lawsuit

The Alabama Legislature’s approved redistricting map includes a 7th Congressional District (left, colored tan) that is 50.65% Black and a 2nd Congressional District (right, in pink) that is about 40% Black. (Stew Milne/Alabama Reflector)

Alabama defying federal redistricting orders, plaintiffs say in new filing

BY: - September 19, 2023

Attorneys for plaintiffs challenging Alabama’s congressional maps Tuesday accused the state of defying federal court orders to draw a second opportunity district for Black voters. In a 51-page brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the attorneys asked the justices to reject a request from the state to stay a special master from drawing new […]

The "social section" in Crawford County Library's Van Buren branch (Screenshot from court documents)

Judge denies motions in suit over Arkansas county’s library practices

BY: - September 12, 2023

A lawsuit against Crawford County officials over the placement of library books with LGBTQ+ themes remained active Tuesday after a federal judge in Fayetteville denied motions from both the plaintiffs and the county. Crawford County residents and library patrons Rebecka Virden, Nina Prater, Samantha Rowlett and their minor children sued the county judge, quorum court, […]

Midwife Stephanie Mitchell speaks at the Mothers of Gynecology monument in Montgomery, Ala., in August 2023. Mitchell is trying to open a birth center in Alabama and has sued the state. Supporters say such centers could improve birth outcomes in the South, which has some of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the country. (Anna Claire Vollers/Stateline)

Hospitals block much-needed birth centers in the South

BY: - August 14, 2023

When Katie Chubb announced in 2021 she was planning to open a freestanding birth center in Augusta, Georgia, it seemed like everybody in town was excited about it. She met with local physicians and nurses who said they would welcome her Augusta Birth Center as a provider of midwifery services for low-risk pregnancies. Hundreds of […]

A stressed patient confers with a doctor.

Advocacy groups file lawsuit against Idaho’s ‘abortion trafficking’ law

BY: - July 11, 2023

Several advocacy organizations and a civil rights attorney filed a lawsuit against Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office Tuesday alleging a law that criminalizes the act of transporting minors across state lines to obtain an abortion violates constitutionally protected rights and is too vague to be enforceable. The federal lawsuit asks the Idaho U.S. District […]

“Trans people are divine,” reads a sign at a Nashville event hosted by clergy on Feb. 6, 2023. (John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Federal court temporarily halts Tennessee ban on transgender care for minors

BY: - June 29, 2023

In a partial victory for transgender Tennesseans, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday on portions of new law prohibiting trans minors from obtaining gender affirming care, ruling the law likely violates the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Judge Eli Richardson granted the injunction to the plaintiffs — among them, parents […]

COMMENTARY

What emergency? Rushing through education overhaul landed Arkansas in a mess

BY: - June 2, 2023

The state finds itself in a quandary of its own making as the Arkansas Supreme Court considers arguments for and against blocking enforcement of the Sanders administration’s signature education overhaul law. All of this legal wrangling could have been avoided had the Sanders administration not been so hellbent on getting its complicated overhaul of Arkansas’ […]

COMMENTARY
The State Board of Education held a public meeting at the Marvell-Elaine School District in Marvell Thursday morning, April 13, 2023. Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner with the Arkansas Department of Education, back to camera, presented various options available to the board concerning the disposition of the beleaguered school district. (John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)

LEARNS lawsuit “aims to protect our school district”

BY: - May 31, 2023

My name is Laverne Sims, chair of the group Concerned Citizens of the Marvell Area. I am writing to dispel some of the rumors, misinformation and propaganda that our state leaders are spreading about our lawsuit against the state concerning the plan to sell our school district to a charter-school management company. I was a […]

Close-up Of A Woman's Hand Taking Medicine Over Wooden Desk

Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation

BY: and - May 22, 2023

America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination […]

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (center) rejects allegations that she has refused to remove dead voters from the rolls. She's seen here on Jan. 6, 2023, receiving a Presidential Citizens Medal from President Joe Biden. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

A GOP claim that Michigan purposely tried to encourage voter fraud doesn’t fit with facts

BY: - May 5, 2023

Republicans at a recent congressional hearing accused Michigan’s chief election official of deliberately leaving tens of thousands of dead voters on the rolls in order to encourage illegal voting. Even at a time of intense partisan conflict over election policies, it was a strikingly direct charge against a sitting official — and one made not […]

What abortion foes have been up to in the year after Dobbs draft leak

BY: - May 2, 2023

Anti-abortion leaders could not stop paraphrasing Winston Churchill last June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a victory that took 50 years to realize.  “While we celebrate the momentous ruling in Dobbs, we must remember that overturning Roe was not the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the […]

Anti-abortion organizations urge U.S. Supreme Court to keep limits on abortion pill

BY: - April 18, 2023

WASHINGTON — Anti-abortion medical organizations on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to maintain a lower court ruling that would push prescribing and administration of the abortion pill back to pre-2016 instructions, ending mail orders, while an ongoing legal case works through the appeals process.  Meanwhile, more members of Congress lined up on either side […]

Abortion Law book on copy of Preamble. Gavel and stethoscope.

Washington FDA lawsuit is part of larger strategy to preserve abortion access 

BY: - April 17, 2023

As the nation grapples with continuing changes in court rulings affecting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a drug used in abortion care, Washington state’s competing lawsuit and other offensive and defensive moves related to abortion are working exactly as officials and advocates say they intended. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office filed […]