Tribal land oil cleanup

Read the press release here.

from Courthouse News

Texas high court takes on constitutionality of state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors

AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — On Tuesday, The Texas Supreme Court heard, for the first time, oral arguments in a case concerning a state law enacted in 2023 that bans gender transitioning care from being provided to minors. 

Five parents on behalf of their transgender children, along with three doctors who provide gender-affirming care and LGBTQ+ rights organizations, said in a July 2023 petition that Texas’ controversial Senate Bill 14 would ban necessary medical care for youth already receiving treatment and prevent physicians from doing their jobs. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Transgender Law Center and Lambda Legal.

In August 2023, Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel granted the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary injunction, blocking the state from enforcing its ban while the case proceeds. 

In her opinion, Hexsel wrote that she believed that the parents “fundamental right” to control medical treatment for their children under the state constitution would be infringed by the law. Additionally, the judge wrote that the law would likely infringe on the physician’s right to occupational freedom, also under the state constitution.

During the state’s regular legislative session, banning gender-affirming care for minors was a key priority in the Republican-controlled statehouse. Senate Bill 14 was ultimately passed by lawmakers and signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The law prohibits physicians from providing hormone therapies and/or surgeries to affirm the gender of someone who is still a minor. Violating the law may result in the revocation of the physician’s medical license and being further barred from obtaining it in the state. 

The law does, however, permit such treatments to be used for minors experiencing precocious puberty or is born intersex. 

The state made a direct appeal of Hexsel’s ruling to the high court. Arguing before the all-Republican panel on Tuesday, Assistant Solicitor General Natalie Thompson told the justices that the parental rights of the plaintiffs are not being infringed by the state’s ability to regulate the practice of medicine.

“Physicians do not have a constitutional right to perform gender transitioning procedures on children,” Thompson said.

Throughout her time fielding questions from the justices, Thompson claimed that the procedures prohibited under the statute pose a significant health risk to children and should thus be prohibited. 

Justice Evan Young asked Thompson if there is historical context that shows the state’s ability to limit parents’ rights to make decisions for their children. In response, the state’s attorney said that SB 14 does not displace parents’ ability to make medical decisions for their children, but rather takes specific medical treatments “off the table entirely.”

Justice Debra Lehrmann then interjected, asking how the statute cannot interfere with the parent’s rights when the care they have sought or chosen is based on, what she called “medically sound guidelines that have been accepted by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association.”

“What the legislature had before it is evidence that the organizations your honor had mentioned have been ideologically captured,” Thompson said. “The evidence to support these interventions is questionable at best.”

Undeterred, Lehrmann retorted, “Nevertheless, aren’t the medical professionals the ones to make those decisions? I mean certainly more than the legislature.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Texas Pediatric Society, the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association have endorsed gender-affirming care practices for transgender youth. These medical groups as well as others have also argued against measures like SB 14, saying that they are harmful to young people who have gender dysphoria.

Kennon Wooten at Scott, Douglass and McConnico in Austin, argued for the plaintiffs in the case. In her opening remarks, Wooten said that SB 14 violates parents’ rights to make decisions for their children, deprives transgender youth of equal rights and infringes on healthcare providers’ occupational liberty.

Addressing Wooten’s arguments, Justice Jimmy Blacklock asked where the line should be drawn separating what decisions parents are allowed to make for their children and what decisions should be not protected in order to protect the welfare of children. Blacklock further questioned whether the court is being asked to weigh in on what is ultimately a moral or philosophical question rather than one based on science or law.  

“The court has already drawn a line on the right, it is a fundamental right of the parents to make choices concerning the care of their children,” Wooten answered. “ Whether we describe it as philosophical, fact-based or whatever, there is going to be some quintessential merits-based analysis that happens within the courts.”

In an exchange with Justice Jeff Boyd, Wooten said that the plaintiffs are asking the court to send the case back to the trial court to further develop the record of their case instead of having the high court rule on the merits of the case at this juncture.

After the arguments, the court did not indicate when a ruling in the case will be released. Texas Supreme Court decisions are typically released in June after the court has concluded hearing arguments in its current term. 

For nearly two years, Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have worked to limit transgender youth from obtaining gender-affirming care in the state. In 2022, Paxton’s office released a legal opinion claiming that the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries constituted child abuse when provided to a minor. Abbott used the opinion to direct the state’s child protective services to investigate the parents and doctors of transgender children who were provided these treatments. 

In November 2023, Paxton requested the medical records of Texas children who received treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital in Washington state. The hospital has sued the attorney general to block the release of the records. A similar request was made last week, this time to a Georgia clinic that provides gender-affirming care to patients across the nation. 

Gender-affirming care bans have been enacted in Republican-led states across the country. Including Texas, 22 states have taken steps to ban transition-related care to youth. Ohio became the most recent state to follow course after the legislature’s Republican supermajorities in both houses overcame a veto of the bill by the Republican Governor Mike DeWine. Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho and North Dakota have gone further, making it a felony offense to provide such care to minors. 

In addition to limiting access to gender-affirming care, Texas lawmakers have also passed laws prohibiting transgender athletes from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. 

from Courthouse News

Confusion around Supreme Court order on border wire sparks debate on defying justices’ ruling

WASHINGTON (CN) — A border standoff between Texas and the Biden administration has caught the Supreme Court in its crosshairs with Republican governors suggesting the Lone Star state defy a high court order to defend the border. 

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt laid out his stance on the state’s authority in an interview with CNN. Stitt was asked directly if he supported resisting an order from the justices. 

“If the Supreme Court gets something wrong, for example, if they tried to ban and say that we didn’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms, I think the Constitution supersedes somebody in Washington, D.C. telling us,” Stitt said. 

The governor’s comments were driven by a vague two-paragraph order handed down by the Supreme Court granting an emergency application filed by the Biden administration. 

The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to block a Fifth Circuit order preventing Border Patrol from cutting concertina wire placed along the border by Texas in almost all circumstances. Federal law requires Border Patrol to apprehend migrants who illegally cross into the U.S., and agents say the wire is preventing the government from carrying out that task. Texas retorts that its efforts are a result of the government not apprehending migrants in the first place. 

As the application sat before the justices, Texas escalated its efforts to prevent migrants from entering the county — and in turn its efforts to prevent the federal government from intercepting those same migrants. The state used its national guard to shut down a park along the border, blocking agents from reaching migrants attempting to swim through the Rio Grande. 

