressional map for the 2024 election, it said on Thursday, despite an earlier finding that the same plan discriminates against Black voters. The decision is a big win for Republicans, who were aided by the US supreme court’s slow action on the case.In January 2023, a three-judge panel struck down the state’s first congressional district, which is currently represented by Nancy Mace, a Republican. The judges said legislative Republicans had impermissibly used race when they redrew it after the 2020 census. As part of an effort to make it more solidly Republican, lawmakers removed 30,000 Black voters from the district into a neighboring one. Republicans argued that they moved the voters to achieve partisan ends, which is legal. The district was extremely competitive in 2020, but Mace easily won the redrawn version in 2022.The ruling is a significant boon to House Republicans, who are trying to keep a razor-thin majority in Congress’s lower chamber this year.The US supreme court heard oral arguments in the case, Alexander v South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, on 11 October and seemed poised allow the GOP map to remain in place. But the court has not yet issued a decision. The justices still could potentially order the state to come up with a new map before the 2024 election, though that seems less likely as the state’s 11 June primary approaches. The supreme court has adopted in recent years an idea called the Purcell principle in which it does not disrupt maps or election practices as an election nears.“A second election under an infirm map is justice delayed when plaintiffs have made every effort to get a decision and remedy before another election under a map that denies them their rights,” said Leah Aden, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who argued the case at the supreme court last year. “As with any civil rights struggle, we will be unrelenting in our fight for our constitutional rights.”South Carolina officials had asked the supreme court to issue a ruling by 1 January 2024 in order to have a resolution ahead of the state’s primary.Lawyers representing state officials had recently started arguing that South Carolina’s June congressional primary was fast approaching so the state should be allowed to use the old map.At the request of South Carolina Republicans, the trial court said they did not have to come up with a new map until 30 days after a final decision from the supreme court. But, it added “on the outside chance the process is not completed in time for the 2024 primary and general election schedule, the election for Congressional District No 1 should not be conducted until a remedial plan is in place”.The three-judge panel acknowledged on Thursday that what it once considered unlikely had now come to fruition. It acknowledged the difficulty of coming up with a new map ahead of the upcoming primary. Overseas and military ballots must be sent out by 27 April for the state’s 11 June primary.“Having found that Congressional District No 1 constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, the Court fully recognizes that ‘it would be the unusual case in which a court would be justified in not taking appropriate action to insure that no further elections are conducted under an invalid plan,’” the panel wrote. “But with the primary election procedures rapidly approaching, the appeal before the Supreme Court still pending, and no remedial plan in place, the ideal must bend to the practical.”The case is the most recent example of how litigants have been able to take advantage of the Purcell principle. By dragging out cases as long as possible, Republicans have been able to keep discriminatory maps and election practices in place for additional elections.In a brief to the supreme court earlier this week, the plaintiffs in the case said that it would be inappropriate for the justices to allow South Carolina to use its map for another election.“Contrary to Defendants’ pleas, thirteen full months of legislative inaction does not warrant a stay. There is still time to draft and enact a remedial plan for the 2024 congressional elections,” they wrote. “Defendants offer no explanation for why they did not expeditiously request the relief they now seek last year, or even in January or February of 2024. Nor do Defendants explain why they have not yet begun legislative proceedings to enact contingent remedial plans, as other states have done in response to judicial rulings.” More

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      Montana supreme court strikes down Republican-passed voting restrictions

