Republicans sue to ban abortion pill in entire U.S. | Arizona legislators narrowly avoid school funding crisis | Adam Frisch, who nearly beat Rep. Lauren Boebert in 2022, is running for Congress again in 2024 | Colorado and 10 other states consider Right to Repair legislation, and the Farm Bureau is not going to be on board
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Welcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod’s Talking Politics, every Monday.
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DENVER (AP)
COLORADO NEWSLINE: REPUBLICAN AG’S WANT TO BAN THE ABORTION PILL
WASHINGTON — Attorneys general representing nearly two dozen Republican states are backing a lawsuit that would remove the abortion pill from the United States after more than two decades, eliminating the option even in states where abortion access remains legal.
The lawsuit argues, on behalf of four anti-abortion medical organizations and four anti-abortion physicians, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration exceeded its authority when it approved mifepristone to end pregnancies in the year 2000.
The prescription medication is used as part of a two-drug regimen that includes misoprostol as the second pharmaceutical. It’s approved to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks.
The abortion pill is legal at the federal level, though several GOP-led states have laws in place that restrict abortion earlier than 10 weeks, setting up a dispute between state laws banning abortions and the federal government’s jurisdiction to approve pharmaceuticals.
The U.S. Justice Department argued the anti-abortion groups’ “have pointed to no case, and the government has been unable to locate any example, where a court has second-guessed FDA’s safety and efficacy determination, and ordered a widely available FDA-approved drug to be removed from the market. It certainly hasn’t happened with a drug that’s been approved for over 20 years.”
Dr. Jamila Perritt, president & CEO for Physicians for Reproductive Health, said abortion medication is safe and effective, and that “when abortion is more difficult to access, we know this means abortion gets pushed later and later into pregnancy as folks try to navigate these barriers.”
Dr. Iffath Abbasi Hoskins, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said “restricting access to mifepristone interferes with the ability of obstetrician–gynecologists and other clinicians to deliver the highest-quality evidence-based care for their patients.”
The judge in the lawsuit, Trump appointee Matthew Joseph Kacsmaryk, could rule on whether to pull mifepristone from the market as soon as this month.
Any ruling is likely to be appealed and could eventually come before the U.S. Supreme Court.
AZMIRROR: az legislature averts massive school funding cuts
Advocates, teachers call on lawmakers to fix school spending limit
BY: GLORIA REBECCA GOMEZ - FEBRUARY 14, 2023 3:31 PM
Last week, the Republican majority reluctantly approved a one-year exemption from a spending cap, called the aggregate expenditure limit - or AEL - placed in the state constitution by voters in 1980. Without that waiver, schools would have been forced to cut $1.4 billion from their budgets immediately, resulting in mass layoffs and closures. Now that the crisis has been temporarily averted, public school advocates are turning their attention to a more lasting fix as the issue is likely to resurface next year.
Stand for Children Arizona’s executive director, Rebecca Gau, called on lawmakers to move bills that would give voters the option to repeal the cap entirely, or recalculate it to current spending levels. But none of them have been put up for a vote.
Gau warned that refusing to act would only worsen the strain on public schools. They face enough difficulties, without adding a recurring annual threat onto the pile.
She cited the results of a public opinion survey conducted by Stand for Children Arizona, which found that 62% of voters in the state might say yes to a ballot measure to permanently raise the AEL.
High school teacher Jacquelyn Larios said the ongoing uncertainty presented by the spending limit has prompted her to reconsider teaching in Arizona. Her school district warned that faculty would be facing a 26% salary cut if lawmakers weren’t able to lift the cap by March.
“I explained to my daughters that, even though I love teaching so much, I just don’t know if I can continue,” Larios said. “We can’t afford this.”
For Yazmin Castro, a senior at Apollo High School, that means her classes are overcrowded — despite being a part of advanced courses that are meant to include more one-on-one interactions. She said the continued unwillingness from Republican lawmakers to resolve the AEL sends a message to students like her, that they’d rather hold onto outdated policies than support reforms that could make things better.
“It tells us we’re not valued,” she said. “That our education is not a priority and that our future does not matter.”
Republican lawmakers, who hold a one-vote majority in each legislative chamber, have repeatedly called for accountability and transparency measures in exchange for school funding. This year, that resulted in several GOP members voting against lifting the cap, citing concerns about what’s being taught in schools. Gau said while that argument might appeal to an extreme and vocal minority of constituents, the majority of voters support and trust their public schools.
“Voters are watching,” she warned. “And organizations like mine will be here to make sure that voters in 2024 know who had the backs of kids, and who didn’t.”
COLORADO SUN: Not his first rodeo.
Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city councilman who narrowly lost his bid in November to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, will run again to represent the 3rd Congressional District in 2024.
“November’s election results show us that Boebert is weak and she will be defeated, which is why I have decided to launch my 2024 congressional campaign,” Frisch said.
Frisch filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission to run against Boebert just days after her win was finalized. His formal campaign announcement kicks off what’s likely to be one of the nation’s most closely watched congressional contests.
Frisch lost to Boebert by 546 votes, or 0.07 percentage points, in 2022. The margin was so narrow that it triggered a mandatory recount under Colorado law.
Boebert’s near-loss was shocking given the electorate in the 3rd District, which spans the Western Slope into Pueblo and southeast Colorado.
The 3rd Congressional District leans 9 percentage points in the GOP’s favor, according to an analysis by nonpartisan Colorado redistricting staff. Republicans have a voter registration advantage in the district, which has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. House since 2008.
