A federal judge on Monday rebuked Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s threatened prosecution of those who help people in Alabama obtain abortions out of state in a location where abortions are legal.

Although just a preliminary ruling in the case, U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson rejected Marshall’s request that the court toss out a pair of lawsuits brought by an abortion fund and health care providers challenging his threatened prosecutions.

“[T]he Constitution protects the right to cross state lines and engage in lawful conduct in other States, including receiving an abortion,” U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson wrote in the 98-page opinion. “The Attorney General’s characterization of the right to travel as merely a right to move physically between the States contravenes history, precedent, and common sense.”

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Alabama’s near-total abortion ban — with severe criminal penalties for providers — went into effect. Soon thereafter, Marshall made statements asserting what Thompson characterized as a “commitment to prosecuting those who help coordinate out-of-state abortions.”

Photo Illustration by Ricardo Tomás


In November 2022, a group of L.G.B.T.Q. students at West Texas A&M University started planning a drag show for the following spring. They wanted to raise money for suicide prevention and stand up for queer self-expression at a time when conservatives in Texas, in the name of protecting children, were mobilizing to shut drag shows down.

The student group, Spectrum WT, set a few guidelines. The show would be “PG-13,” the students told the university. Kids under the age of 18 — the students had in mind the siblings of a performer — could come only if they were accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Despite this plan, the president of West Texas A&M, Walter Wendler, announced in March 2023 that he was barring the event from campus. In a statement on his personal website, Wendler called drag shows “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny.” Spectrum WT sued, arguing that Wendler’s decision to cancel the show was a “textbook” example of discriminating against speech based on viewpoint.

Legally speaking, Spectrum WT had a strong case. Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects speech on public university campuses, “no matter how offensive” and despite “conventions of decency,” as two decisions put it. Wendler acknowledged that he was refusing to allow the drag show to take place “even when the law of the land appears to require it.”

But the lawsuit landed on the docket of Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee to the federal bench in Amarillo who is the author of several sweeping arch-conservative rulings. And in the drag-show case, Judge Kacsmaryk had a new tool, supplied by the Supreme Court. Known as the “history and tradition” test, the legal standard has been recently adopted by the court’s conservative majority to allow judges to set aside modern developments in the law to restore the precedents of the distant past.

The conservative justices applied the history-and-tradition test in three major rulings decided in the space of a week in June 2022. First, they struck down a New York restriction on gun ownership for being out of line with the nation’s “historical tradition” around regulating guns. Next, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a conservative majority ended the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade because it was not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” Finally, the court held that a public high school’s decision to let go of a football coach for praying with a crowd he gathered at midfield was out of line with “historical practices and understandings” of religious freedom.

Florida Democrats have shown the donkey the door and have adopted as a new mascot the Florida panther – an endangered species.

The iconic panther, once reduced to fewer than two dozen in Florida and now numbering close to 300, was introduced Saturday as the new icon for Florida Democrats.

They too once ruled the state but have been out of power and in the wilderness since the 20th century.
Nikki Fried was elected FDP chair in February 2023

“The Florida panther won’t back down from a fight,” Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried said about the animal that nearly disappeared from Florida.

“We gave the donkey the boot. It is time to kick ass,” Fried added in a video produced at the Leadership Blue fundraiser in Orlando Saturday.

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday receded from its 2018 ruling in Shelly v. State that requires investigators to “remind or readvise” suspects of their rights when the suspects “reinitiate contact” with their interrogators.

Justice Jamie Grosshans, writing for the majority, concluded that a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court case, Bradshaw, provides the proper standard.

“That standard asks two things: (1) did the suspect reinitiate contact with police and, if so, (2) did he knowingly and voluntarily waive his earlier-invoked Miranda rights.”

The May 2 ruling is from State of Florida v. Zachary Joseph Penna, Case No. SC2022-0458.

Penna was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for the 2015 slayings of two Palm Beach County men during a bizarre, one-man crime spree.

Penna was shot after attacking his arresting officers with a knife, but he was alert when police advised him of his Miranda rights at the hospital, court records show.

The investigators halted an initial interrogation when Penna requested a lawyer.

During his weeks-long hospital stay, Penna subsequently struck up conversations with an investigator who was guarding him on five separate occasions, and ultimately incriminated himself.

Election Day is six months away.

Donald Trump’s election to a second term would, at its least harmful, lead to the appointment of scores of more, younger, and potentially even more extreme judges. It would lead to the end of his federal prosecutions and arguments that remaining state prosecutions cannot proceed while he is president. And, Trump would, yet again, wield the powers of the executive branch.

If Trump does win, it’s important to realize that even the best-case scenarios are very bad — for Democrats and the left, certainly, but also for democracy.

This Sunday, I just want to quantify the danger for — and subsequently from — the courts.

The federal courts are already unbalanced. The U.S. Supreme Court consists of three Democratic appointees out of nine justices — appointed over the course of five Democratic administrations and four Republican administrations.

