Good morning, Rj! Happy Sunday! ☀️
The Supreme Court is out of control. Last week, the extremist right-wing Supreme Court released a number of devastating rulings that attack our rights and harm our democracy. In 6-3 opinions, the conservative justices issued decisions ending affirmative action, blocking President Biden’s plan to forgive federal student loan debt for nearly 40 million Americans, and granting businesses the right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals. Instead of protecting our freedoms and fairly interpreting the law, these justices are instead imposing their own dangerous political ideology. That’s not their job, and we’ll be the ones to pay the price!
Gov. Hobbs issues executive orders. Just before the 1-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Gov. Katie Hobbs issued an executive order to protect abortion access, banning county prosecutors from prosecuting abortion providers. Then, during the last week of Pride month, Hobbs issued two more executive orders protecting LGBTQ+ Arizonans, restricting the state from supporting conversion therapy for minors and allowing state employees to access gender-affirming healthcare through their health insurance. Thank you to Gov. Hobbs for fighting for Arizonans!
…meanwhile, Republicans are holding Arizona agencies hostage. After Hobbs released the executive order on abortion, Republican lawmakers decided to retaliate, canceling scheduled hearings on Katie Hobbs’ nominees to head various state agencies. The Arizona Legislature is currently adjourned until the end of July, with lawmakers collecting hundreds of thousands in per diem reimbursements on the taxpayer dime while they do literally nothing and hold our state agencies hostage for their own political gain.
Tom Horne is back at it. This time, he’s attacking dual-language learners in Arizona public schools. After incorrectly stating that the dual language model is ineffective and violates state law, he threatened to cut funding from public schools and districts that offer dual-language programs, despite research showing that these programs are actually beneficial for kids and for the greater community. Horne is clearly more focused on pushing his discriminatory agenda than doing anything that actually helps Arizona students.
1 year since Dobbs. Catch last week’s episode of Out in Front, hosted by our Nevada affiliates, Battle Born Progress, for a discussion on abortion one year out from the Dobbs decision, featuring Abigail (that’s me!) with the Progress Arizona team.
Rein the Court in. The far right-wing majority of the Supreme Court is breaking long-standing judicial norms and precedent – stripping us of our most fundamental freedoms and threatening our democracy. Call your member of Congress todayand tell them to rein the Court in.
Thanks for reading Last Week, This Morning!
Abigail with Progress Arizona
