Court rules Ohio's ban on gender-affirming care can be enforced amid suits
The state's high court granted a request from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) to stay an appellate court ruling from March that blocked the state from enforcing the law, pending full review.
The two-sentence Tuesday order was issued by the Republican chief justice, Sharon Kennedy. Republican Justice Pat Fischer and Democratic Justice Jennifer Brunner dissented.
'This cause is pending before the court as a jurisdictional appeal. Upon consideration of appellants' emergency motion for stay pending appeal, it is ordered by the court that the motion is granted,' the order read.
The Ohio General Assembly, in 2023, passed House Bill 68, banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors. The bill was vetoed by the state's Republican governor, but both legislative chambers voted to overturn his veto.
The ACLU of Ohio brought a lawsuit on behalf of two transgender minors challenging the legality of the statute. The law has been caught up in the courts for months.
'It is a terrible shame that the Supreme Court of Ohio is permitting the state to evade compliance with the Ohio Constitution. Our clients have suffered tangible and irreparable harm during the eight months that HB 68 has been in place, including being denied essential health care in their home state,' the ACLU of Ohio's legal director, Freda Levenson, said in a Tuesday statement responding to the court order.
'The Court of Appeals was correct that HB 68 violates at least two separate provisions of the Ohio Constitution. We will continue to fight this extreme ban as the case goes ahead before the Supreme Court of Ohio,' Levenson continued.
Yost, who is running for Ohio governor, posted on X announcing the court's ruling. In a statement to a Cleveland news outlet, his spokesperson, Bethany McCorkle, said the attorney general's office is pleased that the law 'protecting children from drug-induced gender transitions remains in effect as the case moves forward.'
'We look forward to showing once again that the legislature acted properly in enacting this constitutional law, which protects our children from irreversible medical decisions,' McCorkle continued in the statement.
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Boston Globe
7 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Democrats' 2024 autopsy is described as avoiding the likeliest cause of death
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Party officials described the draft document as focusing on the 2024 election as a whole, but not on the presidential campaign — which is something like eating at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad. Advertisement Producing a tough-minded public review of a national electoral defeat would be a politically delicate exercise under any circumstance, given the need to find fault with the work and judgment of important party leaders and strategists. It is particularly fraught for the new DNC chair, Ken Martin, who promised a post-election review from his first day on the job but whose first few months in the role have been plagued by infighting and financial strains. Advertisement 'We are not interested in second-guessing campaign tactics or decisions of campaign operatives,' said Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska Democratic chair, who heads the association of Democratic state chairs and is a close ally of Martin. 'We are interested in what voters turned out for Republicans and Democrats, and how we can fix this moving forward.' Locked out of power at the federal level, Democrats are struggling to show that they have taken to heart the message that voters sent in November and are well suited to regain power in future elections. The review, which was begun in March and is being led by Paul Rivera, a veteran Democratic operative, is not yet complete and the report is not fully drafted. Rivera nonetheless has begun briefing people on what the report has found so far, and those briefings suggest that the Democratic autopsy will avoid addressing some of the likeliest or leading causes of death. Among those is whether Biden should have run for reelection. Some of Harris' top aides have faulted him for dropping out so late that she had just 107 days to campaign as the presidential nominee. But Biden's son Hunter said on a podcast this past week that Democrats lost 'because we did not remain loyal' to his father. Top Democrats said they did not intend for the report to address strategic decisions made by leaders of the Biden and Harris campaigns. Indeed, in a sign of the report's narrow scope, more than half a dozen people who were senior officials on the campaigns say they have not yet been interviewed. Advertisement DNC officials cautioned that interviews were still taking place and the report's conclusions might change before it is released this fall. 'We're glad to see there's so much interest in an after-action report on how Democrats can win again,' Rivera said. 'But folks might be better off holding their applause, or their criticism, until we have had a chance to complete our work and people can actually read it.' People briefed on the report's progress said they had been told it would focus more on outside groups and super political action committees that spent hundreds of millions of dollars aiding the Biden and Harris campaigns through advertising, voter registration drives and turnout efforts. Kleeb said she expected the report to accelerate the party's diversion of resources from advertising to organizing. 