With this post, JURIST launches a new series of dispatches from major US states written by JURIST staff “on the ground” in those jurisdictions. JURIST Operations Director Ram Eachambadi files this report from Los Angeles. Election day in California is here, thanks to the approximately 1.5 million signatures on a petition—a mere 12% of the [...]
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block a Texas law banning abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, keeping intact the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the US. Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), signed by Governor Greg Abbott in May, has banned abortion when an ultrasound can detect a “heartbeat,” which is [...]
Fourteen Republican lawmakers filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania challenging Act 77, which established universal mail-in voting in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in October 2019, as unconstitutional. All the 14 lawmakers (“plaintiffs”) are members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives: Timothy Bonner of Mercer County; Mike Jones of York County; [...]
The Texas legislature on Tuesday passed a bill containing a set of new voting restrictions that will tighten the state’s already strict voting rules, which is considered some of the strictest in the nation. Senate Bill 1, titled Election Integrity Protection Act, explicitly states the legislative intent to “reduce the likelihood of fraud in the [...]
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam on Tuesday granted posthumous pardons to the Martinsville Seven, a group of young Black men who were tried, convicted and executed in 1951 without sufficient due process and given the death sentence by a racially biased all-White male jury. The pardon comes 70 years after the men were executed by electric [...]
Seven US Capitol police officers (“the plaintiffs”) filed a complaint in federal court on Thursday against former president Donald Trump and one of his corporations, Stop the Steal LLC, domestic and international Proud Boys groups, and other far right extremist groups (“the defendants”) for allegedly causing injuries to more than 140 police officers on January 6. [...]
The US Supreme Court on Thursday held that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) exceeded its authority in issuing a moratorium order on evictions in counties with heightened levels of community transmission. The CDC order issued earlier this month was the latest in a series of moratoriums that has been either newly issued or extended [...]
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 219-212 to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (“the amendment”) in an effort to amend and strengthen the civil-rights-era Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) and to address a history of racial discrimination. The amendment comes exactly a week after US Assistant Attorney General for [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday filed a 28-page statement of interest in a lawsuit filed by the city of St. Louis challenging a Missouri state law that prohibits enforcement of federal firearms laws and subjects state and local law enforcement officers to civil suits and monetary penalties. Missouri House Bill No. 85 [...]
The Austrian Constitutional Court on Wednesday suspended the deportation proceedings of an unidentified Afghan national (“the Applicant”) upon request from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to do so earlier in the month. The Applicant was scheduled for deportation after two failed asylum applications and was held in a detention facility since April. Upon [...]
