The Supreme Court on Friday said it would take up a new religious rights case over whether a Catholic charitable organization must pay Wisconsin’s unemployment tax.
The justices will review a divided state Supreme Court ruling that refused to grant an exemption to the Catholic Charities Bureau, based in Superior, Wisconsin. The state court ruled that the work of Catholic Charities and four related organizations is primarily not religious, although it found that the motivation to help older, disabled and low-income people stems from Catholic teachings.
The case probably will be argued in the spring.
The Supreme Court in recent years has issued an unbroken string of decisions siding with churches and religious plaintiffs in disputes with states.
Lawyers for the Wisconsin groups argued to the court that the decision violates religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment. They also said the court should step in to resolve conflicting rulings by several top state courts on the same issue.
“Wisconsin is trying to make sure no good deed goes unpunished. Penalizing Catholic Charities for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike is ridiculous and wrong,” Eric Rassbach, the lead lawyer for Catholic Charities at the Supreme Court, said in a statement.
Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul had urged the high court to stay out of the case, arguing that much of the groups’ funding comes from state and local governments, and the joint federal and state Medicaid program.
Employees don’t have to be Catholic and “people receiving services from these organizations receive no religious training or orientation,” Kaul wrote.
Catholic Charities has paid the unemployment tax since 1972, he wrote.
Wisconsin exempts church-controlled organizations from the tax if they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.” The state high court ruled that both the motivations and the activities have to be religious for organizations to avoid paying the tax.
A group of religious scholars, backing Catholic Charities, told the court that “the case involves governmental interference with religious liberty” that warrants the justices’ intervention.
Catholic, Islamic, Lutheran, Jewish and Mormon organizations also filed briefs in support of Catholic Charities.
At the state Supreme Court, the Freedom from Religion Foundation argued that a ruling for Catholic Charities would extend to religiously affiliated hospitals and some colleges across Wisconsin, potentially taking their employees out of the state unemployment insurance system.
Catholic Charities in Superior manages nonprofit organizations that run more than 60 programs designed to help older or disabled people, children with special needs, low-income families, and people suffering from disasters, regardless of their religion, according to court documents.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Wisconsin parents who wanted to challenge a school district’s guidance for supporting transgender students.
The justices, acting in a case from Eau Claire, left in place an appellate ruling dismissing the parents’ lawsuit.
Parents with children in Eau Claire public schools argued in a lawsuit that the school district’s policy violates constitutional protections for parental rights and religious freedom.
Sixteen Republican-led states had urged the court to take up the parents’ case.
Lower courts had found that the parents lacked the legal right, or standing. Among other reasons, the courts said no parent presented evidence that the policy affected them or their children.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals included two judges Republican Donald Trump appointed during his first term.
But Alito described the case as presenting “a question of great and growing national importance,” whether public school districts violate parents’ rights when they encourage students to transition or assist in the process without parental consent or knowledge.
“Administrative Guidance for Gender Identity Support” encourages transgender students to reach out to staff members with concerns and instructs employees to be careful who they talk to about a student’s gender identity, since not all students are “out” to their families.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Transgender rights opponents and a supporter rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments in a case on transgender health rights on December 4, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in US v. Skrmetti, a case about Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming care for minors and if it violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
A conservative U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to side with Tennessee Wednesday in upholding the state’s ban on gender affirming care for minors, a case likely to set legal precedent on equal protection for transgender children.
A decision from the court isn’t expected until June 2025, but Republican-appointed justices such as Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh tipped their hands on how they would rule during three hours of oral arguments in Washington, D.C.
They were countered by the court’s liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who are outnumbered 6-3.
Conservative justices appeared leery of creating a protected class, but Jackson, for instance, indicated the law clearly discriminates on the basis of sex. Jackson used the Loving v. Virginia case that allowed racially integrated marriages to show that similar arguments were made against those types of unions some 50 years ago.
Three families with transgender children and Memphis Dr. Susan Lacy sued the state, then the federal government intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs who are challenging Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy to allow minors to make a sex transition.
Thomas, for instance, asked the federal government’s attorney why the case would be a matter of age classification, as opposed to sex. Alito and Kavanaugh raised questions about the United Kingdom and European countries dialing back support for gender affirming care.
In addition, Roberts said the court is “not the best situated to address issues” such as gender affirming care and should allow legislatures to make those types of decisions.
