Montana adopts permanent block on birth certificate changes
Montana health officials on Friday made permanent a rule that blocks transgender people from changing their birth certificates even if they undergo gender-confirmation surgery. The move by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte's administration comes just days before a court will hear arguments over the legality of a similar rule that's been in effect on an emergency basis since May. The ACLU of Montana has asked state Judge Michael Moses to strike down the emergency rule. Moses in April had temporarily blocked a 2021 Montana law that made it difficult for transgender people to change their birth certificate.
news.yahoo.comMontana Gov. Gianforte vacationed in Italy as flooding crushed Yellowstone
The governorโs office had initially declined to disclose Gov. Greg Gianforte's whereabouts or specify when he would return due to โsecurity concerns,โ even as many questioned why Gianforte was nowhere to be found.
washingtonpost.comMontanaโs AWOL Guv Refuses to Say Where He Is as State Battles 500-Year Floods
William Campbell/GettyMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte, whose tagline is โleading the Montana comeback,โ may finally be coming back to Montana.The Republican governor, elected in 2020, spent the past workweek galavanting in Tuscany, Italy, as his constituents battled some of the worst floods in the stateโs history, reports 8KPAX. Now, after at least four days away on a โpersonalโ trip, Gianforteโs office confirmed the governor is expected back in the capital city of Helena sometime Thursday night.The
news.yahoo.comUS approves bison grazing on Montana prairie amid criticism
U.S. officials on Wednesday announced approval of a conservation group's proposal to expand bison grazing on prairies in north-central Montana as part of a vast nature reserve over objections from some ranchers and elected officials. The decision allows the American Prairie group to graze bison on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property and to remove about 30 miles (48 kilometers) of fences so the animals can roam more freely. Its long-term goal is to piece together a 5,000-square-mile (12,950-square-kilometer) expanse that would include the C.M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and have thousands of bison and other wildlife.
news.yahoo.comMontana seeks to end protections for Glacier-area grizzlies
Montana is asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lift threatened species protections for grizzly bears in the northern portion of the state, including areas in and around Glacier National Park, officials said Monday. Removing federal protections would give state wildlife officials more flexibility to deal with bears that get into conflicts, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said.
news.yahoo.comMontana only state to ban vaccine requirements for employees
While many large companies across the U.S. have announced that COVID-19 vaccines will be required for their employees to return to work in-person, there is one state where such requirements are banned: Montana. Under a new law passed by the stateโs Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year, requiring vaccines as a condition for employment is deemed โdiscriminationโ and a violation of the stateโs human rights laws. Montana is the only state in the U.S. with a law like this for private employers, said Hemi Tewarson, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.
news.yahoo.comMontanaโs Republican governor pulls pandemic payments โ is he for real?
Greg Gianforte says the financial assistance program is doing more harm than good. You know, Governor, Covid isnโt over yet? Greg Gianforteโs plan is to cut the $300 a week payment and give people a one-time $1,200 โreturn-to-workโ bonus. But that simply does not compare. Photograph: Thom Bridge/AP The coronavirus pandemic โ heard of it? Itโs famously still going on! Though national case numbers are finally starting to drop and recent regional outbreaks in the midwest have begun to subside, there were still about 50,000 new Covid-19 infections recorded in the US on Tuesday and just over 700 new virus-related deaths. But Greg Gianforte, Montanaโs governor, has other priorities: heโs been talking about a โlabor shortageโ in a cynical attempt to cut public assistance. The Republican governor released a statement on Tuesday announcing his state will stop participating