Latest news with #MelissaWintrow
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP lawmakers seek to ban Pride flags, stirring tensions with liberal cities
A Pride flag flies in front of Boise City Hall, just blocks from the Idaho Capitol. The flag flies below the city's own banner and in April shared the flagpole with a flag honoring organ donation. The city also displays the U.S. flag, a POW/MIA flag and a state of Idaho flag. (Erika Bolstad/Stateline) BOISE, Idaho — The day the flag bill came up for a vote in the Idaho Senate this spring, state Sen. Melissa Wintrow had no plans to speak against it. As the top Democratic leader in her chamber, she had already spent the legislative session in constant, vocal opposition to the Republican-dominated legislative agenda. 'I thought: 'Oh, this stupid flag bill once again,'' Wintrow said. 'I'll just vote 'no' quietly because I've just really been in people's grille about things.' But then the bill's sponsor, Republican state Sen. Ben Toews, began passing out flyers about the legislation, one of two proposed bills to limit which flags can be flown at schools and on state and local government property. The only photos on the handout were of rainbow-striped Pride flags flying in Boise: one on a flagpole in front of City Hall, and then others on light poles along Harrison Boulevard, two blocks from Wintrow's home. 'When he sat that picture in front of me on that desk, I thought: 'That's enough. Just always picking and bullying,'' Wintrow said. 'The state's going to tell us what to do, when they can't even address the larger problems like affordable housing? That's what's on people's minds. A good working wage, health care. It's as if they don't know how to govern. So they just pick these culture war things.' In recent weeks, both Idaho and Utah have enacted bans that prohibit Pride flags from being displayed on government property, pitting lawmakers in the Republican-dominated legislatures against the more progressive capitals of Boise and Salt Lake City, where the flags are often flown at city hall. It's as if they don't know how to govern. So they just pick these culture war things. – Idaho Democratic state Sen. Melissa Wintrow In Utah, the law allows the state flag, the U.S. flag, U.S. military flags, the POW/MIA flag, local government flags, tribal nation flags, university and school flags and Olympic flags. Idaho's list is similar, but includes a provision in the school flag law that prohibits flags with political viewpoints, 'including but not limited to flags or banners regarding a political party, race, sexual orientation, gender, or a political ideology.' Lawmakers in Florida, Texas and at least 13 other states are considering similar flag prohibitions, said Logan Casey, director of policy research with the Movement Advancement Project, which studies LGBTQ+ rights. The flag bills go beyond symbolism, Casey said. Rather, they are part of a broad and coordinated legislative attack on LGBTQ+ people that seeks to strip them of rights and erase or make difficult their participation in public life. 'Sometimes those attacks are very material, like denying access to health care or the ability to participate safely in public life and activities,' Casey said. 'Sometimes they're a little more symbolic, like these flag bills.' The rainbow-colored Pride flag was conjured up by artist and drag queen Gilbert Baker in 1978, at the suggestion of San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, as a symbol of progress and pride for that year's San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Since then, the rainbow-colored flag and its many design iterations have grown into worldwide emblems of solidarity with LGBTQ+ rights. Although the laws in Idaho and Utah don't ban Pride flags specifically, bill sponsors and their supporters made it clear they want to see such flags removed from city halls, schools and state buildings. Idaho state Rep. Ted Hill, a Republican who sponsored the bill limiting which flags can fly at schools, said in an interview that Pride flags are disruptive to classroom learning because discussion about them takes up 'an amazing amount of political bandwidth.' 'The best way to do it is to get rid of everything,' said Hill, who represents Eagle, a suburb northwest of Boise. 