In three sentences, the court granted emergency relief, threw out a lower court ruling, and noted four dissents to the ruling. What the court did not do was explain why the majority chose to rule the way it did or detail how its edict should be carried out. Although typical of orders on the court’s emergency docket, the result created a wash of disagreement over what compliance with the ruling meant and if Texas would abide by it. 

“Everybody will use a court decision that says nothing, like the Texas order, to say whatever they want to say,” Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, said in a phone call.  “Even when the court explains itself, the American public has a hard time getting it right. But when they don’t explain themselves, those dangers are multiplied 10 times.” 

For state Senator Roland Gutierrez, Texas had fallen into noncompliance territory. 

“Greg Abbott is actively defying a ruling by the United States Supreme Court,” Gutierrez wrote on X. “This is not how the law works, you cannot ignore rulings you disagree with. Abbott, Cruz, and Texas Republicans must be stopped. We cannot allow this charade to move forward any longer.”

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said Abbott hadn’t actually done anything to defy the court since the justices didn’t tell Texas to do anything. Rather, the justices merely allowed border patrol to cut concertina wire without preventing Texas from installing more. 

“All that #SCOTUS did on Monday was allow federal officials to remove razor wire along the border.” Vladeck wrote. “There’s no way Abbott *could* defy that ruling — even if he wanted to. His ‘invasion’ claim is posturing with an eye toward future judicial rulings; not a thumb in the eye of this one.” 

The Biden administration fell somewhere in the middle of those two positions. In a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Department of Homeland Security said the high court restored the government’s right to cut and remove concertina wire placed by Texas. As the letter continues, it said DHS must also have access to the border in Shelby Park, an area currently being occupied by Texas National Guard troops. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would not directly say Texas had or had not violated the court’s order, stating instead that Abbott was making it harder for Border Patrol to do its job. 

“[Border Patrol] need access, and right now, they don’t have that,” Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing. “It’s under the Constitution of the United States that federal law is the supreme law of the land and any conflicting state is preempted. That’s the law.” 

Texas’ response to the court’s order focused less on what the justices said and more on the Biden administration. The state claims it is under invasion and therefore has the right to self-defense. Texas argues its authority in this realm is supreme to any federal statutes. 

This is not the first time the court’s unexplained orders from the emergency docket — sometimes called the shadow docket — have caught the ire of court watchers. It does, however, provide a demonstration of the results of those decisions. 

“They could have issued an opinion saying the circuit court order is vacated, and we hereby direct that the state of Texas or any other state not interfere with the federal government’s decision to do whatever it wants to do at the border,” Segall said. “They could have said that. They should have said that and that would have ended everything.”

If the Biden administration did think Texas had defied an order from the Supreme Court, it would have to be the one to enforce the ruling. The justices themselves are relegated to fighting their battles with pen and paper, but the federal government has National Guard troops at its disposal. 

A similar situation played out in response to the court’s ruling in Brown v. Board in 1957 when nine Black students attempted to attend Little Rock Central High School. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the state’s National Guard to block the students from entering the building. President Dwight Eisenhower was forced to federalize the National Guard and send U.S. Army troops to guard the nine students as they attended class. 

That history is not lost on Abbott, who in an interview with Fox News suggested he was prepared for such an outcome. 

“If Joe Biden federalized our National Guard, that would be the biggest political blunder that he could make and that’s why I think he will not do it,” Abbott said. “That said, of course, I am prepared in the event that they do make such a blunder to make sure that Texas will be able to continue to secure our border.” 

from Courthouse News

Why are states like Alabama, which is planning to use nitrogen gas, exploring new execution methods?

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Alabama execution Thursday that would be the first to use nitrogen gas is the result of a long history of problems with lethal injections since Texas first used the method in 1982, including difficulties finding usable veins and obtaining the necessary drugs.

Here’s a look at some of the issues death penalty states across the country are facing and why some, including Alabama, are considering alternative methods.

Courthouse News’ podcast Sidebar tackles the stories you need to know from the legal world. Join our hosts as they take you in and out of courtrooms in the U.S. and beyond.

WHAT HAPPENED IN ALABAMA?

Alabama tried but failed to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by lethal injection in 2022 for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife.

The Alabama Department of Corrections called off the execution when the team could not get the required two intravenous lines connected to Smith. Officials then tried a central line, which involves a catheter placed into a large vein, but were unable to complete the process before the death warrant expired.

It’s not the first time Alabama has had difficulties establishing an IV line with a deadline looming.

In another scheduled execution in 2022, prison officials poked Alan Eugene Miller with needles for more than an hour trying to find a vein, and at one point left him hanging vertically on a gurney before state officials made the decision to call off the execution.

In that case, Alabama agreed not to use lethal injection to put Miller to death and any future effort to execute him will use nitrogen hypoxia.

WHY ARE STATES PROPOSING NEW EXECUTION METHODS?

Numerous other states that use lethal injection have encountered various problems with the execution method, including difficulty finding usable veins, needles becoming disengaged or problems sourcing or using the lethal chemicals.

“They’ve tried to fix lethal injection … and they haven’t been able to,” said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert in execution methods. “The same thing happened with electrocution. It’s just sort of this continuing theme of pushing to get executions no matter the cost involved, and that did propel this change to nitrogen gas.”

In Oklahoma in 2014, condemned inmate Clayton Lockett writhed, clenched his teeth and attempted to lift himself up from the gurney after he had been declared unconscious when the state used a new drug, the sedative midazolam, in its three-drug method. Although prison officials attempted to halt the execution, Lockett was declared dead 43 minutes after the procedure began.

An investigation later revealed that a single IV line into Lockett’s groin, which was covered by a sheet, came loose and the lethal chemicals were injected into the tissue surrounding the injection site instead of directly into the bloodstream.

In Ohio in 2006, Joseph Clark’s lethal injection was stalled while prison technicians located a suitable vein, which then collapsed and Clark’s arm began to swell. Clark raised his head and said: “It don’t work. It don’t work.” Technicians ultimately found another vein, but Clark wasn’t pronounced dead until nearly 90 minutes after the process started.

Nitrogen gas isn’t the only method states are exploring. South Carolina passed a law allowing a firing squad in 2021, prompted by an inability to obtain lethal injection drugs. The state developed protocols and was preparing to use the firing squad before a legal challenge that it and the electric chair are cruel and unconstitutional. Firing squad hasn’t been used as an execution method in the U.S. since Utah in 2010, but five states currently authorize it.

Electrocution, hanging and other forms of lethal gas also remain on the books in several death penalty states.