'The days of us spending millions and millions of dollars on traditional TV ads are over,' she said. 'And I do think that this report will put an exclamation point on that.' In particular, the people briefed on it said, the after-action review is expected to place blame with Future Forward, the party's main super PAC, which spent $560 million to support Biden and then Harris. They said the report would argue that Future Forward spent far too much propping up Harris and not nearly enough attacking Trump. It is expected to argue that Future Forward's advertising approach was too focused on television programs to be effective. And it will review the lack of coordination between the super PAC's advertising and the Harris campaign's, which were often not in sync. A Future Forward document that was distributed to donors and reviewed by The New York Times said about half of the super PAC's advertising was delivered on digital platforms, which includes television-like streaming services. The group said it spent more than $51 million just on YouTube ads. Advertisement A Future Forward aide, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the group's operations, said just 13% of its advertising was positive about Harris, with the rest attacking Trump. ( The critiques of Future Forward will not be new to Democrats who read real-time coverage of the campaign last year, along with more recent book-length and magazine accounts of the Biden and Harris campaigns. 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The results are not expected to be made public but rather to be circulated privately among Democratic strategists to provide a fuller record and greater understanding of what happened, the people said. A third look back is being led by the Strategic Victory Fund, a network of liberal donors and organizations. Scott Anderson, the group's president, said it had so far interviewed more than 100 people, including top officials from the Biden and Harris campaign and the DNC. Anderson said he did not intend to make its report public but would instead use it to inform Democratic donors and decision makers. 'So many people in my world, after 2016, jumped into a resistance mode that there wasn't a real thoughtful moment to talk for a minute with all the key people about what we're doing right and wrong about every aspect of politics and culture,' Anderson said. 'We really need to take a step back in a way that I don't feel was done after 2016, and have hard conversations.' Advertisement The DNC's report is expected to be far different from the so-called autopsy that Republicans produced after the 2012 election of Barack Obama. In March 2013, the Republican National Committee released a 100-page 'Growth and Opportunity Project' report that declared the GOP was in an 'ideological cul-de-sac' and called for moderation on immigration along with a number of other changes. While Republican leaders did adopt many of its recommendations in time for the 2016 election, Trump's campaign ran counter to many of the changes the RNC had proposed, and he has since remade the Republican Party in his image. This article originally appeared in
Time Magazine
8 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
Trump Requests Release of Epstein Grand Jury Files—What Now?
The Department of Justice (DOJ) followed through on President Donald Trump's request on Friday and filed a motion for the grand jury files related to the 2019 indictment of disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to be released. Signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the motion comes amid a frenzied media storm and calls for transparency regarding the Epstein files, fueled by the release of a memo from the DOJ and FBI earlier this month, which refuted various conspiracy theories that continue to loom large. There are also persistent questions about the history of Trump and Epstein's relationship, as the two previously socialized. Trump spoke out about the grand jury request once more via Truth Social on Saturday morning. "I have asked the Justice Department to release all grand jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to court approval," he said. "With that being said, and even if the court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more." Trump's instruction regarding the grand jury files is unlikely to settle the calls for more transparency, as he has not ordered the release of the DOJ files pertaining to Epstein, which are the documents that many—including prominent voices within the MAGA community—are eager to see. Trump has strongly defended Bondi as she continues to come under fire for not releasing the Epstein files in full. There are long-standing calls to see a so-called "client list" supposedly belonging to Epstein. (Although the recently-released memo reports there's no evidence such a list exists.) Bondi's previous release of some files were heavily redacted and informed the public of little they had not learned before, prompting wide backlash. A letter sent on Friday by Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to the heads of the DOJ and FBI also alleges that the FBI instructed agents to 'flag' any mention of Trump while reviewing files related to Epstein earlier this year. Following the Trump Administration's request for the release of the Epstein grand jury records, here's what you need to know about what happens next. What is a grand jury and why are the files sealed? A grand jury consists of 16-23 jurors, according to the U.S. Courts. A grand jury "focuses on preliminary criminal matters only" and seeks to determine whether there is enough 'probable cause' to indict an individual under investigation for a crime. Grand jury proceedings are usually kept sealed to protect the safety of individuals investigated who, it may turn out, will not be charged with any crime. The private proceedings are also used to ensure the safety of witnesses who provide testimonies. 