in the federal program that has given unemployed workers additional unemployment payments since the start of the pandemic โ in an apparent attempt to get Montanans back to work, and he plans to give those who choose to do so something he calls a โreturn-to-work bonusโ. Hereโs why it wonโt work: The โreturn-to-workโ bonus is not a replacement for added unemployment benefits. Thanks to the additional unemployment payments of $300 a week, out-of-work Montana residents receiving assistance currently get between $351 and $810 weekly, in enhanced unemployment benefits. Gianforteโs new plan will cut out those additional payments starting 27 June, and โincentivize Montanans to re-enter the workforceโ with a single โreturn-to-workโ bonus of $1,200 after one full month of work. Now, Iโm no high-falutinโ big city math-e-ma-tician, but a one-time payment of $1,200, which will only go to the first 12,500 workers to claim it โ a tactic which, by the way, has huge โwhile supplies last!!โ vibes โ simply does not compare to $300 a week for the duration of the pandemic, ie, the foreseeable future. Who knows how long that could be? Only about a third of Montana residents are vaccinated, according to the New York Times, and infections have risen approximately 8% over the past 14 days. The pandemic is not over yet. What could โlabor shortageโ be another term for? Although Montanaโs unemployment rate fell to 3.8% in April, which is about at pre-pandemic levels, the stateโs labor commissioner, Laurie Esau, says its labor force is approximately 10,000 workers smaller than it was pre-lockdown, a drop that Gianforte assumes is to do with lazy people who, given their new found pandemic benefits, donโt want to work any more. And according to Montana department of labor estimates, nearly 25,000 people are currently filing unemployment claims, a good chunk of whom the governor is eager to push into the stateโs 14,000 or so job openings. But this means there arenโt enough job openings for the number of people unemployed; even if the governorโs plan succeeds in filling those vacant positions as intended, there will still be over 10,000 people without jobs to apply for, forced to subsist on less. It is also wildly reductive to assume that because there are fewer people working, it must be the result of a lack of will. People had jobs, and those jobs were taken away, either through mass layoffs or government shutdowns of businesses. That kind of disruption takes time to recover from. People could now be working out childcare arrangements again; finding out where they fit in a new jobs market; or worried about returning to work until the coast is clear. Workers also arenโt to blame for making more on unemployment than they would at their jobs. The basis of the governorโs claims are that enhanced unemployment benefits have incentivized out-of-work Montana residents to stay unemployed. He says that the extra $300-a-week payments are now โdoing more harm than goodโ, which is a strange way to view an intervention that is hopefully keeping people housed, clothed, and fed, but OK, sir! Youโre the governor! But letโs analyze the logic of whether benefits that make your life livable stop people from wanting to work. Last year, a study by economists at Yale found the enhanced unemployment pay authorized by Congress did not disincentivize Americans from seeking employment. And if โa bunch of Yale economistsโ arenโt convincing enough, how about the labor secretary, Marty Walsh, who told the AP that thereโs no evidence of Gianforteโs claims to the contrary. Even if there are some people choosing to stay home rather than go back to work because their enhanced unemployment benefits pay them more than their jobs (which again, no proof that thatโs happening!), the argument that the alternative is preferable should be reconsidered. Full-time workers earning minimum wage in Montana earn about $346 a week โ far less than MIT estimates an average single Montanan needs to live. For those living with children, even the enhanced unemployment benefits wouldnโt cut it. Nearly two-thirds of Americans have been living paycheck-to-paycheck since the pandemic hit stateside. So if I were a governor and wanted to, say, prevent an already-mounting housing crisis from mounting any further, want to give my residents enough to live on. But maybe thatโs far too simple. โข This article was amended on 6 May 2021 to correct the spelling of Marty Walshโs first name.
