While many families are happily moving to Florida for warmer weather and looser pandemic restrictions, many LGBTQ families feel otherwise and are considering leaving the state due to discrimination.

Take Robby Price, for example.

Price and Jordan Letschert, or Papa and Dada to their son, Kellan, were married seven years ago at Historic Spanish Point in Osprey a few miles south of downtown Sarasota. The couple has been together for 12 years and became parents via surrogacy.

Their son is why the family finally decided to make the life-changing decision to move from Sarasota, Letschert’s hometown, to Denver, they told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, part of the USA TODAY network.

Kansas voters shocked the nation last year when they overwhelmingly rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have said there is no fundamental right to an abortion. But that hasn’t stopped Kansas Republicans from opening the 2023 legislative session by trying to further curtail abortion access anyway.

Just after the Republican-controlled state legislature convened last week, GOP leaders laid out an agenda that included additional restrictions on abortion and more funding for crisis pregnancy centers, which operate to dissuade people from getting abortions. They also identified the Kansas Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt, which established a right to an abortion in the state constitution, as a key target.

They didn’t offer any details on what the additional abortion restrictions might be; the Kansas GOP and leadership in both legislative chambers did not respond to requests for comment. But abortion advocates are anticipating everything from a ban on abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy to more restrictions on abortion providers and abortion services offered via telemedicine.

Kansas already has some of the toughest restrictions nationwide short of an outright ban. Abortion currently remains legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy and, after that, only in cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk. There are also a host of other restrictions on the procedure, including parental consent requirements for minors and restrictions on insurance coverage. Still, it’s become a regional haven for those living in nearby states with even more restrictive policies.

Though some national Republicans called the results of last year’s referendum in Kansas a “wake-up call” at the time, it doesn’t seem like the Kansas GOP has seen it as such. Rather, Republicans in the state are digging in their heels, despite the fact that Kansans voted 59 to 41 percent to save their abortion rights.

With pharmacies in some states preparing to dispense abortion pills, Florida’s Agency for Healthcare Administration sent a letter Thursday to all state healthcare providers warning them that do so in Florida is illegal.

“The Agency issues this alert to remind providers that they must continue to comply with Florida laws that govern the performance of abortions,” the Florida agency said via an email.

The warning follows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s early January decision allowing retail pharmacies to stock and dispense abortion pills in states that allow the procedure.

Pharmacy chains including Walgreens and CVS both said they plan to get certified to dispense the abortion pill mifepristone in states where allowed. Mifepristone can be used to end an intrauterine pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation. It recently became the most common method of terminating a pregnancy in the United States.

Until now, pregnant women could either receive the pill directly from their doctor or have it prescribed via telemedicine and sent by mail, depending on their state’s laws. Pharmacies were not included in the process.

Jan. 13—HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Friday denied the lawsuit filed by House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler who sought to prevent two of three special legislative elections from occurring next month in Allegheny County, as scheduled by the chamber's Democratic leader, Rep. Joanna McClinton.

The court decision allows county election officials to continue preparations for elections on Feb. 7 to fill vacancies in the 32nd, 34th and 35th legislative districts. All three districts favor Democrats and the outcome could settle which party has majority membership.

Judge Michael Wojcik, in his order issued Friday, sided with McClinton's legal argument that Cutler's claims were political questions, not legal questions, with respect to which party leader had the constitutional authority to order special elections.

"Specifically, (Cutler) has failed to prove, inter alia (among other things), that he has a clear right to the relief he seeks, that he will suffer immediate and irreparable harm without the preliminary injunction, and that the preliminary injunction will not adversely affect the public interest," Wojcik wrote in his order.

CVS Health is facing another lawsuit brought by a former employee who claims the pharmacy chain's decision to fire her after she refused to prescribe birth control to patients violated her religious rights under federal law. J. Robyn Strader, a nurse practitioner and Texas resident, worked at a CVS MinuteClinic for six and a half years, according to the lawsuit, which she filed through her attorney in U.S. district court in Forth Worth on Wednesday.

The complaint alleges that CVS terminated Strader's employment illegally, arguing that the company's decision dismissed protections outlined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The provision, passed as part of a broader package of landmark legislation in 1964, prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. One section of Title VII specifically notes that "[t]he term 'religion' includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business."

Strader claims in the new lawsuit that her Christian faith prevented her from prescribing contraceptive or abortion-inducing drugs to patients at the CVS where she worked. For the majority of Strader's tenure there, she says CVS granted her a religious accommodation that allowed her to personally reject patients' requests for those prescriptions and instead refer them to a colleague or a different MinuteClinic. But, in August 2021, CVS Health revoked a previous policy regarding religious accommodations that ensured all employees' needs would be met, the suit says.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we live in Florida, once the nation’s largest battleground state, and not in South Dakota or some other solid red state where one party doesn’t even bother competing.

That’s a harsh assessment of the state of the Florida Democratic Party, but it’s rooted in recent history. A decade ago, Democrats carried the state in a presidential election for the second time. Then came the disastrous 2022 midterm elections and, now, the resignation this week of party Chair Manny Diaz, who had been under pressure to leave.

Florida, in fact is under one-party rule by Republicans. Money from national Democratic donors has dried up and redirected to states such as Arizona and Georgia. There are no Democrats elected statewide since Nikki Fried left the Department of Agriculture to challenge Charlie Crist in the Democratic primary for governor.

