Tag Archives: assembly

Gerrymandering Is Headed Back to the Supreme Court

by MadeleinePresler Posted on April 21, 2017

Mother Jones

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The New York Times reports that gerrymandering is headed to the Supreme Court again:

A bipartisan group of voting rights advocates says the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature, the State Assembly, was gerrymandered by its Republican majority before the 2012 election — so artfully, in fact, that Democrats won a third fewer Assembly seats than Republicans despite prevailing in the popular vote. In November, in a 2-to-1 ruling, a panel of federal judges agreed.

….In Supreme Court cases in 1986, 2004 and 2006, justices variously called partisan gerrymanders illegitimate, seriously harmful, incompatible with democratic principles and “manipulation of the electorate.” But they have never struck one down….One participant in the 2004 decision, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, may prove the fulcrum in the court’s deliberations….“The ordered working of our Republic, and of the democratic process, depends on a sense of decorum and restraint in all branches of government, and in the citizenry itself,” he wrote then.

At a time of soaring concern over hyperpartisanship, those words could resonate. That sentence “is the most important line” in the court’s decision, said Edward B. Foley, director of the Election Law Project at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. “He’s going to look at what’s going on in North Carolina as the complete absence of that. I think that helps the plaintiffs in any of these cases.”

Today’s gerrymandering is not your grandfather’s gerrymandering. It’s a practice that’s been around for a long time, but back when it depended on humans it was necessarily limited. There were a few legislative geniuses who could wreak real havoc, and anyone could gerrymander well enough to gain a seat or two. But computers have changed the game fundamentally. Every legislature is now a supergenius at gerrymandering, which is why estimates of the number of congressional seats attributable to gerrymandering have been going up for years.

There’s a point, I think, where the Supreme Court has to recognize that quantitative changes over time have finally produced a qualitative change. Modern gerrymandering is just too good. The silver lining here is that if computers can revolutionize gerrymandering, they also hold out hope of revolutionizing the detection of gerrymandering. You can no longer say that there’s no possible standard for ruling that a particular district map is unconstitutional. In fact, there are several plausible candidates. Hopefully the court will finally recognize this.

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Gerrymandering Is Headed Back to the Supreme Court

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Tom Perez Was Just Elected DNC Chair

by MarianMessina Posted on February 25, 2017

Mother Jones

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Tom Perez was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee in Atlanta on Saturday. Perez, who ran the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama and later served as his Secretary of Labor, edged out Keith Ellison, a Muslim congressman from Minneapolis, in the first contested race for party control in decades. After a congested first round of balloting, the other candidates dropped out of the race and the race proceded to a head-to-head second ballot. Perez received 235 votes. Ellison notched 200.

Immediately after his election, Perez asked and received unanimous consent from the assembly of Democrats to name Ellison as the party’s deputy chair.

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Tom Perez Was Just Elected DNC Chair

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Revealed! Where Donald Trump Gets His News.

by Heriberto7391 Posted on November 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Last night Donald Trump tweeted this:

There is a kernel of truth to this. Ford had planned to move production of its Lincoln MKC to Mexico, but then decided not to. However, there was never any plan to move a factory to Mexico. The Louisville Assembly Plant would have kept all its workers thanks to expanded production of the Ford Escape.

So where did Trump get the notion that a plant was slated to be closed down and moved to Mexico? Here is Jim Tankersley:

Trump appeared to be relying on information gleaned from an article posted on a website of a shop that sells business cards and door hangers.

Ladies and gentlemen, the president-elect of the United States.

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Revealed! Where Donald Trump Gets His News.

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California Just Required Registration for Untraceable Guns—Like the One I Made

by EllieRadcliffe Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Today, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 857 into law, requiring Californians who build their own firearms to apply for a state-issued serial number. Previously, guns assembled from parts kits officially flew under the radar. No background checks were required, and no serial number had to be stamped into the finished firearm, making them effectively untraceable.