news.yahoo.comTop general says he no longer opposes proposal to change sexual assault prosecutions
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior military adviser to the president, said Monday he is now open to a proposal that would take decisions on sexual assault prosecutions out of commanders' hands, AP reports.Why it matters: Failure to address sexual assault has dogged the military for years, and it became a national issue after Vanessa Guillรฉn's death last year. Milley's comments will likely add weight to the call for change.Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for freeWhat he's saying: The proposed changes Milley referred to were recommended by an independent review panel. Though he did not endorse them, he said the military's issues surrounding sexual assault have persisted for too long."Weโve been at it for years, and we havenโt effectively moved the needle," he said. "We have to. We must."Part of his shift in opinion is due to junior service members' lack of faith in the fairness of sexual assault case outcomes, he said, though he noted he is reserving final judgment until military leadership has reviewed the recommendations."Thatโs really bad for our military if thatโs true, and survey and the evidence indicate it is true," he said. "Thatโs a really bad situation if the enlisted force โ the junior enlisted force โ lacks confidence in their chain of command to be able to effectively deal with the issue of sexual assault."The big picture: The commission delivered its initial recommendations to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last month. He is expected to give service leaders roughly a month to review and respond, per AP.For certain special victims crimes, including sexual assault and sexual harassment, designated independent judge advocates should report to a civilian-led office of the Chief Special Victim Prosecutor to decide whether to charge someone and if that charge should proceed to a court-martial, the panel said.Top military leaders like Milley have vehemently opposed such a move for years, arguing that the authority to discipline service members should lie with commanders, AP reports.Over 20,000 service members said they experienced some type of sexual assault in 2018, according to AP. Only a third of those members filed a formal report.Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free.
news.yahoo.comMontana Governor Fights to Reform โBrokenโ Judicial Nomination Process
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, the first Republican to hold the seat in 16 years, does not want to miss a rare opportunity to reform his stateโs judicial process. In Montana, judges are chosen by voters โ Supreme Court justices serve eight-year terms, and district judges serve six-year terms โ and incumbents usually win. But in the case of a vacancy, the governor has the power to appoint someone to serve out the remainder of the term, after they are confirmed by the state Senate. Now, Gianforte and state Republicans want to fix what they think is a โriggedโ system of filling judicial vacancies. Last month, Gianforte signed Senate Bill 140 into law, ending the current โJudicial Nominating Commission,โ which since 1973 has had the sole power to recommend a list of vacancy candidates to the governor. โIn practice, it was stacked with trial lawyers,โ Gianforte said of the commission. โThe governor could only appoint interim judges from a list that, in practice, was just three names, and they only produced liberal trial lawyers. So we worked with the legislature to put a fair process in that actually matches the way we appoint judges at the federal level for the Supreme Court.โ Both the Montana Trial Lawyers Association and the Montana Defense Trial Lawyers Association oppose the disbandment of the commission, which is made up of seven members who serve four-year terms: four lay members, appointed by the governor; two attorneys chosen by the state Supreme Court, and one district judge selected from among his peers. Critics of SB 140 have called Gianforteโs move controversial for removing a โnonpartisanโ check on the governorโs authority. But according to Lieutenant Governor Kristan Juras, the commission has a clear partisan bent. โWhen I gave my testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, I pointed out that the current seven members of the Commission have made political donations over the past 20 years โ less than one percent of their contributions were to Republican candidates,โ she explained. โThey hide behind this โnonpartisanโ fiction, when in fact theyโre very partisan, when in fact they do not get to the governor the sorts of people that Governor Gianforte is interested in.