TALLAHASSEE — Supporters of a Florida amendment that would protect abortion access have already passed several hurdles, including getting nearly one million petitions and a signoff from the state’s conservative Supreme Court.

But getting 60% of Florida voters to approve the amendment in November will likely still not be the last challenge.

Florida’s lawmakers have a history of watering down amendments they don’t support. And with Gov. Ron DeSantis and top Florida lawmakers in opposition to the abortion measure, it’s not out of the question that the Legislature might try.

And it’s not the only amendment Florida lawmakers disapprove of; Florida voters in November will also decide if they want recreational marijuana legalized, which DeSantis and others have opposed.

“(Lawmakers) actually have this really sophisticated set of countermeasures for how to respond to initiatives that they don’t like,” said Jonathan Marshfield, a professor of state constitutional law at the University of Florida’s law school.

Outside advocacy groups that oppose the amendments could also file court challenges that target how the amendments are carried out, which could bring the cases back in front of the state Supreme Court.

TALLAHASSEE — Supporters of a Florida amendment that would protect abortion access have already passed several hurdles, including getting nearly one million petitions and a signoff from the state’s conservative Supreme Court.

But getting 60% of Florida voters to approve the amendment in November will likely still not be the last challenge.

Florida’s lawmakers have a history of watering down amendments they don’t support. And with Gov. Ron DeSantis and top Florida lawmakers in opposition to the abortion measure, it’s not out of the question that the Legislature might try.

And it’s not the only amendment Florida lawmakers disapprove of; Florida voters in November will also decide if they want recreational marijuana legalized, which DeSantis and others have opposed.

“(Lawmakers) actually have this really sophisticated set of countermeasures for how to respond to initiatives that they don’t like,” said Jonathan Marshfield, a professor of state constitutional law at the University of Florida’s law school.

Outside advocacy groups that oppose the amendments could also file court challenges that target how the amendments are carried out, which could bring the cases back in front of the state Supreme Court.

The state of Texas is suing the Biden administration over recently announced federal protections for LGBTQ+ students, arguing the Department of Education overstepped its authority by expanding the scope of a landmark anti-sex discrimination law.

The lawsuit brought Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was filed at a courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, in a move that guaranteed its assignment to a conservative judge who has a history of issuing nationwide injunctions against federal policies, with his most notable ruling coming last year in a major abortion case that is now before the Supreme Court.

Paxton is asking US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to block the Biden administration from enforcing changes to Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal aid.

The lawsuit claims that the Biden administration violated federal rulemaking procedures when it went through the process for issuing the new rule.

Among other things, the new federal rule aims to curb discrimination “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” according to the department. The rule is set to take effect in August.

Florida is continuing to “callously” strip healthcare coverage from thousands of children in lower-income households in defiance of a new federal law intended to protect them.

Since 1 January, more than 22,500 children have been disenrolled from Florida KidCare, its version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip) that is jointly subsidized by states and the US government for families with earnings just above the threshold for Medicaid.

Florida healthcare officials admit at least some were removed for non-payment of premiums, an action prohibited by the “continuous eligibility” clause of the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act that took effect at the beginning of this year. The clause secures 12 months of cover if at least one premium payment is made.

Last week, the administration of the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, challenged the rule in federal court in Tampa, arguing it makes Chip an entitlement program that illegally overrides a state law requiring monthly payment of premiums.

But it has chosen not to wait for a ruling before continuing to separate children from coverage. Figures from the Florida Health Justice Project show there were 5,552 removals in the month to 1 April, following 5,097 in March, 5,147 in February, and 6,780 in January.

Steven Spielberg is working with President Joe Biden's re-election campaign to provide strategy for the Democratic National Convention, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News on Friday.

Spielberg, a longtime supporter of Biden, has already actively participated in meetings with convention organizers for the August event, the source said. He does not currently have plans to create a film portion for this summer’s events, according to the source, though he did produce a film for then-President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008.

Puck first reported on Spielberg's involvement.

The famed director previously appeared at a Biden campaign fundraiser in the Los Angeles area in December that included Barbra Streisand, director Rob Reiner, recording industry magnate David Geffen and others.

Spielberg’s friend and former DreamWorks business partner Jeffrey Katzenberg is also a co-chair of the Biden campaign. Katzenberg also hosted a fundraising meeting at his home during the campaign's December push in the greater Los Angeles area.

State Representative Matt Gress, a Republican in a moderate slice of Phoenix, was in line at his neighborhood coffee shop on Thursday when a customer stopped and thanked him for voting to repeal an 1864 law that bans abortion in Arizona.

“I know you’re taking some heat,” he told Mr. Gress.

More than some.