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      In a significant win for voting rights, the Montana supreme court on Wednesday struck down four voting restrictions passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2021.In a 125-page opinion, the state’s highest court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the four laws, passed in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, violate the state constitution. The laws had ended same-day voter registration, removed student ID cards as a permissible form of voter ID, prohibited third parties from returning ballots and barred the distribution of mail-in ballots to voters who would turn 18 by election day.After a nine-day trial, the lower court found that the laws would make it harder for some state residents to register to vote and cast a ballot.A spokesperson for the Republican secretary of state, Christi Jacobsen, who appealed the lower court decision in an attempt to get the laws reinstated, said that she was “devastated” by the supreme court decision.“Her commitment to election integrity will not waver by this narrow adoption of judicial activism that is certain to fall on the wrong side of history,” the spokesperson, Richie Melby, wrote in a statement. “State and county election officials have been punched in the gut.”The Montana Democratic party, one of the parties that sued over the restrictive voting laws along with Native American and youth voting rights groups, called the ruling a “tremendous victory for democracy, Native voters, and young people across the state of Montana”.“While Republican politicians continue to attack voting rights and our protected freedoms, their voter suppression efforts failed and were struck down as unconstitutional,” the executive director, Sheila Hogan, said in a statement. “We’re going to keep working to make sure every eligible Montana voter can make their voices heard at the ballot box this November.”The chief justice, Mike McGrath, who wrote the opinion, pointed to the laws’ potential to disenfranchise young and Indigenous voters in Montana, who are disproportionately affected by efforts to eliminate same-day voter registration and third-party ballot collection and strict ID requirements.The Montana constitution, McGrath wrote, affords greater voting protections than the US constitution.Writing in Election Law Blog, the University of Kentucky election law professor Joshua Douglas called the decision “a model for how state courts should consider the protections for the right to vote within state constitutions”.“State courts have various tools within state constitutions to robustly protect voters,” he wrote. “The Montana Supreme Court’s decision offers a solid roadmap for how to use state constitutional language on the right to vote. Other state supreme courts should follow the Montana Supreme Court’s lead.”While Montana has not been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 and is not expected to be competitive in November, the state will have a high-profile Senate race, with Republicans trying to flip the seat currently held by the Democratic senator Jon Tester. More

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      Want to make it in the Republican party? Pledge allegiance to the Big Lie | Robert Reich

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      If you’re seeking employment at the Republican National Committee (RNC), you’re likely to be asked in your job interview if you believe the 2020 election was stolen. And if you say no, well, you might as well seek a job with George Santos.After a Trump-backed purge of the RNC this month, agreeing to the false claim has become a kind of litmus test for gaining employment – no less than it’s become a litmus test for running for public office as a Republican.Even if you already have a job at the RNC, you might lose it if you don’t agree to the lie. According to the Washington Post, Trump advisers have been quizzing multiple employees who had worked in key 2024 states about their views on the last presidential election.Hell, even if you’ve repeated the lie multiple times in the media, you might still lose your RNC job. Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel lost her job even though she continued to echo Trump’s election lies.McDaniel even participated in a 17 November 2020 phone call in which Trump pressured two Republican members of the Wayne county board of canvassers not to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings reviewed by the Detroit News. None of this was enough to save her.Yet McDaniel now finds herself in the same integrity trap that many US news organizations have faced ever since Trump came to power.Trump fired McDaniel because she was insufficiently loyal to him. But she was too loyal to him to retain any integrity for herself.McDaniel was hired by NBC last week as a paid contributor until network anchors and reporters revolted. They argued that by hiring her, NBC gave a green light for election deniers to spread lies as paid contributors. On Tuesday, NBC fired her.The New York Times deadpanned that the embarrassing episode underscores the challenge to news organizations “of fairly representing … pro-Trump viewpoints in their coverage”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWrong. The real problem is there can’t be any “fair” representation of pro-Trump Republican viewpoints as long as those viewpoints are centered on the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.A party that baselessly denies the outcome of an election has no legitimate claim to be “represented” in a news organization. Nor can anyone who has gone along with the lie, including the former head of the Republican National Committee, expect a job with a news organization.The fact is, neither NBC nor any other legitimate news organization can find someone with integrity who can defend Trump or act as a mouthpiece for the Republican party he now controls, because no one with integrity would do so.“Wow!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday. “Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.”Trump understated the dilemma. The entire Maga Republican party is now in Never Neverland. And it’s a place no one with a shred of integrity would want to be.So be careful with that RNC job interview. More