WHAT ARE THE ISSUES WITH LETHAL INJECTION DRUGS?

Many states have had difficulty obtaining the lethal chemicals used to carry out executions. Manufacturers of many of the drugs have prohibited the use of their products being used to carry out executions or stopped manufacturing them altogether, leading many states to go to great lengths to shield their source of the drugs.

Before Oklahoma secured a source of the sedative midazolam in 2020 for its three-drug lethal injection method, the state was planning to resume executions using nitrogen gas after the prisons director said he was being forced to deal with “seedy individuals” who may have had access to them.

“I was calling all around the world, to the back streets of the Indian subcontinent,” Joe Allbaugh, then the head Oklahoma’s prison system, said at the time.

WHAT ABOUT NITROGEN HYPOXIA?

Nitrogen hypoxia is a proposed execution method that would force the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving him or her of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions.

No state has used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence. In 2018, Alabama became the third state — along with Oklahoma and Mississippi — to authorize the use of nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.

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By SEAN MURPHY Associated Press

from Courthouse News

Richard Glossip will get Supreme Court review of innocence claims

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to review an appeal from Richard Glossip, an Oklahoma man facing execution for a murder-for-hire plot conviction the state no longer defends. 

The court has been considering some of Glossip’s many petitions for review for over a year. Its decision to hear the appeal marks the second time the high court will hear from Glossip in his fight to avoid execution for a crime he says he did not commit. Last year Oklahoma joined Glossip’s effort, stating it no longer defended his conviction. 

Now the justices will decide if the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals erred in upholding his conviction. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the decision to hear the case. 

During his 25 years on death row, Glossip has had his last meal three times. Only Supreme Court intervention last year stopped that number from climbing to four. 

Throughout it all, Glossip has maintained his innocence. A 400-page independent review commissioned by state lawmakers found his claims were likely truthful and Oklahoma even begged the justices not to force them to do the “unthinkable” and follow through with his execution earlier this year. Even proponents of the death penalty have sided with Glossip, arguing executing an innocent man would shift their views on the punishment. 

However, Glossip still sits on death row because the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals refused to accept the state’s determination that his conviction was unsustainable. 

Glossip faces execution for his connection to the murder of his former employer, Barry Van Treese. At the time, Glossip worked as a manager at the Best Budget Inn property Van Treese owned in Oklahoma City. 

Van Treese was murdered after Justin Sneed bludgeoned him in a room at the hotel. Sneed, who was addicted to methamphetamine, also stole thousands of dollars from Van Treese’s car. 

A week after the murder, police arrested Sneed and Glossip. Investigators told Sneed they knew he committed the murder, but they thought he had help. Officers repeatedly brought up Glossip during their interview with Sneed. Detectives asked if Glossip was the mastermind behind the murder, asking, “Rich is trying to save himself by saying that you’re in this by yourself.” 

Following the detectives’ leading questions, Sneed changed his story to claim Glossip told him to rob Van Treese, but not murder him. Sneed, however, would change his story again, claiming Glossip asked him to kill Van Treese. 

After dropping charges against him for allegedly trying to cover up the murder, police instead arrested Glossip as Sneed’s co-defendant. 

Oklahoma agreed to drop the death penalty if Glossip confessed. Sneed, who was given the same offer, agreed where Glossip did not. Sneed’s deal also included testifying against Glossip. 

Sneed’s testimony was the only evidence connecting Glossip to Van Treese’s murder. A jury convicted him of the murder-for-hire plot in 1998 and the ruling was affirmed. 

During one of his many appeals, Glossip was able to prove his first attorney failed to provide him with a minimal defense in 2000. His second trial, however, would be tainted by the police department.  

An investigation uncovered the destruction of evidence by a 28-year veteran on the force at the direction of the district attorney’s office. The police department destroyed key evidence — including potentially exculpatory documents — in the case prior to Glossip’s second trial. 

Prosecutors also interfered in the second trial, altering Sneed’s testimony when it diverged from the facts of the state’s case against Glossip. The defense attorney would not hear of the changes to Sneed’s testimony until decades later. They would also discover Sneed tried to recant his testimony. 

Glossip’s second trial also ended with a death sentence. 

Information about prosecution and police department interference was not the only evidence recently discovered by Glossip’s lawyers. A final box of evidence recovered only months ago included information about Sneed’s serious psychiatric disorder — a condition he possessed while testifying against Glossip. Sneed had claimed he was not seeing a psychiatrist at the time. 

The mounting evidence against Glossip’s conviction led Oklahoma’s attorney general to file a motion to vacate in April. Despite this, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld his conviction and the state pardon and parole board rejected his clemency request.

In May of this year, Glossip asked the Supreme Court to pause his execution in a rare unopposed emergency application. 

Death penalty appeals are rarely successful at the Supreme Court. Legal experts specializing in this area say this is because of the long journey it takes cases to make it up to the justices. Often they exhaust appeal opportunities prior to new evidence being uncovered. 

The Supreme Court recently ruled that when considering ineffective assistance claims, federal courts cannot consider new evidence outside of what is presented in state court.  

from Courthouse News

Former NRA lobbyist was ‘disgusted’ by Wayne LaPierre’s spending habits

MANHATTAN (CN) — A former top lobbyist for the National Rifle Association said Thursday that he was “disgusted” to learn that the group’s longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre put more than $250,000 in luxury clothing expenses on the NRA’s tab.

Christopher Cox was once viewed as the likely successor to LaPierre. He ran the NRA’s lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) from 2002 to 2019. During that time, he was effectively second-in-command behind LaPierre, and was one of the most recognizable faces at the NRA.

But on Thursday, Cox testified against his former employer in New York’s civil case against LaPierre and the NRA. New York Attorney General Letitia James is accusing LaPierre of using the NRA as his own “personal piggy bank,” drawing funds from various arms of the nonprofit to back personal expenses. 

Cox on Thursday recalled discovering that LaPierre was running expenses through the ILA. As the ILA’s executive director, he asked a peer to review those expenses. He was denied.

“Nobody sees those,” Cox claimed he was told. 

LaPierre’s errant spending habits created an “unhealthy” relationship with the NRA’s outside PR firm, the Oklahoma-based Ackerman McQueen, Cox claimed. LaPierre is accused of using Ackerman McQueen to book flights, vacations and other personal expenses, then paying them back using the NRA’s donor money.

“I believe it was untouchable and unhealthy,” Cox said of LaPierre’s unquestioned relationship with the firm.