LGBTQ+ advocates rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the court heard arguments in a Tennessee case banning gender affirming care for minors. (Photo: Brian Sullivan)
Tennessee lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1 in 2023 following an uproar over reports by a right-wing radio commentator that Vanderbilt University Medical Center was performing surgeries and administering puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children. Vanderbilt said it wasn’t performing surgical procedures when the issue erupted.
Gov. Bill Lee says Tennessee has a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty,” and in blocking treatments “that might encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU Tennessee, Lambda Legal and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld filed suit against Tennessee, claiming the equal protection rights of transgender children were violated. The law was struck down in U.S. District Court, but that decision was overturned by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Tennessee’s legal strategy is based on the premise that the 2023 law prohibiting puberty blockers and hormone therapy for young people is based on “medical purposes,” not a child’s sex.
In contrast, attorneys for the plaintiffs said Senate Bill 1 created a blanket ban on gender affirming care based entirely on a minor’s desire to change sexes. They pointed out children suffering from gender dysphoria could be prone to suicide if they don’t receive puberty blockers or hormone treatments that enable them to start the transition toward a sex different from their birth sex.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the Supreme Court should give the matter “heightened scrutiny,” or a closer examination, because it involves discrimination against transgender children rather than review it under standard “rational basis,” which is typically used when a law doesn’t involve a constitutional right.
Elizabeth Prelogar, solicitor general for the Department of Justice, told the justices the state of West Virginia enacted a law that set up requirements for undergoing gender affirming care, whereas Tennessee passed a blanket ban affecting children seeking to transition to another sex.
Justice Kagan made the point that the law is based on “transgender status” and not sex alone. She also said Tennessee appears to want to “conform to sex stereotypes.”
Kavanaugh stuck with the argument that some transgender people want to switch back to their original sex when they get older but are physically unable to make the change.
“How do we as a court choose which set of risks is more serious when we constitutionalize?” Kavanaugh said.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.
The U.S. Supreme Court (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
In a significant decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday granted a temporary stay in the ongoing legal dispute over Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order that resulted in the removal of over 6,000 Virginians from the state’s voter rolls.
The stay pauses a lower court’s ruling that would have required the state to restore 1,600 voters to the rolls, allowing Youngkin’s directive to remain in effect and voter removals to continue as the case proceeds.
The court’s six conservative justices supported the stay, with the three liberals dissenting.
Youngkin in a statement hailed the court’s decision as “a victory for commonsense and election fairness.”
“I am grateful for the work of Attorney General Jason Miyares on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” Youngkin said, adding that the ruling would ensure a secure election on Nov. 5.
“Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference,” he said.
The order comes after the Virginia Republican Party filed an amicus brief Tuesday supporting Youngkin’s efforts, arguing that removing noncitizens from the voter rolls should not be delayed due to the federally mandated “quiet period” — a buffer period around elections meant to avoid disruptions to voter records.
The Republican brief argues that the governor’s order was based on data from the Department of Motor Vehicles and focused on noncitizens, and thus does not constitute a “systematic” voter purge restricted by the quiet period.
Opposition to the order has come from various groups, including former GOP lawmakers such as Barbara Comstock, Denver Riggleman, and Adam Kinzinger, who filed a separate brief urging the Supreme Court to deny the stay. They argue that hastily removing voters could lead to eligible citizens losing their rights, citing concerns over the potential exclusion of legitimate voters.
Attorney General Jason Miyares and Youngkin’s administration maintain that the executive order is a necessary step for election security. Critics, however, argue that the purge risks disenfranchising Virginians and disproportionately impacts minority voters, calling the move part of a larger trend of restrictive voting policies.
With the stay in place, the case is likely to continue drawing national attention as the election nears, spotlighting debates over voting rights, citizenship, and electoral integrity.
It could also lead to confusion at the polls next Tuesday, because it remains unclear what information voters who have been purged would need to show for same-day registration, said Henry Chambers, a professor for constitutional law at the University of Richmond School of Law.
“The administration is claiming that there is sufficient evidence to knock someone off the rolls. If that’s true, and if a registrar has said this person shouldn’t be on the roll, I’m not sure what kind of information would convince the registrar that the person should be on the rolls and should have their provisional ballot counted. And that’s a tricky issue.”
