Yearly Archives: 2023

A coalition of 19 attorneys general filed a brief with the Colorado Supreme Court arguing an appeal to keep former President Donald Trump off the primary ballot can’t be decided by the courts.

The 41-page brief, led by Republican Attorneys General Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia and Theodore Rokita of Indiana, argues Congress should decide any alleged violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The brief states the “courts have no business second guessing Congress’s decisions to enforce – or not enforce—the Clause,” referring to the insurrection clause in the amendment.

“The Fourteenth Amendment entrusts Insurrection Clause questions to Congress—not state officials or state courts,” the brief states. “The Amendment vests Congress with ‘power to enforce’ the Insurrection Clause ‘by appropriate legislation’ and power to ‘remove [the] disability’ it imposes.”

The brief was filed on the same day as a brief by three Republican secretaries of state arguing the case should be dismissed because District Court Judge Sarah Wallace described Trump as an “insurrectionist.”

Judge Wallace ruled in favor of Trump earlier this month. Although she wrote Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, “incited imminent lawless violence,” his words didn’t meet the amendment’s requirement of “engagement.”

The attorneys general argue the definition of “insurrection” shouldn’t be decided by the courts.

“For example, the term ‘insurrection’ is hardly as well defined as the district court let on,” the brief states. “And allowing each state and its courts to determine eligibility using malleable standards would create an unworkable patchwork of eligibility requirements for President.”

“… In truth, an ‘insurrection’ is more serious than the district court’s definition supposes. Where the Constitution uses the term ‘insurrection,’ that term appears alongside terms like ‘invasion’ and ‘rebellion.’”

The brief aligns with arguments submitted by the secretaries of state regarding a prediction of “electoral chaos” if a party’s presidential candidate appears on some state primary ballots but not on others.

The brief states the Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives after Jan. 6, 2021, and subsequent acquittal by the Senate shows Congress hasn’t found him guilty of an infraction under the constitution.

“Congress, then, has rendered its judgment – and it disagrees with petitioners’ view that former President Trump engaged in insurrection,” the brief states. “Petitioners want this Court to try again, but ‘[f]ailure of political will does not justify unconstitutional remedies.'"

Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming joined Morrisey and Rokita in filing the brief.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump in a similar case and an appeal in Michigan is ongoing.

(The Center Square)– Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor died at 93 on Friday morning in Phoenix.

O'Connor died because of "complications" with dementia and "a respiratory illness," according to the court's news release. She was appointed to serve on the high court by late President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and she retired in 2006.

“A daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O’Connor blazed an historic trail as our Nation’s first female Justice. She met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor," Chief Justice John Roberts said in a news release. "We at the Supreme Court mourn the loss of a beloved colleague, a fiercely independent defender of the rule of law, and an eloquent advocate for civics education. And we celebrate her enduring legacy as a true public servant and patriot.”

The former justice was born in Texas, but she spent much of her life in Arizona. In the 1960s she was the former Deputy Attorney General of Arizona before serving in the state Senate in 1969. She then served on the Maricopa County Superior Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals until she made her way to the Supreme Court, the news release states.

National and Arizona leaders reacted to her death by reflecting on her unique legacy.

"Justice Sandra Day O'Connor– Arizona's original cowgirl– paved the way for countless women like me in law and life," Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter. "She was fiercely independent just like Arizona, and she worked tirelessly to do what's best for our state and country. Arizona and and America are grateful for her service and leadership."

Former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey shared a photo of the pair together in his reflection.

"Ronald Reagan put it best when he called Justice O’Connor a 'person for all seasons.' Her life and career are a testament to hard work, determination, Western grit and the American dream," Ducey tweeted. "From the Arizona Senate to the United States Supreme Court, she broke barriers and shattered any ceiling that stood in her way. Justice O’Connor was a force of nature, with a keen grasp on basic common sense. Her legacy must be remembered, and her life and lessons learned by every American child. Angela and I pray for her entire family. May she rest in peace."

According to the news release, she left behind three children and six grandchildren. Her husband, John, died in 2009.

A new Biden administration rule forces schools to comply with progressive ideology on gender and sexuality or risk losing the federal aid for free and reduced-price school lunches.

