Tag Archives: gov-

Alabama’s Chief Justice Still Opposes Same-Sex Marriages. Now He’s Standing Trial.

by MadgeNew40940934 Posted on September 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore went to court Wednesday morning in Montgomery. But this time he was a defendant, charged with possible ethical violations for defying higher-court rulings with his anti-gay-marriage stance.

In January 2015, after a district court judge ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in Alabama, Moore sent a letter to Gov. Robert Bentley adamantly expressing his belief that the ruling was destructive, and urging the governor to defy the district court ruling and support judges who did not wish to comply.

“The Supreme Court of Alabama has likewise described marriage as ‘a divine institution,’ imposing upon parties ‘higher moral and religious obligations than those imposed by any mere human institution or government,'” he wrote. “The laws of this state have always recognized the Biblical admonition stated by our Lord.”

Moore went further and used his position as chief justice to instruct Alabama probate judges to refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples via email. “No probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent with Article 1, Section 36.03, of the Alabama Constitution or…30-1-19, Ala. Code 1975,” he wrote.

Moore’s actions led to a complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which alerted the state-run Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, which in turn launched an investigation. The commission suspended Moore in May. He is now facing six counts of judicial ethics violations.

Moore’s attorney for the proceedings is Mat Staver from the Liberty Counsel, which has been partly funded by one of the conservative billionaire Wilks brothers. He also represented Kim Davis, the Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Liberty Counsel takes on so-called “religious liberty” cases, and the law firm offered its services in the North Carolina fight over restricting the access of transgender people to public restrooms. Staver also represents David Daleiden, who produced heavily edited videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood officials involved in the sale of fetal tissue for profit. (There has been no evidence that Planned Parenthood is guilty of any wrongdoing.)

At the trial, Staver argued that Moore’s email to the probate judges wasn’t an order, but rather a “status update” on the conflict between the federal court ruling and state court rulings.

The Guardian recently speculated that Moore’s efforts are intended to improve his bid for the governorship in 2018. Moore attempted to run in 2006 but ultimately lost the bid for the Republican nomination to incumbent Bob Riley. He also tried to run in 2010 but lost the bid to current Gov. Robert Bentley.

This is not the first time Moore has dug his heels in over an issue he perceived to be in direct conflict with his faith. In 2003, he was suspended from the bench for installing a monument of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court building without informing the eight associate justices and then, when faced with an order from a federal judge, refused to remove the monument. Moore’s fellow justices ultimately had the 2.6-ton monument removed in August 2003.

A decision in the trial is expected within 10 days. If Moore is found guilty, he could face censure or suspension without pay. The most severe outcome would be removal from the bench, which would require a unanimous vote from the nine members of the Court of Judiciary.

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Alabama’s Chief Justice Still Opposes Same-Sex Marriages. Now He’s Standing Trial.

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Voting-Rights Advocates Keep Scoring Major Victories, But the Fight Isn’t Over Yet

by ShaniceTxy Posted on August 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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Update, 8/16/16, 12:04 p.m.: North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory formally asked the Supreme Court late Monday night to reinstate the state’s voter ID law. “Allowing the Fourth Circuit’s ruling to stand creates confusion among voters and poll workers and it disregards our successful rollout of Voter ID in the 2016 primary elections,” McCrory said in a statement. “The Fourth Circuit’s ruling is just plain wrong and we cannot allow it to stand. We are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold our state’s law and reverse the Fourth Circuit.”

Over the last month and a half, voting rights advocates have scored a string of legal victories against state-level voting restrictions in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, and North Dakota. Still, for many voters, the rules for Election Day remain in flux.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty on what the rules are going to be, and we’re getting closer to the early voting period,” says election law expert Rick Hasen. “That kind of uncertainty creates problems.”

Where do the problems begin? First, it will be up to state and local election officials to inform voters of their rights months before the general election. On Wednesday, nearly three weeks after a federal appeals court determined that Texas’ voter identification law had a discriminatory effect on black and Latino voters, state officials reached an agreement that gave people the option to sign a form stating they had a “reasonable impediment” in acquiring a photo ID to vote in November. (Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said he planned to appeal the decision in the future.)