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      Joe Lieberman, former US senator and vice-presidential nominee, dies at 82

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      The former US senator Joe Lieberman, who ran as the Democratic nominee for vice-president in the 2000 election and became the first Jewish candidate on a major-party ticket for the White House, alongside presidential candidate Al Gore, has died at the age of 82.Lieberman died in New York due to complications from a fall, according to a statement from his family. He was a Connecticut senator for four terms.Lieberman took one of the most controversial arcs in recent US political history. Though he had the status of a breakthrough candidate for America’s Jewish community as Gore’s running mate, his support for president George W Bush’s Iraq war heralded a rightward journey that saw him anger many Democrats.Lieberman sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 but his support for the war in Iraq doomed his candidacy with voters, amid increasing anger at the invasion and its bloody aftermath. It also meant Lieberman was rejected by Connecticut’s Democrats when he ran for a fourth Senate term there in 2006.However, in what he said was a vindication of his positions, he kept his Senate seat by running as an independent candidate, with substantial support from Republican and independent voters.By 2008, Lieberman was a high-profile supporter of Republican senator John McCain in his bid to defeat Democrat Barack Obama’s quest to become America’s first Black president.Thus Lieberman did manage to both impress and offend people across party lines. He expressed strong support for gay rights, civil rights, abortion rights and environmental causes that often won him praise of many Democrats, and he frequently fit mould of a north-east liberal. He played a key role in legislation that established the US Department of Homeland Security.He was also the first national Democrat to publicly criticize President Bill Clinton for his extramarital affair with then White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He scolded Clinton for “disgraceful behavior”, earning the ire of his party – though his position has become much more standard in the wake of the #MeToo movement.As he sought a political home outside Democratic politics, Lieberman’s close friend in the Senate John McCain was leaning strongly toward choosing him as vice-president for the 2008 Republican ticket, but Lieberman’s history of liberal policies were seen as too unpopular for McCain to pull off such a move with his conservative base. He plumped for Sarah Palin instead.In announcing his retirement from the Senate in 2013, Lieberman acknowledged that he did “not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes” and felt his first responsibility was to serve his constituents, state and country, not his political party.Harry Reid, who served as Senate Democratic leader, once said that while he didn’t always agree with the independent-minded Lieberman, he respected him.“Regardless of our differences, I have never doubted Joe Lieberman’s principles or his patriotism,” Reid said. “And I respect his independent streak, as it stems from strong convictions.”After leaving the Senate, Lieberman joined a New York law firm and took up company boards – as is common for retiring senators. But his public positions continued to be a mish-mash of liberal and rightwing views.View image in fullscreenHe endorsed Donald Trump’s controversial decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and was a public supporter of Trump’s rightwing education secretary Betsy DeVos – a hated figure for many liberals. But at the same time, he endorsed Hilary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 in their runs for the White House.Lieberman continued to push his message of compromise with his 2021 book The Centrist Solution, comparing far-right extremists to progressive leftists in a Guardian interview at the time, saying: “The divisive forces in both of our two major parties have moved further away from the centre. But I believe those more extreme segments of both parties are in the minority in both parties.”He also said he was optimistic that “more mainstream, centrist elements” in the Republican party would take over again.He remained active in recent years as the founding chairman of No Labels, an organization to encourage bipartisanship but which is currently exploring backing a third-party bid for the presidency as Trump and Biden face off again. Faced with criticisms that the group’s efforts could boost Trump’s chance at victory, Lieberman said last year he did not want to see Trump re-elected, but that he believed Democrats would fare better if Biden was not running. In recent weeks, No Labels has struggled to find a candidate as ballot deadlines near.Lieberman grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where his father operated a liquor store. He was the eldest of three siblings in an Orthodox Jewish family. A Yale law school graduate, Lieberman went on to serve as Connecticut attorney general in 1983, before defeating the incumbent Republican, Lowell Weicker, to earn his Senate seat in 1988.Tributes poured in from both sides of the aisle on Wednesday night. Chris Murphy, a US senator from Connecticut, said in a statement that his state was “shocked by Senator Lieberman’s sudden passing”, adding: “In an era of political carbon copies, Joe Lieberman was a singularity. One of one. He fought and won for what he believed was right and for the state he adored.”Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa and oldest sitting senator at 90, recalled working with Lieberman on whistleblower initiatives, saying in a statement: “Joe was a dedicated public servant working [with] anyone regardless of political stripe.”Gore published a tribute praising Lieberman as a “truly gifted leader, whose affable personality and strong will made him a force to be reckoned with”, recounting his former running mate’s support of the 1960s civil rights movement.Obama wrote that he and Lieberman “didn’t always see eye-to-eye”, but commended the former senator for supporting the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the passage of the Affordable Care Act: “In both cases the politics were difficult, but he stuck to his principles because he knew it was the right thing to do.”Paul Harris and the Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Trump mocks ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel for being fired by NBC