Chambers added that it also remains unclear what the Supreme Court ruling means for the federal suit filed by the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia earlier this month which alleges that the process used to purge the rolls violates the 90-day quiet period and therefore disenfranchises eligible voters while raising concerns over transparency and accuracy in the state’s voter registration system.
“In theory, the case goes back to the drawing board and you need to run it as a sort of a regular merits case as opposed to just an injunction case. But the problem with that is that the point of the case is that the 90-day quiet period is going to be over once election day is done,” Chambers said. “Then the question becomes, is the purge program in and of itself unlawful in general?’”
Some state lawmakers have signaled they are ready to tackle that question, and the law that undergirds it.
State Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County, said in a phone interview Wednesday that in the 2025 legislative session, he would “be open to looking at anything” in the 2006 law that would limit potential confusion at the polls.
“The bottom line is, if you are a U.S. citizen, we want you to vote, it’s your right and duty to vote,” said Hackworth, a member of the Senate Privileges & Election who was “very disheartened” when the lower court ruled to halt Youngkin’s order.
If any among the affected 1,600 Virginians believe they have been removed from the voter rolls in error, Hackworth urged them to still cast a provisional ballot bringing documentation proving their citizenship status and let the local electoral board “figure that out.”
“I think that maybe we are kind of overcomplicating this process, because anybody still has the right on the day of to say, ‘I have been purged from the voter rolls, I am a citizen of the United States, and I want to vote.’ If you have that much conviction to go to the polls and vote provisional, you will bring something that’s going to back up your claim that you are a citizen.”
Virginia Mercury editor Samantha Willis contributed to this report.
Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X.
PHOENIX, ARIZONA - AUGUST 23: Former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on August 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona.Kennedy announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign and supporting Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump.(Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
With early voting underway in Wisconsin and a week before Election Day, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an effort Tuesday by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be removed from the state’s ballots.
Kennedy, an independent, was placed on the presidential ballot after filing paperwork on Aug. 6, which included the signatures of thousands of Wisconsin voters who wanted him to run. He dropped out of the presidential election less than three weeks later and endorsed former President Donald Trump. He then launched an effort to be removed from Wisconsin’s ballot.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission was the first to deny his request to be kept off the ballot; officials cited state law requiring anyone who files the paperwork be placed on the ballot. Kennedy filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court last week after other appeals failed at appellate and state Supreme Courts. His name had already been printed on ballots with some being mailed out as the effort took place. In-person early voting in Wisconsin also started last week.
Kennedy argued in his lawsuit that keeping him on the ballot violates his First Amendment right to endorse Trump. His attorneys had also argued that his name could be covered with a sticker, pointing to a state statute that allows clerks to do so if a candidate dies before the election takes place. Election officials warned voting machines hadn’t been tested with stickers and they could cause the machines to break.
The U.S. Supreme Court did not explain its decision to reject the request. The Court also denied Kennedy’s effort to be removed from Michigan’s ballot on Tuesday.
Six third-party candidates, including Kennedy, Jill Stein and Cornel West, will appear on ballots in Wisconsin, a key battleground state, and are seen as potential spoilers in the presidential election because they could siphon votes from the major party candidates in what appears to be a very close race.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the number of third-party candidates on ballots in Wisconsin.
Beyoncé takes part in a campaign rally focused on reproductive rights with the Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, at Shell Energy Stadium on Oct. 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris appeared alongside superstar performer Beyoncé on Friday night to encourage voter turnout and reinforce the differences between the two parties on reproductive rights, with just days to go before voting ends.
The rally at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas, followed months of speculation about whether Beyoncé would support Vice President Harris publicly ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election. The two-hour event featured other celebrities, including Willie Nelson and Jessica Alba, as well as women detailing being denied medical care for pregnancy complications in Texas after its abortion ban went into effect.
Beyoncé, who has won more than 30 Grammy Awards as well as hundreds of others throughout her career, said casting a vote is “one of the most valuable tools” that Americans have to decide the future of the country.
“We are at the precipice of an incredible shift, the brink of history,” Beyoncé said, adding that she wasn’t speaking at the rally as a celebrity or a politician.
“I’m here as a mother,” she said. “A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”
‘Horrific reality’
Harris, who is locked in an extremely close race with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, said abortion bans and restrictions implemented during the last two years have been “devastating.”
