Tag Archives: State: Arkansas

AP: A federal judge granted a request Friday to temporarily block enforcement of a new Arkansas law that bans most abortions 12 weeks into a pregnancy. | Edwards v. Beck, No. 4:13-cv-00224-SWW (E.D. Ark.)

Liberty Counsel: Today the State of Arkansas defended the Human Heartbeat Protection Act against an ACLU motion for a preliminary injunction. Liberty Counsel is seeking to intervene on behalf of a crisis pregnancy center and also filed an amicus brief on behalf of the law.

Bloomberg: U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock in a ruling yesterday denied a request by the state’s attorney general to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge said the two doctors have standing to sue even though the law hasn’t gone into effect and they have sufficiently alleged the law infringes women’s constitutional rights.

Christian Post: Debate over prayer in school made headlines again, this time in the Riverside School District in Lake City, Ark. Its school board voted on Monday to cancel its sixth grade ceremony rather than to allow prayer to be a part of the ceremony.

THV (AP): Opponents of Arkansas’ law banning most abortions 12 weeks into a pregnancy say a group that wants to help defend the restriction shouldn’t participate in a hearing next week.

Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Fox 19: The Riverside School district has decided not to have a 6th grade graduation this year after a parent protested against prayer during the ceremony.

AP: Arkansas’ plan to use federal money to buy private insurance for low-income residents won final approval from state lawmakers Wednesday, endorsing a model that several other states are eyeing as a possible alternative to expanding Medicaid.

ABC (AP): The new law bans most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward. The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday says that ban is unconstitutional and seeks to block the law from taking effect this summer. | Complaint Edwards v. Beck (E.D. Ark., Apr. 16, 2013)

Reuters: Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, has not said whether he would sign the bill. But the Arkansas legislature last month overrode his veto of two previous bills placing new restrictions on abortions, including one to ban most abortions from being performed after the 12th week of pregnancy.

5 News Online: I am opposed to gay marriage,” he said in an e-mail. “In the interview with KFSM done on April 5, I also discussed whether gay couples should receive benefits if they work for the federal government. On the benefits issue, I said to ‘put me down in the undecided category.

AP: Rival legal teams, well-financed and highly motivated, are girding for court battles over the coming months on laws enacted in Arkansas and North Dakota that would impose the nation’s toughest bans on abortion.

NPR audio: In North Dakota, voters will decide next year whether to approve a constitutional amendment saying life begins at conception. A number of other bills in that state await the governor’s signature including one that prohibits abortion if a fetal heartbeat is present at about six weeks. In Arkansas, a ban at 12 weeks passed earlier this month. Abortion opponents hope to get one of those laws before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Economist: “The new paradigm of the pro-life movement”, explained Dan Becker, president of Georgia Right-to-Life, “is all about introducing tension into the law…We have different courts ruling in different ways, which is a surefire way to challenge Roe.”

Politico: Abortion rights groups are gearing up for a legal fight against Arkansas’s new law banning abortions after 12 weeks, the most restrictive early abortion ban in the nation.

David Crary at Bay News 9 (AP): “Anti-abortion groups divided over legal tactics”
Steve Aden, who helps oversee abortion issues for the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, suggested that the 20-week bans had a better chance of reaching the high court than measures such as the heartbeat bill or the new Arkansas ban. However, he said the entire swath of bills conveyed a common message. “What they demonstrate,” he said, “is that there’s a tidal wave of sentiment at the grass-roots level that abortion is unconscionable and that states should do their utmost in restricting it.”

LifeNews: The Republican House voted 56-33 on Wednesday to override after the state Senate voted yesterday to do the same thing. The bill arrived on Beebe’s desk after clearing the Senate, 26-8, and the House, 68-20.

Washington Post: The Arkansas legislature has the votes to override a governor’s veto, and become the first state to ban abortions after as early as 12 weeks of pregnancy.

LifeNews: The Arkansas state Senate has voted to override Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto of legislation that would ban abortions at 12 weeks of pregnancy if a fetal heartbeat can be detected via ultrasound.

AP: The legislation would ban the procedure at 12 weeks if a fetal heartbeat is detected using an abdominal ultrasound. The Democratic governor’s veto come less than a week after the state enacted a 20-week ban.

AP: The law took effect immediately after the Republican-led Senate voted 19-14 on Thursday to override the Democratic governor’s veto.

Arkansas Matters: The Arkansas House has voted to override Governor Mike Beebe’s Tuesday veto of the 20-week abortion ban bill.

NWA Online: Gov. Mike Beebe on Tuesday vetoed House Bill 1037, which would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of gestation.

World Net Daily: They’re targeting 12 key states: Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Alaska, Arkansas, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia. The strategy was profiled Monday by David Brody of CBN News. Brody said the groups – led by the American Renewal Project – are planning briefings for evangelical pastors, voter-registration drives and other events in an attempt “to restore American to its Judeo-Christian heritage.”

