Bill targeting abortion pills misses key deadline
An effort to limit abortion pills in Texas appears to have died in the Legislature.
Why it matters: Abortion is already illegal in Texas, but Republicans this session turned their attention to medication abortion, which accounts for most abortions performed in the U.S.
Driving the news: Senate Bill 2880 — a sweeping measure that allows lawsuits against those mailing, delivering, manufacturing or distributing abortion bills — sailed through the Senate last month, but did not receive a vote in the House before a key deadline.
Senate bills must have received a vote in the House by Tuesday to move to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk. The legislative session ends Monday.
Yes, but: It's not over 'til it's over. Measures can be resurrected at the last minute through amendments.
What they're saying:"This is a significant failure from the House," Texas Right to Life president John Seago told the Texas Tribune. "When you look at the opportunity this bill had, it seems like there was a deliberate effort to slow the bill down, if not to kill it."
Zoom in: More than three dozen Republicans signed a letter last week urging the House State Affairs Committee to vote on the bill so that it could move to the full chamber.
The committee approved the measure, but too late in the legislative process to make it to the House floor before the clock ran out.
The big picture: The Legislature has moved along several other abortion-related bills.
SB 31, aimed at clarifying Texas' abortion ban, which includes an exception that allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy to save the pregnant person's life, is awaiting a signature by Abbott.
SB 33, which bans a city from using taxpayer money to pay for abortion-related expenses, also awaits the governor's signature. Both Austin and San Antonio have allocated money to support people traveling for abortions out of state.
The other side: "SB 31 doesn't undo the harm of the state's abortion ban, and it never could. No amount of 'clarification' can fix a fundamentally unjust law," Blair Wallace, policy and advocacy strategist for reproductive rights at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement on the passage of SB 31.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Senate Republicans revise ban on state AI regulations in bid to preserve controversial provision
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have made changes to their party's sweeping tax bill in hopes of preserving a new policy that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. In legislative text unveiled Thursday night, Senate Republicans proposed denying states federal funding for broadband projects if they regulate AI. That's a change from a provision in the House-passed version of the tax overhaul that simply banned any current or future AI regulations by the states for 10 years. 'These provisions fulfill the mandate given to President Trump and Congressional Republicans by the voters: to unleash America's full economic potential and keep her safe from enemies,' Sen. Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement announcing the changes. The proposed ban has angered state lawmakers in Democratic and Republican-led states and alarmed some digital safety advocates concerned about how AI will develop as the technology rapidly advances. But leading AI executives, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, have made the case to senators that a 'patchwork' of state AI regulations would cripple innovation. Some House Republicans are also uneasy with the provision. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., came out against the AI regulatory moratorium in the House bill after voting for it. She said she had not read that section of the bill. 'We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around,' Greene wrote on social media. Senate Republicans made their change in an attempt to follow the special process being used to pass the tax bill with a simple majority vote. To comply with those rules, any provision needs to deal primarily with the federal budget and not government policy. Republican leaders argue, essentially, that by setting conditions for states to receive certain federal appropriations — in this instance, funding for broadband internet infrastructure — they would meet the Senate's standard for using a majority vote. Cruz told reporters Thursday that he will make his case next week to Senate parliamentarian on why the revised ban satisfies the rules. The parliamentarian is the chamber's advisor on its proper rules and procedures. While the parliamentarian's ruling are not binding, senators of both parties have adhered to their findings in the past. Senators generally argue that Congress should take the lead on regulating AI but so far the two parties have been unable to broker a deal that is acceptable to Republicans' and Democrats' divergent concerns. The GOP legislation also includes significant changes to how the federal government auctions commercial spectrum ranges. Those new provisions expand the range of spectrum available for commercial use, an issue that has divided lawmakers over how to balance questions of national security alongside providing telecommunications firms access to more frequencies for commercial wireless use. Senators are aiming to pass the tax package, which extends the 2017 rate cuts and other breaks from President Donald Trump's first term along with new tax breaks and steep cuts to social programs, later this month. Matt Brown, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Associated Press
32 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Senate Republicans revise ban on state AI regulations in bid to preserve controversial provision
