Latest news with #post-Dobbs
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Key Biden agency dropped $60K on overseas conference with DEI workshop: 'Should never happen'
FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog has uncovered that former President Joe Biden's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars sending top officials to a conference in Scotland that included diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) workshops. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI), via a FOIA request, discovered that the Biden FDA spent an estimated $60,000 on a dozen staffers, including Senior Advisor for Health Equity Dr. Charlene Le Fauve, to attend the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco's (SRNT's) conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in March 2024. While at the conference, members of the team attended a workshop that focused on the "stigma" facing LGBTQ+ people in the field of tobacco research. Topics included in that workshop, according to the FDA's own report on the trip, included "how anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and discriminatory and stigmatizing environments toward LGBTQ+ populations impact tobacco use and tobacco control research" and "process to develop a community-based participatory research project to address smoking cessation among transgender individuals in Argentina." White House Highlights Over $2B In Savings From Dei Cuts During Trump Administration's First 100 Days Another topic discussed was "the challenges of conducting research on tobacco use in the high-stigma environment of pregnancy in a post-Dobbs era." Read On The Fox News App Le Fauve justified the trip, in part, by claiming "the knowledge gained at the meeting is critical to attendees' ability to understand emerging scientific issues that may impact their work and their ability to effectively move forward agency initiatives." "The formal SRNT conference included many sessions where health equity was an identified focus and I attended several which were highly relevant, well done, and informative including the Presidential Symposium that included three presenters supporting the premise that in order to have a global impact on the tobacco smoking pandemic, nicotine and tobacco research must broaden its vision beyond wealthy countries to include research and researchers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the vast majority of the world's people who smoke live," Le Fauve added. 'New Sheriff In Town': State Finance Leader Rallies Around Key Trump Victory Saving 'Taxpayer Dollars' Also present on the trip was Center for Tobacco Products Director Brian King, who was recently relieved of his duty by the Trump administration in a move that a former agency official told Fox News Digital was a result of the FDA straying from its core mission under the Biden administration and focusing on issues like DEI. "There were many, many failures in the key core missions for the center that needed dramatic change in new leadership," David Oliveira, who recently left the FDA after six years, told Fox News Digital last month, explaining that the FDA was ceding responsibility to other departments and not doing enough to crackdown on China flooding the market with illicit vapes. FGI Communications Director Roderick Law told Fox News Digital in a statement that spending tens of thousands of dollars to send a dozen employees to a conference in Scotland is another example of the agency losing focus on its mission. "I, like anyone else in the world, would love to have a $60,000 vacation paid for by my employer," Law said. "Sadly, this dream became reality for 12 people on the taxpayer's back. How can a group of government officials spend $60,000 on an LGBTQ+ workshop? How is it possible that this trip helped the agency stop illegal Chinese-made products or process applications for new products that could provide for harm reduction? This kind of waste should never happen again." Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA for article source: Key Biden agency dropped $60K on overseas conference with DEI workshop: 'Should never happen'
Fox News
14-05-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Key Biden agency dropped $60K on overseas conference with DEI workshop: 'Should never happen'
FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog has uncovered that former President Joe Biden's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars sending top officials to a conference in Scotland that included diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) workshops. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI), via a FOIA request, discovered that the Biden FDA spent an estimated $60,000 on a dozen staffers, including Senior Advisor for Health Equity Dr. Charlene Le Fauve, to attend the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco's (SRNT's) conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, in March 2024. While at the conference, members of the team attended a workshop that focused on the "stigma" facing LGBTQ+ people in the field of tobacco research. Topics included in that workshop, according to the FDA's own report on the trip, included "how anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and discriminatory and stigmatizing environments toward LGBTQ+ populations impact tobacco use and tobacco control research" and "process to develop a community-based participatory research project