TodaysTHV.com: The Arkansas Legislature on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill banning most abortions at 20 weeks into a pregnancy.

LifeNews: After the state House voted for the same bill earlier this month, the state Senate voted today to ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the science showing unborn children feel pain at that point.

Religion Clause Blog: The Conway, Arkansas Log Cabin Democrat reports that yesterday the Conway school board approved a policy that will allow youth ministers back on school campuses, after their lunch hour visits with students were temporarily suspended in reaction to a complaint by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

San Francisco Chronicle (AP): Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said Thursday he’ll sign into law legislation prohibiting insurers from covering most abortions in an exchange created under the federal health care law, as lawmakers advanced a separate measure banning the procedure 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

LifeNews: The Arkansas state House on Monday voted to approve a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the science showing unborn children feel pain at that point.

TodaysHV.com: Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe says his office’s preliminary research suggests a proposal to ban most abortions in the state is unconstitutional but isn’t ready to say whether he opposes the legislation.

LifeNews: The Arkansas Senate voted today for a bill that would ban virtually all abortions in the state. The measure would ban abortions at the point when a unborn child’s heart starts to beat.

TodaysTHV.com: An Arkansas Senate panel has advanced legislation that would ban abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected, a move that would ban the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Newsmax: Murry said the district has hired Liberty Institute, a law firm that handles religious liberty cases, to help with the complaint and to investigation the issues regarding equal access for visitors to the school.

Arkansas Matters: A new state bill would allow Arkansas public schools to add a curriculum to study the Bible. The bill has been shot down before, but many residents hope it passes this time.

Arkansas Times: The Arkansas affiliate of the ACLU has announced its opposition to a proposed $300,000 contract between the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock and the Union Rescue Mission to operate the city’s day center for the homeless, soon to open in a building acquired from Union Rescue on Confederate Boulevard. The ACLU said taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to pay a staff that will be hired in a way that discriminates on the basis of religion.

Matt Sharp appeared on Robert Mangino on KDKA Pittsburgh to discuss this. | MP3 audio 15:41 mins

Ed News: Prospective teachers in three southern states paid stand-ins to take their licensing exams, according to a federal investigation that uncovered 15 years of mass fraud in the public school licensing system.

TodaysTHV.com: Arkansans for Equality is working on a 2014 measure that would repeal the 2004 Arkansas amendment that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The Arkansas Initiative for Marriage Equality hopes to legalize gay marriage in 2016.

The Commercial Appeal: Abortion opponents in Arkansas see an opportunity to enact new restrictions, including a ban on the use of telemedicine to make the abortion pill available, with Republicans controlling both sides of the Legislature in next year’s session.

The Courier: The X-Mart Adult Superstore in Clarksville can challenge the validity and constitutionality of that city’s ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. | 40 Retail Corporation v. City of Clarkville

TNR.com: But the contest in question is anything but. While Republicans have slowly gained control of state legislative bodies across the South, only one Southern state has maintained a legislature fully controlled by the once-dominant Democrats. In November, however, the Arkansas Republican Party—after decades of haplessness—may well take control of the General Assembly. The tight race explains why Koch bothers money is flowing into a measly local legislative election.

How Appealing links to a report and the ruling.

The AP reports on the situation in Arkansas.

CBSNews: A campaign funded by a Hot Springs horse track asked the Arkansas Supreme Court on Tuesday to block a proposed ballot measure that would give a professional poker player the exclusive right to operate casinos in the state.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging the Willow Springs Water Park in Little Rock, Ark., to discontinue a church discount next season.

AP: In a split decision, the high court sided with 10 death row inmates who argued that, under Arkansas’ constitution, only the Legislature can set execution policy.

Fox News: A federal judge on Friday struck down an Arkansas school choice law, saying race couldn’t be the only factor considered in deciding whether students could transfer between districts. | Arkansas Times: The state Board of Education was defendant in this case, along with Magnet Cove. Here’s the 32-page ruling.

The Hill: Four in ten Democratic voters chose someone other than President Obama on Tuesday in primaries in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Washington Post: And a recent independent poll showed Obama running just seven points ahead of Wolfe in the southern Arkansas 4th district, which covers one-quarter of the state.

MySanAntonio.com: A judge ruled that a Fayetteville woman’s lawsuit can proceed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, in which she claims the diocese knew or should have known about a sexual relationship she was lured into by a priest.

The Republic (AP): Harris said he forwarded the proposed rules to his attorney, Joel Oster of the Alliance Defense Fund, and will decide how to proceed after consulting with him.

ParagouldDailyPress.com: Noble said he had not responded to the letters pending legal advice. He said the Rutherford Institute and Liberty Counsel had volunteered to help the school district in the matter and the Alliance Defense Fund had sent a list of court cases that might be applicable to the situation.

Personhood USA: Personhood Arkansas has resubmitted a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to life of all human beings

OneNewsNow.com: Personhood Arkansas has been blocked by the state attorney general’s office in its effort to take a proposed constitutional amendment to voters.