Legal observers say this is just the first in a slew of new rules on the horizon tying federal education funding to far-left policies on gender and sexuality.

The school lunch funding controvesy began in May 2022, as The Center Square previously reported, with an announcement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which handles federal help for school lunches.

The USDA said at the time it would change its longstanding interpretation of Title IX, the law broadly governing discrimination protections in education. USDA said it would expand its previous prohibition against discriminating based on sex “to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

School lunch funding goes through the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of USDA.

“As a result, state and local agencies, program operators and sponsors that receive funds from FNS must investigate allegations of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” USDA said in a statement. “Those organizations must also update their non-discrimination policies and signage to include prohibitions against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.”

That change has major legal and taxpayer dollar implications and is an unprecedented reinterpretation of the statute, according to experts. For instance, schools receiving Pell grants, FAFSA, or students who receive federally subsidized school lunch funding will be subject to the new Title IX interpretation or risk losing that funding.

“This is a significant departure from what Title IX has always been interpreted to be,” Sarah Perry, a lawyer at the Heritage Foundation and expert on this issue, told The Center Square.

With an ever-growing number of orientations and gender identities, and despite the political divide on the issue, schools will now be forced to comply on the complex and highly politicized gender and sexuality issue.

“This is no small change,” Perry said. “This is a significant interpretation to say that sex equals sexual orientation and gender identity when Title IX, we know, dates back to 1972 and the women’s liberation movement, and at the time there was an entire campaign by LGBTQ activists to be included in anti-discrimination law indicating that they themselves did not believe that they were protected in these particular contexts.”

Practically, that could lead to schools being forced to allow transgender girls use facilities reserved for biological girls or to toe the line on preferred pronoun usage, among other things.

Senate Republicans tried and failed 47-50 to overturn the USDA reinterpretation via the Congressional Review Act.

“Don’t be fooled here, the Biden Administration is the only player in this policy fight that is taking away lunches from children,” U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kans., said after the effort failed. “There is real-world evidence that USDA’s policy has already taken away school lunch funding from low-income children.

“Weaponizing school lunch money in pursuit of their radical agenda and putting students in the crosshairs is unconscionable, and we will not stand for it,” he added.

Nearly two dozen states filed a joint legal challenge to the USDA reinterpretation and pointed out that Tennessee had success challenging a similar federal effort from the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the past.

The court battle could become more complex when more schools challenges the new interpretation or a student or parent feels that a local school district has not complied sufficiently with USDA’s new interpretation.

A legal fight could end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, given the importance of Title IX and the nationwide implications of a potential ruling.

One Christian school in Florida filed a lawsuit of that kind and settled out of court in 2022, and the USDA announced in a memo more leeway and exemptions for religious schools on this policy.

However, another church and its preschool in California filed suit saying they lost school lunch funding for refusing to adhere to the gender identity doctrine in their employment practices.

Perry said, however, that enforcing a liberal regulatory plan on gender or sexuality in schools is far from reserved to the USDA. The Department of Education is formulating new rules of the same kind now that Perry said will come out likely in the spring 2024. Those rules, which were expected to already be finalized and may be combined into a single rule, have been delayed because of the pushback and concerns raised with the federal agency.

“I think [the Biden administration] was a little overwhelmed by criticism,” Perry said, referencing the delays.

Even beyond the new DOE rules, redefining sex to include sexuality and gender identity would have broad implications across the federal government.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who help steer U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam and China, died Wednesday. He was 100.

His consulting firm, Kissinger Associates Inc., announced the death.

Kissinger, born as Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Germany in 1923, left Nazi Germany for America in 1938. He served in the 84th Army Division from 1943 to 1946 after becoming a U.S. citizen. He was awarded the Bronze Star. He later served in the Counter Intelligence Corps in occupied Germany.

President Richard Nixon appointed Kissinger National Security Adviser in 1969. He went on to serve as Secretary of State under Nixon. When Nixon resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal, Kissinger stayed on and served under President Gerald Ford.

