Latest news with #Republican-governed
Mint
5 days ago
- Politics
- Mint
Republicans call for Zohran Mamdani's deportation, question his citizenship over NYC mayoral candidate's anti-ICE stance
As Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, was announced winner over former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary, Republicans have called for his deportation and sought probe into his citizenship status over NYC mayoral candidate's 'fascist' Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stance. Zohran promises to expel it from the city properties. US President Donald Trump's Border Czar Tom Homan responded, stating, 'Good luck with that. It's game on', according to Fox News. Zohran's platform vows to 'kick the fascist ICE out' and bolster New York's sanctuary city protections by slashing cooperation with federal agents, increasing legal aid, and safeguarding immigrants' data. A statement on his campaign website reads, 'Zohran Mamdani will fight Trump's attempts to gouge the working class and deliver a city where everyone can afford a dignified life.' 'Good luck with that, federal law trumps him every day, every hour of every minute. 'We're going to be in New York City, matter of fact, because it's a sanctuary city and President Trump made it clear a week and a half ago — we're going to double down and triple down on sanctuary cities," Homan warned him against it. Tennessee Republican Congressman Andy Ogles has requested the federal government to revoke New York City mayoral candidate Mamdani of his US citizenship and begin deportation proceedings. Ogles posted images of a letter he sent to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which he urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether Mamdani's citizenship was obtained through "wilful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism" 'He needs to be DEPORTED. Which is why I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalisation proceedings," Ogles posted on X. He called Zohran 'an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York'. Homan believes ICE plans to ramp up operations in New York in response to concerns over public safety and national security. He stated that additional agents will be deployed and worksite enforcement efforts will be expanded 'tenfold'. Homan also drew a comparison between New York and Florida, asserting that collaboration with ICE is more effective in Republican-governed states. 'We don't have that problem in Florida, where the sheriffs work with us. So we're going to double up and triple up on New York. Not only are we going to send more agents to the neighborhood, we are going to increase worksite enforcement tenfold,' he added.
The Star
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Star
US Supreme Court poised to rule in challenge to Texas age-check for online porn
FILE PHOTO: A general view of U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., June 25, 2020. REUTERS/Al Drago/File photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on Friday in a challenge on free speech grounds to a Texas law that requires pornographic websites to verify the age of users in a case testing the legality of state efforts to keep minors from viewing such material online. A trade group representing adult entertainment performers and companies appealed a lower court's decision allowing the Republican-led state's age-verification mandate, finding that it likely did not violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment safeguard against government abridgment of speech. The Texas measure is one of 24 similar ones enacted around the United States, primarily in Republican-governed states, with some set to take effect in the months ahead, according to the Free Speech Coalition, which challenged the law. The law requires websites whose content is more than a third "sexual material harmful to minors" to have all users submit personally identifying information verifying they are at least age 18 to gain access. The case tested the limits of state powers to protect minors from explicit materials deemed by policymakers to be harmful to them with measures that burden the access of adults to constitutionally protected expression. Supreme Court precedents have protected access by adults to non-obscene sexual content on First Amendment grounds, including a 2004 ruling that blocked a federal law similar to the Texas measure. If the 2004 precedent prevents Texas from enforcing its law, then it should be overruled, the state argued, noting how the digital landscape has changed dramatically in the two decades since. The coalition, a trade association of adult content performers, producers and distributors, as well as companies that run pornographic websites including and argued that online age verification unlawfully stifles the free speech rights of adults and exposes them to increasing risks of identity theft, extortion and data breaches. Some sites like Pornhub blocked access entirely in states with age-verification laws. Steps such as content-filtering software or on-device age verification would better protect minors while respecting the rights of adults, according to the challengers. During Jan. 15 arguments in the case, the justices voiced worries about the pervasiveness of pornography online and the ease with which minors are able to access it. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of school-age children, noted that minors can get online porn through cellphones, tablets, gaming systems and computers, and noted that there has been an "explosion of addiction to online porn." But some of the justices also expressed concern over the burdens imposed on adults to view constitutionally protected material, debating whether the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should have applied a stricter form of judicial review to the Texas law than the one it actually used that gave deference to legislators. U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra issued a preliminary injunction in 2023, blocking the law. The 5th Circuit ruled in 2024 that the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in their First Amendment challenge to the age-verification requirement, lifting Ezra's injunction on that provision. The 5th Circuit upheld Ezra's injunction against another provision requiring websites to display "health warnings" about viewing pornography. The Supreme Court last year declined to halt enforcement of the law while the case proceeded. (Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
Time of India
6 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
US Supreme Court backs South Carolina effort to defund Planned Parenthood