In 2013, I attended a “gun build party” in southern California, in which I and a dozen others built AK-47s and other Kalashnikov variants from parts kits. My AK, according to the host of the build party, was an Egyptian “Maadi.” Its parts had traveled to the United States by way of Croatia, which most likely received the weapon some time during the Yugoslav wars. He told me that often parts kits come from former conflict zones, and that sometimes the wooden stocks have tally marks notched in them. From my Mother Jones story about the gun build party:

Although US customs laws ban importing the weapons, parts kits—which include most original components of a Kalashnikov variant—are legal. So is reassembling them, as long as no more than 10 foreign-made components are used and they are mounted on a new receiver, the box-shaped central frame that holds the gun’s key mechanics. There are no fussy irritations like, say, passing a background check to buy a kit. And because we’re assembling the guns for our own “personal use,” whatever that may entail, we’re not required to stamp in serial numbers. These rifles are totally untraceable, and even under California’s stringent assault weapons ban, that’s perfectly within the law.

Now that’s no longer the case in California. Homemade weapons have long been a pastime for gun enthusiasts, but some law enforcement agencies have become concerned as they’ve started showing up more frequently at crime scenes.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, today’s bill is part of a more sweeping package of gun safety proposals that California Democrats recently pushed through, including a ban on semiautomatic assault rifles with detachable magazines and requiring background checks for ammunition purchases. Brown signed several of these bills earlier this month, which has been met with an effort to overturn them.

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California Just Required Registration for Untraceable Guns—Like the One I Made

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How About a Constitutional Right to Vote?

by MaricruzLaws Posted on May 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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I have a longstanding belief that a liberal democracy is basically in good shape if it guarantees three rights:

Freedom of speech/press.
The right to a fair and speedy trial.
The right to vote.

I don’t mean to denigrate other important rights. Freedom of religion is important, but plenty of free countries operate just fine with state religions. Freedom of assembly can probably be mandated by law. Warrants for searches are necessary, but again, could probably be mandated by law. A ban on slavery is important, but we already have it, and it’s not really a pressing issue in the 21st century anyway. And lots of democracies take wildly different views on the right to bear arms. The bottom line is that all these things can be in the Constitution, but if they’re not they probably don’t preclude a pretty free society.

The first two rights on my list are already enshrined in the Constitution (speech and press freedom in the First Amendment; fair trials in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments). The third, for generally disgraceful reasons, isn’t. But for some reason, among the dozens of pet amendments that various interest groups propose even though they’re mostly pie in the sky, this one gets almost no attention. Why not?

Don’t worry too much about the precise wording of a voting rights amendment. Here’s a proposal from Reclaim Democracy! that originated with Jesse Jackson:

All citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, shall have the right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides. The right to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, any State, or any other public or private person or entity, except that the United States or any State may establish regulations narrowly tailored to produce efficient and honest elections.

Reps. Pocan and Ellison have recently proposed a shorter version:

Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.

Maybe you’d want to add some further protections: change voting day to voting week; mandate early voting; make changes to redistricting rules to better guarantee that all votes count equally. I’m agnostic about this.

Needless to say, this would open a can of worms. Basically, anyone who shows up to vote is assumed to have the right to vote unless the government has actively put them on a list of non-voters. Possibly some kind of ID would be required: maybe a Social Security card or a national ID card. Perhaps everyone would be required to enroll for voting on their 18th birthday, and would be given a card that identifies them as a voter. They could do it at the same time they enroll with Selective Service (just as soon as women are added to Selective Service requirements).

There would be exceptions. Can prisoners vote? The Supreme Court has already ruled that prisoners have limited access to free speech rights. They obviously have no right to freedom of assembly, and the right to bear arms has been curtailed with extreme prejudice. This would almost certainly be the case with voting rights as well, though it could easily be written into the text of an amendment if it was considered important enough to spell out specifically.

So why not do it? It seems like a pretty populist idea for a Democratic presidential candidate. How about it, Hillary? She already supports automatic voter registration at age 18, and that’s a short jump to a constitutional amendment.

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How About a Constitutional Right to Vote?