"Kissinger played central roles in the opening to China, negotiating the end of the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, and helping to bring America's role in the Vietnam War to a close. He worked to set the former Rhodesia on the path to representative government and negotiated key arms control agreements with the Soviet Union," according to Kissinger Associates Inc.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, a Vietnamese diplomat, "for jointly having negotiated a cease fire in Vietnam in 1973," according to the Noble Foundation. Le Duc Tho declined the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Kissinger’s tenure as Secretary comprised many controversial issues, including his role in influencing U.S. policies towards countries such as Chile and Angola," according to his official State Department biography.

Kissinger also was known for his "shuttle diplomacy" missions, in which he traveled between Middle East capitals to try to bring peace.

Kissinger also had many critics. HuffPost's obituary of Kissinger had the headline: "Henry Kissinger, America's Most Notorious War Criminal, Dies At 100". HuffPost cited as perhaps Kissinger's most notorious crime a secret four-year bombing campaign in Cambodia against the neutral nation during the time of the Vietnam War.

Kissinger is survived by his wife, Nancy Maginnes Kissinger, two children by his first marriage, David and Elizabeth, and five grandchildren.

He will be interred at a private family service.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests considering donations to: Animal Medical Center, Development Office, 510 East 62nd Street, New York, NY 10065 or Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036.

(The Center Square) – Many children in Wisconsin schools have not returned to class since the COVID outbreak.

A new report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty looks at the spike in chronic absenteeism, particularly since the start of the 2020 school year.

“The first step in the education of a student is them being present to absorb the material. But when a student is regularly not in school, this process breaks down,” Will Flanderrs wrote in the report. “Getting kids into school on a daily basis is a responsibility shared by school districts and parents. While there is no one change that can magically reverse the downward trend in attendance, it is vital that this issue be at the forefront for policymakers concerned about the education of the next generation.”

The report shows truancy rates in Wisconsin public schools have more than doubled since 2012.

“About 10% of students were chronically absent in 2012 compared to more than 20% today,” the report notes.

The report also shows some of Wisconsin’s worst-performing schools have the highest absentee numbers.

“Beloit, Racine, and Milwaukee are among the districts with the lowest Forward Exam proficiency, but highest absenteeism,” the report said. “Many of the districts with the lowest rates of absenteeism are elementary-only districts – suggestive of the fact that students tend to skip school significantly more as they age and parental oversight declines. Many of Wisconsin’s largest-enrollment school districts are found at the top.”

Racine Schools have the highest absentee rate, followed by Beloit Schools, Milwaukee Public Schools, Ashland Schools and Green Bay Area Public Schools.

Wauzeka-Steuben Schools have the lowest absentee rate, followed by Stone Bank Schools, the Paris J1 district, Swallow Schools and Kohler Schools.

WILL’s report also looks at the effort to fight chronic absenteeism, which is largely non-existent in many communities.

“In most of Wisconsin, actual charges under the state’s truancy laws are quite rare. The most common charge is for contributing to the truancy of a minor,” the report notes. “This charge has been levied 359 times between 2018 and 2022, with only 109 eventual convictions. A very small number of counties contribute to the overall numbers.”

WILL’s report shows Winnebago and Marathon counties account for more than 70 of those 109 convictions. Prosecutors in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Beloit did not record a single truancy conviction between 2018 and 2022.

WILL’s suggested solution is not more prosecutions but rather more education for parents.

“There is conventional wisdom, especially among low-income parents, that attendance in early grades is less critical than, say, high school attendance. But the reality is largely the opposite: students who fall behind early in subjects like reading are often never able to catch back up,” the report states. “Another key factor in reducing absenteeism is making sure that students feel safe in school. A number of studies over the years have found that a negative school environment, or even news of recent school violence, lead to higher rates of absenteeism. WILL has done extensive work over the years on the ways that politically correct discipline policies have harmed school safety. Moving away from softer discipline policies and returning resource officers to schools where needed could improve not only safety, but also attendance.”

(The Center Square) – The plan to change Wisconsin’s telehealth rules for mental health treatment is coming together at the State Capitol.

The Senate Committee on Mental Health, Substance Abuse Prevention, Children and Families held a hearing Tuesday on Senate Bill 515 which would allow out-of-state mental health providers to take patients in Wisconsin without having to get a license to practice in Wisconsin.

“Overall, this breaks down barriers. It allows other providers to provide other services. And it allows people to get the help that they need,” Sen. Rachel Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, said.

