Michigan’s Supreme Court puts abortion on the ballot – National & International News – FRI 9Sept2022

Michigan’s Supreme Court puts abortion on the ballot. Mar-a-Lago papers: DOJ appeals “special master” ruling. Australia: Queen’s death immediately reignites calls for republic.

NATIONAL NEWS

Michigan’s Supreme Court puts abortion on the ballot

The State Supreme Court of Michigan has ruled that Michiganders will have the opportunity to vote in November on whether to include a right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution. The court’s ruling overturned an earlier decision by the state’s election board not to allow the measure onto the ballot.

Pro-abortion activists gathered over 700,000 signatures, many times the number required to petition for a ballot measure. The election board, composed of two Democrats and two Republicans, is supposed to act as a rubber stamp for ballot initiatives with the requisite number of signatures. In this case, the two Republicans voted it down, denying the 3 votes necessary to include the measure on the ballot.

It’s not surprising that Michigan Republicans are not eager to have abortion on the ballot. Recently, Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed the state’s conservative legislature to restrict or eliminate abortion access. Even in deep red Texas, only 11% of voters support the state’s severe restrictions on abortion.

Having the measure on the ballot is also likely to drive up Democratic turnout in Michigan, a purple state.

MI prosecutors defy court’s order not to enforce 1931 abortion ban

For abortion rights supporters in Michigan, the stakes of the November ballot measure are high. Michigan has a 1931 law on the books, that criminalizes nearly all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest. A state judge recently blocked the law from going into effect and ordered that State Attorney General Dana Nessel instruct county-level prosecutors not to enforce it.

However, a group of Republican Michigan county prosecutors is suing, claiming that the judge’s decision doesn’t apply to them. These prosecutors maintain they have the right to criminally prosecute abortion providers regardless of the judge’s ruling.

This is just one of several legal challenges concerning abortion playing out in the state. Conservative prosecutors and legislators continue to seek loopholes that allow them to limit or criminalize abortion. If the new ballot measure passes, as current polling predicts, it will end months of anxiety and uncertainty for women and healthcare providers in Michigan.

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Mar-a-Lago papers: DOJ appeals “special master” ruling

The Justice Department is appealing a ruling by a Trump-appointed federal judge in the Mar-a-Lago papers case earlier this week. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted a Trump’s attorneys’ request for a special master to oversee the review of the documents. She also said the master should ensure none of it is subject to executive privilege. This suggests Cannon’s willingness to entertain Trump’s contention that a former president can invoke executive privilege, despite legal precedent to the contrary.

Contradictory orders

The DOJ’s appeal raises concerns about Cannon’s order that the FBI pause using the seized documents in their investigation until the master’s review is complete. Cannon’s order encompassed both the 11,000+ unclassified documents and the 100+ classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

By including the classified material, DOJ says, Cannon contradicts her own opinion that an ongoing U.S. intelligence risk assessment of Trump’s mishandling of the documents should be allowed to continue. The two inquiries cannot so easily be separated, DOJ contends.

National security concerns

DOJ hasn’t expressed any objection to a special master reviewing the 11,000+ unclassified documents. However, they do have concerns about including the classified material in this review. Finding a special master with the necessary security clearances to view this material will be difficult. Vetting an appointee from scratch would also take time. The FBI’s counterintelligence chief submitted an affidavit yesterday saying that Cannon’s order is doing “irreparable harm” to national security.

Reports this week suggest some of the material is so sensitive, even some top Biden administration officials can’t access it. It includes material related to national defense, intelligence-gathering methods and human intelligence assets, as well as nuclear secrets. The FBI agents reviewing the material had to obtain higher classification clearances before beginning work. 

DOJ says that if Cannon hasn’t satisfactorily addressed their concerns by September 15, they will appeal the case to the 11th Circuit Appeals Court.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Australia: Queen’s death immediately reignites calls for republic

Hours after Queen Elizabeth II’s death, Australian politicians have revived calls for Australia to become a republic. Like Canada, Australia is a self-ruled parliamentary government whose head of state is the British monarch, now King Charles III. A “Republican” in Australia is anyone who supports replacing the current constitutional parliamentary monarchy with a constitutional republic. 

In a tweet, Adam Bandt, leader of Australia’s Green Party, first offered condolences to the royal family. “Now Australia must move forward,” Bandt wrote, “We need [a] Treaty with First Nations people, and we need to become a Republic”.

Another tweet from Bandt’s deputy, New South Wales Sen. Mehreen Faruqi, eschewed any pretense of diplomacy. “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples,” Faruqi wrote. “We are reminded of the urgency of Treaty with First Nations, justice & reparations for British colonies & becoming a republic”.

Both Bandt’s and Faruqi’s tweets drew swift condemnation. Even Australian PM Anthony Albanese, Labour Party leader and an avowed Republican himself, said “today’s not a day for politics”.

The legacy of colonialism 

For much of the Queen’s reign, the monarch’s role as head-of-state in 14 nations has been largely symbolic. For commonwealth nations like Australia with histories of brutal settler colonialist oppression of indigenous peoples, that symbolism has become increasingly uncomfortable. Australia remains the only commonwealth nation that hasn’t yet signed a treaty with its indigenous people. In many people’s minds, Australia’s adherence to monarchy is linked with brutal treatment of Aboriginals in the past and racist attitudes to Aboriginals in the present.

In 1999, an Australian referendum to become a republic narrowly failed despite huge public support. Ahead of that referendum, the Queen stated that she had “always made it clear that the future of the Monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means”.

Despite growing mistrust of the monarchy as an institution, Queen Elizabeth herself was overwhelmingly popular. Even Australia’s staunchest Republicans had acknowledged a republic was unlikely to happen while the Queen was on the throne.

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