Washington: The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday for South Carolina to strip Planned Parenthood of funding under the Medicaid health insurance program in a ruling that bolsters efforts by Republican-led states to deprive the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider of public money. The 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court's decision barring Republican-governed South Carolina from terminating regional affiliate Planned Parenthood South Atlantic 's participation in the state's Medicaid program because the organization provides abortions. The court's three liberal justices dissented from the decision. The case centered on whether recipients of Medicaid, a joint federal and state health insurance program for low-income people, may sue to enforce a requirement under U.S. law that they may obtain medical assistance from any qualified and willing provider. Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide, a number of Republican-led states have implemented near-total bans or, like South Carolina, prohibitions after six weeks of pregnancy. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates clinics in the South Carolina cities of Charleston and Columbia, where it serves hundreds of Medicaid patients each year, providing physical examinations, screenings for cancer and diabetes, pregnancy testing, contraception and other services. The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards sued in 2018 after Republican Governor Henry McMaster ordered South Carolina officials to end the organization's participation in the state Medicaid program by deeming any abortion provider unqualified to provide family planning services. The plaintiffs sued South Carolina under an 1871 U.S. law that helps people challenge illegal acts by state officials. They said the Medicaid law protects what they called a "deeply personal right" to choose one's doctor. The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative legal group and backed by President Donald Trump's administration, said the disputed Medicaid provision in this case does not meet the "high bar for recognizing private rights." A federal judge ruled in Planned Parenthood's favor, finding that Medicaid recipients may sue under the 1871 law and that the state's move to defund the organization violated the right of Edwards to freely choose a qualified medical provider. In 2024, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also sided with the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on April 2. The dispute has reached the Supreme Court three times. The court in 2020 rejected South Carolina's appeal at an earlier stage of the case. In 2023, it ordered a lower court to reconsider South Carolina's arguments in light of a ruling the justices had issued involving the rights of nursing home residents that explained that laws like Medicaid must unambiguously give individuals the right to sue.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
US Supreme Court to review death row inmate's intellectual disability ruling
By John Kruzel WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear an appeal by Alabama officials of a judicial decision that a man convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled - a finding that spared him from the death penalty - as they press ahead with the Republican-governed state's bid to execute him. A lower court ruled that Joseph Clifton Smith is intellectually disabled based on its analysis of his IQ test scores and expert testimony. Under a 2002 Supreme Court precedent, executing an intellectually disabled person violates the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment bar on cruel and unusual punishment. The justices are due to hear the case in their next term, which starts in October. Smith, now 54, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of a man named Durk Van Dam in Alabama's Mobile County. Smith fatally beat the man with a hammer and saw in order to steal his boots, some tools and $140, according to evidence in the case. The victim's body was found in his mud-bound Ford Ranger truck in an isolated, wooded area. The Supreme Court's 2002 precedent in a case called Atkins v. Virginia barred executing intellectually disabled people. President Donald Trump's administration backed Alabama's appeal in the case. At issue in Smith's case is whether and how courts may consider the cumulative effect of multiple intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in assessing a death row inmate's intellectual disability. Like many states, conservative-leaning Alabama considers evidence of IQ test scores of 70 or below as part of the standard for determining intellectual disability. Supreme Court rulings in 2014 and 2017 allowed courts to consider IQ score ranges that are close to 70 along with other evidence of intellectual disability, such as testimony of "adaptive deficits." Smith had five IQ test scores, the lowest of which was 72. A federal judge noted that Smith's score could be as low as 69, given the standard of error of plus or minus three points. The judge then found that Smith had significant deficits from an early age in social and interpersonal skills, independent living and academics. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge's conclusions in 2023, setting aside Smith's death sentence. This prompted Alabama officials to file their first of two appeals to the Supreme Court in the case. In November, the justices threw out the 11th Circuit's decision, saying that the lower court's evaluation of Smith's IQ scores can be read two ways, and requires clarification. Ten days later, the 11th Circuit issued an opinion clarifying that its evaluation was based on "a holistic approach to multiple IQ scores" that also considered additional relevant evidence, including expert testimony. This prompted a second appeal by Alabama officials to the Supreme Court. Alabama in its filing to the Supreme Court argued that the lower courts in the case applied the wrong legal standard in establishing Smith's intellectual disability and urged the justices to take up the appeal to provide clarity on the issue. Friday's action by the court was unexpected. The court had planned to release it on Monday along with its other regularly scheduled orders, but a software glitch on Friday prematurely sent email notifications concerning the court's decision in the case. "As a result, the court is issuing that order list now," said court spokesperson Patricia McCabe. It is not the first time the court has inadvertently disclosed action in sensitive cases. Last year, an apparent draft of a ruling in a case involving emergency abortion access in Idaho was briefly uploaded to the court's website before being taken down. That disclosure represented an embarrassment for the top U.S. judicial body, coming two years after the draft of a blockbuster ruling rolling back abortion rights was leaked.