Shortly after the repeal bill squeaked through the Arizona House on Wednesday with support from every Democrat, as well as Mr. Gress and two other Republicans, anti-abortion activists denounced Mr. Gress on social media as a baby killer, coward and traitor. The Republican House speaker booted Mr. Gress off a spending committee. And some Democrats dismissed his stance as a bid to appease swing voters furious over the ban during an election year.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gress said that he was trying to chart a middle path through a wrenching debate over abortion that has consumed Arizona politics in the two weeks since the State Supreme Court revived the Civil War-era ban.

“There are extremes on both ends here,” he said. “To go from abortion being legal and constitutionally protected to nearly a complete ban overnight is not something that the electorate is going to be OK with.”

David Mack
@davidmackau

first time i’ve seen one of these. are the democrats….learning???

During Wednesday’s Supreme Court arguments over life-saving abortions in emergency rooms, a few things became clear: The male justices are unconcerned by women’s suffering, and Justice Samuel Alito thinks there aren’t enough abortion restrictions across the U.S.—but if you press him on that point, you’re the ridiculous one.

The case, United States v. Idaho, is about whether emergency rooms in Idaho—a state that bans all abortions except those done to prevent death, not to preserve health—are in violation of a federal law that requires E.R. patients to be stabilized. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, says hospitals that accept Medicare funding have to stabilize patients facing threats to their health, and for pregnant patients facing complications, the treatment is sometimes abortion.

But this is not a normal case: Idaho is represented in part by Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, a far-right legal activist group that is pushing for nationwide restrictions, including a national abortion ban. Idaho and ADF argued in case briefs and before the court that a fetus is a separate patient under EMTALA and deserves equal treatment in E.R.s. This is a fetal personhood argument, and if it’s taken to its logical endpoint, it would lead to a ban on all abortions nationwide, the end of IVF as we know it (see: Alabama), and restrictions on certain forms of birth control. In practice, women whose water breaks too early could be forced on bed rest to try to save the fetus, or given C-sections against their will. The latter is already happening, and in fact, happened even before Dobbs.

During arguments, some of the male justices seemed content to talk about whether EMTALA’s funding conditions are an appropriate use of the Constitution’s spending clause, while the women were focusing on the medical harm Idaho’s law has caused to living, breathing women. Late in the argument, Alito—who wrote the majority opinion in Dobbs that allows laws like Idaho’s to be enforced—was upset that not enough time had been devoted to the existence of the words “unborn child” in the law about emergency room care.

If Nebraska Republicans revise their state’s method of awarding presidential electors to help Donald Trump in November, Maine might match the change to boost President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects.

Nebraska’s governor, Jim Pillen, has said he’s open to calling a special legislative session to push through the change, but only if he’s sure it will pass. It isn’t clear whether the idea has enough support.

But Democrats are concerned.

“If Nebraska’s Republican Governor and Republican-controlled Legislature were to change their electoral system this late in the cycle in order to unfairly award Donald Trump an additional electoral vote, I think the Maine Legislature would be compelled to act in order to restore fairness to our country’s electoral system,” state House Majority Leader Maureen Terry, a Gorham Democrat, said in a prepared statement Friday.

Both states award two electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the statewide tally and then allocate one for each congressional district, awarded to the contender who wins that district.

In practical terms, Maine typically votes for the Democratic presidential hopeful while Nebraska votes for the GOP’s nominee. But each state has one congressional district that the majority can’t count on.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court convened for its final oral argument of the term, ostensibly to decide whether a President Donald Trump can be criminally prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In all likelihood, Trump v. United States—both the case’s name and also an apt description of U.S. politics right now—is the last chance to prosecute Trump between now and November, when Americans return to the polls to decide if a guy who once tried to overthrow the government is worthy of leading it.

If, however, you were unfamiliar with the particulars of the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s role in facilitating the events that led to it, the bulk of oral argument would have felt dry, boring, and academic. Throughout, the Republican justices worked diligently to frame the case as a series of abstractions—as fodder for an erudite discussion of constitutional theory that only tangentially and coincidentally implicates the electoral future of their preferred candidate. The calculus was pretty simple: The more time they spend discussing things that are not Donald Trump’s real-world criminality, the less attention Donald Trump’s real-world criminality gets.

A Department of Justice-appointed special counsel has charged Trump with, among other things, conspiracy to defraud the United States. The statutory language is pretty broad, but as the government’s lawyer, Michael Dreeben, explained to the Court on Thursday, the law is “designed to protect the functions” of the federal government. “It’s difficult to think of a more critical ‘function’ than the certification of who won the election,” Dreeben said.

Yet even this oblique reference to what Trump actually did was too much for Justice Samuel Alito, who quickly jumped in. “As I said, I’m not talking about the particular facts of this case,” he told Dreeben. Instead, Alito spent much of his allotted time discussing the outer limits of presidential criminality, repeatedly invoking the dangers of a too-lenient test that could allow bad-faith prosecutors to bring groundless actions against hypothetical ex-presidents at some undefined point in the future.