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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Missouri's Historic Abortion Victory Is Crumbling Before Our Eyes
Just a few months ago, Missouri voters approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights. That measure, known as Amendment 3, added a 'reproductive freedom' amendment to the state constitution. It was crafted to offer stronger legal protections for abortion than existed under Roe v. Wade, according to campaigners, and to end the state's near-total abortion ban, which had been triggered by the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe. Those who voted for it believed that the amendment would allow them to override such past anti-abortion court rulings and to block anti-abortion lawmakers' future efforts—in essence, to reclaim their own rights and political voice. But as of May 27, by way of a two-page order from the state's Supreme Court, the abortion ban voters had been told they defeated was back. The ruling came as a 'surprise' to pro-choice and anti-abortion groups alike, the Missouri Independent reported this week. With it, the Supreme Court of Missouri has effectively allowed the state to enforce a raft of anti-abortion laws that had been challenged by two Planned Parenthood affiliates, which argued that such laws now violated the state constitution, thanks to Amendment 3. After last week's ruling, Planned Parenthood health centers in the state—Missouri's only abortion clinics—canceled upcoming appointments and advised patients that they could instead go to neighboring Kansas or Illinois, where abortion is legal. For now, those patients, and any Missourian who needs an abortion, have found themselves right back where they would have been had Amendment 3 never been on the ballot. The sudden loss of abortion access is an inarguable blow for Missouri's reproductive rights movement. But it's also something more troubling: a sign of flaws in the post-Roe strategy chosen by large national reproductive rights groups like Planned Parenthood and state chapters and affiliates of such groups, including the ACLU and Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL). For these groups, abortion rights ballot measures have been seen as a path forward in a hostile legal environment, a way to restore access without relying on the courts. Campaigns would go direct to the people, giving energized supporters a tangible goal to work toward, along with some optimism, amid an otherwise crushing assault on reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. The speed with which Missouri's ballot measure has gone from being a historic victory to yet another legal battle reveals that such election night wins may prove to be far more qualified and complicated to hold onto than campaigners had hoped. For some advocates in Missouri who had worked on Amendment 3, however, there was nothing all that surprising in the state Supreme Court's ruling. They saw it as a reality check. 'There is no way to responsibly sugarcoat what's playing out in the state,' the What's Next for Missouri coalition told me in a statement from the group. The coalition was founded by longtime Missouri reproductive justice advocates, as well as former staff of Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri who quit over their concerns about the ballot measure. 'Amendment 3 was a limited and symbolic win,' the coalition said. 'In reality, it has failed to protect pregnant people's bodily autonomy. Inaccessible abortion is just the tip of the iceberg.' Voters in Missouri may have declared that abortion was their constitutional right, but abortion was not going to return overnight to Missouri. In November, state Attorney General Andrew Bailey offered his legal opinion on which anti-abortion laws might still be enforceable. After stating that Amendment 3 'just barely' won by a 'tight margin,' he opined that 'the result may be very different if a future constitutional amendment is put up for a vote,' and detailed circumstances in which he believed some of the laws could still be enforced. In other words, he was not going to accept that Amendment 3 automatically invalidated state anti-abortion laws—and to be fair, the Amendment 3 campaign seems to have anticipated just such a reaction. Not long after the election, the two Planned Parenthood affiliates that have health centers in Missouri challenged many of those laws as 'presumptively unconstitutional,' citing Amendment 3. Their petition, filed in the circuit court of Jackson County by Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri, also requested that the court temporarily block such laws while the case played out. That included the total abortion ban triggered after Roe, as well as laws meant to restrict abortion access even if it were not technically banned, such as mandatory waiting periods and mandatory ultrasounds. In a pair of rulings in December and February, Judge Jerri Zhang granted the affiliates' request for a temporary injunction on most of those laws, after which Planned Parenthood clinics in Missouri began to offer abortion again, with significant limits: only procedural abortion up to 12 or 13 weeks, no medication abortion, in just three clinics across the entire state, operating at limited capacity. Other restrictions remained, including some that were not part of Planned Parenthood's challenge. Mandatory parental involvement laws were later challenged by the practical abortion support organization Right By You, in April. There were also restrictions that Amendment 3 did not touch: The ballot measure allows for abortion to be banned past fetal viability, the legal line after which a fetus is thought to be able to survive