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1 month ago | 
statecourtreport.org | Mary Ziegler |Quinn Yeargain
One of the most important state cases on reproductive rights may hinge not on abortion protections offered by the state constitution, but instead on whether the medical providers and abortion rights groups have the right to bring the lawsuit. Last month, the Georgia Supreme Court remanded a challenge to Georgia’s six-week abortion ban to the trial court, instructing it to evaluate the case, Georgia v.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
boltsmag.org | Daniel Nichanian |Quinn Yeargain
Conservative judges have chipped away at voting rights and put the Voting Rights Act through renewed stress over the last decade. They’re now set to gain new allies with the incoming Trump administration and GOP majorities in Congress. At the same time, GOP-led states are devising new restrictions on voter registration and ballot access, leaving civil rights organizations scrambling to field viable legal challenges in federal and state courts.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Quinn Yeargain
Held that the Texas House of Representatives committee’s authority to compel testimony did not include the power to override the scheduled legal process leading to an execution. Testimony relevant to a legislative task here could have been obtained long before the death warrant was issued—or even afterwards, but before the execution. If the legislature lacks a judicially enforceable right under these circumstances, no lawful basis exists to support a civil court’s grant of injunctive relief.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Rex Bossert |Bridget Lavender |Emma Hetherington |Quinn Yeargain
As federal same-sex marriage rights appear increasingly vulnerable, voters are removing discriminatory language from their state constitutions. Decades after it started, the movement to protect marriage equality at the state level is gaining renewed urgency. In 2004, the nation was embroiled in a political and cultural clash over whether people of the same sex should be allowed to marry — and the “traditional marriage” set was winning.
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Sep 18, 2024 | 
guaranteedrepublics.substack.com | Quinn Yeargain
The Nebraska Supreme Court rejected a pair of challenges to two dueling constitutional amendments relating to abortion on Friday, allowing both to appear on the ballot this November.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Daniel Nichanian |Quinn Yeargain
Michigan progressives gathered enough signatures in 2018 to put two labor measures on the ballot: one to raise the minimum wage, another to mandate paid sick time for employees. Republican lawmakers, who ran the state at that time, thwarted the proposals with a brazen two-step maneuver. Before the measures were put before voters, they adopted legislation that enacted both into law exactly as organizers had drafted them; this eliminated them from the ballot.
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Jul 23, 2024 | 
guaranteedrepublics.substack.com | Quinn Yeargain
President Biden’s decision on Sunday to withdraw from the presidential election, coupled with Vice President Harris’s swift ascension as the likely nominee of the Democratic Party, prompted immediate questions. Will Democrats face any legal challenges to the substitution? (No serious ones.) Will Kamala be able to take over the Biden campaign funds?
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Jul 18, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Marcus Gadson |Erin Smith |Quinn Yeargain |Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot
Courts considering removal of Confederate monuments have ignored southern states’ historic commitments to maintaining national unity and respecting racial equality. More than 150 years after slavery ended, southern states are still debating whether it is appropriate to continue celebrating white supremacy and slavery through monuments and other public symbols — and make the descendants of enslaved people contribute their tax dollars to the effort.
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Jul 12, 2024 | 
boltsmag.org | Daniel Nichanian |Quinn Yeargain
Utahns in 2018 approved a slate of ballot measures that legalized medical cannabis, expanded Medicaid, and set up an independent redistricting process. All three reforms had been initiated by citizens, and put on the ballot after a painstaking petition-gathering campaign. Utah lawmakers responded by rewriting if not gutting the three propositions. On redistricting, the GOP-led legislature repealed the measure’s centerpiece, a requirement that new maps be drawn by an independent commission.
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
guaranteedrepublics.substack.com | Quinn Yeargain
On Tuesday, voters in Montana will cast ballots in their state’s primary election, picking the Democratic and Republican nominees for statewide, legislative, and local offices, and narrowing down the field of candidates for nonpartisan judicial elections. With the presidential primaries all but formally over—and a brutal Republican primary for the U.S. Senate averted—the attention has focused on the remaining contests, like for the state supreme court.
