George Texs blog

Abortion opponents have maneuvered in courthouses for years to end access to reproductive health care. In Arizona last week, a win for the anti-abortion camp caused political blowback for Republican candidates in the state and beyond. The reaction echoed the response to an Alabama Supreme Court decision over in vitro fertilization just two months before. The election-year ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court allowing enforcement of a law from 1864 banning nearly all abortions startled Republican politicians, some of whom quickly turned to social media to denounce it. The court decision was yet another development forcing many Republicans legislators and candidates to thread the needle: Maintain support among anti-abortion voters while not damaging their electoral prospects this fall. This shifting power dynamic between state judges and state lawmakers has turned into a high-stakes political gamble, at times causing daunting problems, on a range of reproductive health issues, f...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nearly a half-million health workers who stand to benefit from California’s nation-leading $25 minimum wage law could be in for a rude awakening if hospitals and other health care providers follow through on potential cuts to hours and benefits. A medical industry challenge to a new minimum wage ordinance in one Southern California city suggests layoffs and reductions in hours and benefits, including cuts to premium pay and vacation time, could be one result of a state law set to begin phasing in in June. However, some experts are skeptical of that possibility. The California Hospital Association brought a partly successful legal challenge to Inglewood’s $25 minimum wage ordinance , which barred employers from taking those sorts of steps to offset their higher costs. “Layoffs, reductions in premium pay rates, reductions in non-wage benefits, reductions in hours, and increased charges are consequences of an employer having less money to spend—which will n...

Editor’s note:  This is the fourth installment of an occasional States Newsroom series called When and Where: Abortion Access in America, profiling individuals who have needed abortion care in the U.S. before and after Dobbs. The first installment can be found  here , the second installment is  here , and the third is  here . Kelly Shannon was grieving a pregnancy she would need to terminate because of multiple fetal anomalies when she got the call that Alabama doctors wouldn’t approve an abortion procedure despite exceptions in the law. That meant she would have to leave the state. Shannon, 36, was about 16 weeks along in January 2023 when genetic testing – and confirmation from an amniocentesis – showed her fetus likely had Trisomy 21, better known as Down syndrome. It didn’t take long for the doctor to determine the fetus likely wouldn’t survive to term. There was fluid buildup in the head and body, evidence of a heart defect, and a tumor on the abdomen that was roughly one-...

Several hundred LGBTQ-rights advocates gathered in the Florida Capitol Tuesday to denounce fresh attacks on their rights and urge passage of legislation that would repeal existing restrictions on their rights. Legislative Democrats joined the crowd on Tuesday, including out gay Sen. Shevrin Jones, of Miami-Dade County and House member Michele Rayner, representing parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough, along with representatives of Equality Florida, which organized the affair. The crowd was good-naturedly rowdy despite the threat they saw to their wellbeing. Angelique Godwin of Equality Florida addresses a news conference at the Florida Capitol on Jan. 16, 2024. Credit: Michael Moline “I will not be scared out of the state. You will not make laws to remove me or my dreams. I was raised on an America that believed that freedom will ring,” said Angelique Godwin, coordinator for trans-related events at Equality Florida. “We are not pawns in a political game; we are people with t...

WASHINGTON — Leading members of Congress released a bipartisan, bicameral tax proposal Tuesday, promising a middle-path deal to help low-income families and provide incentives for businesses as Trump-era tax breaks expire. The  framework  led by top tax policy leaders U.S. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri would raise the child tax credit incrementally through 2025 and restore tax relief for affordable housing projects. The three-year proposal would also make exempt disaster payments to wildfire victims and to those who suffered losses after the  massive train derailment  in East Palestine, Ohio. The deal also aims to extend research and development tax credits, as well as reduce tax burdens on U.S.-Taiwan business relationships, an effort to bolster relations with the autonomous island nation vulnerable to Chinese government aggression. Wyden, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, said in a statement that “(f)ifteen million k...

The number of older adults with disabilities — difficulty with walking, seeing, hearing, memory, cognition, or performing daily tasks such as bathing or using the bathroom — will soar in the decades ahead, as baby boomers enter their 70s, 80s, and 90s. But the health care system isn’t ready to address their needs. That became painfully obvious during the covid-19 pandemic, when older adults with disabilities had trouble getting treatments and hundreds of thousands died. Now, the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health are targeting some failures that led to those problems. One initiative strengthens access to medical treatments, equipment, and web-based programs for people with disabilities. The other recognizes that people with disabilities, including older adults, are a separate population with special health concerns that need more research and attention. Lisa Iezzoni, 69, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has lived with mu...

Back in the late 1990s, Floridians approved a constitutional amendment allowing for public financing for campaigns for statewide offices as a way to expand a diverse pool of candidates, access funds, participate in elections and the improve the overall electoral process. But decades later, under a proposal passed in a Senate committee on Tuesday, some GOP lawmakers want to get rid of the public financing, while voting rights groups and Democrats vociferously oppose the measure. It would mean changing the Florida Constitution, which would entail going to the polls and voting to repeal or affirm the issue. More than $13 million of state general revenues — taxpayer dollars — went to the candidates running for governor and the three state Cabinet positions in 2022, according to a Senate bill analysis. More than $9.8 million of general revenues went to candidates running for those offices in 2018; more than $4.3 million in 2014 and more than $6 million in the 2010 election cycle. ...