As part of the arrangement, Texas officials agreed to allocate $2.5 million toward an education campaign to let voters know about the changes. Poll workers would have to know that voters can cast ballots without an ID, leaving open the potential for confusion on Election Day, Hasen says. “There are a lot of polling places in Texas,” he adds. “It’s going to take a lot of effort to get the word out.”

Restrictive voting laws in Wisconsin and North Carolina also went in front of federal judges earlier this summer. In late July, a federal appeals court found that North Carolina’s voter identification law was passed with “discriminatory intent” that burdened African American voters “with almost surgical precision.” The ruling brought down numerous provisions that included instituting new identification requirements, eliminating same-day voter registration, and reducing the time for early voting, among others. The decision has left it up to county election officials to decide how long voters will have during the early voting period to cast their ballots as state officials prepare for a high voter turnout. Meanwhile, Gov. Pat McCrory said he plans on appealing the decision to the Supreme Court.

Last Wednesday, a panel of federal judges took a different tack in Wisconsin, putting on hold a lower-court ruling that let voters without the necessary ID sign a form showing that they had reasonable issues with obtaining an ID. They concluded that the case would “likely to be reversed on appeal and disruption of the state’s electoral system in the interim will cause irreparable injury.” A federal judge in a separate case found that several of Wisconsin’s voting restrictions were unconstitutional and that its voter ID rules should be changed. The appellate panel decision effectively ensures Wisconsin voters operate under the state’s voter ID law, pending an appeal to the 7th Circuit or the Supreme Court.

Now, with the general election quickly approaching, those hoping to further shape the voting rights landscape via the courts have only a few weeks left to appeal their cases. The ACLU filed a petition on Thursday to get the entire 7th Circuit to rule on the case in Wisconsin. In the North Carolina case, Hasen notes, the court gave its decision in late July under the state’s assurances it could comply with any possible changes ordered before the November election. It’s been 17 days and counting since the decision came down, and the state has yet to file an appeal.

In the past, the Supreme Court has issued emergency stays on orders shortly before elections. A month before the 2014 midterm elections were set to begin, for example, the justices took action in three familiar cases involving North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. The justices blocked Wisconsin’s attempt to implement its strict voter ID law, yet permitted Texas’ and North Carolina’s voting restrictions to continue for the midterms without an opinion. A stay in the more recent North Carolina’s case “threatens to confuse voters further, and to make election administrators’ life hell,” Hasen wrote in a recent blog post.

And this time around, timing isn’t the only question for the justices. With the Supreme Court currently divided after the death of Antonin Scalia, last-minute challenges before the justices could result in split decisions that could ultimately empower the lower courts’ decisions. “Everyday it’s a different set of rules,” Hasen says, “so you can’t really have a concerted education effort until you have some finality.”

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Voting-Rights Advocates Keep Scoring Major Victories, But the Fight Isn’t Over Yet

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Here’s What’s Happening in the Battle for Voting Rights

by AlfredoBML Posted on August 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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The courts have recently transformed the voting rights debate.

Last Friday, a panel of judges struck down a sweeping set of voting restrictions enacted by North Carolina Republicans in 2013 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s gutting of a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. Later that day, a federal district court killed a series of voting restrictions in Wisconsin, including rules that banned students from using expired student IDs, a residency requirement aimed at limiting college students’ right to vote, and some restrictions on early in-person voting. And in Kansas, a state district court judge ruled that the state’s two-tier system of voting—proof of citizenship required for state local elections but not federal elections—would disenfranchise too many citizens, and ordered the state to count the ballots at all levels.

The following Monday, a federal judge blocked a North Dakota voter ID law that he said posed an undue burden on the voting rights of Native Americans. And all these decisions come less than two weeks after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a voter ID law in Texas, and a federal judge weakened that state’s voter ID law.

“It has been a string of victories for voting rights advocates, and we’ll have to see whether or not they stick, or they all stick, but it is an impressive string of victories for now,” said elections expert Richard Hasen, a professor of law and political science from the University of California Irvine.

The court battles have played out during a period when a number of restrictive voting laws have been passed across the country. Since 2010, 22 states have added new restrictions related to voting, according to the Brennan Center. After the court decisions relating to North Carolina and North Dakota, new restrictions will be in place in 15 states for the first time in a presidential election year.