to address smoking cessation among transgender individuals in Argentina." Another topic discussed was "the challenges of conducting research on tobacco use in the high-stigma environment of pregnancy in a post-Dobbs era." Le Fauve justified the trip, in part, by claiming "the knowledge gained at the meeting is critical to attendees' ability to understand emerging scientific issues that may impact their work and their ability to effectively move forward agency initiatives." "The formal SRNT conference included many sessions where health equity was an identified focus and I attended several which were highly relevant, well done, and informative including the Presidential Symposium that included three presenters supporting the premise that in order to have a global impact on the tobacco smoking pandemic, nicotine and tobacco research must broaden its vision beyond wealthy countries to include research and researchers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the vast majority of the world's people who smoke live," Le Fauve added. Also present on the trip was Center for Tobacco Products Director Brian King, who was recently relieved of his duty by the Trump administration in a move that a former agency official told Fox News Digital was a result of the FDA straying from its core mission under the Biden administration and focusing on issues like DEI. "There were many, many failures in the key core missions for the center that needed dramatic change in new leadership," David Oliveira, who recently left the FDA after six years, told Fox News Digital last month, explaining that the FDA was ceding responsibility to other departments and not doing enough to crackdown on China flooding the market with illicit vapes. FGI Communications Director Roderick Law told Fox News Digital in a statement that spending tens of thousands of dollars to send a dozen employees to a conference in Scotland is another example of the agency losing focus on its mission. "I, like anyone else in the world, would love to have a $60,000 vacation paid for by my employer," Law said. "Sadly, this dream became reality for 12 people on the taxpayer's back. How can a group of government officials spend $60,000 on an LGBTQ+ workshop? How is it possible that this trip helped the agency stop illegal Chinese-made products or process applications for new products that could provide for harm reduction? This kind of waste should never happen again." Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA for comment.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hadley Duvall's courage to confront sexual assault trauma inspired millions
Just four years ago Hadley Duvall, 23, had every intention of leaving her trauma and her life as sexual assault survivor in her past. But when the opportunity came to share her story to advocate for sexual assault victims and reproductive rights for women, she never hesitated. Even when it meant speaking to millions of Americans at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024. Duvall's courage and selflessness has earned her recognition as the Kentucky honoree for USA TODAY'S Women of the Year. Her pure grit began with a simple "yes" after four-minute phone call in July 2023 when Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear's office asked if she'd film an ad against his opponent in the election, former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. At the time, Cameron opposed allowing abortion exceptions for rape and incest. Duvall endured nearly a decade of sexual abuse from her stepfather, and became pregnant at the age of 12 after he raped her. That pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, but she began speaking out on social media about her experience when the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. After Beshear won re-election, Hadley continued sharing her message as part of President Joe Biden's campaign for re-election and later for Vice President Kamala Harris. Now that the election is over, she continues to help women access the health care they need in the post-Dobbs v. Jackson world. The following interview has been lightly edited for context and clarity. Hadley Duvall: This is way more than politics. This is reality. Growing up, I didn't know who the president was and what Congress was, but I was still going through the abuse. I didn't know what laws were in place, and I didn't even know what Roe v. Wade was, but I was still being abused. That didn't change. It's not political for a lot of people. We are not the ones who made it political. Survivors are not the ones who made it political, and we're the ones paying the price of it being political. Duvall: I am working on some community healing … I am just still trying to make sure that the community of survivors and allies and women just know that we are all still here. Just because the election is over doesn't mean we lost our strength. We didn't lose our resilience. We didn't lose our team. We didn't even lose Kamala Harris — we still have her. We still have so many amazing leaders. We still have the community that we built. Nobody can take that from us, and we can't let anyone take that from us. ... There will always be work to be done and you can take a break and that work is still going to be there whenever you're recharged. So we're recharging and then showing people that this is still our fight. It was still going to be our fight, even if the election went another way. So now we just