“We see the horrific reality that women and families face every single day,” Harris said. “The stories are vivid, they are difficult to hear, they are difficult to tell.”
Harris said there are also many stories that women and their families won’t discuss in public about challenges they’ve faced with access to medical care during pregnancy complications.
“An untold number of women and the people who love them, who are silently suffering — women who are being made to feel as though they did something wrong, as though they are criminals, as though they are alone,” Harris said. “And to those women. I say — and I think I speak on behalf of all of us — we see you and we are here with you.”
Harris said if voters give Trump another four years in the Oval Office, he will likely nominate more justices to the Supreme Court, which she argued would have a negative impact on the country.
“If he were reelected, he’d probably get to appoint one, if not two, members to the United States Supreme Court,” Harris said. “At which point Donald Trump will have packed the court with five out of nine justices … who will sit for lifetime appointments; shaping your lives and the lives of generations to come.”
Texas is also where anti-abortion organizations decided to file a federal lawsuit in November 2022 challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of medication abortion.
The two-drug regimen, consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol, is currently approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and is used in about 63% of abortions nationwide, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.
The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled earlier this year the organizations lacked standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place, but the justices didn’t address the merits of the anti-abortion groups’ arguments.
Speaking at ‘ground zero’
Harris told reporters on Friday before the rally began that Republican lawmakers in Texas have made the state “ground zero in this fundamental fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own body.”
Harris contended that access to reproductive rights, including abortion, is “not just a political debate” or “some theoretical concept.”
“Real harm has occurred in this country, real suffering has occurred,” Harris told reporters. “People die, and it is important to highlight this issue because this is among the most critical issues that the American people will address when they vote for who will be the next president of the United States.”
During Trump’s first term in office, he nominated three Supreme Court justices, who later joined with other conservatives to overturn the constitutional right to abortion established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.
The Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago sent “the authority to regulate abortion … to the people and their elected representatives.”
That has led to a hodgepodge of laws with 13 states banning abortion, six states restricting access between six and 12 weeks, five states setting a gestational limit between 15 and 22 weeks, 17 states restricting abortion access after viability and nine states not setting a gestational limit, according to KFF.
Polls find support for abortion access
Public support for abortion access has outpaced support for restricting access for decades, according to consistent polling from the Pew Research Center.
The most recent survey from May shows that about 63% of Americans want abortion to be legal in most or all cases, while 36% said they believe it should be illegal in most or all cases.
Additional surveying from Pew shows that 67% of Harris supporters believe abortion access is “very important — nearly double the share of Biden voters who said this four years ago, though somewhat lower than the share of midterm Democratic voters who said this in 2022 (74%).
“And about a third of Trump supporters (35%) now say abortion is very important to their vote — 11 points lower than in 2020.”
In addition to playing some role in the presidential election, voters in 10 states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — will weigh in on abortion access directly through ballot questions.
Congress could supersede any protections or restrictions on abortion access established within states, if the House and Senate ever agree on legislation and a future president signs it into law.
Republicans are slightly favored to gain control of the Senate for the next two years following the election, while control of the House is considered a toss-up, as is the presidential race.
PHOENIX, ARIZONA - AUGUST 23: Former Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on August 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona.Kennedy announced that he was suspending his presidential campaign and supporting Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump.(Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed an emergency request Monday seeking to have U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett issue an emergency injunction pending an appeal to the Court that would allow his name to be taken off the presidential ballot in Wisconsin.
Before Kennedy ended his third party presidential run late this summer and endorsed former President Donald Trump, he had filed the paperwork — which included the signatures of thousands of Wisconsin voters who wanted him to run — to get on the ballot. Later, he asked that the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) not include his name on the ticket, but the commission ruled that state law requires anyone who files the paperwork be placed on the ballot.
Kennedy sued to get his name removed in circuit court, lost and then lost appeals at the appellate and state Supreme Courts. Kennedy’s appeals were taking place right before absentee voting was set to begin, with county clerks across the state having already printed and begun mailing ballots with his name on them.
Attorneys for Kennedy pointed to a state statute that allows clerks to cover a candidate’s name with a sticker if that candidate dies before the election takes place and said Kennedy’s name on the ballots could be covered the same way. Election officials across the state warned that the voting machines used to count ballots haven’t been tested with stickers and that those stickers could cause the machines to break — both forcing election staff across the state to use a less accurate hand count of vote totals and local governments to cover the costs of repairing the machines.