As promising as these recent court victories have been for voting rights advocates, some states have already vowed to appeal the rulings. Other states continue to have restrictive laws that could jeopardize the ability of minority voters to cast ballots this November. Here is an overview of the voting rights landscape:

North Carolina: In 2013, a US Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, cleared the way for states that previously had to have all voting-law and procedural changes reviewed by the US Department of Justice or a federal judge to enact any voting changes they wished. The next day, North Carolina Republicans passed one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation that restricted access to voting, eliminated same-day voter registration, reduced early voting, instituted a strict photo ID requirement, and ended a program that preregistered 16- and 17-year-olds to vote. That law was struck down July 29 in a scathing 83-page opinion that exposed the extent of the law’s racial bias. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, writing for the majority on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, noted that the law’s provisions “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision,” by using race data in the decision-making process.

“In holding that the legislature did not enact the challenged provisions with discriminatory intent, the district court seems to have missed the forest in carefully surveying the many trees,” Gribbon Motz wrote. “This failure of perspective led the court to ignore critical facts bearing on legislative intent, including the inextricable link between race and politics in North Carolina.”

State Republicans and Gov. Pat McCrory have said they will appeal the case to the US Supreme Court. “Photo IDs are required to purchase Sudafed, cash a check, board an airplane or enter a federal court room,” the governor said in a statement on Friday. “Yet three Democratic judges are undermining the integrity of our elections while also maligning our state. We will immediately appeal and also review other potential options.”

Ohio: On May 24, a federal district court ruled that a state law passed in 2014 that eliminated the state’s so-called “Golden Week”—a period of time during which voters could register and vote at the same time—violated the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits “voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups.” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, has appealed the ruling, but for now the restoration of Golden Week will be in place for the November 2016 election.

The elimination of Golden Week was part of a broader election bill pushed by state Republicans and signed into law in 2014 by Republican Gov. John Kasich. It also included provisions that limited the number of early-voting sites in each county and the distribution of certain voting machines in each county. The judge let those provisions stand.

Husted is also dealing with a lawsuit over his plan to purge voters from the rolls if they haven’t voted in two consecutive federal elections. A district court judge sided with Husted on June 29, but the appeal (which is joined by the US Department of Justice) is ongoing.

Wisconsin: According to Hasen in his Election Law Blog, a federal district court “struck a host of Wisconsin voting rules” on Friday, blocking a law that required citizenship information to be included in dormitory forms as proof of residence, that created narrow requirements for valid ID, and that made it illegal to vote if you’d moved into the state 28 days before an election.

“The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities,” wrote US District Judge James Peterson. He bolstered his assertion that the rules were discriminatory by pointing to Milwaukee specifically. “I reach this conclusion because I am persuaded that this law was specifically targeted to curtail voting in Milwaukee without any other legitimate purpose,” he wrote, speaking of rules to limit early voting. “The Legislature’s immediate goal was to achieve a partisan objective, but the means of achieving that objective was to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans.”

The decision came less than two weeks after a separate federal judge ruled that voters can cast ballots in November without IDs if they submit affidavits at the polls saying they couldn’t easily get IDs. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel said he would appeal the court’s decision.

Texas: A majority of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled July 20 that a Texas voter ID law passed in 2011 violated the Voting Rights Act and discriminated against African American and Hispanic voters. The law required many residents to show ID before their ballots would be counted. The ruling didn’t stop the law; it only forced a lower court to come up with a remedy that would do a better job of getting all eligible citizens proper ID. Experts estimate that several hundred thousand people in the state currently lack proper ID.

The law was originally passed in 2011 and signed into law by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, but under the Voting Rights Act at that time, the state had to have all changes to election law reviewed by the Department of Justice or a federal judge. Before the pre-clearance decision was made, Perry sued the federal government in hopes of speeding up the process. That case became moot in 2013 when the Supreme Court decision removed the mechanism for determining which states should seek federal review for voting law changes. At that point the Texas law came into effect, but it has faced legal challenges and has racked up at least $3.5 million in legal fees along the way. The July 20 ruling was the result of one of the most recent of those cases.

