Migration Category: National Old Site

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe (D) vetoed a bill that would have banned abortion after a heart beat was detected with a standard ultrasound – usually around 12 weeks – on Monday.

In a statement, Governor Beebe said “In short, because it would impose a ban on a woman’s right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion well before viability, Senate Bill 134 blatantly contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. When I was sworn in as governor I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend both the Arkansas Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. I take that oath seriously.”

Senate Bill 134, or the Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act, includes exemptions for rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal abnormalities. Despite that, if the state legislature overrides Beebe’s veto and the bill becomes law, it will be the most restrictive abortion ban in the country. A simple majority is needed in both the state Senate and state House to override the governor’s veto. A vote to override the veto is expected to go before the legislature this week.

Last week, the Arkansas Senate voted to override Governor Beebe’s veto of a bill that bans abortion at twenty weeks. The Senate voted 19 to 14 in favor of overriding the veto following a House approving the veto override by 53 to 28 on Wednesday. The passage of the bill makes Arkansas the tenth state to outlaw abortions after 20 weeks. Beebe vetoed the bill on claims that it was also unconstitutional.

Today Senator Tom Harken (D-IA) and Representative George Miller (D-CA) announced they will introduce the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013. The legislation would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour. In addition, the bill would also raise the minimum wage for tipped employees from $2.13 today to 70% of non-tipped minimum wage.

Harkin told the Huffington Post “When you see what’s happened to CEO salaries and compensation since the 1970s, and what’s happened to the minimum wage, it’s just startling… We can’t continue on this way. We need a higher minimum wage.” Miller echoed similar sentiments “People do see the minimum wage as a matter of justice for people who don’t have the ability to bargain for decent wages… And that’s all this is – it’s a minimum wage. Nobody’s walking away from here rich.”

During his State of the Union speech in February, President Obama argued in favor of raising the minimum wage, though only to $9.00 an hour compared to Harken-Miller’s $10.10. But in a USA Today/Pew Research Center poll, 71% of American supported the President’s proposal for an increase in minimum wage.

President Obama has increased his number of judicial appointments in an attempt to diversify the federal judiciary. Since taking office in January, President Obama has nominated over three dozen candidates compared to his first term where he received criticism for not appointing judges quickly. Of the 35 nominations awaiting Senate approval, 17 are women, 15 are ethnic minorities, and five are openly gay – many of whom would be historic firsts for their states.

White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler told reporters “Diversity in and of itself is a thing that is strengthening the judicial system. … It enhances the bench and the performance of the bench and the quality of the discussion . . . to have different perspectives, different life experiences, different professional experiences, coming from a different station in life, if you will.”

President Obama’s confirmed federal judicial nominations from his first term were more diverse than both his predecessors, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. 37% percent of his confirmed nominations were non-white compared to 19% and 27% respectively. Also, 42% were women compared to 21% and 30% respectively. President Obama’s nominations have also taken significantly longer to be confirmed by the Senate that his predecessors. His first term nominees took 225 days to be confirmed, whereas Bush’s nominations took 175 days and Clinton’s took 98 days.

There are currently an additional 50 judicial vacancies awaiting nominations. President Obama is expected to make those nominations over the next few months.

Protests are breaking out across New Delhi, India after a seven year old girl was sexually assaulted while at school. The minor was attacked Thursday while at a school run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). Delhi chief minister Shelia Dikshit said, “The incident is inhuman and shameful. It is a shocking incident. The municipal corporation must strengthen their existing security infrastructure in the schools.”

No arrests have been made, leading to accusations that the police have not been acting quickly enough. Protests broke out the next day outside the Sanjay Gandhi hospital where the young girl was treated after her attack. The protesters threw stones at police and damaged buses.

Sexual assault has been an issue garnering attention in India ever since the brutal gang rape and death of a 23-year-old female medical student. The incident sparked protests across the country. These large protests and demonstrations have voiced anger regarding the treatment of women in India and calling for tougher laws on violence against women. In India, the world’s largest democracy, a woman is estimated to be raped every twenty minutes, with Delhi being labeled the “rape capital,” according to the Associated Press.