'Secrecy prevents those under scrutiny from fleeing or importuning the grand jurors, encourages full disclosure by witnesses, and protects the innocent from unwarranted prosecution, among other things,' reads an explanation by Congress. Congress also notes that grand jury proceedings have, on occasion, been unsealed for matters of public interest. In 2018, a D.C. court ruled to unseal certain dockets related to independent counsel Ken Starr's investigation into former President Bill Clinton's relationship with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Read More: Why Trump Can't Put Out the Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite Why has the Department of Justice made a motion to unseal the grand jury transcripts? The DOJ's motion follows mass calls—from both within and outside Trump's MAGA base—for transparency around the investigation into Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Tensions were exacerbated on Thursday when the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that in 2003, Trump wrote a birthday letter for Epstein which included a drawing of a naked woman and the signature 'Donald.' The article claimed the letter included the note: 'Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.' Trump has called the letter false, saying he '[doesn't] draw pictures.' He has responded by suing the Journal's publisher Dow Jones and NewsCorp's owner Rupert Murdoch. "We have just filed a powerhouse lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS 'article' in the useless 'rag' that is, the Wall Street Journal," Trump said on Friday evening. "This historic legal action is being brought against the so-called authors of this defamation, the now fully disgraced WSJ, as well as its corporate owners and affiliates, with Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thomson (whatever his role is) at the top of the list." Meanwhile, the grand jury-related motion filed on Friday calls for the Epstein documents to be unsealed due to the 'public interest' that shows no signs of waning, though it says that they will continue to redact 'victim-related and other personal identifying information' from said documents. The request also called for the release of transcripts related to the indictment and conviction of former British socialite—and Epstein's right-hand—Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors. '[T]his Court should conclude that the Epstein and Maxwell cases qualify as a matter of public interest, release the associated grand jury transcripts, and lift any preexisting protective orders,' the motion reads. Who decides whether the grand jury files are released and how long could it be until a decision is reached? According to Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the secrecy of grand jury proceedings is generally protected, but there are authorized disclosures of certain documents if it is deemed to be legally justifiable. The request must now be approved with permission of the federal court responsible for overseeing the criminal case, and since both Maxwell and Epstein's cases were in New York City, it will likely be a New York-based federal judge who receives the request for the files to be released. The scope of the grand jury testimonials is unclear, and as the DOJ noted in its motion, the courts will have to consider the privacy of victims named in the testimony and will need to consult with any uncharged people named. All in all, the process could take weeks, months, or longer. Read More: White House Tries to End Trump's Role in Epstein Saga, Nixes Calls For Special Prosecuto How has the Department of Justice previously argued against the release of the Epstein files? There have long been efforts to gain access to sealed documents related to the Epstein case. In 2017, entertainment website Radar Online sued the FBI for sealed documents related to the case under the Freedom of Information Act. Career federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, filed a declaration in 2024 in which she argued that the Epstein documents could "reasonably be expected to interfere" with Maxwell's pending appeal, since it could impact multiple aspects of the case. Following this declaration, a Federal District Court upheld the secrecy for the majority of the files. Comey was fired earlier this week as a U.S. federal prosecutor, after serving as one of the lead prosecutors in the cases against Epstein and Maxwell, as well as in the recent trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs. Some lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, have raised questions over Comey's firing.