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The Little-Known Movers Behind North Carolina’s Anti-Gay Law: Ted Cruz’s Advisers

by PhilippASV Posted on April 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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As he worked to rally evangelical voters a week before North Carolina’s March 15 primary, Ted Cruz gave a speech at a church in the Charlotte suburb of Kannapolis, where he was joined by a trio of prominent local social conservative supporters: Charlotte pastor and congressional candidate Mark Harris and the Benham brothers, the telegenic real estate entrepreneurs whose house-flipping show on HGTV was canceled in 2014 when their history of anti-gay activism came to light. At the event, Cruz thanked Harris for “calling the nation to revival,” and called David and Jason Benham “an extraordinary voice for the Christian faith.”

For years, Harris and the Benhams have been at the forefront of every battle to oppose gay rights in North Carolina. This past February, they were at it again, this time against a nondiscrimination ordinance proposed in Charlotte that, among other things, allowed transgender people to use public restrooms based on their gender identity and protected LGBT people from discrimination by public institutions. The advocacy of these top Cruz supporters against the Charlotte ordinance eventually led the North Carolina legislature to push through one of the most sweeping anti-LGBT measures in the country, a law that has caused a national outcry and caused many companies, including PayPal, to scrap plans to invest in the state. The law, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, strikes down all existing and future LGBT nondiscrimination statutes in North Carolina and requires that transgender people use bathrooms based on their sex at birth.

Harris’ and the Benhams’ state activism is significant because, if Cruz wins the presidential race, the considerable influence of these three religious activists could extend far beyond North Carolina. In February, Cruz appointed them to his campaign’s advisory council for religious liberty, along with 16 other conservative Christian leaders. The GOP candidate has promised that this group will “guide his policies to protect religious liberty”—policies that could look very much like the anti-LGBT bill in North Carolina. The group is filled with key players in the anti-LGBT world, including Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council (which is classified as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center); it has already recommended that Cruz, if elected president, should stop federal employment discrimination protections for LGBT people, direct federal agencies to change their interpretation of “sex” to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity, cancel the mandate that employers provide contraceptive coverage, and much more. Cruz has surrounded himself with this group of anti-LGBT heavyweights, and the work of Harris and the Benhams in North Carolina provides a glimpse into what this group can accomplish when it comes to rolling back LGBT protections in the name of religious freedom.

Harris and the Benhams first rose to prominence in 2012, when they helped organize the movement to pass a North Carolina constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions. The Benhams—who are sons of an evangelical minister, and who had previously worked to quash local pride parades and organize anti-abortion protests—testified in favor of the measure and at one point equated the battle against marriage equality with fighting Nazis. Harris has been a well-known Baptist minister in Charlotte since 2005 and his church contributed more than $50,000 to the campaign to ban same-sex marriage. (The amendment passed but was invalidated in 2014 after a Supreme Court ruling.)

Their temporarily successful work against same-sex marriage illustrated the growing power and influence of the state’s social conservatives. Fueled by millions of campaign dollars from a few conservative megadonors, Republicans took over both chambers of the state legislature in the 2010 election, fueled by voters’ economic dissatisfaction. Once in power, legislating social issues was a logical next step for this group of newly elected conservatives, says Steven Greene, a political-science professor at North Caroline State University. By 2012, the General Assembly made one of its first moves in this direction by voting to put the ban on same-sex unions onto that year’s ballot. “Before 2010, we were largely under Democratic control,” Greene says. “All the social-issue stuff was bottled up with no outlet. But once you had the Republican legislature, you could just go wild.”

In 2014, when HGTV pulled the Benhams’ show after journalists revealed their anti-gay activism, the brothers became social conservative heroes. They then wrote their first book, Whatever the Cost, about their sacrifice for their faith. Soon after, in February 2015, Charlotte introduced its anti-discrimination ordinance and Harris and the Benhams snapped into action. Faith Matters NC, a grassroots religious liberty group vice chaired by Harris, took out a radio ad on a conservative talk radio station in Charlotte. “I’d be really scared if a man shared a bathroom with my daughter,” says a woman in the ad, of the bill’s provision allowing public-restroom use based on gender identity. “This nightmare could become a reality right here in Charlotte if we don’t speak up quickly,” she continues, encouraging listeners to contact their city council members and demand that they vote down the “bathroom bill.”