In a brief filed during the state court proceedings, Kennedy’s attorneys said “it doesn’t matter” that their proposed solution could wreak havoc on the state’s election systems.
Kennedy’s lawsuits argue that state law discriminates against third party candidates for president by giving them less time between when the required paperwork is due and WEC finalizes the ballot to decide whether or not to run. He’s also argued that keeping him on the ballot violates his First Amendment right to endorse Trump.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against Kennedy’s efforts in late September. Weeks later, the day before early voting was set to start, he filed his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. As of Thursday morning, 810,626 absentee ballots with his name on them have already been mailed to voters, 592,902 of those ballots have already been returned and another 191,869 people have cast early votes.
At the same time that he has been working to get off the ballot in some states, including successfully in North Carolina, Kennedy has been suing to get on the ballot in others. A lawsuit to force his name onto the New York ballot was unsuccessful.
“It’s Robert F. Kennedy’s absolute right to endorse Donald Trump for President,” the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court states. “Over the past months, he’s done that in myriad ways, all over the country and especially in the critical swing state of Wisconsin, where Kennedy has appeared at rallies, spoken on television shows, and provided public endorsements whenever and wherever he could. In Wisconsin, he wants everyone who will listen to him to vote for Trump. That is core political speech and it’s protected under the First Amendment. To ensure that message is conveyed clearly and without confusion, he asked that his name not appear on the Wisconsin ballot. He wanted to be clear: his endorsement was for Trump.”
In the filing to the Supreme Court, Kennedy’s attorneys state that “the costs of administering a remedy would be minimal” even though more than a million ballots with his name on them have already been sent out or even filled out and returned.
In September, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take action in a similar case involving a third party presidential candidate. In that case, the Court refused Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s effort to get on the ballot in Nevada.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was issued electronically, is seen on June 24, 2022 in Washington, D.C. The court’s decision overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.
WASHINGTON — This year’s election marks the first time voters are casting ballots for president since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and made reproductive rights a pivotal issue for many voters.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have spoken about reproductive rights and abortion access numerous times during the last few months.
Trump’s stance has evolved during his bid for the White House. He now contends he wouldn’t sign legislation implementing nationwide abortion restrictions and wants regulation left up to the states.
Harris has consistently said a nationwide law guaranteeing access would ensure the choice is left up to women, not politicians.
“I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” Harris said during the September presidential debate.
Trump patted himself on the back during the same debate for nominating three justices to the Supreme Court who later ruled with their conservative colleagues that the Constitution didn’t provide the privacy rights that two former high court rulings said insulated women’s choices about abortion.
“I did something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said about nominating the three justices. “The states are now voting. What she says is an absolute lie. And as far as the abortion ban, no, I’m not in favor of (an) abortion ban. But it doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.”
Harris had just said that Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ban if elected and cited Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump administration released by the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign have repeatedly tried to distance themselves from the document and many of its proposals.
Many politicians have misrepresented the Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago as sending abortion regulation back to the states. What the conservative justices wrote was that ending Roe v. Wade meant the “authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
That, of course, includes Congress and the president.
Trump position varies
Trump’s stance on abortion hasn’t always been linear or consistent. He told Republicans earlier this year that they should avoid discussing the topic in order to win elections, while also courting organizations that view him as one avenue to ending abortion outright.
Trump got himself into hot water with several anti-abortion organizations and conservative Republicans in April when he announced he didn’t want Congress to take action on a nationwide law.
Trump had previously said he would support a 16-week nationwide ban. He reiterated in his April announcement that he supported exceptions to state abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and the life of the pregnant patient.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser released a statement following Trump’s April announcement that she was “deeply disappointed.”
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy,” Dannenfelser wrote. “If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.”
About a month later, in May, Trump, Dannenfelser, President of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had a “terrific meeting,” according to a statement released afterward.
Then, this summer, Trump muddied the waters on his abortion stance yet more, when he spoke to an organization in June that describes abortion as the “greatest atrocity facing” the United States that should be “eradicated entirely.”
“These are going to be your years because you’re going to make a comeback like just about no other group,” Trump said to The Danbury Institute’s inaugural Life & Liberty Forum. “I know what’s happening. I know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And I’ll be with you side by side.”
