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RandySF's JournalAppeals court hears Kari Lake election case, has to remind her lawyer how appeals work
Appellate judges listening to arguments Thursday in Kari Lake’s challenge to her 2022 election loss had to keep reminding her lawyer how appeals courts work.
“I’m sure you’re aware we’re not a fact finding court — we’re a court that decides questions of law, primarily,” Judge Peter Eckerstrom told Kurt Olsen, Lake’s attorney, shortly after he began his arguments.
Lake, a Republican who is now running for a U.S. Senate seat, filed her initial election challenge in December 2022 after she lost the governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes.
An ally of fellow election denier Donald Trump, Lake never conceded to Hobbs and has continually claimed the election was stolen, despite her claims failing to convince judges in December 2022 and May 2023 trials, as well as multiple appeals in between the two.
https://azmirror.com/2024/05/02/appeals-court-hears-kari-lake-election-case-has-to-remind-her-lawyer-how-appeals-work/
Abortion rights group warns pregnant women to avoid Florida, offers workarounds to 6-week ban
If you’re pregnant and care about your physical and mental well-being, it’s best to avoid Florida altogether for the foreseeable future, a state reproductive rights group said.
They also provided a few recommendations for those unable to flee the Sunshine State.
The Florida National Organization for Women (Florida NOW) has issued an advisory warning “pregnant individuals to avoid travel and relocation to Florida due to the enactment of a near-total ban on abortion.”
The admonition came Wednesday after a year-delayed ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect, renewing concerns among some doctors that women in the state won’t have access to needed health care.
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/672336-abortion-rights-group-warns-pregnant-women-to-avoid-florida-offers-workarounds-to-6-week-ban/
Philly City Council will consider having an elected school board
Philadelphia City Council will hold hearings to review how the city appoints school board members and will consider whether the School District of Philadelphia should have an elected board.
The move to authorize a legislative review of the school board nomination process comes days after Mayor Cherelle L. Parker placed a member on the board despite lawmakers’ objections.
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, a Democrat who chairs Council’s Education Committee, introduced legislation to hold hearings on the district’s governance structure and said he wants to explore if an elected or hybrid school board structure could be more effective. Currently, board members are nominated by the mayor, then confirmed by Council.
“Most people in our city would agree that a different model of school governance is probably the direction they want to go in,” Thomas said Thursday. “The point of the resolution is to explore it.”
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/city-council-elected-school-board-20240502.html
OH-13: GOP congressional candidate says 'anyone with eyes' wants to cut Social Security and Medicaid
During an on-air candidate forum in February, Ohio Republican congressional candidate Kevin Coughlin said it’s obvious that cuts to Social Security and Medicaid are one of the only ways to fix the national debt.
The forum was hosted by Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance, who asked Coughlin what Congress can do to fix the national debt. Coughlin said that cuts to the popular benefits programs are obvious to “anyone with eyes.”
“There have to be entitlement reforms, and I know the Democrats are cheering right now that they’re hearing me say that,” Coughlin said. “But anyone with eyes and an honest heart can understand that when half of your budget is being spent on Medicaid and Social Security, and it’s going to go broke very, very quickly, which isn’t going to mean that they’re going to go away, but it’s going to mean that the benefits that people get are going to be cut. You have to start thinking about the sustainability of those programs for people who really need them.”
Coughlin is a former Ohio state senator and representative, having served in the legislature from 1997-2010. Other prominent Republicans like U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick have also publicly toyed with the idea of cutting benefits programs.
https://heartlandsignal.com/2024/05/02/gop-congressional-candidate-says-anyone-with-eyes-wants-to-cut-social-security-and-medicaid/
Conservative group sues for easier access to Wisconsin voters' details
A conservative legal group has once again made Wisconsin’s voter rolls a subject of litigation ahead of the November elections, arguing that state election officials should be forced to more easily disclose voter registration lists.
A lawsuit was filed Tuesday by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a group chaired by an ally of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and one which has long sought to purge voter rolls in states across the country.
The group's latest legal challenge in Wisconsin centers on the accessibility of the state’s voter registration list.
The federal National Voter Registration Act lays out a set of basic standards for members of the public to request and inspect voter registration lists, guaranteeing the documents can be made available and limiting the costs that can be charged for their production.
https://captimes.com/news/elections/conservative-group-sues-for-easier-access-to-wisconsin-voters-details/article_61704d18-08bb-11ef-89ad-47be0899c9ad.html
Member of WisGOP Exec Committee calls for overhaul of party fundraising amid lackluster numbers
Will Martin, a member of the state GOP’s Executive Committee, is calling for an overhaul to the party’s fundraising approach after a disappointing haul to start 2024, warning in a letter obtained by WisPolitics, “No money, no mission.”