Reuters
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US Supreme Court mulls legality of milestone religious charter school
Summary Oklahoma Catholic dioceses are behind proposed school Lower court blocked establishment of St. Isidore school Trump administration and governor back school's creation WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation's first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education. Organizers of the proposed school and a state school board that backs it have appealed a lower court's ruling that blocked the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. That court found that the proposed religious charter school would violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment limits on government involvement in religion. Charter schools in Oklahoma are considered public schools under state law and draw funding from the state government. The proposed charter school has divided officials in Republican-governed Oklahoma. It is being challenged by the state's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond but Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has backed it, as has Republican President Donald Trump 's administration. St. Isidore, planned as a joint effort by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, would offer virtual learning from kindergarten through high school. Its plan to integrate religion into its curriculum would make it the first religious charter school in the United States. The proposed school has never been operational amid legal challenges to its establishment. Opponents have said religious charter schools would force taxpayers to support religious indoctrination. It could also undermine nondiscrimination principles, they argued, since religious charter schools might seek to bar employees who do not adhere to doctrinal teachings. Organizers estimated in 2023 that St. Isidore would cost Oklahoma taxpayers up to $25.7 million over its first five years in operation. The Oklahoma charter school board in June 2023 approved the plan to create St. Isidore in a 3-2 vote. Drummond sued in October 2023 to block St. Isidore in a legal action filed at the Oklahoma Supreme Court, saying he was duty bound to "prevent the type of state-funded religion that Oklahoma's constitutional framers and the founders of our country sought to prevent." 'SURROGATE OF THE STATE' Oklahoma's top court in a 6-2 ruling last year blocked the school. It classified St. Isidore as a "governmental entity" that would act as "a surrogate of the state in providing free public education as any other state-sponsored charter school." That court decided that the proposal ran afoul of the First Amendment's "establishment clause," which restricts government officials from endorsing any particular religion, or promoting religion over nonreligion. The First Amendment generally constrains the government but not private entities. St. Isidore, the court wrote, would "require students to spend time in religious instruction and activities, as well as permit state spending in direct support of the religious curriculum and activities within St. Isidore - all in violation of the establishment clause." School board officials and St. Isidore argued in Supreme Court papers that the Oklahoma court erred by deeming St. Isidore an arm of the government rather than a private organization. They argued that the government had not delegated a state duty to St. Isidore merely by contracting with it, and that the school would function largely independently of the government. They also argued that Oklahoma's refusal to establish St. Isidore as a charter school solely because it is religious is discrimination under First Amendment language that protects the free exercise of religion. Drummond told the Supreme Court that Oklahoma's top court correctly classified St. Isidore as a government entity since charter schools qualify as public schools, noting that both are publicly funded and subject to state oversight. Moreover, Drummond argued, the Supreme Court has previously said that states may require secular education in their public schools. The Supreme Court's decision is expected by the end of June. The court has recognized broader religious rights in a series of rulings in recent years. It ruled in a Missouri case in 2017 that churches and other religious entities cannot be flatly denied public money based on their religious status - even in states whose constitutions explicitly ban such funding. In 2020, it endorsed Montana tax credits that helped pay for students to attend religious schools. In 2022, it backed two Christian families in their challenge to Maine's tuition-assistance program that had excluded private religious schools. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the Oklahoma case, though did not explain why. Barrett is a former professor at Notre Dame Law School, which represents the school's organizers.