Cox claimed that he routinely clashed with Ackerman McQueen over the firm’s work with the NRA. At the time, he said he couldn’t understand why LaPierre was so steadfast in backing their projects, which Cox called “arrogant” and “tone-deaf.”

“I thought Ackerman McQueen was not strategic in their messaging,” Cox told the court. “I thought they overcharged for the product they were delivering… I don’t think anyone battled with that agency more than I did.”

When Cox voiced these concerns, he said LaPierre shut them down vehemently. 

“I’ve only heard Wayne LaPierre use profanity twice,” Cox said, claiming that both were times that he questioned Ackerman McQueen’s work.

Cox and LaPerre didn’t always see eye-to-eye when it came to strategy. Seven years before he resigned, Cox reportedly urged the NRA to take a subtler approach to gun advocacy following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. LaPierre opted for a different route and pushed for armed security guards in schools. 

“I didn’t always agree,” Cox testified, which he said was okay at the time. “But I started to have questions and growing concerns, particularly over the final two years, that ultimately led to my departure in 2019.”

Cox said the lack of financial compliance started to bother him. He said he was unsettled to learn of LaPierre’s yacht trips and vacations from NRA vendor David McKenzie.

“It’s inappropriate to accept things of value from vendors,” Cox said.

He added that he knew LaPierre tended to fly private. Despite the defense’s claims that LaPierre did so for safety, Cox didn’t buy it.

“I think this was something that was not necessary for the betterment of the NRA,” Cox said.

But in 2019, reports started to circulate that LaPierre had billed more than $250,000 in luxury clothing to the NRA.

“It was one of the final straws for me,” Cox said. “I was floored. I was extremely disgusted.”

Cox claimed that he drafted his letter of resignation that same morning. 

“I was tired of the infighting,” he said. “I was tired of just the overall chaos.”

Before he officially resigned, Cox was placed on administrative leave over accusations that he was attempting a coup against LaPierre. Cox said he was “devastated.”

“I was so pissed off,” Cox said. “I never had any intention of running against Wayne LaPierre. It was absurd.”

Cox said that, initially, he did expect to eventually replace LaPierre. As their relationship soured, however, Cox said that those aspirations waned.

“He kept saying, ‘You’re the future of the organization, you’re going to take over,’” Cox said.

LaPierre was largely responsible for moving the NRA farther to the political right. Prior to his leadership, the organization was not inherently a political one, and focused more on general gun safety and advocacy. Cox said he hoped to make the organization less polarizing if given the reins. 

“I was not going to go out and throw red meat underserved to the American people,” he said Thursday. “I thought I could do it in a way that was not so controversial.”

But LaPierre didn’t resign until earlier this month, more than four years after Cox left and just days before the civil corruption trial was set to begin. Cox now runs his own government consulting firm out of Alexandria, Virginia. He’ll return to the witness stand on Friday to finish his testimony.

from Courthouse News

Biden brings congressional leaders to White House at pivotal time for Ukraine aid and US border deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has convened top congressional leaders at the White House to press for his $110 billion national security package at a pivotal time as senators narrow on a landmark immigration deal that could unlock the stalled aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.

The sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate leaders, including the chairmen of influential national security committees, could make or break the political trade-off that has been simmering for weeks as lawmakers have failed, so far, to reach a compromise over Biden’s broader aid package.

Ahead of the meeting, Johnson, in a first big test of his new speakership, said he needs to see “transformative” changes to restrict the record number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of any deal for the overseas wars.

“I will tell the president that I’ve been seeing it consistently since the moment I was handed the gavel,” said Johnson, R-La.

“The border is a catastrophe. It has to be addressed. And you’re gonna see House Republicans standing and fighting on that Hill,” he said.

Courthouse News’ podcast Sidebar tackles the stories you need to know from the legal world. Join our hosts as they take you in and out of courtrooms in the U.S. and beyond.

Biden is convening the lawmakers at the start of an election year when border security and the wars abroad are punctuating the race for the White House as he faces a potential rematch against Republican Donald Trump with control of the presidency and Congress all at stake.

It comes as Congress is about to quickly approve temporary funding to avoid a government shutdown, postponing the annual spending battles, but as the supplemental aid package sits undone during the immigration and border talks.

The White House called the meeting with lawmakers — including Johnson, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., — to focus on Biden’s national security supplemental request, and particularly the need to help Ukraine.

“Today’s meeting is about Ukraine,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “That’s what we’re going to focus on in this discussion.”

Biden, a longtime leader in U.S. foreign policy, finds himself confronting a new generation of Republican lawmakers who have little interest in engaging abroad or supporting vast American military aid or actions around the world.

Led by Trump, the former president who is the GOP’s front-runner for the nomination, a growing number of the Republicans in Congress are particularly hostile to helping Ukraine fight Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who along with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met this week with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Davos, said Washington is determined to keep supporting Ukraine, and “we’re working very closely with Congress in order to do that.”

Ahead of the meeting, McConnell announced the package could be ready for a vote as soon as next week, and Schumer sounded a similarly optimistic note — though negotiations continue.

Johnson, since taking the gavel in October, signaled he personally believes in supporting Ukraine as it works to expel Russia. He met privately with Zelenskyy during the Ukrainian president’s whirlwind tour of Washington last month seeking aid before the year-end holidays.

But the speaker leads an ambivalent House GOP majority that wants to extract its own priorities on the U.S.-Mexico border in exchange for any overseas support.

The speaker has insisted any border security deal must align with the House-passed strict border security bill. He told lawmakers in a private meeting over the weekend that they could probably get their priorities enacted with a Republican president, though the speaker did not mean that to preclude not taking action now, said a Republican leadership aide familiar with the call.

But senators, even fellow Republicans, say the House approach is a nonstarter that would never find the bipartisan backing in both chambers needed for approval.

Instead, a core group of senators led by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma has been meeting privately for weeks with Biden’s top advisers, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to develop a border security package that could actually be signed into law.

Lankford told reporters late Tuesday that he hopes to prepare bill text as negotiations try to wrap up soon.

McConnell told GOP senators privately last week they should take the deal Lankford is producing, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the closed meeting.

“This is a unique moment in time,” said the No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.

“It’s an opportunity to get some really conservative border policy that we haven’t been able to get for 40 years,” he said. “And so we’ll see. I mean, it may or may not happen, but I think you got to take a run at it.”

The broader security package includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, which is mainly used to purchase U.S. weaponry to fight the war and to shore up its own government operations, along with some $14.5 billion for Israel, about $14 billion for border security and additional funds for other security needs.

