Tag Archives: legislation

Pence Signed a Law Requiring Burial or Cremation for Aborted Fetuses

by MarcellaEstell Posted on July 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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The sweeping abortion bill that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law in March gained national attention for prohibiting women from electing to have an abortion due to the race, gender, or disability of the fetus. But the bill contained another unusual provision: It required that aborted fetuses receive what amounts to a funeral.

Pence, whom Donald Trump announced as his vice presidential running mate on Friday, signed the law that made Indiana the second state ever, after North Dakota, to pass a ban on abortions carried out for certain reasons. The law also imposed liability for wrongful death on doctors that perform an abortion motivated by one of the prohibited reasons. And, as Mother Jones reported in March, the law also required that health care facilities inter or cremate the remains of an aborted fetus, and prohibited fetal tissue donation.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down several Texas abortion restrictions in June, a federal judge blocked the Indiana law from going into effect.

“By enacting this legislation, we take an important step in protecting the unborn, while still providing an exception for the life of the mother,” Pence said in a statement when he signed the bill. “I sign this legislation with a prayer that God would continue to bless these precious children, mothers, and families.”

This sort of fetus funeral provision has recently gained traction in legislatures around the country: Arkansas and Georgia have similar laws on the books, while Ohio, South Carolina, and Mississippi have all considered similar measures in the last year.

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Pence Signed a Law Requiring Burial or Cremation for Aborted Fetuses

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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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Who Supported the 1994 Crime Bill?

by Zella53Ssnlil Posted on April 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Farah Stockman reports that the generation gap between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters extends to African-Americans too. And the 1994 crime bill is part of it:

Caryl Brock said she had been a social worker in charge of the removal of children from dangerous homes in the South Bronx and Spanish Harlem in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when crack tore a path of destruction through those neighborhoods….She said she was relieved when the crime bill passed. In addition to providing more money for prisons and the police, the law banned assault weapons and offered funding for drug courts and rehabilitation. “Because of the crime bill,” she said, “anybody that wanted rehabilitation, we could process them and get them a detox bed in a hospital.”

Ms. Brock’s comments underscore a sometimes overlooked reality in today’s re-examination of the crime bill: The legislation was broadly embraced by nonwhite voters, more enthusiastically even than by white voters. About 58 percent of nonwhites supported it in 1994, according to a Gallup poll, compared with 49 percent of white voters.

Mr. Clinton has seemed rattled at times as he tries to defend the measure to younger African-Americans in an era in which concerns about mistreatment by the police and mass incarceration have eclipsed the fear of crime in many black communities.

And among these younger voters, the Clintons lack the deep admiration that they enjoy from previous generations of African-Americans. In the Democratic primary contests so far, 92 percent of black voters 65 and older cast ballots for Mrs. Clinton, compared with 45 percent of black voters under age 25, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.

Obviously everyone should vote for whoever they want. But this piece highlights one thing that continues to eat at me: judging the past by the standards of the present. The 1994 crime bill was hardly supported unanimously, and there was plenty of criticism of it at the time. It’s fine to take note of that. But the plain fact is that 1994 was a different time: crime was rampant and people were scared—including black people—and most of them supported the crime bill, warts and all. Were they wrong to do so? Maybe. But you need to seriously engage with what the world was like in 1994 and what they could reasonably have known about it before you condemn them.

A world where violent crime is no longer an obsession, replaced instead by DWB and Ferguson-style police shootings, calls for different responses. No one would propose anything like the 1994 crime bill anymore. But in 1994 things looked a lot different. You need to understand that deep in your gut before you lash out at the folks who supported it.

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Who Supported the 1994 Crime Bill?

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Will This Bill End the War Between the Government and the Tech Community Over Encryption?

by fwxpar Posted on February 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee will introduce a bill on Monday afternoon aiming to help solve the long-running fight between the government and the tech and privacy communities over encryption, which has made headlines recently thanks to the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The bill, which will be introduced by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and is backed strongly by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), would create a commission of 16 experts with a range of backgrounds—from cryptographers and intelligence officials to privacy advocates and tech executives—to “examine the intersection of security and digital security and communications technology in a systematic, holistic way, and determine the implications for national security, public safety, data security, privacy, innovation, and American competitiveness in the global marketplace,” according to text of the legislation that was provided to Mother Jones.

It’s part of a larger push to have the government and private sector work together to create new ways to solve the impasse over encryption and other digital security issues. While the government wants to be able to access encrypted devices and messages when needed, tech companies and cryptographers have said there is simply no current way to create such a backdoor for the government without also potentially giving that same access to cybercriminals and hackers. Hillary Clinton has called for a “Manhattan-like project” to square that circle, with other presidential candidates calling for similar public-private cooperation.