The Benham brothers, meanwhile, headlined a rally to promote biblical values at Charlotte City Hall. And on a conservative radio show David Benham called the bill part of “the radical gay agenda’s plan to change America.” He also penned an op-ed for the Charlotte Observer opposing the bill: “Clearly, this ordinance isn’t really about non-discrimination,” he wrote. “It’s about forcing the acceptance of behavior.” With his father, Flip, a well-known anti-gay street preacher in Charlotte, David addressed the city council on the day they voted on the ordinance. During the meeting, a transgender woman collapsed after giving her testimony. Flip Benham reportedly laughed and poked fun at her gender while she lay on the floor awaiting medical attention. He also allegedly confronted a transgender girl as she walked out of the bathroom, calling her a “pervert” and “young man.”

The bill failed in 2015 but was reintroduced the following year. Once again, Harris and the Benhams led the opposition: Harris, for instance, held meetings at his church for the Don’t Do It Charlotte campaign, and all three headlined a rally opposing the measure. Despite their efforts, the ordinance passed in February 2016. Several weeks later, on March 18, opponents of the measure held a press conference in front of a city government building to urge state lawmakers to override the ordinance. David Benham was the opening speaker: “We sure hope the governor and General Assembly will do what is right,” he said. Harris gave the closing speech: “Governor McCrory and the General Assembly must act now to protect women and children all across North Carolina,” he said. He urged the governor to call for a special session to undo the Charlotte ordinance.

Five days later, that’s exactly what happened. In a hastily convened special session, legislators in the Republican-controlled assembly introduced, debated, and passed HB 2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, in less than 12 hours. Lawmakers had five minutes to read the bill, and Democratic legislators walked out of the assembly in protest. The rushed passage of HB 2 and the law’s broad scope gained national attention, in part because the bill’s language invalidates all local nondiscrimination statutes in the state, not just those tied to protecting the LGBT community. “Make no mistake: While LGBT folks were clearly the political target, everybody lost rights,” Democratic state Sen. Jeff Jackson told Charlotte TV station WCNC. The bill also prohibits a locality from setting a minimum wage standard for private employers, and it limits how citizens can file claims of discrimination based on factors like race, religion, nationality, biological sex, and more.

When asked about their involvement in pushing for HB 2’s passage, the Benham brothers, in an email to Mother Jones, wrote: “Before the bill was passed we had already been notified by the Governor that legislative action was certain, so we simply encouraged our elected officials to listen to the voice of the people.” They continued, “It’s common sense not to allow men in women’s restrooms. It’s also common sense not to force business owners to participate in expressive events that are against their religious beliefs.”

For Cruz, who has staked his campaign on winning over evangelical voters, Harris and the Benhams made natural allies. And as Cruz plotted his presidential bid, he sought to woo these influential social conservatives. In 2014, Cruz headlined a religious rally at Harris’ Charlotte church. That same year, Cruz reached out to the Benhams to express his support after HGTV dropped their show. Then last November, the Benhams emceed a Cruz rally for religious liberty in South Carolina, and in January 2016 they formally endorsed Cruz for president. The following month, Harris endorsed him as well. “Mark’s commitment to be a guiding light in the cultural and political arenas has impacted Christians in North Carolina and across the nation,” Cruz said in a press release trumpeting the endorsement.

Supporting Cruz may bring political benefits for Harris, too. Two days after the HB 2 victory, Harris announced he would be running for Congress to protect “liberty, faith, and family.”

Mark Knoop, the campaign’s spokesman, said that since starting his own campaign, Harris “is entirely focused on his own campaign,” and has put his role as a religious liberty adviser to Cruz “on the backburner.”