Biden opened the door to a broader U.S.-Mexico border security package late last year and the changes being discussed could be difficult for some Democrats who oppose strict restrictions on immigration.

Schumer said negotiations over the border security package have made progress in recent weeks and he was “hopeful that things are headed in the right direction.”

Schumer said he expects the meeting with Biden will reinforce that the national security package is urgent and “any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have support from both sides of the aisle.”

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By LISA MASCARO and SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

from Courthouse News

Transgender teens appeal to 10th Circuit for access to gender-affirming care in Oklahoma

DENVER (CN) — Transgender teenagers asked the 10th Circuit on Wednesday to overturn a lower court’s order and block an Oklahoma law preventing them from accessing gender-affirming care recommended by their doctors and approved by their parents.

“One need only read the declaration from Brandon Boe’s parents to see how parents grapple with it, but ultimately it is the parents’ decision,” argued Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, on behalf of the families. Boe is the pseudonym of one of the teens who brought the case.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed SB613 on May 1, 2023, banning access to gender-affirming care for minors whose gender identity differs from their biological sex. Doctors who violate the law face felony charges and discipline from the state licensing board.

The law was one of 84 considered by state legislatures last year limiting access to medical care and other aspects of society for transgender people.

The treatment is prescribed specifically to transgender people suffering from anxiety and depression triggered by gender dysphoria.

Five anonymous transgender children and teens between 12 and 17 who thrived under the treatment sued the state, along with their parents and a medical provider.

U.S. District Judge John Heil III, a Federalist Society associate appointed by Trump to Oklahoma federal court, denied an injunction to the youth in October, prompting an appeal.

“This is a sex-based classification on its face,” Gonzalez-Pagan argued. “The state can regulate medical care, but they must justify that sex-based classification. This is a situation where puberty blockers can be provided to any group except these.”

U.S. Circuit Judge Harris Hartz grappled with the idea that a law could discriminate on sex if it treated young men and women equally. Hartz, a George W. Bush appointee, pulled guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which reversed decadeslong precedent protecting a woman’s access to an abortion.

“There’s a statement in the recent decision of Dobbs which I think you just wrote off without addressing,” Hartz said. “The undergoing of a procedure only one sex can undergo doesn’t automatically trigger heightened scrutiny unless the regulation is a mere pretext, etcetera, and that’s what we’re talking about here — you can’t remove the testicles from a woman.”

Gonzales-Pagan clarified that the issue was mainly of accessing hormonal treatment, not surgery.

U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Phillips, appointed by Obama, followed up on the question of Dobbs’ guidance.

“Under each law, no minor can obtain hormones or puberty blockers to transition to another sex,” Phillips said. “It’s an across-the-board regulation — it’s not saying only boys or only girls can get it, so help me to understand.”

Gonzales-Pagan explained the Oklahoma law discriminates between cis-gender and transgender youth, treating someone born male who identifies as male and is seeking testosterone treatment differently from someone born female who identifies as male and is also seeking testosterone treatment.

“Here no procedure is banned for everybody. Here it is not banning the provision of hormones for everybody, here it is banning that care solely for a particular group: when a minor has a gender inconsistent with their birth sex,” Gonzales-Pagan explained. “Here gender transition and the ability to transition to another gender is a proxy.”

In several instances, Hartz grappled with the weight of the decision in the court’s hands.

“This is a real difficult issue, because you have kids who are suffering greatly and you don’t want to do permanent harm to them, and each side thinks it is preventing permanent harm to the child,” Hartz said.

Turning to Oklahoma state attorney Garry Gaskins II, Hartz asked why parents shouldn’t be trusted to make the decision for their children.

“The Legislature doesn’t think minors can make these decisions, but there are many decisions that are made of minors that have that effect — religion and schooling — so why isn’t the parent allowed to exercise that authority?” Hartz asked.

Gaskins urged the court to respect the democratic process of the state Legislature.

“Federal courts must resist the temptation to substitute their views for the will of the Legislature,” Gaskins said. “Sound government usually benefits from more rather than less debate, from more rather than less input, from more fair-minded polices than less.”

Dozens of states submitted amicus briefs both in support of and against the law. New York actor Elliot Page led an amicus brief alongside dozens of other transgender professionals and scholars in defense of the treatment. The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with dozens of other medical organizations, also issued a brief in support of the treatment.

To date, the Sixth Circuit and the 11th Circuit have sided with states laws banning gender-affirming care for minors, while the Ninth Circuit recently decided to take up the issue en banc.

U.S. Circuit Judge Joel Carson, appointed by Trump, rounded out the panel but did not speak during the hearing.

The hearing was held in a packed courtroom at the Byron White U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver and broadcast to 76 viewers via YouTube. The court did not indicate when or how it would decide the case.

from Courthouse News

Why ‘viability’ is dividing the abortion rights movement

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Reproductive rights activists in Missouri agree they want to get a ballot measure before voters this fall to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and ensure access. The sticking point is how far they should go.

The groups have been at odds over whether to include a provision that would allow the state to regulate abortions after the fetus is viable, a concession supporters of the language say will be needed to persuade voters in the conservative state.

It’s a divide that’s not limited to Missouri.

Advocates say the disagreements there and in other states where activists are planning abortion rights measures this year have resurfaced long-brewing ruptures among reproductive rights advocates. The divisions are most acute in Republican-leaning or closely divided states, where some worry that failing to include limits related to viability will sink the measures.

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The conflict has been especially sharp in Missouri, where dueling strategies have complicated efforts to push ahead with a ballot measure seeking to reinstate the right to abortion.

“The movement is grappling with its value system,” said Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, the Kansas City-based vice president of communications for the National Institute for Reproductive Health, which opposes viability clauses.

Viability is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. It’s generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy but has shifted downward with medical advances. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes viability language in legislation or regulations.

Some say it creates an arbitrary dividing line and stigmatizes abortions later in pregnancy, which are exceedingly rare and usually the result of serious complications, such as fetal anomalies, that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a constitutional right to abortion but also created a framework that allowed states to regulate abortions at certain points during pregnancy. Since the current court overturned it in 2022, “Roe is the floor, not the ceiling” has become a rallying cry for activists who vowed to rebuild access, especially for marginalized communities, according to Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, a group that opposes viability clauses.

Yet measures proposed for this year’s ballot in Missouri, Florida and Arizona have been replicating Roe’s viability framework, as did an Ohio constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion that passed last year.