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      Donald Trump mocked the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Ronna McDaniel, for her firing by NBC days after being hired as a political analyst.“Wow!” the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, who ejected McDaniel from the RNC in favour of his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, wrote on his Truth Social platform.“Ronna McDaniel got fired by Fake News NBC. She only lasted two days, and this after McDaniel went out of her way to say what they wanted to hear. It leaves her in a very strange place, it’s called NEVER NEVERLAND, and it’s not a place you want to be.”McDaniel’s hiring was announced by NBC last Friday. Interviewed on Meet the Press on Sunday, she disavowed Trump’s lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election but also claimed there were electoral “problems” in battleground states.Protests from on-air talent and an NBC union group also concerned McDaniel’s combative relations with the press in seven years as RNC chair, a period coinciding with Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. On Tuesday evening McDaniel was gone – giving her a four-day NBC career, not the two claimed by Trump.Cesar Conde, chair of NBCUniversal News, told staff: “No organisation, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal.”Trump said: “These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY, and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK. They were BROKEN and EMBARRASSED by LOW RATINGS, HIGHLY OVERPAID, ‘TALENT.’ BRING BACK FREE AND FAIR PRESS.”Other rightwingers, and media figures, cried foul too.Hugh Hewitt, a talkshow host, told Fox News: “I have never seen anything this brutal since I got started in media in 1990.“Ronna is going to sue everyone who defamed her, for breach of contract, for intentional infliction of mental distress. They are going to sue for the destruction of her business opportunities that come from being on TV. I think they made a terrible decision, and they allowed the MSNBC bleed to take over their network.”On NewsNation, the former Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera accused the MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow of “malignant wokeism”, saying: “God did not anoint her the arbiter of who was appropriate for her network to hire or what their point of view is.”Liberal retorts concerned the chief issue cited by Maddow, Chuck Todd, Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace and other hosts: McDaniel’s support for Trump’s election subversion, including direct involvement in his attempt to nullify Biden’s win in Michigan.“Ronna McDaniel’s desperate attempt to whitewash her record as an election-denying Maga enabler was an insult to independent journalism and to any American who values the truth,” Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Fortunately, much like her and Donald Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, she failed. It’s embarrassing that anyone would try to give McDaniel and her lies a soapbox after she spent years demonstrating such a blatant disregard for the truth, not to mention our entire democratic system. Proven liars who put loyalty to a political demagogue over our democracy have no place in politics – or in the media.”McDaniel did not comment. Politico reported that she was considering legal options and expected to be paid in full for her reported $600,000 two-year deal, which would in effect net her $500 a second for her Meet the Press interview.A “person close to McDaniel” was quoted as saying: “The part that pisses me off most about this is not necessarily that [NBC executives] folded: it’s [that] they allowed their talent to drag Ronna through the mud and make it seem like they were innocent bystanders.”For NBC executives, the pain may not be over. Though Semafor reported a senior Republican aide as saying “No one really cares about Ronna”, her firing has handed her party a potent campaign issue.Semafor also reported anger among NBC staffers.“Political reporters here didn’t take part in the backlash, nor did they get to give input on the hire,” an unnamed journalist was quoted as saying. “But they’ll be the ones who have to pick up the pieces with sources dismayed with the organisation.” More