McCaul and the commission’s backers hope the panel may find a new, previously undiscovered way to reconcile the legal and technical demands of the two sides, but there appears to be little idea of what that could be. In conversations with lawmakers, privacy advocates, national security lawyers, and technologists, none were able to offer Mother Jones any concrete notion of what a solution may look like. Many members of the technology and privacy communities also view calls for more cooperation and discussion as disingenuous. They argue the technical questions are settled, and that more talking won’t solve anything—but may produce bad legislation that harms security and privacy. “‘They say they can’t do it, but let’s pass the legislation to find out, and I bet they’ll figure out the solution after we’ve mandated it.’ That seems like a bad idea to me,” Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute told Motherboard last year.

Each party would get to nominate eight members of the commission, with each nominee coming from a different one of eight fields. Six of the slots would go to law enforcement and intelligence community representatives, with the other 10 given to tech business and economics experts along with two cryptographers and two members of the civil liberties community. The group would have a year to draft a final report, which would require the approval of 11 of the 16 members.

You can read the full text of the bill below:

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McCaul-Commission (PDF)

McCaul-Commission (Text)

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Will This Bill End the War Between the Government and the Tech Community Over Encryption?

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Mitch McConnell Just Made It Virtually Impossible to Police Dark Money in 2016

by MarcelaWilshire Posted on December 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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Conservative Solutions Project has run more than 4,882 ads in support of Marco Rubio this election—and not a dime of its funding has been made public. As a politically active nonprofit, the outfit is theoretically regulated by the Internal Revenue Service, but thanks to clever legislative maneuvering by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and congressional Republicans, there’s no danger that the IRS will apply any special scrutiny to the people or corporations generously financing this key component of Rubio’s run for president. (His actual campaign unveiled its first ad just a few weeks ago).

Buried deep in the massive end-of-the-year spending bill released late Tuesday night were provisions that not only prohibit the IRS from cracking down on groups like Conservative Solutions Project, but that block the Securities and Exchange Commission from prying into the political spending of public companies.

In last year’s budget deal, McConnell pushed through higher limits for campaign contributions to party organizations, allowing wealthy donors to chip in hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this year’s budget negotiations, McConnell initially tried to further loosen restrictions on how party committees spend money. But he faced strong opposition from an unusual coalition of congressional Democrats and members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus. The pushback appears to have caused McConnell, a longtime foe of campaign finance rules, to abandon the plan. But he did manage to slip provisions into the legislation that weakened enforcement and transparency when it comes to politically active nonprofits.

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Mitch McConnell Just Made It Virtually Impossible to Police Dark Money in 2016

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Every Female Democratic Senator Is Backing Clinton—With One Notable Exception

by Zeniarwpzz Posted on November 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton will make a stop in Washington, DC, on Monday night to show off her resounding support from the Democratic women in the US Senate. At a “Women for Hillary” event near the Capitol, 13 of the 14 female Democratic senators will voice their support for Clinton’s presidential campaign, with backers ranging from moderates such as Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota to liberals including Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin.

But amid that overwhelming support, it’s the lone holdout that might be most notable: Elizabeth Warren.

The progressive icon from Massachusetts is one of the few Senate Democrats who have not yet endorsed Clinton. Of the 44 Democrats in the Senate, 38 have endorsed Clinton. (Bernie Sanders has yet to lock up public support from even one of his Senate colleagues.)

But Warren has been conspicuously reticent. A favorite of the progressive base who has been pushing her Democratic colleagues to be more openly liberal, Warren has yet to throw her support behind the Democratic front-runner. In 2013, Warren joined all other Democratic women in the Senate in signing a letter encouraging Clinton to enter the 2016 race. Warren and Clinton later met at Clinton’s DC home late last year while the former secretary of state was readying her campaign launch. During that meeting, Clinton reportedly asked for Warren’s advice but not her endorsement.

But since Clinton made her campaign official earlier this year, Warren has remained largely silent on presidential politics, with her few stray comments pointing to a reluctance to align her political brand with Clinton’s. In July, Warren implicitly called out Clinton at the annual progressive activist confab Netroots Nation, stating that she couldn’t see herself supporting a presidential candidate who wouldn’t ban the revolving-door windfall bonuses Wall Streeters receive when they take a government job in Washington. Warren specifically said her endorsement was contingent on a candidate’s support for a bill introduced by Baldwin to end these so-called golden parachutes. The following month, Clinton announced her support for the legislation, which has yet to receive a vote in the Senate.

Still, Warren hasn’t cozied up to the Clinton crowd. In August, Warren met with Vice President Joe Biden while he was still flirting with the idea of a presidential campaign. And at a book release event at a Senate office building last month, Warren used her opening remarks to attack Clinton’s campaign rhetoric. She didn’t name Clinton explicitly, but said she had been disappointed to watch the Democratic debates and see candidates dismissing the need to reinstate Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law separating commercial and investment banking that was repealed under President Bill Clinton. With both Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley backing a new Glass-Steagall, Warren didn’t have to use Clinton’s name to make it clear who she was referring to when she said Democrats shouldn’t be asking if Glass-Steagall alone could have stopped the recent recession. “I think that’s just the wrong question to ask,” she said with exasperation, “the wrong point to make.”