have to strategize, get our plan and stick together. Duvall: I was at a campaign event in Owensboro and someone came up to me who worked for New Beginnings Sexual Assault Support Service. I went through there for my advocacy stuff, for the forensics, and the legal aid and everything (after the abuse.) And they said that after my ad dropped, that my name turned their door into a revolving door. So many people were reporting abuse. The prosecutor who handled my case also reached out to me and said there have been so many people just finding their voice (after the ad), not just in Kentucky, but everywhere. Knowing that someone can sit at home and watch me on their phone or TV, and they can feel the realness. Not only feel it, but get up and then take their power back. I couldn't think of anything that would make me say I'm more proud. Duvall: To me, courage is you when have the smallest bit of doubt, whether it's from you or from somebody else, but you do it anyways. Even if you hesitate. Even if your voice shakes when you do it. You're still there doing it. Maggie Menderski is a reporter for The Courier Journal in Louisville, which is part of the USA Today Network. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Hadley Duvall is USA TODAY'S Women of the Year Kentucky honoree
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
"It's not being looked at as a crazy thing": Emboldened Republicans renew push to restrict divorce
As the Trump administration continues its opening barrage of contentious executive actions targeting federal protections for marginalized Americans, legislators at the state level are taking another shot at no-fault divorce, renewing a heretofore quiet effort to turn a fringe idea — restricting Americans' ability to get a divorce — into a potential reality in the most conservative states. In Oklahoma last month, a state senator introduced for the second time a bill seeking to remove "incompatibility" from the state's grounds for divorce, while also proposing a separate piece of legislation that would provide a tax credit to encourage covenant marriages, which make it harder for spouses to obtain a divorce. In Indiana, a now-dead bill introduced last month aimed to add a hurdle for married couples with minor children seeking a divorce on no-fault grounds. The recent bills targeting no-fault divorce come against a backdrop of a slew of executive actions at the federal level that threaten civil rights and freedoms for a host of Americans. While these state bills have previously failed to gain any traction in their respective legislatures — Republican Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers' 2024 attempt at eliminating no-fault divorce failed to make it out of committee — their reappearances in state legislatures illuminates a potentially burgeoning trend toward further limiting women's rights. In a post-Dobbs United States, legal experts find such a prospect alarming. Marcia Zug, a professor of marital law at the University of South Carolina School of Law, told Salon that she expects more of this kind of legislation to arise in the years to come because of their spread. Despite these bills' current unpopularity, their failures are not dissuading lawmakers in other states from introducing similar proposals. "It's not being looked at as a crazy thing," Zug said of some ultraconservative state lawmakers' approach to the legislation. "'Some state over there is doing it. Let's consider it, and maybe we want to propose it, and maybe it'll pass — maybe it won't.' But if more and more, states propose it, some state will pass it. Maybe other states will pass it. That's more likely than not at this point." No-fault divorce laws allow for married couples to split without having to prove either spouse's fault at a trial. Often coupled with unilateral divorce, which provides that only one spouse has to file to begin the process, no-fault divorce provides greater ease in ending a marriage while keeping the already overwhelmed family court system from getting bogged down. In 1969, then-California Governor Ronald Reagan's implementation of no-fault divorce set off a tidal wave of other states adopting "incompatibility" as divorce grounds over the following 20 years. Though it came alongside the expansion of women's social and political power during the second wave of feminism, no-fault divorce initially arose to defend the integrity of the family court system from fraud and perjury as spouses fabricated evidence of fault to prove they were entitled to a divorce. Its modern-day opponents, which include men's rights activists and these bills' sponsors, argue that eliminating no-fault justification would in turn promote traditional families and values, reducing the risk of harming children with contentious divorce proceedings. SB 829, the Oklahoma no-fault bill, is part of an eight-piece slate of proposals that Sen. Deevers claims will "restore moral sanity in Oklahoma." It would end no-fault divorce in the state while still allowing for splits in cases of "abandonment," including "habitual drunkenness" and "gross neglect of duty," "extreme cruelty," "adultery" and "unknown pregnancy." For couples with minor children, the bill would also require the at-fault parent to establish a trust fund accessible when the child reaches adulthood as a form of restitution for the divorce. Alongside his proposal to eliminate no-fault divorce, Deevers introduced another bill offering a $2,500 tax credit as an