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have made changes to their party's sweeping tax bill in hopes of preserving a new policy that would prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. In legislative text unveiled Thursday night, Senate Republicans proposed denying states federal funding for broadband projects if they regulate AI. That's a change from a provision in the House-passed version of the tax overhaul that simply banned any current or future AI regulations by the states for 10 years. 'These provisions fulfill the mandate given to President Trump and Congressional Republicans by the voters: to unleash America's full economic potential and keep her safe from enemies,' Sen. Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said in a statement announcing the changes. The proposed ban has angered state lawmakers in Democratic and Republican-led states and alarmed some digital safety advocates concerned about how AI will develop as the technology rapidly advances. But leading AI executives, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, have made the case to senators that a 'patchwork' of state AI regulations would cripple innovation. Some House Republicans are also uneasy with the provision. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., came out against the AI regulatory moratorium in the House bill after voting for it. She said she had not read that section of the bill. 'We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around,' Greene wrote on social media. Senate Republicans made their change in an attempt to follow the special process being used to pass the tax bill with a simple majority vote. To comply with those rules, any provision needs to deal primarily with the federal budget and not government policy. Republican leaders argue, essentially, that by setting conditions for states to receive certain federal appropriations — in this instance, funding for broadband internet infrastructure — they would meet the Senate's standard for using a majority vote. Cruz told reporters Thursday that he will make his case next week to Senate parliamentarian on why the revised ban satisfies the rules. The parliamentarian is the chamber's advisor on its proper rules and procedures. While the parliamentarian's ruling are not binding, senators of both parties have adhered to their findings in the past. Senators generally argue that Congress should take the lead on regulating AI but so far the two parties have been unable to broker a deal that is acceptable to Republicans' and Democrats' divergent concerns. The GOP legislation also includes significant changes to how the federal government auctions commercial spectrum ranges. Those new provisions expand the range of spectrum available for commercial use, an issue that has divided lawmakers over how to balance questions of national security alongside providing telecommunications firms access to more frequencies for commercial wireless use. Senators are aiming to pass the tax package, which extends the 2017 rate cuts and other breaks from President Donald Trump's first term along with new tax breaks and steep cuts to social programs, later this month.
The Hill
33 minutes ago
- The Hill
Nearly 100 House Democrats urge RFK Jr. to restore millions in family planning grants
A group of nearly 100 House Democrats is calling on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore tens of millions of dollars in federal family planning grants to more than a dozen organizations that have been frozen for more than two months. In a letter to Kennedy sent on Friday and seen first by The Hill, 95 lawmakers said the organizations which had their Title X funding frozen on March 31 — including nine Planned Parenthood clinics — are still in the dark about the status of their grants. At the time, the clinics said they received letters from the administration saying the grants were being 'temporarily withheld' due to possible civil right violations and President Trump's executive orders prohibiting the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and 'taxpayer subsidization of open borders.' More than two months later, the lawmakers said the grantees 'remain without funding and have received no communication from the administration regarding the status of the investigations, the expected timeline, or the future of their funding.' HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 'Congress has already appropriated these funds, and the administration has a responsibility to distribute them without undue delay or obstruction, ensuring that critical care is not disrupted for millions of people who rely on Title X services,' the group of lawmakers wrote. The letter was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) and Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), and signed by 91 other Democrats. Title X is the country's only federal program dedicated to providing affordable birth control and other sexual and reproductive health care to low-income Americans and has done so since the 1970s. The lawmakers timed the letter to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, which established a constitutional right to privacy regarding contraception and reproductive decisions. 'However, due to the actions of this administration, reproductive freedom is under threat,' the lawmakers wrote. The first Trump administration prohibited providers from receiving Title X funding if they mentioned abortion or referred patients for abortions. It also required clinics to construct separate facilities for the procedure and other services. More than a dozen grantees, including all Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide, left the program in protest because of the rule. The Biden administration reversed Trump's Title X rule in 2021.