On Sunday, researchers announced that an infant born with HIV is now a “functionally cured”, healthy two-year old with only trace amounts of the virus in her system. Doctors involved in her treatment made the announcement in advance of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections today. The medical definition of “functionally cured” is when a virus is present in the body in such a small concentration, medical intervention is not necessary.

The girl’s mother discovered she was HIV positive when she went into labor and was admitted into a local hospital. Doctors tested the infant shortly after birth and concluded that the child had contracted the virus in utero. The child was transferred to the University of Mississippi Medical Center where medical staff decided to treat the baby with a trio antiretroviral drugs 30 hours after being born.

Dr. Hannah Gay, who originally treated the child, told reporters “We are hoping that future studies will show that very early institution of effective therapy will result in this same outcome consistently.”

“For pediatrics, this is our Timothy Brown,” said Dr. Deborah Persaud, a lead author of the formal report on the girl. Timothy Brown was an HIV-positive man at the turn of the century; when he received a bone transplant for leukemia in 2007 from a person who was HIV-resistant, he became HIV-negative. Brown is still alive and is still considered functionally cured.

Today, the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan, inclusive Violence Against Women Act as passed by the Senate.

The House of Representatives voted 286-138 to pass the Senate version of VAWA that included protections for students, the LGBT community, immigrants and Native Americans. This came after a bipartisan decision to reject a gutted substitute bill proposed by the House leadership that rolled back the provisions expanding protection.

Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority, said “The House passed by a wide margin (286-138) the strong, bipartisan Senate version of VAWA which was supported by the Feminist Majority and scores of women’s rights, civil rights, labor, and domestic violence and sexual assault groups and organizations…Women’s groups and their allies acted as one and created a massive grassroots lobbying campaign to pass a strong VAWA despite the Republican House leadership opposition. We cannot forget that 138 Republicans and no Democrats voted against final passage of the real VAWA. Nor can we forget those that voted to roll back full protections of VAWA for college students, immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans as well as to weaken of the Office of Violence.”

The Arkansas state House voted yesterday in favor of overriding Governor Beebe’s veto of a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks.

In a vote 53-28, state Representatives approved the decision to override the veto, sending it to the state Senate. In Arkansas, a governor veto can be overridden by the state legislature with a simple majority vote in both houses. If the Senate also votes to override the veto, the bill will automatically become law, and Arkansas will join seven other states with a 20 week term limit on abortion.

“It’s disheartening that our lawmakers are knowingly passing an unconstitutional abortion ban for the sake of politics,” Jill June, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, told reporters.

The Arkansas state Senate is expected to vote on the override on Thursday.

Today, the justices of the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act for the fifth time since the law’s passage in 1965. This section of the Voting Rights Act mandates that areas of the nation with a history of barring people of color from voting must get approval from the Department of Justice or a federal court before they alter voting rules. A plaintiff from Shelby County, Alabama, is challenging section 5, saying that the discriminatory environment that once justified its enactment is much improved. Civil rights groups disagree, saying that the situation is improved because of the Act. In past challenges to the law, the Court has cited the fifteenth amendment – no governmental body can stand in the way of an individual’s right to vote – in their decision to uphold all components.

Frank “Butch” Ellis, attorney to the Shelby County plaintiff, told NPR that “The South has changed[.] There’s probably bits of [discrimination] everywhere, but there’s no evidence that it’s more prevalent in these covered jurisdictions than it is in the non-covered jurisdictions. That’s our complaint.” Ellis argues that the federal government oversteps its bounds in dictating what certain states can and cannot do with its voting rules.

A voting rights expert who has filed briefs on various voter suppression cases, Pam Karlan, said that “Shelby County still advertises itself as the heart of the Heart of Dixie, and that tells you that some things have not changed, or at least haven’t changed enough to take the bandage off the wound.”

A county or city with ten consecutive years without questionable proposed changes to its voting structure is exempt from federal monitoring.Politico notes that Shelby County has not toed the line; the city of Calera (within Shelby County) proposed a reshaping of its district in 2008 which would reduce the number of African American voters from 70.9% to 29.5%. The Department of Justice rejected the proposition, citing the rights of all people to select their representatives.