Now a federal judge in Texas is tasked with fixing the law and plans to hold a hearing August 17.

Virginia: On April 22, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, signed an executive order granting voting rights restoration for more than 200,000 felons in the state. State Republicans cried foul, claiming that McAuliffe, a longtime confidante of Bill and Hillary Clinton, was trying to throw a key swing state toward Clinton for the November election. Besides, they argued, McAuliffe only had the right to restore felon rights on an individual basis, and they threatened to sue. They followed through with that threat about a month later.

On July 22, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the Republicans were right, and McAuliffe couldn’t give a blanket restoration, wiping out 11,000 voter registrations that had taken place under the governor’s executive order. McAuliffe said after the ruling that he would sign about 13,000 individual orders “expeditiously” and then “continue to sign orders until I have completed restoration for all 200,000 Virginians.”

In May, the US Supreme Court sided with state Democrats who had challenged the way state Republicans had redrawn congressional districts. The Democrats charged that Republicans redrew the districts in 2013 to pack African American voters into one district. A district court panel of judges agreed and redrew the districts. Three Virginia Republicans appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which left the lower court’s ruling in place, opening the door for a new black congressional hopeful from Virginia to run this fall.

Kansas: On Friday, a state judge temporarily blocked Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s attempt to disqualify 17,500 state voters who, under a 2013 state law, didn’t provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The voters are eligible to participate in federal elections, but the state law would have prevented their votes in local and state races from counting. The judge’s order temporarily blocked that rule and, if it’s still in place in November, could affect about 50,000 people. The judge’s ruling expires shortly after the November election.

Arizona: On March 22, Arizona held its presidential primary election and totally bungled it. Thousands of people waited for hours to cast ballots in the state’s largest county, Maricopa County. Local officials blamed the large number of unaffiliated voters trying to cast ballots as the main culprit, but critics charged that it most likely had to do with the county’s decision to reduce its number of polling places from 200 to just 60, which worked out to about one polling place for every 20,833 eligible voters. The state’s biggest paper called the situation an “outrage” and the Republican governor called it “unacceptable.”

The Democratic National Committee, along with the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona and Maricopa County on April 14. The suit is seeking to restore federal review of Arizona election procedures, something state and local officials had to deal with before the 2013 Supreme Court Shelby County v. Holder decision. Additionally, the suit seeks to block officials from not counting provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct, and to halt a law that prevents people from turning in others’ absentee ballots. That case is working its way through federal court.

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Here’s What’s Happening in the Battle for Voting Rights

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Donald Trump Roundup For Tuesday Evening

by RosalinGYP Posted on August 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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I just got back from dinner. I wonder if there’s any breaking Donald Trump news? Well, now, let’s just—oh my:

Jesus Christ. The Trumpsters are still going after the Khans? Does anyone else have anything to say about the death of Captain Khan in Iraq?

“It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagement that probably cost his life,” spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said in an interview Tuesday with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. Khan died during the presidency of George W. Bush, while Obama was a state senator in Illinois.

Did any other other Trump surrogates melt down today? How about that Corey guy that CNN hired, the one who assaulted a reporter. Has he said any—oh God, no. Not that:

And how about Trump himself? How did he do in his Washington Post interview today? It sounds like he was a little distracted:

Trump looks at a nearby television, which was tuned to Fox News.

Trump looks up at the television

Trump watches himself on TV

Looks at the television again Look at this. It’s all Trump all day long.

Trump looks at the TV.

That’s our Donald. Aside from checking himself out on TV, though, he also made time to tell the world that he wouldn’t endorse Paul Ryan, John McCain, or Kelly Ayotte in their primary races. What do other Republicans think about this? How about you, Reince Priebus? You’re the head of the Republican National Committee. Any thoughts about Trump declining to support the Republican Speaker of the House?

Anyone else?

Meg Whitman joins chorus of Republicans supporting Hillary Clinton

Meg Whitman, the Hewlett-Packard chief executive who ran unsuccessfully for governor of California in 2010, will back Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, joining other prominent Republicans troubled by Donald Trump’s candidacy.

….Sally Bradshaw, an influential GOP strategist in Florida who advised former Gov. Jeb Bush during his primary campaign, announced Monday that she would leave the party. A day later, Maria Comella, a top former advisor to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also called Trump a demagogue and signaled her support for Clinton.