Arkansas News: A group pushing for an amendment to the state constitution that would ban abortion in Arkansas says it has submitted proposed ballot language to the state attorney general. If Attorney General Dustin McDaniel approves the language, the group Personhood Arkansas would have until July 6 to collect 78,133 signatures to place the measure on the November 2012 ballot.

KUAR.org: The American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas is taking issue with a nativity scene displayed in a Paragould primary school. In a follow up to a story we brought you earlier in the week, the ACLU’s director Rita Sklar says although she wants to avoid a lawsuit, the school must obey the constitution.

The Republic (AP): Harris, R-West Fork, has said he thought religious displays are permitted if paid for with private money. Harris said he met Tuesday with a lawyer from the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which works to preserve religious freedom. The attorney is planning to meet with state officials, Harris said

LifeSiteNews.com: The national movement to constitutionally define an unborn baby as a person is now gaining traction in Arkansas, and may appear on the November 2012 ballot.

Arkansas News: Two Arkansas state legislators who own state-funded preschools say their schools include religious instruction in the curriculum but are not violating any state or federal law by doing so.

The Republic (AP): Harris said the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit Christian advocacy group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that handles cases related to the First Amendment’s freedom of religious exercise clause, will represent Growing God’s Kingdom if the school needs legal counsel.

Reuters: Arkansans shopped until they dropped on Saturday, braving temperatures deep into the triple-digits to take advantage of the state’s first sales tax holiday weekend.

LifeNews.com: n June, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (PPH), a large and very aggressive affiliate, announced it would be opening a dozen new facilities in Iowa and Nebraska in addition to the abortion clinics it already operated in these Midwestern states.

AP: “Parents and teachers have launched a scholarship program that goes beyond offering money for college.”

The Blog of Legal Times: The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to move ahead with five of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, including two for the high-profile U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arkansas sent letters today to the Little Rock School District and eStem Public Charter Schools demanding that the schools cease viewpoint-based censorship of web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities. The organization has sent demand letters to school districts across the country as part of the organization’s national “Don’t Filter Me” initiative, which seeks to combat illegal censorship of pro-LGBT information on public school computer systems.

New American: . . . Babione said the court’s decision tells individuals that “you can go shack up with your boyfriend or girlfriend and that if you decide that you want to play house and have kids, the state has to allow you to come in and seek a child.” He added that it is “mind-boggling that we’ve come to a point in our society where you have a state Supreme Court basically saying that adult sexual desires and wants are the chief end of civil government at the expense of the best interests of children.”

Harvard Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review: The ACLU brought the suit on behalf of a group of families, while the Alliance Defense Fund, an alliance of Christian lawyers, defended the law in court.

Michael Foust at Baptist Press: “This can impact other states, and I am sure courts will take notice,” Byron Babione, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, told Baptist Press. ADF represented the Arkansas Family Council Action Committee, Act 1′s sponsor. “There is no doubt a political movement afoot to undermine and destroy marriage as we know it, and to eradicate protections that are in place for children when those protections conflict with adult sexual desires…. This lawsuit was part of a campaign to place adult wants and desires over the best interests of children.”

Wall Street Journal: The Alliance Defense Fund, an alliance of Christian lawyers, defended the Arkansas law in court. The Law Blog caught up with ADF attorney Byron Babione. “The court placed adult sexual acts above the best interests of children,” he said. The court “essentially nullified and vetoed the will of the people of Arkansas who raise families and understand what is best for children and know that children should be placed in homes with married mothers and fathers, which is supported by social science,” he said.

LifeSiteNews: The needs of children outweigh the wants of adults. The court’s decision tragically places more importance on the sexual interests of adults than on protecting children,” said Byron Babione, Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF was representing the Family Council Action Committee, which fought to get Act 1 on the ballot and approved in 2008. “The people of Arkansas believe that children deserve the most safe and stable home possible. They cast their ballots to ensure that children wouldn’t be deprived of the best possible family environment and decisively approved Act 1 for that purpose only, but the court struck down the people’s will anyway,” Babione said.

Washington Times: Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Byron Babione, who defended Act 1 on behalf of its sponsor Family Council Action Committee, said the high court’s ruling “tragically places more importance on the sexual interests of adults than on protecting children.”

Christianity Today: FCAC was represented by Byron Babione, an Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney. “The court’s decision tragically places more importance on the sexual interests of adults than on protecting children,” Babione said. “The people of Arkansas believe that children deserve the most safe and stable home possible. They cast their ballots to ensure that children wouldn’t be deprived of the best possible family environment and decisively approved Act 1 for that purpose only, but the court struck down the people’s will anyway.”

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled Thursday against Arkansas Act 1, a voter-approved law designed to protect adopted and foster children.

“This is a classic example of judicial tyranny,” said Family Council Action Committee President Jerry Cox.

The Arkansas Constitution was interpreted in Jegley v. Picado (2002) as securing a right to privacy, included in which is protection of “private, consensual, noncommercial acts of sexual intimacy between adults.”