โ SB 140โs status is currently in limbo after critics filed a lawsuit with the Montana Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates the state constitution. But the court may have a conflict of interest:emails obtained by the Montana Attorney Generalโs office show that the state Supreme Court administrator petitioned all state Supreme Court justices and district judges to take a position on SB 140 back in January. Chief Justice Mike McGrath, who had already recused himself from the case after saying he personally lobbied Gianforte to oppose it, chose District Judge Kurt Krueger as his replacement. But Krueger said earlier this month that he would also recuse himself, after the emails showed he โadamantly opposesโ the law. Though the state legislature has now subpoenaed the Supreme Court for more records, so far the remaining six justices have refused to recuse themselves, saying they were not polled. The court also sided with Beth McLaughlin, the court administrator, after she appealed to block the release of her emails โ though she admitted that she had deleted the results of a judicial poll on SB 140 and other pending legislation, which was circulated by the stateโs judicial lobbying organization. โThe behavior weโve seen out of the Supreme Court here recently, with their emails, and prejudging legislation, and open communication, just shows how broken the current system is and this is why we need to have a more objective process for selecting judges,โ Gianforte said. Juras, a transactional attorney by profession, says that the โunconstitutionalโ claim falls flat when compared with language of the 1972 state Constitution, which states that, in the case of judicial vacancies, โthe governor shall appoint a replacement from nominees selected in the manner provided by law.โ โItโs very clear from the comments of the delegates to that convention, they did not โ they could have, but they chose not to โ put into the Constitution a judicial nomination commission. They left it to the legislature to determine how exactly the governor would make these appointments,โ Juras explained. Since its initial formulation in 1973, Juras said the commission has been โamended numerous times since then,โ as โthe legislature has constantly tried to tweak it.โ In its current form, she explained, the closed-circle nature inherently limits the pool of candidates. โMost transactional attorneys would say, we didnโt stand a chance of getting through the Judicial Nomination commission, why even apply?โ she stated. โSome very highly qualified candidates, including an experienced defense attorney out of Billings Montana who served on the Board of Regents, highly respected, she didnโt make it through the Judicial Nomination commission process.โ Gianforte says the track record of Montanaโs courts shows that the current process is not working โ he points to the decision last year by the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the Montanaโs Supreme Court in the Espinoza case, which declared Blaine Amendments unconstitutional, as one example. โWe donโt want a conservative court. We donโt want a liberal court. We want a court thatโs going to opine on the law, not make law,โ he stated. โAnd the current system we have in place does not make that possible.โ
news.yahoo.comAnti-abortion bills abound; their fate in court is unknown
It's not clear if or when the Supreme Court might consider any of them, or take some other path. In addition to three appointments to the Supreme Court, giving it a 6-3 conservative majority, Trump made scores of appointments to federal district and appellate courts. โThis is a decision that the Supreme Court is going to need to make,โ he said. โIt is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law,โ he said. AdNancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said it would be โshockingโ if the Supreme Court agreed to consider the Mississippi case.
"A Shot of Hope": Medical mistrust and access
"A Shot of Hope": Medical mistrust and access Communities of color have a long history of mistrust in the medical community that's grounded in a history of abuses like the U.S. Public Health Service syphilis study in Tuskegee, Alabama, and the case of Henrietta Lacks. But they also suffer from a lack of access. CBSN speaks to family members connected to those cases, as well as doctors and community leaders overcoming roadblocks to get the vaccine to those who need it most. Plus, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte explains his state's success in COVID-19 vaccinations. Montana has one of the best vaccination rates in the country.
cbsnews.comPolitical upheaval alters strategies in US abortion debate
The mood is more sober now a mix of disappointment over Trumps defeat and hope that his legacy of judicial appointments will lead to future court victories limiting abortion rights. The mood is more sober now โ a mix of disappointment over Trumpโs defeat and hope that his legacy of judicial appointments will lead to future court victories limiting abortion rights. Meanwhile, Trump, whose administration took numerous steps to curtail abortion access, has been replaced as president by Joe Biden, a staunch supporter of abortion rights. Bullock supported abortion rights during eight years in office. Becerra and Biden are Roman Catholic, and the new administration's support for abortion rights poses a dilemma for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Latest: No more slots as all vaccine in Miss. allotted
___THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:U.S. coronavirus deaths hit another one-day high at more than 4,300. California has lifted some stay-at-home orders in northern counties, while many orders remain in place where coronavirus cases are surging. The 270 million doses are being secured independent of the global COVAX facility aimed at distributing vaccines to lower-income countries. The state Health Department announced Wednesday that a man in his 60s who traveled to the UK in December has the variant. Portugal has witnessed a record-breaking surge in coronavirus cases since it eased restrictions for the Christmas holiday.