Shortly after that election, a Black Ohio woman who miscarried in her bathroom was charged with abuse of a corpse. The amendment’s viability clause was cited as justification for allowing the case to move forward, though a grand jury ultimately dismissed the case.

The charges are part of a larger effort by anti-abortion forces in Ohio to use the viability clause to limit the reach of the amendment, said Merritt. Many of these efforts will wind up in Ohio’s largely conservative court system, she added.

“When you hand them the scalpel, you can’t turn around and be surprised when they start cutting,” Merritt said.

In South Dakota, the local Planned Parenthood affiliate has pulled out of ballot measure efforts for a proposal that allows lawmakers to restrict abortion after the first trimester. In a statement, the group said the proposal fails to protect abortion rights.

In Oklahoma, viability has been central to conversations about a potential ballot measure to repeal the state’s abortion ban, said Rebecca Tong, co-executive director of Trust Women, which provides abortion care. Tong said viability is “not something we want written into the Constitution in Oklahoma.”

But Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, said viability has not been a major focus in conversations around ballot measure language in a state that currently bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. The campaign recently reached the necessary number of verified signatures to qualify an abortion rights measure for this year’s ballot that includes a viability clause.

“Viability is the framework that Florida had used until the legislators started passing abortion bans,” Brenzel said. “What we know is that voters understand this, and we see it as clear and concise language that matches with what the standard was in Florida for a long time.”

Viability language in Florida’s proposed measure has already opened the door to a legal challenge from the state’s Republican attorney general, who has asked the state Supreme Court to keep the measure off the ballot because of vagueness over the meaning of the term.

A few states, including California and Vermont, have enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions without viability limits. Proposed amendments in Maryland and New York also don’t mention viability.

Missouri has found itself in the center of the national debate over the issue as abortion-rights groups have split over which of 11 versions of a measure to support for the ballot. The petitions have been tied up in court for months after being challenged by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

Complicating the effort is another initiative petition — one proposed by a Republican, strategist Jamie Corley. It would allow abortions up to 12 weeks into pregnancy and include exceptions for rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother until viability.

Corley said those restrictions are what’s feasible to pass in Missouri, where Republicans banned abortions except in medical emergencies.

“Pro-life, anti-abortion voters, a lot of them are still OK with legal but limited access,” Corley said.

Some reproductive rights groups advocating for versions of a more permissive ballot measure with a viability clause raised concerns that anti-abortion forces would attack proposals without one by saying it was an attempt to legalize abortion “up until birth” or “abortion on demand,” terms considered misleading by medical experts.

Sarah Standiford, national campaigns director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said reproductive rights groups must balance their desire for the most expansive access with proposals that can withstand legal challenges and qualify for the ballot.

She acknowledged that such an approach “may ultimately advance a policy that is far short of the ideal.”

Other activists say they’re increasingly frustrated by compromises they see as based on fear and repeating past mistakes in Roe v. Wade that prevented abortion access for the most vulnerable, including people with higher-risk pregnancies, those with lower incomes, people of color and people living in rural communities.

“It is a restriction under the guise of reproductive freedom,” said Jennifer Villavicencio, senior director of public affairs and advocacy at the Society of Family Planning.

In Missouri, it’s yet to be seen how and if activists divided over viability will come together. To many, there’s a sense of urgency to restore at least some rights.

“Real lives are on the line, and that has to be part of these political considerations,” said Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri. “We have to consider both what is politically possible and also look at why that is possible in that moment.”

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By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and SUMMER BALLENTINE Associated Press

Fernando reported from Chicago.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. 

from Courthouse News

Senate bullish on expanding judgeships, but hurdles remain

WASHINGTON (CN) — Some of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top lawmakers said this week that they would be open to discussing proposed legislation aimed at creating dozens of new federal judgeships. But as the presidential election looms, a path forward for such a bill remains murky.

Congress, tasked with overseeing the federal judiciary, has left the number of judges overseeing district courts in stasis for more than two decades. Lawmakers last created a new district court judgeship in 2003 and haven’t significantly expanded district-level judgeships since the 1990s.

Experts have sounded the alarm about this judicial drought, which some argue has contributed to a crushing backlog of cases pending before federal district courts.

The U.S. Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s policymaking body, recommended in March 2023 that Congress pass comprehensive legislation adding 66 permanent federal judgeships to district courts across the country. The conference also suggested lawmakers tack on two extra permanent judgeships to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It wasn’t the first time in recent years that the Judiciary Conference has asked Congress to lighten the burden on federal courts. The group in 2021 urged Congress to add five judgeships in Oklahoma, after a Supreme Court ruling moved the venue for litigating crimes committed on Indigenous land from state courts to the federal docket

The needs expressed by the federal judiciary are real, said Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law.

The Judicial Conference’s recommendations are “based on conservative estimates of case and workload,” he told Courthouse News during an interview Wednesday. “They’re not outlandish requests.”

A judgeships bill would address “the most dire circumstances in the judiciary,” Tobias said, pointing in particular to caseloads in jurisdictions like the Eastern District of California, which he said has been burdened “for decades” with double the national average.

Federal district courts in border regions like Texas, Arizona and southern California are also suffering from staffing shortages in the judiciary, he added.

Fortunately, there is at least one piece of comprehensive legislation in Congress aimed at expanding the federal judiciary.

Introduced in September by a bipartisan group of lawmakers including Delaware Senator Chris Coons and Indiana Senator Todd Young, the proposed bill would closely follow the Judicial Conference’s recommendations, adding 63 new district court judgeships and three more temporary positions.

“Too many Americans are being denied access to our justice system due to an overload of cases and a shortage of judges,” said Young in a statement at the time. “Our bipartisan bill will help address this shortage and ensure all Americans have the opportunity to have their day in court.”

If made law, the legislation — known as the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act or JUDGES Act — would direct the White House to appoint new judges in two batches, one in 2025 and another in 2029. Three temporary judicial appointments, two in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and one in the state’s northern district court, would be selected separately.

The bipartisan bill would also extend temporary judgeships in the Northern District of Alabama and the District of Kansas, and commissions an independent report on the status of “vacant or underused” federal courthouses.

The measure does not include the Judicial Conference’s recommended Ninth Circuit judgeships.

Coons and Young introduced similar legislation in 2021, but it fizzled and died before it could see a vote. Lawmakers in 2020 also urged their colleagues to draft a comprehensive judgeships bill.

This latest attempt has yet to hear debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but both Republicans and Democrats said this week that they would be open to broaching the subject of federal judgeships in the new year.