The case goes before the court after an election year that included multiple legislative attacks aimed at suppressing minority voters. Last year, 17 states passed voter suppression laws that increased wait times at the polls, decreased early voting days, and mandated state-issued IDs requirements for voting. New laws affecting the election process have already been suggested this year in preparation for mid-term elections.

On Tuesday Governor Mike Beebe (D) vetoed a bill that would have banned abortions in Arkansas after 20 weeks. The bill passed in the state Senate on a vote of 25 to 7 and passed the state House on a vote of 80 to 10 before reaching Governor Beebe’s desk.

“Because it would impose a ban on a woman’s right to choose an elective, nontherapeutic abortion before viability, House Bill 1037, if it became law, would squarely contradict Supreme Court precedent,” Beebe wrote in the veto letter. “When I was sworn in as governor I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend both the Arkansas Constitution and the Constitution of the United States. I take that oath seriously.” Originally, Governor Beebe had agreed to sign the ban into law if it was passed by the state Congress.

The Arkansas state legislation has the power to override the Governor’s veto with a simple majority in both chambers. Both the Arkansas state House and Senate have majority support for the ban. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Andy Mayberry (R), has said he is confident that there will be enough votes from supporters of the 20-week ban to override the veto.

A vote in the Oklahoma state Senate on a bill that would allow employers to deny contraception and abortion coverage for women in insurance plans passed the Senate Business and Commerce Committee. Senate Bill 452, introduced by Senator Clark Jolley (R) and Senator Pam Peterson (R), passed on a vote of nine to zero last Thursday.

The language of the bill states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of state or federal law, no employer shall be required to provide or pay for any benefit or service related to abortion or contraception through the provision of health insurance to his or her employees.”

Jolley has said that the bill is the result of lobbying by Dr. Dominic Pedulla, a constituent who calls himself a natural family planning medical consultant and women’s health researcher. His concern over contraceptive coverage stems from his belief that women are worse off with contraception because it suppresses and disables who they are, Pedulla told the Tulsa World. “Part of their identity is the potential to be a mother. They are being asked to suppress and radically contradict part of their own identity, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they are being asked to poison their bodies.”

Despite Pedulla’s concern that contraception is poisonous, oral birth control was first FDA approved in 1960 and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advocate that birth control be available without a prescription.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) could be brought up in the House of Representatives as early as next week.

According to news reports, House Republican leadership are poised to bring VAWA to the floor for discussion. As of now it is unclear if they will bring the inclusive version passed by the Senate last week to the floor or if they will propose their own version of the bill. S. 47, passed by the Senate on a vote of 78 to 22, includes provisions expanding protections for LGBTQ individuals, Native American women, students, and immigrant women. Last year, the House refused to vote on the Senate version of VAWA and proposed the “Cantor/Adams” VAWA that did not included the expanded protections. Since neither bill was approved by both chambers of Congress, VAWA was not reauthorized in 2012, the first time the bill failed to be reauthorized since it was passed in 1994.

It is imperative that the House approves the inclusive Senate bill so that all victims of violence are protected. Various organizations have called on constituents to reach out to Representatives who have not signed on to the Senate version. The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women issued a call to action on Thursday, saying “We must remind [the House leadership] that S. 47 has victim-centered support in the House from both parties and will pass if it comes to the House floor for a vote. Any effort to weaken or delay VAWA does not reflect the will of our country, of our Congress or the desperate need of victims in our homes and communities all across the nation. Survivors of violence cannot wait any longer!”

UPDATE: House leadership announces alternative to Senate bill.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s bill to abolish the death penalty has passed in the state Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on a 6 to 5 vote. The bill will now move to the Senate floor, where it is expected to pass. Twenty-six of the Maryland Senate’s forty-seven members have pledged to support the bill.

Senator Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery), who acted as the chairman of the panel, said, “Human beings make mistakes. No matter how hard we try . . . to find a way to beat all the error out of our system, I don’t believe that’s possible.”