'So the only thing you have in the classroom is the American flag, the state flag. And people will say inclusivity and all this. Well, the American flag is as inclusive as it can get.' Despite the new law, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, a Democrat, continues to fly a Pride flag in front of City Hall, just below the city's own and adjacent to poles flying the U.S. and state of Idaho flags. The Pride flag's presence, within view of the state Capitol, elicited a sternly worded letter from Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, a Republican. Here's how state lawmakers are taking aim at transgender adults' health care Idaho's law, which went into effect April 3, has no penalty for local governments or officials who fly flags in defiance of the ban, an oversight lawmakers told Labrador they'll rectify in subsequent legislative sessions. Instead, the law relies on 'the good will of elected officials for its enforcement,' Labrador wrote, warning McLean that she should 'comply with the law out of a sense of duty to your oath of office.' He threatened, too, that lawmakers could 'deny state tax revenues and other appropriations to the City of Boise or any other governmental entity that does not follow state law.' McLean countered that the new law is unconstitutional, and that the city will challenge threats to withhold funding. Pride flags have flown in Boise for a decade, she told Labrador, and represent a commitment to 'a safe and welcoming city where everyone means just that — everyone.' 'The Constitutional rights of our residents are not subject to — cannot be subject to — the political whims of legislative disapproval,' McLean wrote, 'and we will not step back from them simply because the principles our community cherishes make some in state government uncomfortable.' Boise's city council is considering a resolution confirming that any flags it flies, including Pride flags, are official city flags — a move the council says will ensure it is complying with state law. In the meantime, the city will 'continue to fly the flags on City Hall Plaza that represent our community and speak to our values of caring for people and welcoming all,' McLean said in a statement. Early on Easter morning, several people climbed a ladder propped up next to the city's flagpole to cover the Pride flag and a separate flag (honoring organ and tissue donation) with trash bags. They also raised the Appeal to Heaven flag, a Revolutionary War-era flag that has come to represent sympathy to the Christian nationalist movement and to President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. A few hours later, the mayor lowered the flags, which are on a locked halyard, to remove the trash bags and the Appeal to Heaven flag. It capped a challenging sequence of events in Boise and nearby Meridian, which drew national attention this spring when school officials ordered a middle school teacher to take down a sign with the phrase 'Everyone is welcome here' from her classroom. Amid the backlash, people in Boise printed T-shirts and yard signs in support of the teacher and the sign's message. The mayor's response to the flag law and the support for the classroom message aren't directly connected, but both reflect how many in the community insist on sending a welcoming message at this moment in American history, said Christina Bruce-Bennion, executive director of Boise's Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, which helped coordinate support for the teacher. In Salt Lake City, the flag ban threatens to end a long-standing annual tradition. Typically, the mayor's office kicks off Pride Month festivities in June with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall, said Chad Call, executive director of the Utah Pride Center, which puts on the state's annual Pride festivities. Events include a parade through the streets of Salt Lake City with a 200-foot Pride flag — which remains a legal form of First Amendment expression and has taken place most years since 1997. 'We have a city council that wants to celebrate Pride month,' Call said. 'They want to celebrate the queer community in the month of June. And then we have a state government that does not want that happening in our capital city. And so it is very targeted.' 'It was the life raft': Transgender people find a safe haven in Florida's capital city One of the flag bill's sponsors, state Rep. Trevor Lee, said in an interview that his legislation was prompted by constituents who told him they're 'sick and tired of seeing a political agenda being pushed in their face' on government property, particularly with flags featuring transgender representation. 'It makes people feel uncomfortable if it's something they don't agree with,' said Lee, who represents a district north of Salt Lake City. 'And so we're trying to keep it very specific and let schools focus on teaching the things that they need to, and let government buildings just fly their city flag for heaven's sakes, or the state flag or the American flag.' One Utah parent, Republican activist Aaron Bullen, said he began objecting to Pride flags several years ago after one of his children, then a fifth grader, was 'visibly upset' after school one day. Bullen said his son told him he'd seen what's known as a Progress Pride flag, a newer iteration of the original rainbow-striped flag. It includes an arrow on the left side composed of pink, blue and white stripes to represent transgender people, as well as brown and black stripes to represent queer people of color. The flag was in the school's computer lab. Bullen said he complained to school leaders at the district, south of Salt Lake City, and the flag came down. But Bullen felt as though the flag's presence undermined what he and his wife teach at home and model to their children as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly how they interpret the church's stance on transgender people and marriage for same-sex couples. 