The impact of the work of Harris and the Benham brothers in North Carolina has caused national backlash. As word spread of the state’s new law, more than 120 major corporations, including Apple, American Airlines, and PayPal, urged the governor to repeal the bill or to face dire business consequences. In response, the Benham brothers wrote an op-ed for conservative website World Net Daily defending the governor: “Once the media started reporting, you would’ve thought the governor had joined ISIS!” wrote the brothers. “They’ve crafted the narrative in the media that North Carolina’s HB2 is against LGBT individuals, yet nothing could be further from the truth.” (On Tuesday, the state’s Gov. Pat McCrory responded to the backlash with an executive order granting LGBT protections only to state employees.)

Harris’ campaign makes a similar point. “Its not like North Carolina is persecuting the LGBT community,” says Knoop. “The whole point is that people going to a bathroom are going to the right bathroom.” When asked to elaborate on Harris’ stance on portions of HB 2 unrelated to bathroom use, including the part that invalidates the state’s LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances, Knoop declined to comment.

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The Little-Known Movers Behind North Carolina’s Anti-Gay Law: Ted Cruz’s Advisers

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Chris Christie Used to Be Against Terrorist Suspects Getting Guns

by EzraNevile Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Days after a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, killed 14 people, and one day after President Barack Obama called for more gun safety measures in a speech addressing the attack, GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie bolstered his support of gun rights. As news surfaced that the assault weapons used in San Bernardino were purchased legally due to a loophole in California’s assault weapons ban, Christie said during a radio interview that Obama’s call for limits on assault weapons was “absurd.”

This was one of the New Jersey governor’s many recent efforts to showcase his pro-guns stance. Last month, he conditionally vetoed a bill that would have made it harder for domestic abusers to own guns. He also recently vetoed a bill that would have required law enforcement to be notified when a person who had been institutionalized for mental illness seeks to expunge his mental health record when applying for a gun permit. And in the past year, he pardoned five people in New Jersey who were charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.

But for most of his two decades in politics, Christie has been a supporter of gun safety measures. In 1993, during his failed campaign for state Senate, he cited Republican efforts to repeal New Jersey’s assault weapon ban as his inspiration for entering politics. He repeated his support of the assault weapons ban in 1995 when running for the state Assembly. In his 2009 gubernatorial campaign, Christie voiced his opposition to a federal bill that would have made it easier for permit holders to carry firearms across state lines. As governor, he signed nearly a dozen pieces of legislation restricting guns in 2013, including one that barred individuals on the federal terror watch list from obtaining a permit to buying a gun in New Jersey. His consistent support for gun control has earned him a C, the lowest rating from the National Rifle Association among the top GOP presidential candidates. In 2014, New Jersey was voted one of the worst states for gun owners by Guns & Ammo magazine.

Yet late last month on CNN, Christie refused to express support a proposed bill in Congress that seeks to close this same terror watch list loophole nationwide, saying that he believes this sort of rule-making should be left to states.

When he’s been questioned about his newfound support of gun rights, Christie has insisted it’s an authentic evolution. “I have grown up a bit and changed my view and been educated on it,” Christie said on Face the Nation last Sunday, when asked about his previous support for an assault weapons ban. Christie said his views began to change when he became a prosecutor and saw that firearms are necessary for law enforcement to manage crime.

Though the NRA has yet to revise its rating for the candidate, Christie has won critical support in New Hampshire—a key primary state and also a GOP electorate that tends to oppose stricter gun control. Last month, Christie won the endorsement of the state’s largest newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader. He’s since been endorsed by the state’s House and Senate majority leaders, and several other political figures.

Christie’s revamped position on guns seems to have convinced many of New Hampshire’s leaders that he could win a pro-gun constituency. But the most fervently pro-gun groups in the state aren’t sold. On Wednesday, the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition, one of two major gun rights groups in the state, sent an email blast to its members warning them to be wary of Christie’s purported Second Amendment bona fides.

“Don’t be fooled!” writes NHFC in its message, outlining Christie’s pro-gun-control history. “The truth is Chris Christie has been an anti-gun activist for his entire political career…Being pro-gun is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

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Chris Christie Used to Be Against Terrorist Suspects Getting Guns

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6 Years Ago, New York Banned the Shackling of Pregnant Inmates. So Why Are These Women Still Being Restrained?

by LelaSandoval Posted on October 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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When Maria Caraballo delivered her daughter in 2010, she was handcuffed to the hospital bed.