incentive for opting into a covenant marriage, a restrictive marriage contract favored by right-wing Christian groups that creates barriers to divorce like required counseling and limits applicable divorce justifications. Only a few states offer covenant marriages — Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona — and they are widely unpopular. Zug said the bill's "extreme cruelty" grounds is what most alarmed her because of its vagueness and implication that non-extreme cruelty would be insufficient grounds for divorce. "One of the worries of getting rid of no-fault divorce is that it will increase domestic violence because lots of people who get divorced under no-fault theoretically would have grounds because they're abused," she said. "But there's so many problems with trying to get a divorce based on physical cruelty that people don't. So here, not only would they have to go through all of that, they would have to show that it is extreme — and what does that mean?" Marilyn Chinitz, a veteran divorce attorney at Blank Rome in New York, flagged Deevers' no-fault bill as especially problematic when paired with the covenant marriage incentive. "In my view, the state is totally overstepping its bounds" in proposing such legislation, she said. "Whether you have kids or not, you should have the same right to get divorced. There shouldn't be any burden or hurdles for you to end the marriage," she added. Neither a spokesman for Deevers nor the senator himself responded to requests for comment. Deevers, in a January press release announcing the bills, argued that the no-fault bill elevates the profile of marriage by making it meaningful and a binding contract while protecting people's right to leave abusive spouses. 'A society that teaches and allows a marriage covenant to be less important and binding than a business contract will reap the fruit of social upheaval, unfettered dishonesty, crime, violence towards women, war on men, and expendability of children," he said. Indiana state Rep. Timothy Wesco also stressed the impact of divorce on children though he only attempted to complicate no-fault divorce for married couples with minor children. Under his now-defunct bill, at least one of the parties seeking a divorce on "irretrievable breakdown" grounds would have to present a witness who could testify to affirm the breakdown. The legislation also placed limits on who that witness could be, naming as acceptable individuals an officiant of the marriage, a parent or sibling of the party, and a religious leader with knowledge of the marriage among others. Unlike the Oklahoma proposal, the Indiana bill was trying to implement a "speed bump," argued Zug. The assumption behind it, she said, is that "if you have to bring in a third party to agree with you that this marriage is one that can't be saved, you're less likely to divorce." While she said she doesn't find that assumption "likely to be true," she added that the bill could be a step toward further attacking no-fault justification in the future. However, Joanna Grossman, an SMU Dedman School of Law professor of family law, said that despite Wesco's possible intention, in practice, his bill would have been unlikely to have any tangible impact on the divorce process. If ever implemented, divorces would likely proceed exactly as they currently do with the addition of a third party who submits an affidavit to attest to the grounds. "This rule only applies in the divorce that's on a no-fault ground, and so they're testifying to nothing," she told Salon. "They're testifying that the person who filed for divorce thinks the marriage is over. It's not an objective fact." The Indiana House voted to withdraw Wesco's bill a week after it was filed in late January because its introduction violated the legislature's rules governing how many proposals a lawmaker can submit during one legislative session. While dead this session, the bill could theoretically return to the state legislature. Salon asked a spokesperson for Wesco whether the lawmaker had plans to reintroduce the bill or similar legislation. That spokesperson told Salon he'd pass the questions on to the Indiana representative. Wesco did not respond by late Tuesday afternoon. Wesco said in a late January post to X that he introduced the bill after watching parents "casually getting divorced and ruining their kids' lives while mutually claiming their marriage was irretrievably broken." Chinitz argued, however, that these kinds of bills would have a similar effect on children and fail to protect children in the way they set out to. Increasing the time spent in a "vulnerable situation" with parents in an unhappy marriage "could be very dangerous for them and for their kids," she said. "It's dangerous, and it has tremendous negative and adverse impact," Chinitz said of legislation targeting no-fault. "I think it's going to be very costly — costly, financially and costly because it's going to force people to stay in dangerous situations. Let's face it, victims will be less likely to report domestic violence, and it prolongs the divorce process — what a terrible impact that has on children." Deevers' and Wesco's bills are far from the first proposals taking aim at no-fault divorce laws. Deevers' first introduced legislation attempting to strike "incompatibility" from the state's divorce grounds in 2024, and a Republican state representative in South Dakota, Tony Randolph, introduced a similar bill every year between 