'It says, basically, 'we approve of gay marriage' when that flag is up,' Bullen said. 'And that's something that my religion is explicitly against. And so you have a teacher of my son, a person in authority that they'd like to be able to trust and to follow the instructions of, but they're saying, 'your parents who taught you this other thing, they're wrong. Your religion is wrong.' That's what that flag means.' It's not the job of a school to try to teach morals differently than parents would. – Aaron Bullen, a Utah parent and Republican activist He added: 'It's not the job of a school to try to teach morals differently than parents would. Parents have the fundamental right and responsibility to rear their children. And it's not a school's place to oppose the religion of the parents or the teachings of the parents.' Unlike in Idaho, Utah's flag ban carries a $500 fine per day for failure to comply with the law. But in Utah, the law took effect without Republican Gov. Spencer Cox's signature. The governor declined to sign the bill into law, saying the state's residents are 'tired of culture war bills that don't solve the problems they intend to fix.' Call, of the Utah Pride Center, said that while it's discouraging for LGBTQ+ people to witness their representation further erased in public spaces, they refuse in Utah to allow the flag law to diminish the spirit of their Pride events, among the largest in the nation. 'Our counterculture here is really, really strong,' Call said. 'And I think the thing that probably defines our Utah Pride as being kind of unique is the incredibly strong community that it brings together. There's tens, hundreds of thousands of people that come out to support it.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Idaho Senate passes bill to prevent local, state governments from displaying some flags
Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, said the bill targets her city and the neighborhood she represents that flies pride flags across Harrison Boulevard in North Boise. (Mia Maldonado/Idaho Capital Sun) The Idaho Senate in a 20-11 vote on Wednesday advanced a bill to prevent government entities from displaying certain flags. House Bill 96 prevents government entities from displaying flags on its properties, with exceptions to: The U.S. flag The official flag of a government entity U.S. state flags Military flags POW/MIA flags Tribe flags Country flags to commemorate special occasions Flags of Idaho colleges, universities and schools The bill already passed the Idaho House of Representatives in a 53-17 vote. The bill now heads to the governor's desk where he can sign it, let it become law without his signature or veto it. The bill sponsor, Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur d'Alene, said the bill 'isn't stifling freedom of speech,' and local and state governments should remain neutral. Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, asked if it would impact Bonners Ferry, a town he represents which flies a Canadian flag at the entrance of the city to welcome Canadian visitors. 'It's hard to say if that's a special occasion, I mean being a border town, I think it is understood as something that's important, and it does allow for official flags of countries other than the United States,' Toews said. 'It's a little bit of a gray area to be honest.' Woodward joined three other republicans to vote alongside Democrats against this bill, including Sen. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls; Sen. Dave Lent, R-Idaho Falls; and Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon. Sen. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, said the bill targets her city and the neighborhood she represents that flies pride flags across Harrison Boulevard in North Boise. 'I understand that in my neighborhood now, when we want to celebrate and unite under this rainbow flag and support our community, that is going to be taken from us by the state,' she said. 'This is two blocks off my street. Every time those flags get hung, big groups of people go out to celebrate because we welcome everyone in my district. I think this is far overreach.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump Administration Drops Lawsuit Over Emergency Abortions