“They didn’t even remove my cuffs for me to hold my baby,” says Caraballo, who at the time was serving a prison sentence in New York. “I had to hold my baby with one hand for two to three seconds. They didn’t take my handcuffs off until after I was stitched up and in the prison ward, and I didn’t see my baby until the next day.”

Caraballo gave birth to her daughter a year after it became illegal to shackle incarcerated women during childbirth in New York. But her experience wasn’t necessarily unique: New evidence published earlier this year suggests many women continue to be shackled in violation of the law. And now, six years after restraining pregnant inmates was first restricted in the state, an anti-shackling bill is once again headed to the governor’s desk.

Handcuffs, waist chains, and ankle shackles are commonly used to restrain inmates who are transported out of prison, whether it’s for a trial, facility transfer, or medical attention. And though it’s hard to imagine someone making a break for it during labor, shackles are routinely used to restrain women inmates during childbirth, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has called the practice “inhumane.” It’s “almost never justified by the need for safety and security for medical staff, the public or correctional officers,” the ACLU has said.

The medical community agrees. “Physical restraints have interfered with the ability of physicians to safely practice medicine by reducing their ability to assess and evaluate the physical condition of the mother and fetus, and have similarly made the labor and delivery process more difficult than it needs to be,” wrote the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in a 2007 statement, “overall putting the health and lives of the women and unborn children at risk.”

The American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, and the American College of Nurse Midwives also oppose shackling during childbirth, as do the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the American Correctional Association, two of the country’s primary prison accreditation organizations.

In the last decade, more states have passed laws restricting the use of shackling on inmates during childbirth. New York became the sixth state to ban restraints during birth when in 2009 then-Gov. David Paterson signed the Anti-Shackling Bill, which prohibited shackling during labor, delivery, and recovery. And since the passage of New York’s ban, at least 15 states followed suit.

But a study published earlier this year by the Correctional Association of New York (CA), a nonprofit organization with the authority to inspect prisons, found that 23 of the 27 women inmates interviewed who’d given birth while incarcerated had been shackled in violation of the law. There are an estimated 30 births each year under the supervision of state and local corrections, according to the correctional association.

“The 2009 law did seem to curtail the practice of shackling during delivery in the hospital” says Tamar Kraft-Stolar, director of the association’s Women in Prison project. “But we found that many women experienced shackling during labor, and many experienced it right after they gave birth and on the way back to the prison.”

Kraft-Stolar attributes the continued shackling of these women to a lack of education. Some correctional officers may not know about the law, and without oversight, there’s no way to enforce it. That’s why Kraft-Stolar and other criminal justice reform advocates are hopeful that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will sign Assembly Bill 6430, an update to the 2009 law that would ban the use of restraints on pregnant inmates at any point during their pregnancy and until eight weeks after childbirth.

Passed by both chambers of the state legislature in June and now waiting for the governor’s signature, the bill would also require that every pregnant inmate be notified of her right to not be shackled. It would allow shackling in extraordinary circumstances—with the approval of both the superintendent and chief medical officer and only when a woman is threatening to hurt herself or someone else. However, each incident would have to be reported to the state.

The legislation has a long list of backers, including New York’s correctional officers’ union, which recently expressed its support.

“While it is our duty to monitor all inmates at all times, there are better uses of limited resources than to continue a practice that applies to several dozen pregnant inmates in our prisons who do not pose an immediate threat to the safety and security of our officers and our facilities,” the union said in a statement earlier this month.

And Kraft-Stolar says the legislation can only do so much. “The best solution to the problem of shackling is to not lock women up in the first place,” she says. “Prisons are breeding grounds for human rights violations, and the best way to avoid those violations is to keep people out of prison.”

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6 Years Ago, New York Banned the Shackling of Pregnant Inmates. So Why Are These Women Still Being Restrained?