And that’s a wrap for Tuesday. See you in the morning.

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Donald Trump Roundup For Tuesday Evening

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Finally, the climate teardown of Trump you’ve been waiting for

by wilbertbarber4 Posted on July 28, 2016

What can Brown do for you?

Finally, the climate teardown of Trump you’ve been waiting for

By on Jul 28, 2016Share

PHILADELPHIA — Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention was dedicated to ripping apart the GOP nominee while extending an olive branch to blue-collar voters and moderate Republicans. With so much material to choose from, perhaps it’s no surprise that Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, Michael Bloomberg, and President Obama stuck largely to their opponent’s character and business record.

So it was left to California Gov. Jerry Brown, as chief executive of one of the most progressive states in the union on climate and energy — and one suffering from a multi-year drought that Donald Trump doesn’t think is real — to make the contrast between Trump and the Dems on sustainability. Brown devoted his entire speech to tearing down the real estate developer’s public statements on climate science, with one-liners earning cheers from the audience.

“Trump says global warming is a hoax. I say Trump is a fraud,” Brown declared. “Trump says there’s no drought in California. I say Trump lies.”

When Obama closed out the night, he provided a broad argument that America is in fact making progress, and that Americans can’t give up on “perfecting our union.” He touched lightly on climate and energy in a conciliatory note to voters who might not always fit the Democratic mold, saying: “If you want to fight climate change, we’ve got to engage not only young people on college campuses, but reach out to the coal miner who’s worried about taking care of his family, the single mom worried about gas prices.”

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Finally, the climate teardown of Trump you’ve been waiting for

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Three Quotes of the Day About Donald Trump

by LindseyKempton Posted on June 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s what people said about Donald Trump on the Sunday chat shows yesterday. Keep in mind that these quotes are all from Trump’s supporters:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Trump’s repeated statement that Judge Gonzalo Curiel was biased against him because of his Mexican heritage: “I don’t believe that Donald Trump meant it in the manner that he said it.”

Newt Gingrich on Trump’s constant backtracking: “I think he stands for an evolving process of trying to come to grips with really big problems.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell on whether Trump is qualified to be president: “I’ll leave that to the American people to decide.”

And as long as we’re on the subject of Trump, be sure to check out Michael Finnegan’s piece in the LA Times about Trump’s failed condo development in Baja California: “Most of the Trump Baja condo buyers accused Trump and two of his adult children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., of duping them into believing that Trump was one of the developers, giving them confidence that it was safe to buy unbuilt property in Mexico.” It’s yet more of the usual Trump sleaze.

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Three Quotes of the Day About Donald Trump

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Chart of the Day: Brexit Would Have Turned Out Very Differently if Kids Turned Out to Vote

by HassanE54kqinqhe Posted on June 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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This will come as no surprise, but here’s the fundamental reason that Brexit won:

The younger the voter, the more strongly they voted to remain in the EU. The older the voter, the more likely they were to actually get out and vote. Eventually the kids are going to figure out how badly their elders are screwing them, and maybe then they’ll finally muster the energy to cast a ballot. I wonder what it’s going to take to make that happen?

(Preference via YouGov. Turnout via SkyData.)

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Chart of the Day: Brexit Would Have Turned Out Very Differently if Kids Turned Out to Vote

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Q: What’s the Matter With Kansas? A: Sam Brownback

by RusselLoeffler Posted on June 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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From Pema Levy:

In 2012, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback launched a “real live experiment” in conservative governance. He slashed income taxes for top earners and eliminated them for more than 330,000 small businesses, promising the cuts would be “a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Instead, the result has been disastrous. By the end of 2015, the state had lost nearly $3 billion in revenue and was behind most other states in job growth. And when the courts challenged the constitutionality of the bare-bones budgets, Brownback and his allies launched an all-out war on the state’s judges.