Martin, a Racine businessman who ran for lieutenant governor in 2022, argues the party needs to get all Executive Committee members involved in fundraising to free up Chair Brian Schimming to focus on those willing to give $50,000 or more. He also urged the party to look to more out-of-state donors after being regularly outraised by the state Dem Party in recent years.
WisPolitics reported earlier this year the state Dem Party outraised its Republican counterpart 15-to-1 through the first quarter of 2024. Of the nearly $6 million the state Dem Party had raised through late March, $5.6 million of it was from those outside Wisconsin.
Martin noted in his letter the GOP listed a single donation of $25 from an out-of-state donor as it pulled in $399,046 over the same period.
https://www.wispolitics.com/2024/member-of-wisgop-exec-committee-calls-for-overhaul-of-party-fundraising-amid-lackluster-numbers/
Pregnant women in Missouri can't get divorced. Critics say it fuels domestic violence
The turning point for Destonee was a car ride.
She describes a scene of emotional abuse: Pregnant with her third child, her husband yelled at her while her older two kids listened in the car. "He would call me awful things in front of them," she says. "And soon my son would call me those names too."
She made up her mind to leave him, but when she went to a lawyer to file for divorce, she was told to come back when she was no longer pregnant.
Destonee requested she be identified by only her first name. She says she still lives with abusive threats from her ex-husband. She couldn't end her marriage because Missouri law requires women seeking divorce to disclose whether they're pregnant — and state judges won't finalize divorces during a pregnancy. Established in the 1970s, the rule was intended to make sure men were financially accountable for the children they fathered.
Advocates in Missouri are now pushing to change this law, arguing that it's being weaponized against victims of domestic violence and contributes to the contraction of women's reproductive freedoms in a post-Roe v. Wade landscape.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/05/03/npr-pregnant-women-in-missouri-cant-get-divorced-critics-say-it-fuels-domestic-violence
More than 380,000 Missourians sign initiative petition to put abortion on the ballot
A campaign to enshrine abortion rights in Missouri’s constitution said Friday that it collected more than 380,000 signatures in just three months, more than twice the likely total needed to qualify for this year’s statewide ballot.
The coalition, called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, is hoping to put on the November ballot a measure that would legalize abortion up to the point of fetal viability. Since June 2022, nearly every abortion has been illegal in the state with the exception of medical emergencies.
In order to put a citizen-led constitutional amendment before voters, the campaign had to collect signatures from 8% of voters in six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. That total equates to more than 171,000 signatures.
The campaign on Friday morning announced they officially turned in 380,159 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office. A breakdown of how many signatures came from each district, which will ultimately determine if they met the threshold needed to qualify, was not provided. But the coalition said they collected signatures from each of Missouri’s counties and congressional districts.
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/05/03/missourians-signatures-abortion-amendment-viability/
DOJ expected to announce indictment of Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, sources say
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is expected to announce the indictment of longtime Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, on Friday, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Cuellar’s home and campaign office in Laredo, Texas, were raided in January 2022 as part of a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and a group of U.S. businessmen who have ties to the country, law enforcement said at the time. His office had pledged to cooperate with the investigation. In April, Cuellar's lawyer, Joshua Berman, told some news outlets that federal authorities informed him he was not the target of the investigation.
Cuellar is a one-time co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.
It wasn't immediately clear if the indictment was related to the 2022 raid. The Justice Department declined to comment. NBC News has reached out to Cuellar and a lawyer representing him for comment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/doj-expected-announce-indictment-texas-democratic-rep-henry-cuellar-so-rcna150567
UK: Conservatives battered in local elections as losses mount
Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives have been hammered in local elections across England and Wales and lost the Blackpool South parliamentary by-election to Labour, but threats of a mutiny against the prime minister have receded.
Sunak’s party comfortably held on to the totemic Conservative mayoralty of Tees Valley, easing fears in Downing Street that a catastrophic set of results would trigger an uprising against his leadership by Tory MPs.
Early returns in the last big test before a general election expected this year suggested that the UK’s governing party could lose half the council seats it was defending.
The results were at the upper end of Tory MPs’ worst fears and Sunak described the loss of Conservative councillors as “disappointing”.
https://www.ft.com/content/115ae751-de12-43b3-9bb3-380ea9d510f2
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