A proposal to prohibit abortion midway through pregnancy failed in Colorado.
It would have banned the procedure after 22 weeks gestation except if “immediately required to save the life of the pregnant woman.” At least 17 states have passed these laws, which are largely based on the idea that a fetus, if developed enough, can feel pain during an abortion procedure.
But in Louisiana, voters amended the state Constitution with language stating there is no right to abortion or abortion funding. Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia have passed similar amendments.
The move doesn’t have an immediate effect, but it could help pave the way to the state banning abortion entirely if the Supreme Court ever reverses or further reinterprets Roe v. Wade. Louisiana and nine other states have “trigger laws” to immediately ban abortion if that happens. And by amending its constitution, Louisiana has made it harder for the ban to be challenged in court.
This type of scenario is easier to imagine now, with the recent confirmation of President Trump’s third Supreme Court appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett. On Friday, the Supreme Court will consider whether to review a Mississippi law banning virtually all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy – a law that directly conflicts with Roe’s protection of abortion rights before a fetus is considered viable.
Even if Trump loses, Barrett’s confirmation will leave a lasting impact on health care.
But many other changes the Trump administration made to the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, the Medicaid program and regulations around abortion and birth control are expected to be reversed or heavily modified if Joe Biden wins.
Most immediately, the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is in question, with Biden promising to take serious steps to quash the spread of the virus even as Trump continues to downplay it.
If declared the winner, the Democratic presidential nominee is planning to create his own coronavirus task force that would include former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Obama White House aide Zeke Emanuel, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler and several others, according to a report by Politico.
All of this is still up in the air.
Millions of mail-in ballots still being counted in a race appearing much closer than many pollsters had predicted.
“For much of the night, the map was a sea of indecision, with state after state hanging in the balance as the votes were tallied at what sometimes seemed like an excruciatingly slow pace,” The Post’s Dan Balz writes. “For Biden, the good news was that some of those states still not decided were ones crucial to Trump’s hopes of winning a second term.”
The Post hasn’t called races in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which are three critical states that could determine the winner of the presidential election. The election may not be resolved for days, even as Trump falsely asserted election fraud overnight and threatened to go to the Supreme Court to get “all voting to stop.” (As The Post notes, however, lawsuits to challenge state election procedures and practices would have to be filed in lower-level courts. And while voting has stopped, counting has not.)
The situation is a nail-biter, to say the least – including for members of Trump’s own administration who are deeply frustrated by its turbulence and the president’s recent threats to fire top health officials and political appointees as part of a second-term purge.
“I’d like to have some nails left to stab myself with tomorrow,” a senior administration official told me last night.
Ahh, oof and ouch
AHH: Five states approved measures to legalize marijuana for recreational or medical use.
Voters in New Jersey, Arizona and Montana backed measures to legalize recreational marijuana, while South Dakota became the first state to approve both recreational and medical marijuana at the same time. Mississippians, meanwhile, voted to create a medical marijuana program that will allow doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients with 22 qualifying conditions.
“A decade ago, recreational marijuana was illegal in all 50 states. Voters allowed it in Colorado and Washington in 2012, sparking a movement that already included 11 states and Washington, D.C., heading into Tuesday’s elections. Supporters hope additional victories, especially in conservative states, could build pressure for Congress to legalize marijuana nationwide,” the Associated Press’s David A. Lieb writes.
The push to relax drug laws was not limited to marijuana. Voters in Oregon approved a measure to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other street drugs. Instead of going to jail, people intercepted with small amounts of those drugs would be given the option of paying a fine or attending an addiction recovery class.
Oregon also became the first state to approve the therapeutic use of psychedelic mushrooms. D.C. voters approved a measure that would move towards decriminalizing psychedelic plants, including psilocybin-containing mushrooms, by making them among the police’s lowest enforcement priority.
OOF: Republicans defended one governorship and flipped another.
Incumbent GOP governor Mike Parsons won reelection in Missouri against his Democratic challenger, state Auditor Nicole Galloway. The race was seen as the best chance for Democrats to flip a governor seat.