Abortion rights activists rally for reproductive rights and emergency abortion care outside the U.S. Supreme Court Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2024. Credit - Saul Loeb/AFP—Getty Images The Trump Administration dropped a high-profile lawsuit over the right to emergency abortions in Idaho on March 5—a stark reversal from the Biden Administration, and a move that reproductive rights advocates, providers, patients, and legislators have called 'devastating' and 'troubling.' 'Unfortunately, it was not a surprise at all. We have been nervous but ready for this decision to come down. I think the Trump Administration has abandoned pregnant women in medical crises by abandoning [this case],' says Idaho State Sen. Melissa Wintrow, a Democrat. 'They dropped that case, which was only holding onto the sliver of protection in a crisis, and they can't even allow that. Think about that: they can't even allow a pregnant woman to go to the emergency room, and if her life and health are in jeopardy, to get medical treatment that could save it or preserve her health. That speaks volumes.' On March 5, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which had initially been brought by the Biden Administration. Doing so would have permitted Idaho to fully enforce its near-total ban on abortion, even in medical emergencies, but Idaho U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill blocked that move by granting a temporary restraining order at the request of the state's largest health care provider, St. Luke's Health System, which had filed its own lawsuit on the issue in January, in anticipation of the Trump Administration dropping the case. Read More: Women Denied Abortions in Idaho Take on the State's Near-Total Ban The initial case was one of the Biden Administration's efforts to protect reproductive rights in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. At the heart of the lawsuit is a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires emergency rooms receiving Medicare funding to stabilize patients experiencing medical emergencies before discharging or transferring them, regardless of the patients' ability to pay. The Biden Administration argued that emergency abortion care is required under EMTALA, and that Idaho's near-total ban on abortion prevents doctors from providing that care in medical emergencies. The state of Idaho has insisted that the state's ban doesn't conflict with federal law. Idaho has one of the strictest restrictions on abortion in the country and has limited exceptions, such as if an abortion is necessary to prevent the pregnant person's death, or for survivors of rape or incest, who have reported the crime to law enforcement and are in the first trimester of their pregnancy. 'EMTALA was never enough anyway, but it did add a little layer of a legal safeguard for necessary abortions and [health] care when it was a health emergency,' Wintrow says. 'It was the last shred, the bare minimum protection for women in Idaho.' The case filed by the Biden Administration eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in June 2024 that Idaho hospitals receiving federal dollars were temporarily permitted to provide emergency abortions in situations where patients are facing serious health risks. But the court declined to rule on whether the state's ban conflicts with EMTALA, throwing the case back down to lower court judges on procedural grounds. Since Winmill granted St. Luke's the temporary restraining order, doctors in Idaho are allowed to provide abortions in emergency situations for now, as the court reviews the case. The judge's ruling prohibits the Idaho Attorney General's Office from prosecuting doctors providing that care. The state Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the pending litigation filed by St. Luke's, but released a statement reacting to the news that the Trump Administration had dropped the lawsuit brought in during former President Joe Biden's term. 'It has been our position from the beginning that there is no conflict between EMTALA and Idaho's Defense of Life Act,' Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in the press release. 'We are grateful that meddlesome DOJ litigation on this issue will no longer be an obstacle to Idaho enforcing its laws.' The Justice Department and White House did not respond to a request for comment on the decision to dismiss the case. In a January press release (reviewed by TIME) announcing its own lawsuit, St. Luke's chief physician executive Dr. Jim Souza said the conflict between the state's near-total abortion ban and EMTALA 'makes it impossible to provide the highest standard of care in some of the most heartbreaking situations.' Read More: Here Are Trump's Major Moves Affecting Access to Reproductive Healthcare Carrie Flaxman, a senior legal advisor for the national legal organization Democracy Forward and a reproductive rights law expert, says that the Trump Administration's decision to drop the lawsuit is in line with Project 2025, which claimed that 'EMTALA requires no abortions' and encouraged the incoming presidential Administration to reverse what it called 'distorted pro-abortion 'interpretations' added to' the federal law. (Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the 2024 election cycle, but some of his closest advisers were involved in drafting the handbook). Flaxman says the change in the presidential Administration's stance on the issue 'is only going to sow confusion among doctors about how to comply with the law,' adding that 'it is patients that end up suffering' amid such confusion. Doctors in Idaho have said that the full enforcement of the state's near-total ban would prevent them from providing standard care in urgent situations. St. Luke's lawyers said in their complaint that, when Idaho fully enforced its near-total ban on abortion for a few months in 2024, the health system was forced to airlift six patients experiencing medical emergencies out of the state to help them access care. 