independently. This means that people having later abortions were left out of the promises of Amendment 3 from the start. Missouri Attorney General Bailey appealed Judge Zhang's decision, seeking to block abortion in the state during the court challenge—an appeal enabled by a new law giving the state attorney such power to sue to halt injunctions, signed just days before. Meanwhile, the Missouri General Assembly voted to put a new abortion ban on the ballot, an effort to overturn Amendment 3. The constitutional right protecting abortion that voters believed they had succeeded in installing was being rapidly undermined across multiple fronts—by the state attorney general, in the courts, and in the legislature. This legal undermining depends in part on voters not knowing that it's even happening. The proposed anti-abortion ballot measure language did not refer to Amendment 3, nor to banning abortion, hiding its ban behind claims of ensuring women's 'safety during abortions.' For good measure, it added a ban on gender-affirming care for minors—care that is currently banned in the state. Democrats in the state legislature had tried to block the anti-abortion ballot measure proposal from advancing, but Republicans broke their filibuster with 'a rare procedural maneuver to shut down debate and force a vote on a measure that would repeal Amendment 3,' as St. Louis Public Radio reported. Amendment 3 campaign leaders forcefully denounced both the new ballot measure and the legislature's underhanded attempt to reverse the will of Missouri voters. 'This deceptive amendment is a trojan horse to reinstate Missouri's total abortion ban,' Tori Schafer, director of policy and campaigns at the ACLU of Missouri, said in a statement. At protests on the steps of the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Amendment 3 supporters were now fighting to hang onto their victory, as they have had to many times this session. 'This past November, more than 1.5 million Missourians made their voices heard at the ballot box,' Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, said. 'Missourians are used to fighting back and are prepared to keep showing up.' Two weeks later, abortion access in the state would be all but nonexistent again, after Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Russell ordered Judge Zhang to vacate her temporary injunction and to reevaluate the Planned Parenthood affiliates' request, this time using a stricter standard. The ACLU of Missouri, which is co-counsel in the legal challenge, told The New Republic that it had 'immediately' responded to the order by sending correspondence to the court, 'highlighting that our arguments met this standard.' Tom Bastian, ACLU of Missouri director of communications, added that while the group 'can't predict when the court will act, we anticipate new orders … granting the preliminary injunctions blocking the ban and restrictions, once again allowing Missourians access to abortion care.' For now, then, those Missourians will be doing what they did before election night, before Dobbs: going out of state or self-managing their abortion with pills. In this, the reality for abortion in Missouri looks a lot like it did back when the near-total ban passed. The difference is that now more than $30 million has been spent on a ballot measure meant to reverse that ban. As the legal scholar Mary Ziegler pointed out this week, it is possible that Missourians' abortion rights will prevail, that Planned Parenthood will get its injunction, or even that the new anti-abortion ballot measure may fail. However, as she wrote, 'what is happening in Missouri is still a sign about the limits of ballot measures.' Advocates in other states should be asking: What is such a 'win' worth? The legal battle over Amendment 3 is nothing new, as Planned Parenthood's initial filing in this legal challenge acknowledged. 'The State of Missouri has spent decades attempting to eliminate or severely reduce abortion access,' its petition stated. 'This means that Plaintiffs have spent decades challenging these laws.' The lengths that Missouri lawmakers have been willing to go since the election, unfortunately, indicate that this is not a fair fight in fair courts. 'It's time for simple honesty,' What's Next said to me this week. People will have unreliable and irregular access to abortion 'until we shift power away from fascist politicians.' The reality is that this fight for the constitutional right to abortion was playing out at the same time that our constitutional rights were being ignored and undermined on a regular basis. Before we fundraise millions more dollars to replicate the fight in other states—fundraising that will be justified as 'restoring' access to abortion by making it a right—we might consider other, more immediate ways to give people what they need. That money might be better spent on paying for actual abortions, as abortion funds across the country do, helping people in the many states with abortion bans to access care. In a legal system that cannot be counted upon, there may be no more direct way of supporting a fundamental right.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Longing for a state and country I can believe in