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      RNC asks job applicants if they believe 2020 election was stolen in ‘litmus test’

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      A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump did not deny a Washington Post report that said prospective RNC employees are being asked if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, constituting a “litmus test” as the 2024 election approaches.“Candidates who worked on the frontline in battleground states or are currently in states where fraud allegations have been prevalent were asked about their work experience,” Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for the RNC and Trump, said in a statement.“We want experienced staff with meaningful views on how elections are won and lost and real experience-based opinions about what happens in the trenches.”Trump has pursued his stolen election lie through his conclusive defeat by Biden; his attempts to overturn results in key states; his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress; his resulting impeachment and acquittal; his attempts to delay or avoid trial on four federal and 10 state criminal charges concerning election subversion; and his surge to a third successive presidential nomination.He extended control over the RNC last month with the replacement of Ronna McDaniel by new co-chairs, his daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Michael Whatley, a loyalist from North Carolina.Lara Trump told NBC on Tuesday the RNC was “past” disputing the 2020 election, adding: “The past is the past and unfortunately we had to learn a couple of hard lessons in 2020.”But the Post said Trump aides were now asking election lie questions as they assess which former staffers will be rehired, as the presidential election grinds into gear.Other questions for prospective hires focused on “election integrity” in the 2024 contest, the Post said.Speaking to the Post, an unnamed prospective employee said two top Trump advisers posed the question directly, asking: “Was the 2020 election stolen?”Two unnamed sources said questions were left open-ended.“But if you say the election wasn’t stolen, do you really think you’re going to get hired?” a former RNC employee was quoted as saying.CNN said it confirmed the Post report, saying sources described the 2020 question “as unusual for a job interview” but saw it as a way of “questioning their loyalty to Donald Trump”. Alvarez repeated her non-denial to CNN.Doug Heye, a former RNC communications director, told the Post it was not unusual for staff to be expected to “back the candidate up and go along with the worldview”.But Bill Kristol, anti-Trump conservative commentator, said prospective hires would now have “no excuse for wanting to work [at the RNC] in 2024”, given its open embrace of Trump’s election lie. More

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      US supreme court seems skeptical of arguments against abortion drug mifepristone

