Tag Archives: Topic: Legislation

St. Petersburg Times: A bill to overhaul the state Supreme Court has run into steep resistance in the Florida Senate, raising doubts about whether the top priority of House Speaker Dean Cannon will pass this session.

Education News: Critics are protesting Ohio Governor John Kasich’s plan toexpand scholarships for students wanting to attend private schools at the same time as he’s cutting $1.8 billion in public school funding, Cincinnati.com reports.

Cutting off the $2 million could come at a high cost to the state. About $1.3 million of that is Medicaid family-planning money, which comes with a federal requirement that the state not pick and choose among providers. Federal officials declined to say what sanctions Indiana might face for doing so, but the Family and Social Services Administration has expressed concerns it would lose all $4 million of its Medicaid family-planning money. An attorney for the anti-abortion Alliance Defense Fund says past cases show that Indiana would not face penalties.

Providence Journal: State Rep. Peter Petrarca said on the floor of the state House of Representatives on Wednesday that he will introduce legislation as early as Thursday granting gay couples the right to “civil unions.”

St. Petersburg Times: The Senate passed two of the House’s antiabortion measures Thursday. Both were amended to allow exceptions in cases where the mother’s health is at risk. | HB 97 | HJR 117

LifeSiteNews: The Kansas Senate has passed a bill that will force abortion clinics to get in line with current hospital standards for outpatient surgical centers or face being shut down by the health department.

LifeNews: A move to strip funding for rape and incest abortions from the state employees’ health insurance plan failed by one vote Wednesday in the Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate.

AP: Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill Thursday allowing local communities to vote on whether to approve Sunday sales. Only Connecticut and Indiana still have statewide bans like the one Georgia is scrapping.

The Republican-controlled state legislature handed Daniels a huge victory Wednesday when the House voted 55-43 to give final approval to a bill creating the voucher program that would allow even middle-class families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools.

CFNews13.com: A house joint resolution that would ban public funding of abortion has passed in the Florida House of Representatives. CS/HJR 1179 passed by a vote of 82 to 3

St. Petersburg Times: With budget talks between the House and Senate strained, Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander extended an olive branch to House Speaker Dean Cannon on Monday: committee passage of Cannon’s overhaul of the Florida Supreme Court.

Unable to win passage of same-sex marriage legislation this year, Rhode Island’s openly gay House Speaker Gordon D. Fox has thrown his support to civil unions.

IndyStar.com: “An attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes abortion, issued a legal opinion Monday saying that cutting off funds to Planned Parenthood would not jeopardize Indiana’s Medicaid dollars.”

AP: Montana’s state House and Senate have passed a bill aimed at slashing the number of medical marijuana users and eliminating large pot businesses in the state.

LifeNews: HB 1970 requires that abortion providers dispense abortion-inducing drugs only in the way tested and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and outlined in the drug’s label.

WWLTV.com: State Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, is sponsoring a bill in the legislature that would ban abortion in the state.

LifeNews: “The House of Representatives may vote as early as next week on legislation that would institute a government-wide ban on any direct taxpayer funding of abortions in any federal departments or programs.”

Washington Post: While Democrats in Congress blocked Republicans from defunding Planned Parenthood earlier this month, some states have responded with their own measures to pull funding for the nonprofit. One such state is Indiana — putting to the test Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’s call for a truce on social issues.

Las Vegas Review Journal: Senate Bills 368 and 331, which would outlaw transgender discrimination in housing and public accommodations, were approved on votes of 13-8 and 11-10.

LifeNews: Abortion has become such a pervasive form of birth control that the nation is seeing worker and population shortages that are already beginning to take an economic toll. The nation’s Duma is considering legislation to address the problem.

LifeNews: The House Judiciary Subcommittee B will soon hold a hearing on the Woman’s Right to Know bill, H 854, that other states have passed and that has been proven to reduce abortions . . .

LifeNews: While the movement in the rest of the nation for revoking taxpayer funding of the Planned Parenthood abortion business is growing, lawmakers in Washington state are considering increasing taxpayer funding . . . On Tuesday, the Senate Ways and Means Committee will hold a public hearing on SB 5912 . . .

AP: The Senate budget approved by the Finance Committee spends $11 billion more than the House version, and members of the upper chamber seem unwilling to leave family planning drastically underfunded

Heritage Foundation: Last Thursday, the Indiana Senate approved what could become the nation’s largest school voucher program. If signed by Governor Mitch Daniels (R), the plan will allow children throughout the state to use a scholarship to attend a private school of their choice.

LifeNews: A bill to allow parents the ability to know when their minor daughters are considering an abortion is advancing in the New Hampshire legislature and is expected to eventually get to Governor Lynch’s desk.