Thirty-two U.S. jurisdictions have refrained from using capital punishment in the last five years according to a 2011 study by the Death Penalty Information Center. In fact, most executions occur in southern states. Texas, for example, is credited with over one third of all executions nationally. If the state were to pass the bill, Maryland would join seventeen other states which have outlawed capital punishment. Currently, five prisoners are on death row in Maryland.

The South Dakota state House passed a bill that could extend the time women seeking an abortion must wait before having the procedure Wednesday evening.

House Bill 1237 would exclude Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from being included in the already-mandated 72 hour waiting period. This could greatly extend the time a woman would have to wait for her procedure and push her further into her pregnancy. The bill passed the House on a vote of 56 to 13, and now goes before the state Senate.

In 2011, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill that was signed into law requiring women to seek counseling at crisis pregnancy centers no less than three days before having an abortion procedure. Despite legal challenges and an injunction, the waiting period provision was not overturned. South Dakota currently has the longest waiting period in the country. The requirement that women seeking counseling from a crisis pregnancy center before having an abortion is still being contested in court.

Universal Orlando, a Florida based theme park based on Universal Studios films, will not offer health benefits to part time employees beginning next year, citing provisions in Obamacare.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Universal Orlando currently offers part-time employees limited insurance benefits that feature a cap on payouts. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), insurance plans can no longer place a monetary limit on necessary health benefits. As a result, Universal Studios will be terminating coverage for employees effective January 1, 2014, instead of extending benefits.

Universal Studios is not the only company that has announced they will not provide health insurance coverage to part-time employees, despite pulling in over $1 billion in revenue last year. Wal-Mart stopped providing coverage for part-time employees two years ago. According to ThinkProgress, food service companies Applebees, Olive Garden, Wendy’s and Denny’s have all announced they will not be able to provide part-time insurance coverage because of Obamacare. The governor of Virginia is also considering cutting the amount of available hours to wage employees to avoid paying for health care under the ACA.

Earlier this month six Georgia lawmakers, Representatives Dustin Hightower (R), Mike Dudgeon (R), Buzz Brockway (R), Josh Clark (R), Kevin Cooke (R) and Delvis Dutton (R) introduced legislation that would repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. The Seventeenth Amendment ensures that senators will be selected by voters rather than chosen for them by state legislatures.

House Resolution 273 states that “WHEREAS, the United States Senate was designed to protect the rights and interests of the individual states, and the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment would help to prevent the many unfunded mandates and unconstitutional laws passed onto those states by the federal government.”

Representatives from other states have also expressed support in repealing the Seventeenth Amendment. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) wrote, “The American people mistakenly empowered the federal government during a fit of populist rage in the early twentieth century by giving it an unlimited source of income (the Sixteenth Amendment) and by changing the way senators are elected (the Seventeenth Amendment).”

Mississippi finally officially ratified the 13th Amendment to the United State Constitution, which banned slavery in 1865.

The state legislature unanimously voted on a resolution to ratify the amendment in 1995 and was the last state to do so. However, the resolution was never filed with the US Archivist in the Office of the Federal Register and therefore was never officially recorded.

The error came to light after University of Mississippi professor Dr. Ranjan Batra researched the 13th Amendment after seeing the film Lincoln. When he realized that Mississippi never officially ratified the amendment, he reached out to fellow Mississippi resident, Ken Sullivan, who was able to connect him to the Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. Hosemann filed the necessary paperwork, and the ratification of the 13th Amendment by Mississippi became official on February 7.

While Mississippi was the last state to formally ratify the 13th Amendment, Mississippi was also the last state to ratify the 19th Amendment in 1984, which granted women the right to vote.

Tens of thousands of people marched on Washington over the weekend in the largest demonstration on climate change in the history of the United States.