Click the link to read all about the farcical war that Brownback waged on his state’s judicial system. But if you like some cold, hard numbers to go with your story, Menzie Chinn is your man. Here, for example, is economic growth in Kansas before and after Brownback took office:

Ouch. From 2005 to 2011, Kansas was growing faster than the US economy. This continued for about a year after Brownback took office, at which point economic growth declined and then flatlined. But hey—maybe things are just tough in the Midwest. Not so much, it turns out. Here’s how Kansas compares to her neighboring states since 2011:

Chin has also done a forecast of how well Kansas should have done based on historical trends, and the picture is just as un-pretty as these. Basically, (a) Kansas was doing OK, (b) Brownback rolled in and decided to make Kansas a test bed for conservative economics, and (c) Kansas promptly went to hell.

This, of course, has caused conservatives to think long and hard about their contention that cutting taxes on the rich and slashing bloated budgets will supercharge the economy. Haha. Just kidding. What they’ve actually done is either (a) ignore Kansas or (b) spend lots of time trying to dig up reasons that Kansas is a special case and would have done even worse if Brownback hadn’t stepped in. These reasons tend to be pretty ridiculous, but so far they’ve been good enough to keep the rubes in line. And that’s what matters, right?

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Q: What’s the Matter With Kansas? A: Sam Brownback

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Oklahoma Governor Vetoes "Insane" Abortion Bill

by WoodrowPantano Posted on May 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Friday afternoon, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin vetoed a bill that would have made performing most abortions a felony in the state. On Thursday, the Oklahoma Senate passed the bill 33-12, with no floor debate. During the voting process, Sen. Ervin Yen, the sole state senator who is a physician, called the measure “insane.”

As Mother Jones reported in April, the bill would make performing abortions, except for those intended to save a woman’s life, a felony punishable by a minimum of one year in prison.

If it is discovered that they have provided an abortion, doctors would be stripped of their state medical licenses. The only exception to these rules would be abortions to save the life of the mother, and the bill makes clear that the threat of suicide by a woman seeking an abortion doesn’t fulfill the “life” requirement.

Had the bill been signed into law by Gov. Fallin, it would most certainly have led to a protracted and costly legal battle over the bill’s constitutionality, since its near total ban on abortion goes against Roe v. Wade—the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion. However, the prospect of litigation is not what Fallin took issue with when rejecting the bill. Instead, she said that the “life” exception provided in the bill was “vague.”

“The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered ‘necessary to preserve the life of the mother,'” Fallin said. “While I consistently have and continue to support a re-examination of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, this legislation cannot accomplish that re-examination. In fact, the most direct path to a re-examination of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade is the appointment of a conservative, pro-life justice to the United States Supreme Court.”

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Oklahoma Governor Vetoes "Insane" Abortion Bill

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The Story of How Maine’s Governor Got His Dog Will Make You Angry

by JustinaBingle Posted on May 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Maine Gov. Paul LePage posted a photo of the newest member of his family: a Jack Russell terrier mix named Veto—an apparent reference to the combative Republican’s record of rejecting legislation.

But for one woman, Veto’s adoption was unwelcome news. Heath Arsenault, a victim of sexual assault, told local news outlet NECN she had been hoping to adopt the animal herself as an emotional support dog. She said she was heartbroken when she learned that the shelter had bent the rules to allow the governor to adopt him before he became available to the public.

“I just saw the picture and I broke down,” Arsenault said. “He was just the right size for my apartment and he’s just really sweet.”

Unbeknownst to her, LePage had also seen the dog on the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society’s website. But unlike Arsenault, who planned to take off of work on Wednesday to ensure she was first in the adoption line, LePage dropped by the shelter a day early and snagged Veto before the general public had an opportunity to do so.

“It wasn’t about, ‘Oh, I wanted that dog and somebody else adopted it,” Arsenault, added. “It just felt like my happiness was taken away from me. Bettering my relationships—that was taken away from me.”

“No one should be given special privileges, even if they are the governor,” she told the Portland Press Herald.

The shelter has since admitted to breaking its own rules by giving LePage a chance to adopt the dog a day earlier than the public.

It remains to be seen if Veto will soon be moving to Washington, DC, as LePage is reportedly gunning for a position in the Trump administration.

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The Story of How Maine’s Governor Got His Dog Will Make You Angry

Posted in alternative energy, Anchor, Casio, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Pines, Radius, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Story of How Maine’s Governor Got His Dog Will Make You Angry