Diaz, a former Miami mayor, led the party during its most humiliating performance in recent years. Even before he became chair after another bad year for the party, the 2020 elections, Democrats had been warning that lackadaisical voter-registration efforts and community engagement would doom them in the Sunshine State.

It’s safe to assume that the GOP’s grip on the state — built over the past two decades — will be in place for years. In politics, as in life, you reap what you sow. That’s not to say, however, that Florida is completely out of reach for Democrats. They can, for example, improve their performance with Hispanic voters and regain Miami-Dade County, both of which the GOP flipped in 2022.

Democrats face a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. Without cash, they cannot beef up party apparatus. Without showing they can achieve results, the cash won’t flow. There are no miracle workers who can save the Florida Democratic Party. Progress, if it can be achieved, will happen more slowly than many party faithful demand.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we live in Florida, once the nation’s largest battleground state, and not in South Dakota or some other solid red state where one party doesn’t even bother competing.

That’s a harsh assessment of the state of the Florida Democratic Party, but it’s rooted in recent history. A decade ago, Democrats carried the state in a presidential election for the second time. Then came the disastrous 2022 midterm elections and, now, the resignation this week of party Chair Manny Diaz, who had been under pressure to leave.

Florida, in fact is under one-party rule by Republicans. Money from national Democratic donors has dried up and redirected to states such as Arizona and Georgia. There are no Democrats elected statewide since Nikki Fried left the Department of Agriculture to challenge Charlie Crist in the Democratic primary for governor.

Diaz, a former Miami mayor, led the party during its most humiliating performance in recent years. Even before he became chair after another bad year for the party, the 2020 elections, Democrats had been warning that lackadaisical voter-registration efforts and community engagement would doom them in the Sunshine State.

It’s safe to assume that the GOP’s grip on the state — built over the past two decades — will be in place for years. In politics, as in life, you reap what you sow. That’s not to say, however, that Florida is completely out of reach for Democrats. They can, for example, improve their performance with Hispanic voters and regain Miami-Dade County, both of which the GOP flipped in 2022.

Democrats face a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. Without cash, they cannot beef up party apparatus. Without showing they can achieve results, the cash won’t flow. There are no miracle workers who can save the Florida Democratic Party. Progress, if it can be achieved, will happen more slowly than many party faithful demand.

A Leon County Circuit Court judge on Friday refused to dismiss a lawsuit against Ron DeSantis brought by a North Miami Beach state senator who has accused Florida’s governor of illegally using taxpayer funds to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts last September.

Judge John C. Cooper set a Jan. 30 trial date to hear the constitutional challenge brought by Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat who is suing in his capacity as a private citizen. Cooper rejected attempts by DeSantis’ lawyers to dismiss the case, although he did agree to release Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis as a defendant.

Pizzo argues that the 2022-23 state appropriations bill that financed the controversial flights improperly used the budget to create a substantial new program instead of authorizing it through a separate law. Under long-standing principles of the Florida Constitution, substantial policies and programs must be first authorized in a separate law so that they can be widely discussed and reviewed by lawmakers.

A new Kentucky Supreme Court is charged with issuing a ruling in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s abortion bans.

Though oral arguments took place November 15 in a case brought by the state’s two outpatient abortion clinics challenging the constitutionality of two restrictive abortion laws, the previous court did not issue a ruling in the case before its two new members were sworn in this week. Kentucky’s trigger law criminalizes abortion except in medical emergencies, and a six-week ban prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The question before the high court, spurred by a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center, is whether to reinstate a lower court’s injunction that temporarily blocked both laws from enforcement. Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office has urged the high court not to do so.

In other words, the state Supreme Court is poised to decide whether to temporarily suspend one or both laws as the case winds through court — which would restore some amount of abortion access — or leave the laws in place.

In a Tuesday investiture in the court’s chambers at the Kentucky Capitol, Justice Angela McCormick Bisig was sworn in to replace outgoing Deputy Chief Justice Lisabeth Hughes, who retired after serving more than 15 years on the high court. Retiring Chief Justice John Minton is succeeded by Kelly Thompson, who took his oath on Wednesday. Justice Laurence VanMeter, who was already on the court, was sworn in as chief justice on Monday.

Abortion advocates had a tough 2022. Roe v. Wade was overturned in the summer, and southern states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama banned abortion entirely. Georgia and South Carolina banned abortions after six weeks (although South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled against that law last week). For some people, North Carolina’s handful of abortion clinics are the only option.

2023 could be just as perilous. The North Carolina House of Representatives is one seat from a Republican supermajority, which means the GOP just needs to flip a single vote to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto power. Republicans have that supermajority in the N.C. Senate, as well as a majority on the NC Supreme Court and the NC Appellate Court after the 2022 midterms.

For Democrats, that means every vote matters — especially when it comes to abortion. But it’s wrong to assume that all Democrats are on board with abortion rights.

Since 2019 in North Carolina, there have been two abortion bills — 2019’s Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and 2021’s Human Life Nondiscrimination Act — that have made it all the way to the governor’s desk, where they were promptly vetoed. When the 2019 bill initally passed, two Democratic senators and four Democratic representatives sided with Republicans. In 2021, six Democratic state representatives voted for the Human Life Nondiscrimination Act.

Only three of those six Democrat won re-election in 2022 — Reps. Garland Pierce, Amos Quick, and Michael Wray. Of these three, multiple sources within the General Assembly told me that Pierce and Wray are two to keep an eye on with future abortion bills. (Quick’s name did not come up).