2020 and 2024. The GOP in other states have also voiced an interest in legislation restricting or cutting no-fault divorce grounds, with Republican parties in Texas and Nebraska including guidance for potential legislation in their most recent platforms. These bills, should they ever be successful, threaten to ensnare people in abusive and violent relationships while disproportionately limiting low-income Americans' access to divorce, argued Katie Dilks, the executive director of advocacy organization Oklahoma Access to Justice. "When we look at this pitch to reduce divorce rates, it's really displaying a lack of understanding of what the actual causes and contributors are to Oklahoma's high divorce rates, which is unsafe families and unsustainable living conditions," Dilks said of Deevers' bill in a phone interview. Oklahoma, which has one of the highest divorce rates in the nation, also has some of the country's highest rates of intimate partner violence and domestic violence homicides. Oklahomans also face procedural and legal barriers to obtaining divorces such as a lack of standardized court forms, Dilks noted. "If we were to move to a system that required proving fault and having a full evidentiary trial, it would be a significant burden both on our courts but also on Oklahomans who need access to this to stay safe," Dilks said. Dilks and Grossman said that in the current political climate, they don't expect these bills to gain any serious traction in state legislatures. While Dilks said the Trump administration may act as a sort of tailwind for rightwing lawmakers pursuing this legislation, she's unsure if it will "fundamentally change the paths and outcomes of those bills." "I think it's just standard issue conservatism misogyny. There's nothing special about these bills," Grossman added. "They seem to be consistent with people who either want to take symbolic actions that shore up their conservative bona fides, or they actually want to trap women in marriages." She also argued that the level of social disruption wrought by the current administration's actions makes it less likely these types of legislation will advance seriously because, by comparison, they may appear as "petty distractions." "At the same time, maybe the big picture distraction will mean that people really can't pay attention to the small things that actually will cause a lot of harm and are just not going to get the attention they deserve from opponents," she said.
CNN
20-02-2025
- Business
- CNN
An election for a single state Supreme Court seat becomes the ‘blockbuster' political fight of 2025
Wisconsin's Supreme Court election this spring will decide just one seat, but the contest already is shaping up as one of the most costly and contentious battles of the new year – with the control of the seven-member court and the fate of a 19th century abortion ban hanging in the balance. The race – between liberal candidate, Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, and the conservative contender, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel – also marks a test of how voters in a crucial swing state view Republican and Democratic politics in the first few months of Donald Trump's presidency. And it underscores the role of the judiciary in sorting out the thorny issues deeply dividing Americans, ranging from the future of abortion in a post-Dobbs era to union protections for public-sector workers. The election is expected to top the $51 million price tag of the last Supreme Court race in the Badger State, as tallied by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. That race, in 2023, broke national spending records for a judicial election. The April 1 Wisconsin judicial election is officially nonpartisan, but political actors on both sides of the aisle are racing to shape its outcome. Billionaires, such as liberal financier George Soros and Republican-aligned roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, have written big checks to the state Democratic and Republican parties, respectively – which has transferred campaign cash to the candidates' committees. A new round of ads is slated to begin Thursday from a group tied to the world's richest person, Elon Musk. The group, Building America's Future, has bought $1.6 million of advertising in the race so far, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Musk – who spent more than a quarter billion dollars to help elect Trump last year and is the leading figure in the new administration's drive to slash spending and remake the federal workforce – previously expressed support for Schimel's election. 'It's going to be a blockbuster,' said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In a state where a Democrat controls the governor's mansion and Republicans hold the legislative majority, the state Supreme Court 'is the center of the action,' he said. 'It's become a place where a lot of hot-button issues people care about get decided.' Former attorney General Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, is making plans to campaign for Crawford next month, a source familiar with the matter said. An email Wednesday from former Vice President Kamala Harris' team seized on the Musk-aligned group's investments, asking supporters to donate to the Democratic National Committee because 'Wisconsin Democrats need our help to fight back.' 