“The judiciary is short on judges,” Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal told Courthouse News on Thursday. “This is a longstanding need, and we should meet it.”

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who previously served as the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chair, said he had not yet made up his mind on the proposed legislation, saying that the details of how the new judgeships are distributed was important.

“But I think I’d just better admit that we need more judges,” Grassley added.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said Thursday that, while he wasn’t familiar with the proposed bill, Congress should also look at judgeships on U.S. Circuit courts. “I think we probably do need to think about expanding circuits,” he said.

Hawley also suggested that lawmakers consider breaking up the Ninth Circuit, which serves six states in the country’s western reaches plus Alaska and Hawaii, into “two smaller component circuits.”

“That circuit is massively huge, and the caseload is gigantic,” the Missouri Republican said. “It’s not efficient at all.”

Splitting up the Ninth Circuit has been a GOP policy objective for decades, said Tobias, who contended that Republicans have long disagreed with the court’s rulings.

“The problem is there is no feasible way to do that,” he contended, since California supplies more than half of the Ninth Circuit’s case docket and splitting the Golden State across two federal circuit courts “does not work.”

Coons signaled to Courthouse News Thursday that he was working to get his judgeships bill in front of the Judiciary Committee, which is led by fellow Democrat Dick Durbin.

“That’s a bill that I would love to see move,” he said, adding that he “recognize[d] there’s a lot of work to make progress” on the measure.

A spokesperson for Durbin’s office declined to comment on whether the Judiciary Committee chair would bring the bill up for a vote.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the panel’s Republican ranking member, did not return a request for comment on whether he would support such an effort.

Tobias meanwhile said he was skeptical that Congress would be able to pass a judgeships bill before November’s presidential election.

“I think the short answer is that it isn’t going to happen,” he said.

While he said it was encouraging that Judiciary Committee senators have some bipartisan interest in expanding the judiciary, Tobias cited growing partisanship across both houses of Congress as a potential impediment to proposed legislation.

“The dynamic just seems to me to be on a downward spiral,” he said. “Republicans will view it as giving Biden judges, more vacancies to fill.”

If there were ever a good time to pass a judgeships bill, though, it would be during an election year, Tobias said, while it’s still unclear which party will control the presidency come January. “Whoever is in the White House is going to get the benefit of it,” he said.

While the possibility of a friendly White House getting a slate of new judicial appointments could attract bipartisanship, Tobias worried it would work in the opposite direction. He predicted that Republicans would view any proposed judgeships legislation as handing more judicial vacancies to the Biden administration.

“I don’t think it’s enough to overcome the partisanship,” Tobias said. “I just don’t see enough of a good government mentality.”

from Courthouse News

Senate Republicans say SCOTUS should have final say in presidential qualifications

WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a bill that would cement the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of whether a presidential candidate can be removed from the ballot on constitutional grounds.

The measure, sponsored by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, comes after two states struck former President Donald Trump from their primary election ballots, citing the insurrection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

The Colorado Supreme Court in December ruled that the insurrection clause, which bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” against the U.S. government from holding elected office without congressional approval, disqualifies the GOP frontrunner, pointing to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows followed suit days later.

Now, Senate Republicans — who have sharply condemned the move to disqualify former President Trump — have said that interpreting the insurrection clause and other constitutional provisions should be left to federal courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.

“Presidential elections are determined by the American people, not liberal political activists with a grudge,” Mullin said in a statement Thursday. “Right now, states like Colorado and Maine are working overtime to undermine American voters and kick President Donald Trump off the ballot.”

If made law, the GOP legislation would clarify federal law to block state courts and officials from adjudicating “disputes or questions of ballot eligibility” related to the Constitution’s insurrection clause.

Instead, the measure said, such challenges to a candidate’s qualifications should be investigated first by a panel of judges on a federal district court, which would “make findings of fact” and send them to the Supreme Court. The high court would “consider the matter on an expedited basis before issuing a ruling on the findings of law,” the bill read.

The legislation would also strip federal funds for election administration from states where officials unilaterally declare a presidential candidate ineligible for office using the insurrection clause.

Tillis said in a statement Thursday framed his bill as a response to what he called “left-wing activists” who “make a mockery of our political system by scheming with partisan state officials and pressuring judges to remove [former President Trump] from the ballot.”

“This is an effort to silence Americans [and] their votes,” Florida Senator Rick Scott wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It must be stopped.”

Despite Republicans’ insistence, it’s unlikely that the proposed measure would clear the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Trump, meanwhile, filed a suit last week challenging his disqualification from Maine’s primary election. The former president accused Secretary of State Bellows of being “a biased decisionmaker” and that she “failed to provide lawful due process.”

According to the Pine Tree State’s election laws, the secretary of state can rule on a candidate’s ballot eligibility.

Despite that, the Republican frontrunner’s legal team also argued that state officials have no authority to enforce the Constitution’s insurrection clause.

Other states, including Michigan and Minnesota, have refused to disqualify Trump from their primary ballots. Voters in Illinois last week petitioned the state’s elections board to strike the former president from their own primary election.

from Courthouse News

Midwest, Gulf Coast slammed by blizzards and nasty weather

OMAHA, Neb. (CN) — A winter storm swept across the central U.S. on Monday, shutting down much of the Great Plains and prompting the closure of major interstates, the cancellation of high school and college classes and warnings from officials to stay home.

Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed, as was Interstate 40 west of Amarillo, Texas. Officials shut down Interstate 80 in Nebraska between Grand Island and Lexington due to what the State Patrol deemed “whiteout conditions.”

“We have a big area of low pressure and usually what you associate with low pressure is your more stormy events,” said Michaela Wood, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska, near Omaha. “It’s bringing impacts to a good chunk of the country out here.”

The low pressure system drew cold weather down from Canada and moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico. “Where a lot of that meets is where you will get your snowfall,” Wood said.

The blizzard warning extended from northeast New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, western Kansas and several counties of south-central Nebraska. A winter storm warning extended from eastern Nebraska and Kansas across the Midwest to Wisconsin and Lake Michigan.

The closed interstates are major American east-west arteries.

“There are a lot of interstates closed,” Wood said. “In terms of freight and moving things around I imagine this will have quite an impact.”

Megan Williams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, Louisiana, near New Orleans, said heavy rain and winds across Texas and the Gulf Coast were a result of the low-pressure system.