When it comes to what is best for Missouri and America, it is about building bridges that we can all walk across to achieve the best good for the greatest number (rarrarorro/iStock Images) This column is a major departure from how I have written columns for nearly four decades. It is personal. I have avoided using 'I' and have endeavored to remain objective and impersonal as I have addressed and analyzed myriad social, educational and political issues across race, age, gender and socioeconomic status. That has been my practice, whether writing for radio, in print when I wrote for The Kansas City Star and other newspapers, or online writing for The Missouri Independent the last four years. Even in my own blog. Maybe the 'I' in this column is a 'collective I' that tugs. I have a hunch that many of my fellow Missourians and Americans may be feeling as I do as we live through unprecedented, tumultuous, and unsettling political times. What are you longing for? I long for a state and country where: The fundamental tenets, rules, procedures and laws that have governed our democratic republic still hold true and still mean something as we function in the public square and in our everyday lives. Our institutions and their histories still have meaning, value, collective power and influence. There is real meaning and we still value representative government, where those elected really believe in respecting and fighting for the issues and concerns of those who voted for them, sent them to do the people's bidding. Each of us can wear the Missourian and American identity with pride, humility and thankfulness irrespective of skin color, gender, place of birth, social or economic station or political leanings. The behaviors of the leadership in our state and nation — our governor, the legislature, our president, the halls of Congress — are shining examples to be emulated, duplicated, and cheered on. There is hope and a positive outlook about what each of us can achieve if we work hard enough. Some may consider those longings naive or idealistic. I do not. As a Black woman, born and raised on a small farm in Mississippi, and who has lived and or witnessed first-hand the good, the bad and the ugly of life in America, I have always remained hopeful and refused to give up on believing in the best of our collective humanity. Even now — as I watch the callous and inhumane way undocumented immigrants are being treated, how caring and career public servants have had their lives upended as their jobs are snatched and taken away indiscriminately with little or no notice — I still believe our collective decency and collective humanity still exist and is worth fighting for. When I watch DEI programs being dismantled across every aspect of American life as if the playing field is equal, I still believe in fairness and decency in spite of my experiences throughout my career — not getting jobs I was qualified for, sometimes overly qualified for, not able to buy a house in a neighborhood I could afford, on and on. Despite those experiences, I refused to be bitter, paint the situation or future prospects with a broad brush, or feel that I would always be victimized by racism and sexism. If I am a victim, it is in my belief that hope for a better humanity reigns eternal. But today and for some time, I must admit, I am finding it difficult to not become pessimistic, to not throw up my hands and say, 'What's the use? Why not just sit on my porch and watch the birds, and the changing sky?' Can I or any of us afford to do that, check out and ignore the constant bombardment of news that fly in the face of what this great 'Heart of America' state and the country that was once considered the 'Beacon on a Hill' supposed to be about? We see examples and reminders every day that we are allowing debased values and goals to kill the progress we have made for over two centuries. Why? Why? Why? Are we willing to sit by and watch what is happening to our state and country? Why? Who are the few, yes the few, representatives in Jefferson City and Washington who will assume and use the power invested in them to stand up and stop the negative and destructive trajectory — of us versus them — that the state and nation is on? No matter where we hail from, no matter our circumstances of birth, we have shared experiences that should bind us, not divide us. More importantly, keep us divided. It really is not about 'us' against 'them.' If only we could just keep that thought top of mind. It isn't about labels either: Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals. Like many of you, I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. I vote for the person and what they stand for. I am both conservative and liberal — and moderate — depending on the issue. When it comes to what is best for Missouri and America, it is about building bridges that we can all walk across to achieve the best good for the greatest number. That is what I long for. That is my hope. What is yours? We need to have an answer to pass on to our children, our grandchildren, and their children. Our collective future is dependent on it.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Accidental purchase wins $100K
ST. LOUIS – One Missourian's accidental mistake has just earned her over $100,000. One lucky St. Louisan took a trip to the Gas Mart, located on S. Jefferson Ave., and purchased a Scratchers ticket. 'I had actually asked for a different ticket, and the clerk accidentally gave me this one,' one of the winners laughed. 'I thought it was a fake ticket at first,' the winner told Missouri Lottery. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Unsure of what that sign could mean, she eventually decided to scan the ticket. 'When the screen showed 'Claim your prize at a Missouri Lottery Office,' I knew it was real!' she said. According to the Missouri Lottery, those who played 'Break the Bank' have won over $1.8 million. The Scratchers game—only costing $5—is fairly new, as it was released on April 28. About $16 million in prizes remain, according to Missouri Lottery. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Christopher Bond, former Missouri governor and senator, dies at 86