State governors are particularly crucial amid the coronavirus pandemic, due to their key role in coordinating testing and treatment supplies and distributing a vaccine. The win by Parson, who has taken a largely hands-off approach to the pandemic, means he will oversee efforts to coordinate a likely statewide vaccination campaign in the coming year.
“[T]he virus dominated the governor’s race and became a lens through which other issues, such as the economy and healthcare, were seen. Missouri has reported more than 188,000 cases over the course of the pandemic and more than 3,000 deaths,” the Kansas City Star’s Jonathan Shorman reports. Parsons touted aid that he secured for hospitals, but he “has largely left decisions on restrictions up to cities and counties. The approach continues to frustrate health officials, Democrats and others who say a statewide mask mandate would help slow the spread of the virus.”
Parson and his wife tested positive for the coronavirus in September, but both quickly recovered.
Democrats also lost Montana’s gubernatorial race, which flipped the spot red. U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, beat Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney, a Democrat. In a July townhall, Gianforte promoted the idea of protecting people from the virus through herd immunity. He has also faced criticism during the campaign for taking off his mask to hug unmasked supporters.
OUCH: Coronavirus trailed the economy as a top issue for voters.
“About 2 in 10 voters said the pandemic that has left more than 232,000 Americans dead and upended life around the globe was the most important issue on their minds as they selected a president and other officials to lead the United States out of its more than nine-month public health crisis,” The Post’s Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach report. “But about one-third said they were primarily motivated by the economy, including 6 in 10 of the voters who supported President Trump.”
In Florida, which Trump won, the president was favored by 8 in 10 voters who listed the economy as their top issue, while 9 out of 10 voters who named the pandemic, health care or racial justice as their top issue said that they voted for Biden.
“A slight majority of voters said it is more important to contain the coronavirus now, even if the necessary measures hurt the economy. About 4 in 10 said the economy is more important, even if restoring the nation’s economic health hamstrings efforts to limit the spread of the virus,” Bernstein and Achenbach writes.
“Millions of voters who cast ballots in person Tuesday were braving the worst stretch of the pandemic to do so. Nearly 89,000 new infections were reported Tuesday, bringing the U.S. total to more than 9.3 million cases,” Bernstein and Achenbach write. “The virus continued its surge through the Midwest and Plains states. Seven states set records for hospitalizations of patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, including Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin.”
Election 2020
Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), Clinton’s former health secretary, lost her congressional race.
Republican Maria Elvira Salazar, a former television journalist, claimed a surprise victory against Shalala in Florida’s 27th Congressional District.
“Democrats didn’t take advantage of Shalala’s health policy expertise during her single term in Congress: She wasn’t assigned to any committees with health care jurisdiction, and she didn’t play much of a role in Democrats’ signature health policy initiatives, including H.R. 3, their aggressive drug pricing bill,” Stat News reports. “Still, Shalala was seen as an elder statesperson on health care issues.”
Shalala was placed on a bipartisan panel overseeing the distribution of $500 billion in coronavirus relief funds to businesses. She got in trouble, however, for failing to disclose stock sales while serving in Congress, a potential violation of federal law.
Salazar used Spanish language radio to make her pitch, tying Shalala to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other left-leaning Democrats. The Republican candidate likely also benefited from Trump’s improved polling among Latinos in the Miami area.
Here’s our interview with Shalala in early 2019.
Voters were bombarded with suspicious phone calls urging them to “stay home and stay safe.”
Voters received more than 10 million automated calls with deceptive messages about the election, which election officials worry could be aimed at discouraging people from voting, Tony Romm and Isaac Stanley-Becker report. Some voters told The Post that they initially thought the call was from public health officials.
“While the robocall did not explicitly mention the 2020 presidential election or issues that might affect voters’ well-being, including the coronavirus pandemic, it still created the potential for widespread panic or confusion,” Romm and Stanley-Becker write.
The calls exacerbate “long-standing fears that the pandemic could undermine participation in the 2020 election,” Romm and Stanley-Becker write. “Numerous states have expanded opportunities to vote by mail in response to safety concerns, and election administrators have taken pains to retrofit in-person voting for the coronavirus, supplying hand sanitizer and other safeguards.”