Republicans retain power in states despite Democratic push
โThis was a status quo election.โHeading into Tuesday, Republicans had full control of 29 state legislatures compared to 19 for Democrats. โThe reality is we are still running on very gerrymandered maps,โ said Christina Polizzi, national press secretary for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. They were countered by the Republican state leadership committee, which had a target of about $70 million. But Republican redistricting power will be diminished in some states because of changes that occurred in recent years. Instead, Republicans added to their House ranks with more conservatives, increasing the potential to override vetoes by Democratic Gov.
Races for governor take top billing in Missouri, Montana
FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020 file photo, Missouri Republican Gov. Its the most hotly contested of the nations 11 governors races this fall. Which party holds the governor's office could be especially consequential over the next few years. In governorโs races, many of the attack ads are funded by each partyโs governors association. In the governorโs race, he said Gianforteโs financial support of a Montana museum dedicated to creationist beliefs was a big problem.
Republican duo reshapes Montana politics in Trump's style
They worked in tandem to attain huge riches in the corporate world before leveraging that success into a political juggernaut that has reshaped the stateโs Republican Party. It's a shift Montana Democrats argue is out of step with the stateโs independent-minded electorate. Gianforte, one of the wealthiest members of the U.S. House, has been boosted in his run for Montana governor by Dainesโ clout. Democrats as recently as 2014 held both Montana U.S. Senate seats, the governorโs mansion and a bevy of other statewide offices. Daines and Gianforte โfit the party like a glove right now,โ University of Montana political analyst Rob Saldin said.
Pence drops plan to go to fundraiser hosted by QAnon backers
โ Vice President Mike Pence has canceled plans to attend a Trump campaign fundraiser in Montana following revelations that the event's hosts had expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. The change comes after the AP reported Wednesday that hosts Cayrn and Michael Borland in Bozeman, Montana, had shared QAnon memes and retweeted posts from QAnon accounts. The QAnon narrative has grown to include other long-standing conspiracy theories, gaining traction among some extreme Trump supporters. Pence has said it's a conspiracy theory and last month told CBS, โI donโt know anything about QAnon, and I dismiss it out of hand."" In April, she responded to a pro-Trump Tweet from a QAnon account by replying โAlwaysโ with a praying hands emoji.
US high court denies bid to restore Greens on Montana ballot
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an attempt by the Montana secretary of state to restore Green Party candidates to the November ballot. Republican Secretary of State Corey Stapleton filed a motion Monday to halt the state Supreme Court order. Stapletons certification of the November ballot, sent to counties late Thursday, included an asterisk saying the secretary and other parties were challenging the Montana Supreme Court decision. Green Party candidates are believed to draw votes away from Democratic candidates. It was never determined who was behind the 2018 effort to get Green Party candidates on the Montana ballot.
South Dakota governor, exposed to virus, joined Trump on jet
Shortly after fireworks above Mount Rushmore disappeared into the night sky on Friday, South Dakota Gov. Noem had tested negative for COVID-19 shortly before welcoming Trump to South Dakota on Friday. But that runs counter to guidance from public health experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that advises people to wear masks when interacting with people outside their household. As the number of people hospitalized from COVID-19 in South Dakota has decreased in recent weeks to just 59 people statewide, Noem has doubled down on her relaxed approach to the pandemic. Seidel said the governor worries about other effects of the virus, such as unemployment and domestic violence.
The Latest: After lockdown, cases up in Australian state
(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)MELBOURNE, Australia The hard-hit Australian state of Victoria has recorded 74 new coronavirus cases after announcing a record 108 new infections on Saturday. The agency says 43 of the newly reported cases were locally infected patients. ___BEIJING Chinese officials have reported eight new confirmed COVID-19 cases as a recent outbreak in Beijing appears to have largely run its course. ____AUSTIN, Texas Texas has reported its biggest daily increase in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases 8,258. Texas health officials on Saturday said the states total number of confirmed coronavirus cases is now at 191,790.