Oregonian: In response to a Oregon Supreme Court ruling this year, the Oregon Senate voted today to make it a crime to view child pornography online for free. | Oregon v. Barger, No. CA A138678 (Ore. Jan 6, 2011) | Senate Bill 803

Texas Pastor’s Council: As pastors deeply involved in our communities, profoundly committed to the Biblical standards of justice and passionately dedicated to leading our congregations to be proactive in defending the sanctity of innocent human life, we urge the passage of CSHB 15. There is no legitimate question that every abortion involves the taking of an innocent human life without due process of law, nor that the collateral emotional and physical harm to women have devastated millions of lives. CSHB 15 is a basic, albeit limited measure which would do the following . . .

Texas Pastor’s Council: “A broad consensus of studies finds that divorce has serious negative lifelong psychological consequences for children, and costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually. A significant number of these divorces are avoidable. The goal of this Act is to reduce divorces where minor children are involved.”

AP on Findlaw: Two Republicans want to bar transgendered people from using proof of their sex change to get a Texas marriage license.

Center for Arizona Policy: As of this writing, 12 Center for Arizona Policy supported bills have been signed into law. Two more
measures achieved final passage.

Reuters: Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin on Wednesday signed into law a prohibition on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, making it the fourth state to ban such late term abortions.

Religion Clause Blog: “On Monday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1282 that provides no religious assembly or institution will be required to register as a political committee, so long as it does not spend a substantial amount of time or assets influencing legislation, or any referendum, initiative or constitutional amendment.”

LifeNews: The Indiana state Senate gave final approval to a bill that would cut off state taxpayer funding to the Planned Parenthood abortion business and ban abortions after 20 weeks based on the scientific evidence showing unborn babies feel pain.

Las Vegas Review Journal: “Members voted 29-13 for Assembly Bill 211, which would prevent discriminating against people based on their gender identity or expression.”

LifeNews: Two Texas pro-life groups disagree about whether a revised bill allowing women to see an ultrasound before an abortion is good enough to ask Texas lawmakers to support.

Greenwich Time: Legislation passed by the Alabama House to stop elective abortions at 20 weeks into a pregnancy is getting its first test in the Senate.

AP: et his name – and those of 12 other Jewish clergymen – is absent from monuments at Arlington National Cemetery that honor more than 240 other fallen military chaplains. A new congressional effort backed by Jewish groups and survivors of the chaplains aims to change that . . .

. . . It hardly bears observing here that most of these measures are against the law. That law is Roe v. Wade.

LifeSiteNews: Idaho is now officially the third U.S. state to have a law banning late-term abortion on the basis of fetal pain. Gov. Butch Otter on Thursday signed SB 1165 into law.

South Florida Gay News: “Mark my words, there will be litigation over this,” said Douglas Napier, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative religious rights organization.

East Valley Tribune: Siding with “family values,” Gov. Jan Brewer Monday signed legislation giving preference to married couples in adoption.

Baptist Press: The Tennessee House of Representatives is expected to vote soon on legislation to prevent local governments from enacting ordinances such as a controversial one approved by the Nashville City Council that protects employees based on their “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”

LifeNews: The Indiana state Senate today voted to end taxpayer funding of the Planned Parenthood abortion business less than a week after Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted down a House Republican measure yanking federal funding.

Washington Examiner: Dean Steven Goldschmid of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson says the bill jeopardizes the accreditation of the college’s obstetrics-gynecology residency program. Cathi Herrod of the Center for Arizona Policy denies that, saying the accreditation standard provides an exception for states where law bars public funding for abortions.

Christian Newswire (Georgia Right to Life): Thursday, April 14, marked the end of the annual forty-day legislative session of the Georgia General Assembly. It also marked a new low in the State House’s relationship with Georgia Right to Life and its prolife base. For the second year in a row, there was no prolife legislation enacted. In contrast, the Senate leadership has led by example and passed strong prolife bills each of the last four years.

AP: epublicans have moved quickly to convert November election gains to legislative advances in the states. A look at some GOP successes, and setbacks, in the first months of the new order . . .

Reuters: Idaho’s governor said on Thursday he signed into law a measure banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, making Idaho the third state to enact such a late term abortion prohibition.

LifeNews: Indiana Right to Life is applauding the Indiana Senate for passing a bill yesterday that would help ensure abortions are reported when done on teenage girls who are apparently victims of statutory rape.

David Hacker at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: In other words, the federal appeals court that has jurisdiction over Sen. Lautenberg’s home state of New Jersey, has already ruled that much of the language in his bill violates the First Amendment. Universities have enough trouble writing harassment policies that comply with the First Amendment. The Tyler Clementi Act doesn’t help.

Providence Journal: House Minority Leader Robert Watson, in a contentious exchange with Democratic leaders on the House floor Tuesday, called for full House vote on a bill that would allow gay couples to marry in Rhode Island, even offering to use his powers as the head of the chamber’s Republican caucus to do so.

