Three Virginia citizens disqualified from voting due to felony convictions joined a nonprofit organization to file a lawsuit Monday in federal court against Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and several state elections officials. The action challenges the felony disenfranchisement provision of the Virginia Constitution. The plaintiffs filed the case, King v. Youngkin, in the US District [...]
Maine Governor Janet Mills signed a bill into law on Monday that partially decriminalizes prostitution in the state. Legislative Document (LD) 1435, called An Act to Reduce Commercial Sexual Exploitation, amends existing law to remove all references to prostitution. Instead, the new law criminalizes commercial sexual exploitation, which is a Class E crime carrying a maximum penalty [...]
The US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in Moore v. Harper that the “independent legislature” election theory, which has been the legal foundation for many of the recent Republican-led efforts to change election administration law and overturn 2020 election results, is an invalid interpretation of the Election Clause of the Constitution. The theory stipulates that state [...]
The US Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case asking whether a North Carolina charter school mandating girls wear skirts should be held to the same standard as public schools, which does not permit such a practice. The case, Charter Day School, Inc. v. Peltier centers around a question of civil rights laws as [...]
Anderson Lee Aldrich, the gunman who killed five during an attack on an LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, pleaded guilty in court Monday to five counts of murder, 46 counts of attempted murder and no contest to two bias-motivated crimes. Aldrich was sentenced to 5 terms of life in prison without the possibility of [...]
The US Supreme Court removed a stay Monday in Ardoin v. Robinson, unblocking a lower court order requiring Louisiana to redraw its congressional map to include a second majority-Black district. Louisiana had been accused of allegedly “packing” the majority of the state’s Black voters into one congressional district. The removal was included in Monday’s order [...]
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs announced an executive order on Friday that protects abortion rights within the state one year after the Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization decision. Abortion is generally legal before 15 weeks in Arizona under a law passed by former Governor Doug Ducey. According to the announcement, the order “centralizes” all abortion-related [...]
According to the Israeli news site Walla, the US State Department has reinstated a ban on US government research funding going to support research projects conducted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The decision is a significant reversal of a former US President Donald Trump-era policy, instituted in 2020, which had allowed research funding in the [...]
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded two days of hearings Friday on the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, OH in February. In an unusual move, the NTSB chose to hold the public hearings in East Palestine, rather than Washington DC. Day one focused on the agency response and intentional venting of [...]
Members of the US House of Representatives introduced two resolutions on Friday, H.Res.547 and H.Res.538, that would expunge the impeachments of former President Donald Trump. Trump is the third US president to be impeached and the only president to be impeached twice. If passed, both resolutions would expunge Trump’s impeachments as if they had not [...]