More than 50,000 people marched through the streets and demonstrated on the National Mall as part of the “Forward on Climate Change” rally organized by the Sierra Club and 350.org. While protesters chanted and held signs denouncing fracking and calling for other environmental reforms, the majority of the protest focused on the transcontinental Keystone XL Pipeline, which seeks to create a 1,700 mile long pipeline taking tar-sand from Alberta, Canada, and pumping it to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Keystone XL is a dirty and dangerous pipeline. It’s literally going to cut our country in half, carrying a very dangerous fuel, and it will cause runaway climate change,” Maura Cowley of the Energy Action Coalition said to demonstrators. “Young people across the country are the same generation that elected Barack Obama twice now, and we really want to see him reject the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club shared similar sentiments. “President Obama holds in his hand a pen and the power to deliver on his promise of hope for our children. Today, we are asking him to use that pen to [sic] reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure that this dirty, dangerous, export pipeline will never be built,” he said. Brune was arrested last week in a protest in front of the White House against the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The Illinois state Senate voted 32 to 21 in favor of a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage on Thursday. The law would redefine marriage as the legal union of two people, not specifically a man and a woman. It would also convert civil unions to marriages within a year’s time. Religious institutions and individuals that oppose homosexuality would not be required to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.

Two years ago, Illinois passed historic civil union legislation. Now with the possibility of same-sex marriage being legalized, some conservative senators feel homosexuality is moving front and center in a threatening way. Senator Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon) told reporters, “People have a right to live as they choose; they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.” Same-sex marriage has plenty of supporters, however, one being Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), who says that “when two people love each other, no government entity should stand in the way of letting them express that love.”

Governor Pat Quinn (D says he will sign the bill into the law if it passes in the state House, however it is unclear if the legislation will be brought to the House floor. This is the farthest a same-sex marriage bill has gotten in the Illinois General Assembly. If the bill is signed into law, it would make Illinois the 10th state to legalize same sex marriage.

Senate Bill 2795, also known as the “Women’s Health Defense Act,” [PDF] passed in the Mississippi Senate yesterday on a 39 to 12 vote. The Mississippi State Medical Association, concerned that the regulations would potentially criminalize abortion providers, released a memo which stated, “Mississippi physicians have strong and serious concerns about SB 2795.” The language of the bill was modified to address these concerns and has since lost support from some abortion opponents that consider the bill that passed to be “watered down.”

Senate Bill 2795 could force abortion providers to follow outdated FDA guidelines for the prescription of mifepristone and misoprostol, abortion-inducing medications, and requires a physician to administer all doses. This would require women to go to four doctor appointments to complete a medical abortion, which would only be available within the first seven weeks after a woman’s last normal menstrual period. The Senate bill also requires that doctors report every prescription of mifepristone to the Mississippi Department of Health.

This bill is the just the latest attempt to eliminate abortion in the state of Mississippi. Though a “Personhood” Amendment was overwhelmingly defeated in 2011, in April 2012 Mississippi’s governor, Phil Bryant, signed House Bill 1390 into law. Under House Bill 1390, doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a local hospital and they must be board certified OB-GYNs. Currently both primary physicians at the state’s only abortion clinic are board certified, but have been denied privileges by every local hospital. As a result, the clinic is currently facing the threat of closure.

The Northeast School Cooperation will not discipline a teacher who told media sources that LGBT students have no purpose in life.

Earlier this week Sullivan High School came under scrutiny as students, parents, and faculty rallied to create a “traditional” prom that would exclude gay students. The group met last Sunday at Sullivan First Christian Church to plan and discuss the event. Sullivan High School special education teacher, Diana Medley, was interviewed by local media about her strong support for a separate event. When asked if she believed gay students had a purpose in life, Medley told NBC 2, “No I honestly don’t. Sorry, but I don’t. I don’t understand it. A gay person isn’t going to come up and make some change unless it’s to realize that it was a choice and they’re choosing God.”

On Tuesday, the Superintendent for the Northeast School Cooperation, Mark Baker, released a statement [PDF] that defended Medley’s remarks. He wrote, “In regards to the story that WTWO aired on February 10, 2013, the Northeast School Corporation employee that was interviewed was expressing her First Amendment rights. The views expressed are not the views of the Northeast School Corporation and/or the Board of Education.” The statement made no indication of any disciplinary or remedial action against Medley on how her views could impact students or any position on a separate prom excluding gay students.