Mr. Bond was defeated for reelection, but he staged a comeback in 1980 by ousting Joseph P. Teasdale, the Democrat who had replaced him. He succeeded Thomas F. Eagleton, a Democrat, in the Senate in 1987 after Eagleton retired. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up His election to a fourth term in 2004 was the seventh time that Mr. Bond won statewide office -- more than any other candidate in Missouri's history. Advertisement In 2009, he announced that he would not seek a fifth term in 2010. 'In 1973, I became Missouri's youngest governor,' Mr. Bond, then 69, said at the time. 'I do not aspire to become Missouri's oldest senator.' Shortly after he retired from the Senate, John D. Ashcroft, a Missouri Republican who served with Mr. Bond in the Senate before becoming US attorney general, said: 'Kit Bond put his heart, soul, and life into public service -- like virtually nobody I've ever seen. He lives it, he breathes it, he sleeps it, and he awakes to it.' Advertisement Christopher Samuel Bond, who was born March 6, 1939 in St. Louis, was a sixth-generation Missourian. His father, Arthur, had been captain of the 1924 University of Missouri Tigers football team and a Rhodes scholar who headed the export division of his father-in-law's fire brick factory. His mother was Elizabeth (Green) Bond. Kit was raised in Mexico, Missouri, about 120 miles northwest of St. Louis. As a child he lost vision in one eye from amblyopia, or lazy eye, a condition that affects the nerves connecting the retina and the brain. He graduated from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts in 1956; from Princeton, with a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, in 1960; and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1963. He clerked for Elbert Tuttle, a judge on the US Court of Appeals in Georgia; practiced law at Covington & Burling in Washington; and unsuccessfully ran for Congress from a rural House district in the northeastern part of Missouri in 1968. He was hired by John Danforth, the state attorney general, as an assistant attorney general in 1969 and promoted to head the office's consumer protection division a year later. He was 31. After leaving public office, Mr. Bond practiced law and served as a corporate strategy consultant. He and his wife, Carolyn, divorced in 1994. He leaves his son from that marriage, Sam; his second wife, Linda (Pell) Bond, a Republican fund-raiser; and two grandchildren. Mr. Bond's record as governor and in the Senate was generally considered moderate, although he leaned to the right on issues of the economy and national security. Advertisement As the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he staunchly supported President George W. Bush's Iraq War and domestic security crackdowns. He was one of only nine senators who opposed a bill to insist that CIA interrogators adhere to Army standards. He said he opposed torture, but he once compared waterboarding to swimming. Mr. Bond supported the Equal Rights Amendment but opposed same-sex marriage. He favored free trade, offshore drilling, and a ban on gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress. He was also a sponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required employers with 50 or more workers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family medical emergencies, childbirth or adoption. In 1976, as governor, he rescinded a fiat issued by Governor Lilburn Boggs in 1838 that ordered the expulsion or extermination of all Mormons from the state. In 2010, after curators at the Missouri State Museum discovered that what they thought was a moon rock was actually a sample of lunar dust, Mr. Bond disclosed that he had inadvertently taken the actual Apollo 17 lunar sample, worth about $5 million, when he left as governor. He returned it. In 1998, when the IRS declared that a fan who caught a record-breaking home run hit by the St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire -- a ball estimated to be worth about $140,000 -- could be responsible for paying gift tax, Mr. Bond declared, 'If the IRS wants to know why they are the most hated federal agency in America, they need look no further than this.' This article originally appeared in Advertisement
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How two powerful, polar-opposite Republicans are paving the way for Trump's big, beautiful sprint
Two top Republicans working together isn't usually a compelling story. Mike Crapo and Jason Smith, two powerful stylistic opposites on either side of the Capitol, are an exception. The reserved Idahoan senator and fiery Missourian congressman, chairmen of their respective tax-writing committees, share a challenging goal this year: bridging the sometimes-huge divides between the House and Senate to shape a tax deal that President Donald Trump can sign. But as recently as 2024, the duo were at odds over substance. Crapo, who wasn't yet Senate Finance chair, did not support Smith's bipartisan tax deal with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The resulting Republican filibuster of Smith's work led to some bad blood with the House. Now, though, that's all in the past. Smith, the Ways and Means Chair, said on Wednesday that Crapo 'was the last person I spoke to before I went to bed last night. … We're working hand-in-glove.' If there's a secret to their success so far, it's this: Rather than battling over particular policy provisions, they've focused their energies on process. Crapo convinced most Republicans that they don't need to pay for making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent, while Smith got Republicans to roll the president's entire legislative agenda into one big bill. Bigger, unanswered questions await both of them, particularly around how to accommodate Trump's requested tax breaks on tips and overtime, as well as his recent desire for beefier corporate tax cuts. But the evident repair of Crapo and Smith's 2024 schism could help avoid a nightmare scenario for Republicans — a House vote for a tax plan that can't pass the Senate. 