'We don't have Elon Musk, but we do have lots and lots of folks who care who are willing to chip-in a few bucks where and when they can,' the email read. While Trump ally Musk has voiced his preferred choice in the race, it's unclear whether the president will decide to wade into the politics of the state's judicial election, but Schimel has welcomed the possibility of a Trump endorsement in a state he won in 2024. 'Who wouldn't want the endorsement of the sitting president who is enjoying high popularity right now?' Schimel recently said on WISN-TV's political show 'UPFRONT.' Democrats are casting the race as one measure of whether voters in a purple state want to erect judicial guardrails on the kinds of policies espoused by Trump and his allies. The court campaign comes as groups affected by the sweeping actions that Trump and Musk have taken are asking federal courts to block the new administration's moves. And liberals have sought to portray Schimel – who advanced conservative policies during his tenure as state attorney general between 2015 and 2019 – as a jurist likely to operate in lockstep with Trump and his Make America Great Again movement. 'Courts are one of the only checks of the Trump administration's power,' Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told CNN in an interview. 'Having a MAGA state Supreme Court in a state like Wisconsin would be disastrous.' Republicans, on the other hand, argue a liberal majority in the court threatens decisions made on the legislative level, including a 2011 law that stripped government workers of collective bargaining rights. 'This open seat is really going to determine if we're going to have a court that is run by activist liberal idealogues or if we're going to have a court that's going to have a majority of constitutional conservatives who interpret the law as its written and not how they wish it was written,' state Rep. Tyler August, the majority leader of Wisconsin's State Assembly, told CNN in an interview. The two judicial candidates are set to face off for the first time in a debate hosted by WISN-TV on March 12, less than three weeks before election day. Wisconsin holds a pivotal place in US politics, as one of a handful of swing states that helps determine who wins the White House. Five of the last seven presidential elections in the Badger State have been decided by less than 1 percentage point. Last year, the state swung to Trump by roughly 29,300 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast, after narrowly backing Democrat Joe Biden four years earlier. Wisconsin gave Trump his narrowest margin of victory last year, even as the state's voters reelected Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin to a third term. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race will set up enthusiasm tests for both parties in the state. Democrats on the national level find themselves in a rebuilding period as they look to shore up party operations and tweak messaging following bruising losses in the 2024 election. The outcome of the April election 'will show everyone in American politics whether Democrats have found their fighting spirit,' Wikler said. Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin, who party members chose to lead the committee this month, will make his first trip to Wisconsin to campaign over the weekend. 'The DNC is all hands on deck to turbocharge the coordinated campaign on the ground,' said DNC deputy communications director Abhi Rahman. 'Voters don't want Elon Musk in the White House and they certainly don't want him buying our elections. We will fight like hell to ensure that the Wisconsin Supreme Court continues to represent all Wisconsinites, and isn't bought and paid for by out of touch billionaires.' For Republicans, the race could demonstrate whether the gains Trump made with the electorate can extend to other conservative candidates outside of the presidential election year, especially in key battleground states like Wisconsin. 'We just won the state for Trump,' said Wisconsin Republican party chair Brian Schimming. 'Our people our pretty jacked up, pretty excited. That has rolled over into this race. I think certainly our grassroots understand what the stakes are in this race.' After the 2020 presidential election, the Wisconsin high court – then narrowly controlled by conservatives – played a key role in rebuffing Trump's challenge to Biden's win with one right-leaning justice siding with liberals to toss out a Trump lawsuit. Liberals currently hold a one-seat advantage on the high court, an edge gained two years ago after a liberal, Janet Protasiewicz, beat Republican-aligned Dan Kelly to win an open seat. A Crawford victory this year would retain the liberal majority, while a Schimel win would flip the court back to conservatives. The winner is set to serve a 10-year term. Since the liberal takeover two years ago, the court has delivered major victories to Democrats – reversing a 2022 high court ruling that had imposed a near total ban on ballot drop boxes and striking down state legislative maps drawn by Republicans. The court also could revisit congressional maps that have helped the GOP hold a lopsided advantage of 6 out of 8 US House seats, despite the razor-thin margins of victory for Republicans and Democrats in statewide races. Opponents of Crawford have criticized her for participating in a briefing with Democratic donors that was described on an invitation as a 'chance to put two more House seats in play in 2026.' Republicans argue it showed she would support redrawing the state's