'The St. Luke's medical providers treating these six patients when the law was fully in effect faced a terrible choice: they could either wait until the risks to the patient's health became life-threatening or transfer the patient out of state,' St. Luke's lawyers said in the complaint. 'The first option was medically unsound and dangerous because these patients' conditions could cause serious health complications if untreated, including systemic bleeding, liver hemorrhage and failure, kidney failure, stroke, seizure, and pulmonary edema. Moreover, watching a patient suffer and deteriorate until death is imminent is intolerable to most medical professionals.' At the same time, airlifting patients also puts patients at risk because it can lead to 'significant delays in care,' St. Luke's lawyers pointed out. Read More: Medication Abortion Is Still the Most Common Type Dr. Caitlin Gustafson—a family physician, abortion provider, and president of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare Foundation—says the state's near-total ban leaves doctors struggling to parse through the laws when they're trying to provide critical care to patients. When a patient experiences a medical emergency, delays in care can be dangerous and lead to other complications, Gustafson says. For instance, if a pregnant patient is hemorrhaging, and their health deteriorates, the patient's condition could worsen to a point where their future fertility is at risk. 'Without EMTALA, we are forced into a situation where we have to wait. 'Are they sick enough?' The law in Idaho says we may intervene with abortion care if it is to prevent the death. Well, that is a continuum, right? There is not a moment in which a patient holds up a sign and says, 'Now is the moment where this is life-threatening,'' Gustafson says. (Gustafson is a St. Luke's employee, but gave this interview as a representative of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare Foundation.) Kayla Smith's experience with Idaho's near-total abortion ban was part of the reason she and her family moved out of Idaho to Washington State. In 2022, when Smith was around 18-19 weeks pregnant with her second baby, her ultrasound revealed that her baby had several serious fetal anomalies. Doctors said her baby likely wouldn't survive birth. They were also concerned that continuing the pregnancy would be dangerous for Smith and put her at risk of developing preeclampsia, since she had experienced the condition while pregnant with her first child. But because Idaho's near-total ban on abortion had just gone into effect, Smith was forced to travel out of state to Washington to receive abortion care. Smith remembers asking her doctor a series of 'what if' questions. What if she carried to term? What would that look like? What if she did develop preeclampsia? 'The deciding point for me was during that appointment. I wanted to do the most humane thing for [my baby], but also [I realized] that my life was at risk because [the doctor] looked at me and was like, 'I don't know how sick you have to be with preeclampsia before we can induce you,'' Smith says. Smith, who is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit against Idaho requesting that the court clarify and expand the medical emergency exceptions under the state's abortion ban, says she knows she was privileged to be able to travel out of state to obtain the care she needed, as that option is not available to others. For Smith, the reality of the Trump Administration dropping the EMTALA lawsuit is 'devastating.' 'I'm really afraid for women right now,' she says. 'We don't know what's going to happen.' Smith, Gustafson, and Wintrow say they are all grateful to St. Luke's for taking over the case. Wintrow says 'it took great courage to do so,' adding that the health system 'saw the writing on the wall' with the new Administration and preemptively filed its lawsuit to try and protect pregnant people's access to emergency abortion care in Idaho. Smith says that if the courts side against St. Luke's, 'women are going to die.' She and Wintrow also say that the Trump Administration dropping the lawsuit has implications beyond Idaho, and fear that it might embolden other states to restrict emergency abortion care. 'This is not just going to affect Idaho,' Smith says. 'I really feel like this has given the green light to those other red states who have abortion bans to also just dismiss EMTALA completely.' Contact us at letters@