Chicago Tribune
37 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
With gavel in hand, President Trump chisels away at the power of a compliant Congress
WASHINGTON — 'Mr. President, this is the gavel used to enact the 'big, beautiful bill,'' House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a White House signing ceremony on the Fourth of July. 'I want you to have it,' he said. Handing over the gavel delighted President Donald Trump who, seated behind a desk outdoors, immediately tested it out with a few quick thumps. The moment left a memorable mark on a historic day. The gesture reflected a traditional nod of honor, from one leader to another, a milestone of the Republican Party's priority legislation becoming law. But the imagery also underscored a symbolic transfer of political power, from Capitol Hill to the White House as a compliant Congress is ceding more and more of its prerogative to the presidency. Since Trump's return to the White House in January, and particularly in the past few weeks, Republicans in control of the House and Senate have shown an unusual willingness to give the president of their party what he wants, regardless of the potential risk to themselves, their constituents and Congress itself. Republicans raced to put the big package of tax breaks and spending cuts on Trump's desk by his Independence Day deadline. Senators had quickly confirmed almost all of Trump's outsider Cabinet nominees despite grave reservations over Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, Pete Hegseth as the Pentagon chief and others. House Republicans pursued Trump's interest in investigating his perceived foes, including investigating Democratic President Joe Biden'suse of the autopen. But at the same time, Congress hit the brakes on one of its own priorities, legislation imposing steep sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine, after Trump announced he was allowing President Vladimir Putin an additional 50 days to negotiate a peace deal, dashing hopes for a swifter end to the conflict. This past week, Congress was tested anew, delivering on Trump's request to rescind some $9 billion that lawmakers had approved but that the administration wanted to eliminate, including money for public broadcastingand overseas aid. It was a rare presidential request, a challenge to the legislative branch's power of the purse, that has not been used in decades. 'We're lawmakers. We should be legislating,' said a defiant Sen. Lisa Murkowksi, R-Alaska, as she refused to support the White House's demand to rescind money for National Public Radio and others. 'What we're getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, 'This is the priority. We want you to execute on it. We'll be back with you with another round,'' she said. 'I don't accept that.' Congress, the branch of government the Founding Fathers placed first in the Constitution, is at a familiar crossroads. During the first Trump administration, Republicans frightened by Trump's angry tweets of disapproval would keep their criticisms private. Those who did speak up — Liz Cheney of Wyoming in the House and Mitt Romney of Utah in the Senate, among others — are gone from Capitol Hill. One former GOP senator, Jeff Flake of Arizona, who announced in 2017 during Trump's first term that he would not seek reelection the next year, is imploring Republicans to find a better way. 'The fever still hasn't broken,' he wrote recently in The New York Times. 'In today's Republican Party, voting your conscience is essentially disqualifying.' But this time, the halls of Congress are filled with many Republicans who came of political age with Trump's 'Make America Great Again' movement and owe their ascent to the president himself. Many are emulating his brand and style as they shape their own. A new generation of GOP leaders, Johnson in the House and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have pulled closer to Trump. They are utilizing the power of the presidency in ways large and small — to broker deals, encourage wayward lawmakers to fall in line, even to set schedules. Johnson, R-La., has openly pined for what he calls a 'normal Congress.' But short of that, the speaker relies on Trump to help stay on track. When Republicans hit an impasse on cryptocurrency legislation, a Trump priority, it was the president who met with holdouts in the Oval Office late Tuesday night as Johnson called in by phone. The result is a perceptible imbalance of power as the executive exerts greater authority while the legislative branch dims. The judicial branch has been left to do the heavy lift of checks and balances with the courts processing hundreds of lawsuits over the administration's actions. 'The genius of our Constitution is the separation of power,' said Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker, in an interview on SiriusXM's 'Mornings with Zerlina.' 'That the Republicans in Congress would be so ignoring of the institution that they represent, and that have just melted the power of the incredibly shrinking speakership' and Senate leadership positions, 'to do all of these things, to cater to the executive branch,' she said. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., endured Trump's criticism over his opposition to the tax and spending cuts bill. The senator raised concerns about steep cuts to hospitals, but the president threatened to campaign against him. Tillis announced he would not seek reelection in 2026. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against that bill and the rescissions package despite Trump's threat to campaign against any dissenters. One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, appears to be pressing on, unphased. He recently proposed legislation to force the administration to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, something the president had been reluctant to do. 'Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that if the president wants something, you must do it,' said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, in a Senate speech. 'We don't have to do this. We don't have to operate under the assumption that this man is uniquely so powerful.'