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Every Female Democratic Senator Is Backing Clinton—With One Notable Exception

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New York Daily News Compares the NRA to Jihadists

by FinleyBernier Posted on November 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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In three words, the front page of Wednesday’s New York Daily News launched one of the boldest attacks on the National Rifle Association in recent memory.

The tabloid’s cover denounced “NRA’s Sick Jihad,” in characteristically huge typeface. The story inside accused the gun rights group of tacitly abetting the arming of terrorists by blocking a proposed bill that would make it more difficult for terror suspects to buy guns in the United States. The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015, formally known as H.R. 1076, was introduced in February, and includes a ban on the “sale or distribution of firearms or explosives to any individual whom the Attorney General has determined to be engaged in terrorist activities.”

The earliest version of the legislation was originally introduced under President George W. Bush in 2007, but it has yet to be signed into law. According to the Daily News, more than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist have been able to purchase weapons in the United States in the last 11 years.

The story begins, “The NRA—and their gun-loving Republican cohorts—are refusing once more to stop terrorists intent on getting armed in the U.S.A.”

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New York Daily News Compares the NRA to Jihadists

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Ben Carson Is Wrong About Hitler and Guns

by EdgardoCooney Posted on October 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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More guns, fewer holocausts?

Ben Carson said Thursday that Adolf Hitler’s mass murder of Jews “would have been greatly diminished” if German citizens had not been disarmed by the Nazi regime…”But just clarify, if there had been no gun control laws in Europe at that time, would 6 million Jews have been slaughtered?” Blitzer asked.

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said…”I’m telling you that there is a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first.”

This got me curious: Did Hitler take away everyone’s guns? As you can imagine, I know zilch about the history of gun control in Germany, so I surfed over to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, for a quick refresher course. Here’s what they say:

In 1919, the Treaty of Versaille disarmed Germany. “Fearing inability to hold the state together during the depression, the German government adopted a sweeping series of gun confiscation legislation.” This was long before Hitler came to power.
In 1928 this legislation was relaxed. “Germans could possess firearms, but they were required to have [] permits…Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to ‘…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a permit.'” Again, this was before Hitler came to power.
In 1938, Hitler relaxed the law further. Rifles and shotguns were completely deregulated, permits were extended to three years, and the age at which guns could be purchased was lowered to 18.

Now, Hitler did effectively ban Jews from owning guns in 1938. However, this is highly unlikely to have affected the fate of the Jews even slightly. The Nazis were considerably better armed and organized, and if Jews had taken to shooting them it would have accomplished nothing except giving Joseph Goebbels some terrific propaganda opportunities. The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a good example of this: Jews fought back, and the result was a few dead Germans and 13,000 dead Jews.

The bottom line is familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of history: Hitler was popular. He didn’t need to take away anyone’s guns. Whatever you think about gun control, using Hitler to defend your position is a bad idea.

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Ben Carson Is Wrong About Hitler and Guns

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Senator Blumenthal to Introduce Gun Legislation After Oregon Shooting

by IsidraK530 Posted on October 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) announced a plan to introduce new gun legislation in the wake of Thursday’s school shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon that left 10 dead and 7 others injured.

The proposed legislation, which seeks to ban gun sales without background checks pending beyond 72 hours, cites June’s massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, inside a historic church, and the revelation soon after that a loophole in the background check process allowed shooter Dylann Roof to obtain a gun.

“While certain facts remain unknown, the FBI has acknowledged that a fully completed background check would have uncovered Dylann Roof’s prior arrest on a drug charge and his drug addiction, thereby barring him from purchasing the .45-caliber handgun with which he took nine lives,” a statement released by Blumenthal’s office said.

This is hardly the first time the senator has been front and center of the gun control debate. Following the 2012 Newtown shooting massacre in Blumenthal’s state of Connecticut that killed 26 people, including 20 children, he came in out in strong support of gun safety measures. Congress, of course, failed to pass the legislation.

Back in May of 2014, he again pushed lawmakers to revive the gun legislation debate, “saying Congress will be complicit” if members fail to act again. Despite repeated calls, the introduction of new gun control legislation today will likely meet the same fate.

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Senator Blumenthal to Introduce Gun Legislation After Oregon Shooting

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The Latest From Greece: A Quick Rundown

by dgod36 Posted on July 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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A quick summary of Greece to start my morning (or ease you into lunch if you’re on the East coast):

The Greek parliament has passed the first batch of legislation demanded by the Europeans.
This seriously split Syriza, and could even lead to the downfall of the government. In the meantime, there was rioting in the streets of Athens.
The European Central Bank responded by providing €900 million to Greece’s banks. It’s not much, and capital controls will stay in place for a while. But it keeps the ATMs churning out €60 per day, which is better than €0 per day.
Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB, said it was “uncontroversial” that Greece needs substantial debt relief. It all depends on Greece keeping its side of the deal. So now both the ECB and the IMF—two-thirds of the Troika—are publicly on board with debt relief.

That’s about it for now. Amid the chaos, things are moving forward. Nonetheless, the religious types among you should give thanks daily that you don’t live in Greece.

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The Latest From Greece: A Quick Rundown

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