congressional maps to favor Democrats, while the Crawford camp said she has not weighed in on the congressional maps, did not see the invitation for the event and joined the call only for a short period to share her background and rationale for running. Additionally, the justices could weigh in on a 2011 state law that stripped collective-bargaining rights from thousands of nurses, teachers and other public employees and sparked massive protests against lawmakers and the state's governor at the time, Republican Scott Walker. A challenge to that law is now working its way through a lower court. But perhaps the biggest issue looming over the court centers on abortion. The justices are set to decide whether an abortion ban enacted in the state in 1849 and that provides no exception for rape or incest can still be enforced. In an interview with CNN, Crawford declined to weigh in on the 19th century law, saying it would violate the state's judicial code for her to comment on an issue pending before the court. But Crawford, who represented Planned Parenthood as a private attorney, indicated that the government's role in abortion should be limited. 'As a woman who has gone through pregnancy and birth, I always wanted to be able to make my own decisions about my health and my family, along with my doctors,' she said. Crawford's campaign has taken aim at Schimel's record on abortion and pointed to an audio recording of him telling a local Republican group last year that: 'There is not a constitutional right to abortion in our state constitution.' In a statement to CNN, Schimel said 'I can't imagine making the deep and personal decision that a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy has to make. I cherish all life.' 'But a judge's job is to apply the law, not make the law,' he added. 'The people of Wisconsin, through referendum or their elected representatives, should decide the question of abortion. As the next Supreme Court Justice, I will respect the will of the people.' Schimel's campaign also has run an ad featuring his two daughters who he and his wife adopted. 'I'm personally grateful for the choice their mothers made,' Schimel says in the spot. Crawford's campaign has run ads tying him to abortion restrictions and pointing to what it said was a two-year backlog of untested rape kits during his tenure as state attorney general to argue that he had neglected sexual assault survivors. An ad from Schimel said he cleared a backlog of 4,000 tests while in office. For its part, some of Schimel campaign's advertising has sought to portray Crawford as soft on crime, questioning her sentencing and bond decisions in two cases involving child sexual assault. In an interview, Crawford said Schimel's ads are 'full of inaccuracies.' Crawford and Schimel have already exceeded the fundraising pace by candidates at this point in the 2023 race – with the liberal candidate raising the most. But by Wednesday afternoon, advertising purchased by groups supporting Schimel had helped conservative interests pull ahead of Crawford and her allies on the airwaves, according to AdImpact's tally. Among the groups newly active in the race: The conservative-aligned Building America's Future, a nonprofit that does not disclose its donors but has been funded at least in part by Musk in the past, according to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. An official with Building America's Future declined comment, and Musk did not respond to a CNN inquiry. The race has been on Musk's radar for weeks. On his social media platform last month, he highlighted the court's 2024 decision restoring the use of ballot boxes in elections and urged his followers 'to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!' Other big donors to the political party committees active in the race include wealthy Republicans, such as Hendricks, the roofing magnate; Elizabeth Uihlein, whose family owns a packaging firm; and J. Joe Ricketts, the co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. Combined they donated more than $2 million to the Wisconsin Republican Party, which in turn transferred nearly $1.7 million to Schimel's campaign last month. And a group that has been funded by the conservative Uihlein family in the past, Fair Courts America, is slated to begin advertising next week, according to upcoming buys tracked by AdImpact. On the Democratic side, Soros and fellow Democratic billionaire, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, recently donated $1 million and $500,000, respectively, to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. The party has sent $2 million to Crawford's campaign. Schimming, the GOP state party chair, welcomed support from Republicans across the country, arguing the court election could have far-reaching implications beyond Wisconsin. 'I cannot emphasize enough that what happens in the Supreme Court Wisconsin may literally reach to control of the House of Representatives,' Schimming said. 'For anyone who thinks I'm ringing the alarm bell too hard, I'm not.' Wikler said the high stakes of the Wisconsin election mean it's all hands on deck for Democrats everywhere. 'For so many Democrats, there's this question of 'What do we do now?' as people watch in horror as Trump and Elon Musk shred the federal government,' he said. 'One blinking red-light answer is to put your energy into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. That's the message we are trying to yell from the rooftops.'