AnnArbor.com: Wa[r]d lost in the lower courts, but Ward and her attorneys, the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal organization that works to uphold the rights of religious college students and faculty, have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District to step in.

AZ Republic: The Arizona Legislature has become the first in the nation to pass a measure requiring presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship in order to get on the state’s ballot. House Bill 2177 got final approval Thursday night . . .

AP on TBO: School districts would be authorized to allow students to pray at public high school and middle school events under legislation approved Thursday by the state Senate Education Committee.

LifeNews: The House of Representatives voted today for the Continuing Resolution funding the federal government that contains a ban on abortion funding in the nation’s capital. Lawmakers also supported efforts to de-fund Planned Parenthood.

“The state Senate has approved legislation that would require California’s public schools to include gay history in social studies lessons.”

ACLU: A landmark bill was introduced in the Senate today that would, for the first time, make workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity illegal in most workplaces. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was introduced by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Susan Collins (R-ME). A companion bill, introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), was formally introduced last week in the House.

Brad O’Leary at Townhall: The Obama administration is working with Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) to pass S. 679, the “Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act,” which would sharply curtail the number of presidential appointees that must be confirmed by the Senate.

Reuters: Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has signed two anti-abortion bills, including one that bans abortion after 21 weeks based on the view that a fetus can feel pain at that point, officials said Tuesday.

Chicago Tribune: “A measure to ensure faith-based groups could turn away committed same-sex couples who want to adopt children or provide foster homes failed in the Illinois Senate today.”

MPR News (includes audio): Two pieces of legislation that would make big changes in Minnesota’s abortion laws are making their way through the House and Senate. Committees in both chambers approved the abortion bills Tuesday. One measure would prohibit taxpayer-funded abortions, and the other would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

LifeNews: Pro-life advocates and sponsors of a North Dakota bill that would make it illegal to kill any unborn child are fuming after the measure was unexpectedly tabled Monday by a Republican senator.

LifeNews: The Georgia state House voted this week for an amendment to a bill that would ensure no taxpayer dollars can be used to pay for abortions under the state health care exchanges created under Obamacare.

LifeNews: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill that would end the use of a state income tax credit for charitable contributions to the Planned Parenthood Arizona abortion business. The legislation also stop taxpayer-funded abortion training at colleges.

LifeNews: Leading pro-life organizations are working furiously to generate as many calls and emails as possible to members of the House and Senate ahead of expected votes on Planned Parenthood funding and Obamacare.

East Valley Tribune: “Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed legislation designed to shield people from being disciplined professionally because of their religious views, at least in part over the issue of polygamy.”

Las Vegas Review Journal: Senate Commerce and Labor Committee members voted 4-3 for Senate Bill 331 that would make it unlawful for hotels and motels to discriminate on the basis of one’s gender . . . The committee also backed Senate Bill 368, which forbids discrimination through refusal to rent, lease or sell a home, apartment or property to a transgender person.

AP on CanadianBuisiness.com: A proposal that would void a Nashville ordinance barring companies that discriminate against gays and lesbians from doing business with the city is headed for a full House vote.

In a development that stunned LGBT advocates, the Maryland State Senate voted 27-20 on Monday to recommit the Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Act to committee, effectively killing the bill for the year.

. . . Republicans added more cuts in the long-term resolution as one section cuts funding to the pro-abortion UNFPA (United Nations Family Planning Agency) that has worked hand-in-hand with Chinese population control officials who have enforced the one-child rule with forced abortions and other human rights abuses.

Courier-Post Online (includes video): Alliance Defense Fund attorney Austin Nimocks warned that any civil unions bill would likely produce litigation, as such laws have elsewhere in the nation. He also warned that while the bill protects clergy from being forced to conduct civil-union ceremonies, it does not extend such protections to business owners and parachurch organizations.

AZ Republic: Arizona may become the first state in the nation to explicitly protect professionals from having their license or certification revoked because of their religious practices. The Legislature passed Senate Bill 1288, and Gov. Jan Brewer has until Saturday to sign it, veto it or do nothing and allow it to become law.

Eugene Volokh comments on Arizona’s new legislation at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Delmarva Now: Alliance Defense Fund attorney Austin Nimocks warned that any civil unions bill would likely produce litigation, as such laws have elsewhere in the nation. He also warned that while the bill protects clergy from being forced to conduct civil-union ceremonies, it does not extend such protections to business owners and parachurch organizations.

CTPost.com: The state Senate has approved a bill offering legal recognition to same-sex couples in Delaware.

NWI.com: A Senate-approved measure prohibiting schools from using state money to sue the state seeking more money is headed for a final vote in the Indiana House. The House Education Committee voted 11-0 Wednesday to send Senate Bill 495 to the full House.