Frisch will hold his first 2024 campaign event in Pueblo on Wednesday. He ran in a crowded primary in 2022, and it’s likely he will face Democratic primary opponents in 2022 as well.
Boebert has started fundraising for her 2024 reelection bid. “I won my last race by a razor-thin margin,” she wrote in a fundraising email sent out last month. “As you can imagine, left-wingers are going to rally around (Frisch) big time after they came so close this past election.”
Riiiight. The left-wingers in your R+9 District. So you perform 9 points worse than a generic Republican. That’s not a left-winger problem, Congresswoman, that’s a you problem.
AMERICAN PROSPECT and ASSOCIATED PRESS: Colorado and 10 other states consider right to repair legislation.
On Colorado’s northeastern plains, where the pencil-straight horizon divides golden fields and blue sky, a farmer named Danny Wood scrambles to raise millet, corn and winter wheat in short, seasonal windows. That is until his high-tech Steiger 370 tractor conks out.
The tractor’s manufacturer doesn’t allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code - at a cost of $950.
“That’s where they have us over the barrel, it’s more like we are renting it than buying it,” said Wood, who spent $300,000 to buy the used tractor.
Wood’s plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce Right to Repair bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — avoiding the steep labor costs and delays that erode their profits.
Rep. Brianna Titone, a Denver metro Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors said “The manufacturers and the dealers have a monopoly on that repair market because it’s lucrative for them, but farmers just want to get back to work.”
In Colorado, the legislation is largely being pushed by Democrats while their Republican colleagues find themselves in a tough spot: torn between right-leaning farming constituents who want the change, and the multinational corporations who bankroll GOP campaigns.
The manufacturers argue Right to Repair legislation would force companies to expose trade secrets. They also say it would make it easier for farmers to tinker with the software and illegally crank up the horsepower and bypass the emissions controller — risking operators’ safety and the environment.
In 2011, Congress passed a law ensuring that car owners and independent mechanics — not just authorized dealerships — had access to the necessary tools and information to fix problems.
Ten years later, the Federal Trade Commission pledged to beef up its right to repair enforcement at the direction of President Joe Biden. And just last year, Rep. Titone sponsored and passed Colorado’s first right to repair law, empowering people who use wheelchairs with the tools and information to fix them.
For the right to repair farm equipment — from thin tractors used between grape vines to behemoth combines for harvesting grain that can cost over half a million dollars — Colorado is joined by 10 states including Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Texas and Vermont.
Many of the bills are finding bipartisan support, but in Colorado’s House committee on agriculture, Democrats pushed the bill forward in a party line vote with every Republican opposed.
“That was really surprising, and upset me,” said the farmer Danny Wood, who votes Republican.
Wood’s tractor, which flies an American flag reading “Farmers First,” isn’t his only machine to break down.
His combine was dropping into idle, and the servicer took five days to arrive on Wood’s farm — a setback that could mean a hail storm decimates your wheat field, or the soil temperature moves out of the optimal zone for planting.
Wood said “Our crop is ready to harvest and we can’t wait five days, but there was nothing else to do. When it’s broke down you just sit there and wait, and that’s not acceptable. You can be losing $85,000 a day.”
Rep. Richard Holtorf, the Republican who represents Wood’s district and is a farmer himself, said he’s being pulled between his constituents and the dealerships in his district. He voted against the measure, siding with the dealers.
“I do sympathize with my farmers,” said Holtorf, but he added, “I don’t think it’s the role of government to be forcing the sale of their intellectual property.”
This January, the Farm Bureau and the farm equipment manufacturer John Deere did sign a memorandum of understanding — a right to repair agreement made without government intervention.
Though light on details, Deere’s new memorandum would make it somewhat easier for farmers to get repair service independent from the company. It would ease restrictions on machine parts from manufacturers and open up other fix-it tools, such as the software or handbooks that Deere technicians rely on.
This olive branch, however, is predicated on a major concession from the Farm Bureau - which is one of the nation’s most powerful lobbying forces advocating on behalf of farmers.
The Farm Bureau has agreed not to support any Right to Repair legislation, or any other provisions at all that would go beyond what’s outlined in the agreement.
But Nathan Proctor of the Public Interest Research Group, who is tracking 20 right to repair proposals in a number of industries across the country, said the memorandum of understanding has fallen far short.
One major problem with agreements like this is that there’s no enforcement mechanism. If John Deere doesn’t live up to the memorandum, farmers have no path for recourse.
“The slippery language gives the company enormous discretion to just set policy as it goes,” said Kevin O’Reilly, the director of the Right to Repair campaign at U.S. PIRG.
Deere’s track record on this issue isn’t great. In 2018, John Deere issued a “statement of principles” that foreshadowed the provisions in the new memorandum. But farmers never received access to the machine parts and software they’d been promised.
“Farmers are saying no,” said Nathan Proctor. “We want the real thing.”
Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
CONCERT PICK OF THE WEEK: The RZA with the Colorado Symphony - 36 Chambers of Shaolin and A Ballet Through Mud - From the mind of the RZA comes a symphonic double-feature that bridges the gap between classical and contemporary music. With spoken word, live ballet, and rich orchestration with the Colorado Symphony. Friday and Saturday Feb 17 and 18 at Boettcher Concert Hall. Tickets at ColoradoSymphony.org
Welp, that’s it for me! From Denver I’m Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today’s show comes from Colorado Newsline, Associated Press, Colorado Sun, American Prospect, Arizona Mirror, and Denver’s Westword.
Thank you for listening! See you next time.