'Obviously, Crapo wasn't on the same page' last year, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Semafor. 'But I sense that things are completely different now, and I think it's driven by the realization that it's an absolute necessity that we be successful here.' Smith and Crapo now talk almost daily, while meeting regularly with GOP leaders and top Trump administration officials and juggling bicameral coordination with their own members. Smith holds lunches for Ways and Means members most weeks while Crapo huddles with his Finance Republicans every Monday. In Crapo's best-case scenario, the Senate makes only minor changes to the House's tax bill. 'It's very possible that we could have some big differences,' Crapo told Semafor. 'Our hope is to minimize the differences.' Just one year ago, Smith and Wyden linked an expanded child tax credit with benefits for small businesses. But Crapo and Senate GOP leaders blocked it on the floor last August. With Republicans now in full control of Washington this year, failure isn't really an option: The tax bill is tied to the debt ceiling deadline, meaning avoiding default could require a tax deal. 'As of today — I don't want to talk about anything in the past, or what happened last year with the tax bill and all that, but — I think there's real cohesion between the two of them,' said Rep. Darin LaHood, 73, has served in Congress since 1993; Smith, 44, arrived in 2013. Crapo operates largely behind the scenes, while even senators who don't know Smith personally see him on cable news. The contrasts don't end there; Smith is preparing to hold a public committee vote soon on his tax legislation, but Crapo said he wasn't sure whether his committee would do the same. 'They are very different personalities,' said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who served with both. 'Mike has the full trust of every Republican senator. Jason, I don't know how you can do better than he's doing with his colleagues, but he's got a bigger challenge.' Smith is pushing through it with a deliberate show of stamina, convening days-long meetings in the Library of Congress where committee Republicans weigh various tax provisions and emerge tight-lipped. He peppers the airwaves with staccato and blunt warnings that the Senate's original two-bill plan for Trump's agenda (border first, then tax) was 'foolish.' Members and aides say that Smith has some flair, too. The House chair has posted photos with 'friend' Paris Hilton and provides witnesses who testify before his committee with custom water bottles emblazoned with his seal. When it comes to Ways and Means members themselves, 'he's been very generous with swag,' LaHood said. 'He's a great gift-giver — maybe the best in Congress, actually,' said House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, who serves on Smith's committee. Smith beat Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., out for the gavel in a relative upset, but he's set to be the special guest at a fundraiser dinner for Buchanan in late June, a person familiar with the plans said. One former senior leadership aide observed that Smith's ability to keep his members — and K Street — happy shields him from criticism: 'You're not hearing from people because they're being listened to.' 'The fact that he's not playing whack-a-mole a week out [from a possible markup] is shocking,' the aide added. Crapo is comparatively sphinx-like, often declining to publicly weigh in on strategic disagreements (he was agnostic on the agenda strategy that Smith felt so strongly about). Several senators told Semafor that Crapo rarely speaks up in party meetings — but when he does, people listen. The Finance chief does his fair share of listening, too. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., buttonholed Crapo about a particular tax provision this week in the GOP cloakroom and described his receptivity as a refreshing change from chairmen 'who act like they discovered gravity. Mike's not like that.' 'He's a guy that can sit and tolerate beratement against him and not retaliate … there's a lot of thin-skinned people around here,' said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who often votes in lockstep with Crapo. 'He is not one of them.'There's no daylight between Smith and Crapo now — but this is the beginning of the road for them. It's easy to stay in lockstep before any details of the tax bill are locked in. And Trump remains a wild card. Smith and Crapo are putting as much effort — if not more — into coordinating with the administration as they are with each other. As remarkable as their strong working relationship looks now, it won't matter much if they can't produce something the president — even those like Wyden, who've worked closely with the two tax chairmen before — see little to celebrate. 'My job … is to work with everybody that wants to do the right thing and oppose everybody that's not doing the right thing. Jason Smith in the last congress was there for the right thing,' Wyden said. 'And now, Sen. Crapo looks like he's going to be the lead of an approach that would supercharge' the 2017 tax cuts, Wyden Crapo goes on TV, he likes to go on former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow's Fox Business show — and advocate for permanent tax cuts. Smith Trump does not want the tax bill to become a health care bill.