“We’ve got these scattered to numerous storms coming through Heavy rainfall and 60 mph winds,” she said Monday afternoon. “Later tonight we are expecting a line of storms to be moving though our area, and this will have the greatest potential to see severe weather with the potential for tornadoes.”

Back in the Plains states, forecasters expected high winds Monday night and into Tuesday, with the possibility of ground blizzards, making travel difficult if not impossible, even in areas like Omaha which were outside of the blizzard warning.

This could lead to situations on Tuesday where hapless homeowners try to clear their sidewalks or driveways only to have high winds blow more snow onto onto them. “In terms of snow removal, it’s going to be quite the 24 hours here.”

Six to ten inches of snow was expected in and around Nebraska’s largest city. Snow was expected to accumulate through midnight.

“The snow will keep accumulating through today until around midnight,” Wood said. “Tuesday evening and into Wednesday is when things should really start to clear up.”

Starting Tuesday the system will move east toward the Great Lakes and then on late Wednesday and Thursday toward the eastern seaboard.

“It will weaken a little bit as it goes but it is going to bring impacts throughout the week to a good amount of people,” Wood said.

On Monday there were also blizzard warnings in the Cascades of Oregon and Washington state, the result of a different low pressure system that was expected to move into Canada, Wood said, though they may eventually impact the Dakotas.

The National Weather Service does not name winter storms, but the Weather Channel does, deeming this one Winter Storm Finn.

from Courthouse News

Supreme Court declines to intervene on state’s claims that Big Oil’s lies exacerbated climate change

(CN) — The Supreme Court turned down a petition for review Monday from various energy companies seeking to move claims filed against them in Minnesota to federal court.

They noted however, that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, was in favor of granting the petition for a writ of certiorari.

The state of Minnesota sued the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil and other affiliate companies in June 2020, claiming their production and promotion of fossil fuels increased greenhouse gas emissions and contributed to climate change.

In the complaint, the state argued that the companies developed a widespread campaign to deceive the public about the dangers of fossil fuels and to undermine the scientific consensus linking fossil fuel emissions to climate change. The suit sought restitution, civil penalties and injunctive relief to remedy harm caused to its citizens for the companies’ deceptive marketing and failure to warn.

The energy companies sought to have the case heard in federal court, arguing that the state’s claims are governed by federal law and that its redress for injuries was caused by interstate and international emissions. But the court remanded the case back to state court.

After the companies appealed, the Eighth Circuit also dismissed their argument. The court held that removal on the basis of federal common law was “impermissible” because the state did not expressly invoke federal common law as the basis for any of the claims in its complaint.

The circuit judges noted that this was not the first time oil production companies have made such jurisdictional arguments, and that its “sister circuits rejected them in each case.”

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the companies argued that the decision should be reviewed by the justices because it implicates a conflict on whether federal common law exclusively governs claims seeking redress for injuries attributed to interstate greenhouse gas emissions’ effects on the global climate.

Attorney Kannon Shanmugam, from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in D.C., argued that under the court of appeals’ logic, a lower federal court is bound by the labels the plaintiff applies to the claims in the complaint, even where federal common law necessarily and exclusively governs the issues pleaded on the face of the complaint.

“Absent review, climate-change cases will continue to proliferate in state courts, resulting in the application of the laws of fifty states to climate-change-related disputes, in conflict with the national-security, economic and energy policies of the United States,” Shanmugam wrote in the petition.

The attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A host of states — Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming — filed an amici curiae brief in favor of the energy companies. The states claimed that their ability to regulate energy and fuel product development and to abate any related air pollution or environmental hazards are threatened if a state can force companies to defend themselves against liability in state court.

“There is no division among the circuits on the question presented, let alone an ‘entrenched’ one requiring this court’s intervention,” Victor Sher, an attorney for the state of Minnesota, wrote in the state’s opposition brief to the high court.

“Every court confronting the issue has held that state-law claims like the state’s — which allege petitioners ‘mounted an aggressive campaign’ to ‘mislead consumers and the general public about the scientific consensus around climate change, the relationship between climate change and their fossil-fuel products, and the urgency of the dangers of climate change,’ are not removable from state court,” Sher added.

from Courthouse News

FBI calls bomb threats that led to brief lockdowns and evacuations of some state capitols a hoax

(AP) — A bomb threat emailed to officials in several states early Wednesday briefly disrupted government affairs and prompted some state capitol evacuations, but no explosives were found and federal officials quickly dismissed the threats as a hoax.

The threats follow a spate of false reports of shootings at the homes of public officials in recent days.

Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and Montana were among the states that evacuated statehouse offices or buildings.

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The FBI said it was aware of numerous hoax bomb threats at state Capitol buildings, but had “no information to indicate a specific and credible threat.” The bureau said it was working with state, local and federal law enforcement to gather, share and act on information.

“The FBI takes hoax threats very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” it said in a statement.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said on X that the Capitol was evacuated while state police investigated a threat received by the Secretary of State’s Office. Lawmakers were elsewhere for ethics training, but secretary of state spokeswoman Michon Lindstrom said some candidate filings were disrupted.

The “mass email” warned of multiple explosives that would go off in a few hours.

Public safety officials locked down the Mississippi Capitol on the second day of the legislative session and the state Senate delayed its morning meeting. The building was evacuated and bomb-sniffing dogs circled before an all-clear was given.

“This is an ongoing investigation and there is no further threat to the Capitol or surrounding buildings,” said Bailey Martin, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.

The closures were brief and disruptions minimal in most states.

Montana’s Capitol building reopened within two hours after a sweep of the building was completed and the threat was found not to be credible, said Megan Grotzke, spokesperson for the Department of Administration.

In Minnesota, oral arguments at the state Supreme Court inside the Capitol were interrupted, but were moved to other courtrooms in the Minnesota Judicial Center, said Kyle Christopherson, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Judicial Branch.

Other states — including Wyoming, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Maryland — received threats, but didn’t close.

Several public officials have been hit by “swatting” calls in recent days. Swatting is a prank call made to emergency services intended to bring a police response.

Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was targeted by a fake emergency call on Christmas morning. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was hit by a “swatting” attempt a day after she removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause, a decision Trump is appealing.

Other public officials targeted in recent days include Republican U.S. Rep. Brandon Williams of New York, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

Hundreds of swatting cases occur annually.

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By REBECCA REYNOLDS Associated Press

Contributing to this report were Michael Goldberg and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi; Lindsey Whitehurst in Washington, D.C.; Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana; Trisha Ahmed in St. Paul, Minnesota; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky and Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky.

from Courthouse News