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Arkansas Governor Asks For Changes to Religious Freedom Bill

by Eleanor59W Posted on April 1, 2015

Mother Jones

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson called for changes in the state’s controversial religious freedom bill on Wednesday, amid mounting criticism from businesses, local leaders, gay rights advocates, and even members of his own family.

Hutchinson said in a press conference that he would not sign the bill as presented to his desk and asked state lawmakers to change the bill’s language to “mirror” the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Twenty other states, including Indiana, have similar religious freedom legislation.

“This is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial,” Hutchinson told reporters. “But these are not ordinary times.”

In a press conference on Tuesday, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, whose state has also faced a barrage of criticism from businesses, celebrities and athletes alike, called on lawmakers to clarify Indiana’s religious freedom bill that “makes it clear that this law does not give businesses a right to deny services to anyone.”

Though Hutchinson had once said he would approve the bill with amendments, the governor shifted his stance after receiving backlash from local leaders and businesses, including Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, who called on the governor to veto the bill.

“Today’s passage of HB1228 threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold,” McMillon said in a statement. “For these reasons, we are asking Governor Hutchinson to veto this legislation.”

Hutchinson told reporters that the controversial legislation, which critics say would allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against gay men and lesbians, hit home. His son, Seth, a labor organizer with the Texas State Employees Union, asked him to veto the legislation. “I love my dad, and we have a good, close relationship,” Hutchinson’s son told the New York Times. “But we disagree a lot on political issues. This is just another one, but a lot of families disagree politically. But we stay close.”

“The issue has become divisive because our nation remains split on how to balance the diversity of our culture with the traditions and firmly held religious convictions,” Hutchinson said. “It has divided families, and there is clearly a generational gap on this issue.”

The Arkansas General Assembly has not yet agreed to recall and amend the bill. The governor declined to say whether he would veto the bill if it returned to his desk unchanged.

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Arkansas Governor Asks For Changes to Religious Freedom Bill

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These Photos of World Lawmakers Pummeling Each Other Almost Make You Appreciate Congress

by JamePintogz Posted on February 26, 2015

Mother Jones

Twice last week, brawls broke out in Turkey’s parliament over a controversial bill that would give the police more power to crack down on protestors. Punches were thrown, kicks landed, a chair launched. One MP fell down a flight of stairs. It was like the golden early days of cage fighting when rules were laughed out of the arena and MMA fighters’ posses joined in the mayhem. But at least no shots were fired, unlike the time in 2013 that a Jordanian MP tried to come after a colleague with an AK-47. (No one was harmed.)

While American members of Congress haven’t had a serious dust-up in decades, full-contact debate is more common in other deliberative bodies. Here are some memorable recent bouts of parliamentary fisticuffs. (And for many more examples, check out parliamentfights.)

Turkish lawmakers throw punches over a security bill in February 2015.

AP

A presidential decree to call up military reserves leads to a fight in Ukraine’s parliament in July 2014.

Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto/ZUMA Wire

Armed police force out South African opposition MPs after they challenged President Zuma over corruption allegations in February 2015.

Rodger Bosch, Pool/AP

Opposition politicians hurl chairs and attack the speaker during a Constituent Assembly meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal, in January 2015.

Bikram Rai/AP

In September 2013, a Jordanian MP fired a shot from his Kalashnikov outside the parliamentary chamber. No one was hurt.

ODN/YouTube

Venezuelan MPs duke it out over an election dispute in May 2013.

A mass brawl erupts Taiwan’s legislature in July 2010, after the speaker rejects a proposal to a debate a trade pact with China.

Wally Santana/AP

In November 2011, South Korean Rep. Kim Seon-dong explodes a tear gas canister in an attempti to block the ratification of a free trade agreement with the United States.

Yonhap/AP

Bonus: Then-Toronto mayor Rob Ford knocks down Councillor Pam McConnell as he runs toward hecklers in November 2013.

The Canadian Press, Paola Loriggio/AP

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These Photos of World Lawmakers Pummeling Each Other Almost Make You Appreciate Congress

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