The plan would essentially make Wisconsin’s COVID-era telehealth program permanent.

Supporters say it will also help battle Wisconsin’s “crisis level” shortage of mental health providers.

“The shortage is all the more stark when you look at rural areas of the state,” Institute for Reforming Government’s Alex Ignatowski told lawmakers. “The average throughout the state is one mental health provider for every 470 residents. But if you go to Buffalo County that jumps to 13,030 residents per one mental health provider.”

The proposal already cleared the Wisconsin Assembly, where Cabral-Guevara said there were some changes to get Wisconsin’s Medical Society to drop its opposition.

“There were two amendments that were added. One limits the scope to just mental health providers. So, it takes out physicians, PAs, and nurses, and it puts in therapists, counselors, social workers, and psychologists to provide a little bit narrower scope,” Cabral-Guevara said. “The other one provides that an out-of-state provider needs to register with DSPS so that we know these folks are registered within their state, and we have accountability here in our state.”

Ignatowski said the move to the break-down barriers and eliminate burdensome regulations is a good thing.

“Currently 26 states have some sort of exception for out-of-state telehealth providers. These exceptions cover a number of medical and mental health provider groups, but often have a complex set of requirements. Wisconsin can do better,” Ignatowski said. “We know that providers from other states are not drastically different to the point that we need to impose duplicative licensure requirements or put up new bureaucratic barriers between providers and the Wisconsinites who need help now. There is no silver bullet for solving mental health the mental health crisis in Wisconsin, but SB515 will increase access to mental health services in Wisconsin and warrants your support.”

New home sales in the U.S. dropped last month as mortgage rates have soared.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, new home sales fell 5.6% in October, more than expected.

“The median sales price of new houses sold in October 2023 was $409,300,” the Bureau said in its announcement. “The average sales price was $487,000.”

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the U.S. in October rose to nearly 8% before dipping closer to 7% in November. About this time in 2021, the average rate was around 3%.

That interest rate spike has been fueled in large part by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which has hiked the federal funds rate about a dozen times since March of last year in an effort to combat elevated inflation.

Both inflation and those rates can eventually come down, but it would take time.

“With interest rates edging higher in October, it was expected that new home sales would disappoint, however, as mortgage rates inched lower following Treasury's November 1 announcement of lower than anticipated funding needs, coupled with the market's perception of a decidedly more dovish Fed, rates have edged lower fueling a climb in mortgage applications,” Quincy Krosby, Chief Global Strategist for LPL Financial, said in a statement.

Roughly 32,000 babies have been born in states that implemented abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, according to a new analysis.

In the first six months of 2023, “births rose by an average of 2.3 percent in states enforcing total abortion bans," leading to an estimated 32,000 births that might have otherwise been aborted, according to a new analysis published by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics initiated by the Deutsche Post Foundation.

“These effects may vary across demographic groups and tend to be larger for younger women and women of color; … vary substantially across ban states, with much larger effects observed in states that are bordered by other ban states and hence have long travel distances to reach facilities that remain open.”

Its November 2023 “Effects of the Dobbs Decision on Fertility” report states that the “U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization sparked the most profound transformation of the landscape of abortion access in 50 years. We provide the first estimates of the effects of this decision on fertility using a preregistered synthetic difference-in-differences design applied to newly released provisional natality data for the first half of 2023.”

The analysis is based on provisional data for the first six months of 2023. “If future research using finalized data and additional policy variation reveals continued substantial effects on birth, then we expect long-lasting and profound effects on the lives of affected pregnant people and their families, including effects on educational investment, employment, earnings, and financial security.”

As of Nov. 1, 2023, 14 states are enforcing bans on abortion in nearly all circumstances, the report notes. Because roughly 23% of American women seeking an abortion experienced an increase in driving distance to the nearest abortion facility (from 43 miles before Dobbs to 330 miles after Dobbs), the driving distance “represents the most profound transformation of the landscape of U.S. abortion access in 50 years.”

According to a different study by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, nearly as many babies are believed to have been born in Texas alone since its new heartbeat bill went into effect Sept. 1, 2021.

Within eight months of the new law going into effect, there were nearly 9,800 live births in Texas from April to December 2022, according to the Johns Hopkins study. If the rate were consistent through November 2023, of an additional 1,225 live births a month, the number of babies born in Texas that otherwise might have been aborted is closer to nearly 32,000 since Sept. 1, 2021.