Then, most recently, Trump posted on social media during the vice presidential debate in early October that he would veto any nationwide abortion restrictions.
Trump wrote in all capital letters that he “would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”
Trump added that he didn’t support access to abortion during the seventh, eight or ninth months of pregnancy, nor did he support killing babies, which is already illegal.
During 2021, about 93% of abortions took place within the first 13 weeks of gestation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the Pew Research Center.
Another 6% of abortions took place between 14 and 20 weeks with the remaining 1% taking place after 21 weeks gestation, according to the data.
“Almost half of individuals who obtained an abortion after 20 weeks did not suspect they were pregnant until later in pregnancy, and other barriers to care included lack of information about where to access an abortion, transportation difficulties, lack of insurance coverage and inability to pay for the procedure,” according to analysis from KFF Health.
Harris position
Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump for celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade and said during the presidential debate that state restrictions have harmed women in innumerable ways.
“Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest,” Harris said. “Understand what that means — a survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral.
“And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
Harris has called for Democrats to eliminate the Senate’s legislative filibuster to ease the passage of a bill that would restore nationwide abortion protections.
That Senate rule requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to advance legislation before that bill can move on to a simple majority passage vote. It is different than the so-called talking filibuster, when one senator, or a group of like-minded lawmakers, talk on the floor for hours to delay a vote.
Democrats would have to maintain their majority in the Senate against long odds to actually carve out an exception to the legislative filibuster, in order to pass a bill restoring Roe v. Wade. Democrats would also need to regain control of the House of Representatives.
A divided Congress, or a few Democrats objecting to rule changes in the Senate, would hinder Harris’ efforts to sign nationwide abortion protections.
Democrats tried to pass legislation through the Senate that would have provided nationwide protections for abortion when they had unified control of government in 2022, but were blocked by the filibuster.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema later introduced a bipartisan bill that would have had a similar result, but it wasn’t scheduled for a floor vote.
The legislation of two years ago likely would again fail to advance if Democrats sweep in the November elections, unless they carved out an exception in the Senate filibuster.
Swing state voters
Harris’ and Trump’s stance on abortion access will likely play a role in determining which candidate wins the Electoral College in crucial swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Democrats are optimistic that abortion access ballot questions in 10 states will bolster Harris’ chances through increased voter turnout and higher spending by reproductive rights organizations.
While many of the referendums are in solidly blue or red states, the proposals in Arizona and Florida could affect turnout and motivation.
Louis Jacobson, senior columnist at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote earlier this month that a key question on Election Day will be whether “abortion-rights advocates extend their perfect 7-for-7 record since Roe v. Wade was overturned.”
Voters will decide on numerous other ballot questions as well, including recreational cannabis, increases in the minimum wage and ranked-choice voting.
In an earlier post about the abortion ballot questions, Jacobson and Samantha Putterman wrote that “(e)very post-Roe measure has been on the ballot during a relatively low turnout election—either the November midterm, a primary ballot, or an off-year election.”
“Any measure that makes the ballot in 2024 will face voters in November of a presidential year, when turnout is far higher,” they wrote. “This has the potential to hurt abortion rights backers, because moderate and liberal voters have recently flexed their electoral muscles more when turnout is low.”
Public opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the past three decades have consistently shown support for keeping abortion legal outpacing support for making the procedure illegal in most or all cases.
The 2024 survey showed that 63% of people want abortion legal in most or all cases while 36% believe it should be illegal in all or most cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday considered a federal firearm regulation aimed at reining in ghost guns, untraceable, unregulated weapons made from kits. In this photo, a ghost gun is displayed before the start of an event about gun violence in the Rose Garden of the White House April 11, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court justices Tuesday grappled with whether the Biden administration exceeded its authority when it set regulations for kits that can be assembled into untraceable firearms, and a majority of justices seemed somewhat skeptical the rule was an overreach.
In Garland v. VanDerStok, the nine justices are tasked with determining whether a rule issued by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 2022 overstepped in expanding the definition of “firearms” to include “ghost guns” under a federal firearms law.
Ghost guns are firearms without serial numbers and can be easily bought online and quickly assembled in parts, usually through a kit. Law enforcement officials use serial numbers to track guns that are used in crimes.