Several appeals courts are more unbalanced. The 11 active judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit include just one Democratic appointee. Other circuits are also substantially unbalanced: Only five of 17 judges on the Fifth Circuit, six of 16 judges on the Sixth Circuit, and four of 11 judges on the Seventh Circuit were appointed by Democratic presidents. In contrast, the First Circuit has no Republican appointees and four of the 11 judges on the DC Circuit were Republican appointees. The Second, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth circuits are more closely divided. (Yes, the Ninth Circuit is more closely divided than you likely think because Trump confirmed 10 judges to the 29-judge court. At this point, while it still leans Democratic, 13 of the 29 judges are Republican appointees.)

Florida Democrats filed and qualified to contest all 28 Congressional Districts in 2024, which is the first time the Florida Democratic Party was able to fill a full slate of congressional candidates since 2018.

“Florida Democrats just filed to compete for every congressional seat,” said FDP Chair Nikki Fried.“It does not matter if we’re running in Pensacola or Key West, every part of this state is worth fighting for and we are not going to let Florida Republicans walk into office without being held accountable. Florida Democrats are fired up and ready to compete everywhere.”

Florida Democrats congressional candidatesEarlier this month, the Florida Democratic Party launched a targeted candidate recruitment campaign with billboards and digital ads across the state, encouraging candidates to run for office.

After the campaign launched, the Florida Democratic Party received over 100 applications for support and resources and coordinated with congressional candidates to get them across the finish line in time for the recent qualifying deadline.

Florida Democrats filed and qualified to contest all 28 Congressional Districts in 2024, which is the first time the Florida Democratic Party was able to fill a full slate of congressional candidates since 2018.

“Florida Democrats just filed to compete for every congressional seat,” said FDP Chair Nikki Fried.“It does not matter if we’re running in Pensacola or Key West, every part of this state is worth fighting for and we are not going to let Florida Republicans walk into office without being held accountable. Florida Democrats are fired up and ready to compete everywhere.”

Florida Democrats congressional candidatesEarlier this month, the Florida Democratic Party launched a targeted candidate recruitment campaign with billboards and digital ads across the state, encouraging candidates to run for office.

After the campaign launched, the Florida Democratic Party received over 100 applications for support and resources and coordinated with congressional candidates to get them across the finish line in time for the recent qualifying deadline.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Advocates on Friday turned in more than twice the needed number of signatures to put a proposal to legalize abortion on the Missouri ballot this year.

The campaign said it turned in more than 380,000 voter signatures — more than double the minimum 171,000 needed to qualify for the ballot.

“Our message is simple and clear,” ACLU Missouri lawyer and campaign spokesperson Tori Schafer said in a statement. “We want to make decisions about our bodies free from political interference.”

If approved by voters, the constitutional amendment would ensure abortion rights until viability.

A moderate, Republican-led Missouri campaign earlier this year abandoned an effort for an alternate amendment that would have allowed abortion up to 12 weeks and after that with only limited exceptions.

Like many Republican-controlled states, Missouri outlawed almost all abortions with no exceptions in the case of rape or incest immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Missouri law only allows abortions for medical emergencies.

Students hold up anti-abortion signs at the Midwest March for Life on Wednesday at the Missouri State Capitol (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent).

Wednesday’s Midwest March for Life at the Missouri Capitol had a different tone this year. It was about fighting.

Nearly two years ago, the crowd celebrated Missouri becoming the first state to ban abortion after Roe V. Wade was overturned. But on Wednesday, a new worry loomed over the annual event: Abortion could soon be enshrined in the Missouri Constitution.

“If God doesn’t intervene in this process,” Paul Shipman, with the Christian radio program Bott Radio Network, said at a rally on the statehouse steps Wednesday, “it just kind of shows you the direction where the nation is going and the direction where the state of Missouri is going.”

After recent losses in states like Kansas and Ohio, anti-abortion activists say they must take a more aggressive approach in Missouri, using a low-budget grassroots strategy to convince Missourians not to sign the initiative petition that would put a constitutional right to an abortion in the hands of voters.

They enlisted elected officials to publicly decry the ballot measure. They set up a hotline to report the location of signature gatherers so volunteers could show up and hand out “Decline to Sign” materials. And they stoked unsubstantiated fears about the initiative petition process, such as the notion that it could result in widespread identity theft.

Georgia Supreme Court justices (from left) Nels S.D. Peterson, Michael P. Boggs and Sarah Hawkins Warren listen to arguments during a hearing on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Peterson and Boggs are running for reelection unopposed in May. (Natrice Miller/AJC)


The vast majority of Georgia judges vying for election in May are doing so uncontested.

Only five of the 122 superior court judges on the ballot this year face challengers. For nearly 96% of incumbents, their bid to stay on the bench is a formality.

In Georgia’s appellate courts, just one judge has opposition. Justice Andrew Pinson, the youngest and newest jurist on the Georgia Supreme Court, is being challenged by former U.S. Rep. John Barrow.

The three other state Supreme Court justices and six Georgia Court of Appeals judges subject to election this year can forego the hassle of campaigning.

An overwhelming lack of opposition in judicial elections is the norm in Georgia, where judges are both appointed by the governor and elected by voters.

Atlanta litigators Eric Larson and Doug Hance say there are several factors at play. They include the nonpartisan nature of most judicial elections, the limited awareness or interest many voters have about how cases are decided, and the appointment process for judicial vacancies.