Suzanne Bell, a lead author of Johns Hopkins study, said their “findings highlight how abortion bans have real implications for birthing people, thousands of whom may have had no choice but to continue an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy to term. Notably, the majority of people who seek abortions live below or close to the poverty line. So many of these birthing people and their families were likely struggling financially even before the recent birth.”

State Sen. Brian Hughes, R-Mineola, who authored Texas’ heartbeat bill, told The Center Square, “Each of these lives is a gift of God and reflects His image. And since passage of the Heartbeat Act, we have drastically increased funding for expectant and new mothers and their babies.

“In Texas, we are proving that we can save the life of the baby while we love, and respect, and support the mother.”

In addition to signing the state’s first heartbeat bill into law, Gov. Greg Abbott signed bills into law extending Medicaid health-care coverage to 12 months post-partum, appropriated more than $447 million for women’s health programs and invested over $140 million in the Thriving Texas Families program.

Prior to Roe being overturned, "In 2020, approximately 1 in 5 pregnancies ended in abortion," the IZA study states, noting that the majority of those seeking abortions, 75%, were low-income. Another 59% said they had previously given birth and 55% reported some kind of hardship including falling behind on rent or losing a job.

Hughes’ bill, SB 8, passed the Texas legislature with bipartisan support and was signed into law in May 2021. By October 2021, a federal judge halted it. By April 2022, the Fifth Circuit overturned that ruling and ended all challenges to the law. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, Texas’ law went into full effect in August 2022.

Texas’ law is considered to be among the strictest in the nation. It bans abortions from being performed in Texas as soon as a heartbeat of the preborn baby is detected, with limited exceptions. It created a second-degree felony offense for a person who knowingly performs, induces or attempts an abortion. The offense is enhanced to a first-degree felony if an unborn child dies from an abortion. Anyone who violates the law performing an abortion can also be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $100,000 for each violation, with exceptions.

The Denver school district is among the first in the country to adopt a “language justice” policy as a "long term goal."

The district would encourage non-English speaking students to be able to use their native language to learn as opposed to being educated in English, which advocates say is oppressive and rooted in racism.

Denver schools had about 90,250 students in 2022 with 35,000 multilingual learners with home languages other than English. The district has 200 languages spoken across the district, with Spanish as the home language for the majority of those.

The district included a draft of an equity document that includes a policy statement on "language justice." It was included in the Nov. 16 school board agenda. The document includes this definition for "language justice": "The notion of respecting every individual's fundamental language rights – to be able to communicate, understand, and be understood in the language in which they prefer and feel most articulate and powerful."

The district didn't respond to an email seeking comment. It's not clear how much such a policy would cost and the district didn't provide details in the school board agenda packet of how to implement it.

The Colorado chapter of the education advocacy organization Stand For Children stated it worked with the Denver school district to get the language justice policy adopted.

"We will continue to work with school leaders and staff to help provide knowledge of these policies and strategies to accomplish language justice in every classroom and school," Colorado Stand For Children posted on its website.

The Community Language Cooperative, which has advocated for language justice, referred to a chart that explained what is involved in the program.

"The organization has allocated significant funds to language justice efforts. This is a yearly budget line item," the chart states.

It also states that meetings or public events "are facilitated in the represented languages. ... Interpretation is made available to all participants, not just the non-English speakers."

The organization would also hire bilingual staff members, put them in leadership positions and pay them "equitably" to "ensure that bilingualism is a valued skill for the organization."

"It's not just a matter of hiring more interpreters and translators but rather creating systems and building the infrastructure that best supports linguistically diverse families and supporting multilingual staff," Rosa Guzman-Snyder, co-founder of Community Language Cooperative, said in an email to The Center Square.

The Community Language Cooperative, which provides translation services, explained in a post on The Colorado Trust's website how language justice could be implemented.

"Here’s how it works: When somebody speaks in English, [interpreter Luis] Gomez simultaneously whispers the Spanish interpretation into his mic, which feeds the headsets of everyone in the room. There’s another person whispering the English interpretation when somebody speaks Spanish," the post read.