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      The supreme court on Tuesday seemed skeptical of arguments made by anti-abortion doctors asking it to roll back the availability of mifepristone, a drug typically used in US medication abortion. The arguments were part of the first major abortion case to reach the justices since a 6-3 majority ruled in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and end the national right to abortion.The rightwing groups that brought the case argued that the justices should roll back measures taken since 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the drug’s availability. A decision in the anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply nationwide, including in states that protect abortion access, and would probably make the drug more difficult to acquire.Medication abortion now accounts for almost two-thirds of abortions performed in the US.Much of Tuesday’s arguments focused on whether the anti-abortion doctors who sued the FDA, a coalition known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, have standing, or the right to bring the case in the first place. The doctors claim they will suffer harm if they have to treat women who experience complications from mifepristone, an argument the Biden administration, which appealed the case to the court, has rejected as too speculative.The US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the FDA, argued that the doctors do not come within “100 miles” of having the legal right to bring the case, arguing that their case rests on a “long chain of remote contingencies”. Under their argument, Prelogar said, a woman would have to face complications from a medication abortion that were so serious that she needed emergency care at a hospital – an unlikely scenario, given mifepristone’s proven safety record – and then end up in the care of an anti-abortion doctor who was somehow forced into taking care of her in such a way it violated the doctor’s conscience.A number of the justices – even the ones who ruled to overturn Roe two years ago – seemed skeptical that the doctors met the threshold required to establish standing. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh seemed to seek assurances that the doctors represented by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine were already covered by laws that protect doctors from having to undertake cases that violated their consciences.Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to express concern over the sweeping implications of the doctors’ request of the court. “This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government rule,” he said.The supreme court has historically rejected standing arguments based on such potential harm. However, Justice Clarence Thomas raised the possibility that perhaps the court’s own threshold for standing was too strict.His fellow conservative Samuel Alito also seemed incredulous of Prelogar’s argument. “Is there anybody who can sue and get a judicial ruling on whether what FDA did was lawful?” he asked. “Shouldn’t somebody be able to challenge that in court?”Since the fall of Roe in June 2022, more than a dozen states have banned abortion. The result has been legal and medical chaos. Dozens of women have come forward to say that they were denied medically necessary abortions. Abortion clinics in states that still allow abortion are overwhelmed by the flood of patients fleeing states with bans. More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a record high.The availability of medication abortions, which are usually performed using mifepristone as well as another drug called misoprostol, has helped soften the impact of the bans. Telehealth medication abortions, permitted by the FDA since the pandemic, helped ease some of the burden on abortion clinics; shield laws, passed in a handful of states, even allowed providers to offer telehealth abortions to people living in states with abortion bans.But the accessibility of medication abortion also made it the next target of the anti-abortion movement after Roe was overturned. In 2022 the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenged the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone. The group, which includes anti-abortion doctors and is being defended by the Christian powerhouse legal firm the Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the FDA overstepped its authority and that mifepristone is unsafe. (More than 100 studies have concluded that mifepristone can be safely used to terminate a pregnancy.)A federal judge ruled in favor of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a move that could have yanked mifepristone off the market entirely. But an appeals court narrowed that ruling, deciding that it was too late to challenge mifepristone’s original 2000 approval.Instead, the appeals court ruled to rewind later measures taken by the FDA that expanded access to mifepristone, including by removing requirements that abortion providers dispense mifepristone in person. A recent analysis found 16% of all US abortions are facilitated through telehealth.Mifepristone’s availability has remained unchanged as litigation has progressed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDuring oral arguments, Thomas and Alito also raised the specter of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that bans the mailing of abortion-related materials. Long regarded as a relic, the Comstock Act has now seen a resurgence of post-Roe support among anti-abortion activists who believe it is the key to a de facto nationwide abortion ban.“How do you respond to an argument that mailing your product and advertising it would violate the Comstock Act?” Thomas asked Jessica Ellsworth, a lawyer for Danco Laboratories, a manufacturer of mifepristone.After some back and forth, Ellsworth told Thomas: “That statute has not been forced for nearly 100 years and I don’t believe that this case presents an opportunity for the court to opine on the reach of the statute.”Regardless of what the supreme court decides, Americans will still be able to order mifepristone online from suppliers who help people “self-manage” their own abortions. A study released on Monday found self-managed abortions had soared since Roe fell.Outrage over the overturning of Roe has turned abortion into a key election issue, since most Americans support at least some degree of abortion access. Voters in multiple states, including conservative strongholds, have voted in ballot initiatives in favor of abortion rights; roughly a dozen states are now expected to put abortion-related ballot measures to voters come November. Democrats are hoping that the issue will bolster turnout for their candidates, including Joe Biden.The supreme court is expected to issue a ruling in the mifepristone case by the summer, just months ahead of the 2024 elections.The case’s consequences could stretch far beyond abortion. If the justices greenlight attempts by ideologically driven groups to second-guess the authority of the FDA, the agency’s regulation of all manner of drugs – such as contraception and vaccines – could be challenged in court.Ellsworth, the Danco attorney, argued that the doctors’ argument in the case “is so inflexible it would upend not just mifepristone, but virtually every drug approval”. More