Arguing on behalf of the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that there has been an “explosion in crimes” with untraceable guns across the U.S.
She added that the federal government has for years required gun manufacturers and sellers to mark firearms with a serial number.
“The industry has followed those conditions without difficulty for more than half a century, and those basic requirements are crucial to solving gun crimes and keeping guns out of the hands of minors, felons and domestic abusers,” Prelogar said.
She said with the kits to make untraceable homemade guns in as little as 15 minutes, those manufacturers “have tried to circumvent those requirements.”
Prelogar said untraceable guns “are attractive to people who can’t lawfully purchase them or who plan to use them in crime.”
Because the ATF saw a spike in crimes committed with those firearms, Prelogar said it promulgated the 2022 rule. The Biden administration said since 2016, it’s seen a tenfold increase in ghost guns.
What the rule does
The regulation does not ban ghost guns, but requires manufacturers of those firearm kits or parts to add a serial number to the products, as well as conduct background checks on potential buyers. The regulation also clarified those kits are considered covered by the 1968 Gun Control Act under the definition of a “firearm.”
The Biden administration is advocating for the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s decision that favored gun rights groups and owners that argued the agency exceeded its authority.
Pete Patterson on Tuesday represented those gun rights groups, such as the Firearms Policy Coalition and clients, and argued the ATF expanded the definition of a firearm to “include items that may readily be converted to a frame or receiver.”
A frame or receiver is the primary structure of a firearm that holds the other components that cause the gun to fire.
“Congress decided to regulate only a single part of a firearm, the frame or receiver, and Congress did not alter the common understanding of a frame or receiver,” he said. “ATF has now exceeded its authority by operating outside of the bounds set by Congress.”
The case has already been before the high court on an emergency basis in 2023. The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and two conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Amy Coney Barrett, allowed the regulation to remain in place while going through legal challenges.
The case is similar to the Supreme Court decision that struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks from the ATF, but that was on the grounds of a Second Amendment argument.
Omelets and turkey chili kits
Justice Samuel Alito questioned Prelogar whether the kits were defined as weapons.
“Here’s a blank pad and here’s a pen,” he said. “Is this a grocery list?”
She said it wasn’t because “there are a lot of things you could use those products for to create something other than a grocery list.”
Alito asked her if he had eggs, chopped up ham, peppers and onions, “is that a Western omelet?”
“No, because, again, those items have well known other uses to become something other than an omelet,” Prelogar said. “The key difference here is that these weapon parts kits are designed and intended to be used as instruments of combat, and they have no other conceivable use.”
Barrett asked if her answer would change if “you ordered it from HelloFresh and you got a kit and it was like turkey chili, but all of the ingredients are in the kit?”
Prelogar said it would.
“We are not suggesting that scattered components that might have some entirely separate and distinct function could be aggregated and called a weapon, in the absence of this kind of evidence that that is their intended purpose and function,” she said.
“But if you bought, you know, from Trader Joe’s, some omelet-making kit that had all of the ingredients to make the omelet, and maybe included whatever you would need to start the fire in order to cook the omelet, and had all of that objective indication that that’s what’s being marketed and sold, we would recognize that for what it is,” Prelogar continued.
Roberts asked Patterson what the purpose would be of selling a receiver without a hole in it, meaning the gun is not complete.
Patterson argued that the kits are mainly for gun hobbyists, who would have to drill their own holes to put the product together.
“Some individuals enjoy, like working on their car every weekend, some individuals want to construct their own firearms,” Patterson said.
Roberts seemed skeptical.
“I mean drilling a hole or two, I would think doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends,” Roberts said.
Patterson argued that putting together a homemade gun was somewhat difficult, especially if an individual had no experience.
“Even once you have a complete frame, it’s not a trivial matter to put that together,” he said. “There are small parts that have to be put in precise locations.”
No hobbyists
In her rebuttal, Prelogar pushed back on the notion that hobbyists were using those kits, arguing that “if there is a market for these kits, for hobbyists, they can be sold to hobbyists, you just have to comply with the requirements of the Gun Control Act.”
“What the evidence shows is that these guns were being purchased and used in crime. There was a 1,000% increase between 2017 and 2021 in the number of these guns that were recovered as part of criminal investigations,” she said. “The reason why you want a ghost gun is specifically because it’s unserialized and can’t be traced.”
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