Latest news with #GOP-controlled
Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Politics
- Toronto Star
North Carolina Gov. Stein vetoes his first bills. They are on concealed carry and immigration
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed his first bills on Friday, blocking for now Republican legislation that would let adults carry concealed handguns without a permit and make state agencies and local sheriffs more active in Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Stein, who took office in January, issued his formal exceptions to three measures backed by the GOP-controlled General Assembly presented to him last week. The former attorney general also had the option to sign any of them into law, or let them become law if he hadn't acted on the legislation soon.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
North Carolina Gov. Stein vetoes his first bills. They are on concealed carry and immigration
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed his first bills on Friday, blocking for now Republican legislation that would let adults carry concealed handguns without a permit and make state agencies and local sheriffs more active in Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Stein, who took office in January, issued his formal exceptions to three measures backed by the GOP-controlled General Assembly presented to him last week. The former attorney general also had the option to sign any of them into law, or let them become law if he hadn't acted on the legislation soon. The vetoed measures now return to the legislature, where Republicans are one House seat shy of holding a veto-proof majority. Its leaders will decide whether to attempt overrides as early as next week. Voting so far followed party lines for one of the immigration measures, which in part would direct heads of several state law enforcement agencies, like the State Highway Patrol and State Bureau of Investigation, to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But one House Democrat ended up voting for the other immigration bill that Stein vetoed. It toughens a 2024 law that required sheriffs to help federal agents seeking criminal defendants. GOP prospects for enacting the permitless concealed gun measure, a longtime aspiration for gun-rights advocates, appear dimmer, because two House Republicans voted against the bill and 10 others were absent. Gun bill would let 18-year-olds carry concealed handgun In one veto message, Stein said the gun legislation, which would allow eligible people at least 18 years old to carry a concealed handgun, 'makes North Carolinians less safe and undermines responsible gun ownership.' Democratic lawmakers argued the same during the bill's passage through the legislature. Current law requires a concealed weapons holder to be at least 21 to obtain a permit. The person must submit an application to the local sheriff, pass a firearms safety training course and cannot 'suffer from a physical or mental infirmity that prevents the safe handling of a handgun.' Conservative advocates for the bill say removing the permit requirement would strengthen Second Amendment rights and the safety of law-abiding citizens. Permitless carry is already lawful in 29 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. North Carolina would also be one of the last states in the Southeast to implement that legislation. Immigration bills focus on state agencies, sheriffs One vetoed immigration bill would require four state law enforcement agencies to officially participate in the 287(g) program, which trains officers to interrogate defendants and determine their immigration status. An executive order by President Donald Trump urged his administration to maximize the use of 287(g) agreements. Stein wrote Friday the bill takes officers away from existing state duties at a time when law enforcement is already stretched thin. The measure also would direct state agencies to ensure noncitizens don't access certain state-funded benefits. But Stein said that people without lawful immigration status already can't receive these benefits. The other vetoed bill attempts to expand a 2024 law — enacted over then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto — that directed jails to hold temporarily certain defendants whom ICE believe are in the country illegally, allowing time for immigration agents to pick them up. The vetoed bill would expand the list of crimes that a defendant is charged with that would require the jail administrator to attempt to determine the defendant's legal status. A jail also would have to tell ICE promptly that it is holding someone and essentially extends the time agents have to pick up the person. Stein said Friday while he supports sheriffs contacting federal immigration agents about defendants charged with dangerous crimes, the law is unconstitutional because it directs sheriffs to keep defendants behind bars 48 hours beyond when they otherwise could be released for a suspected immigration violation. Latino advocates and other bill opponents had urged Stein to veto both immigration measures, with dozens picketing across the street from the Executive Mansion earlier this week. They say the legislation would cause Hispanic residents to feel intimidated and fear law enforcement.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Oshkosh legislators to continue pursuit of full Municipal Services Payment program funding
OSHKOSH – Residents will likely continue subsidizing the cost of city-provided services for state-owned property exempt from property taxes. The Wisconsin Legislature won't be increasing funding to the Municipal Services Payment program after the Joint Finance Committee removed Gov. Tony Evers' proposal from the state biennial budget June 13. The decision means the state will continue to significantly underfund the program at 37.62%, just more than half of Evers' recent resolution of 72%. Dig deeper: Hintz doesn't expect state to boost Municipal Services Payment Program funding despite Evers, Oshkosh proposals The MSP program reimburses municipalities for police, fire and waste management services to property tax-exempt, state-owned facilities like UW-Oshkosh and the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. Oshkosh receives just more than $1 million from the MSP, but the city has around $900 million worth of state-owned property, putting it as the third-largest holder of such facilities in Wisconsin behind Madison and Milwaukee. As a result, taxpayers are left to make up the shortfall. In his recent biennial budget, Evers proposed adding a further $17 million to the MSP's current budget of $18.6 million, which would see the state funding the program at 72%. Oshkosh's common council recently passed a resolution asking the state legislature to fully fund the MSP at 100%, prompting a similar motion on the floor at the Joint Finance Committee. But the issue has seemingly become a partisan one, with the motion being shot down via a 12-4 vote after all 12 Republicans on the GOP-controlled JCF opposed the funding increase. This follows a recent workshop held last month with the Oshkosh Common Council during which State Rep. Nate Gustafson (R-55) said he couldn't commit to supporting the city's resolution of having the state fully fund the MSP. State Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-19) was not present at the workshop but also would not commit to the resolution in a subsequent email to the Northwestern. In contrast, State Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-18) and State Rep. Lori Palmeri (D-54) said they would put forward a standalone bill if Evers' proposal failed. "The citizens of Oshkosh are being taken advantage of,' Dassler-Alfheim told the Northwestern in an interview following the JCF vote. 'It is the state's obligation to pay for their resources that are located here in Oshkosh, so the governor asked for 72% and I would have hoped for a compromise maybe at 50%, but instead we got no increase.' Emails to Cabral-Guevara and Gustafson asking about the apparent partisan nature of the MSP issue were not immediately returned. "There is nothing political about protecting the taxpayers of Oshkosh from footing the bill for services provided by municipalities to state facilities," Dassler-Alfheim said. Read more: State legislators support Oshkosh's resolution for state to fully fund Municipal Services Payment program Created in 1973, the MSP program is supposed 'to make equitable annual payment to municipalities,' yet the state hasn't fully funded it since 1981. According to a budget summary from the JFC, the highest percentage of entitlement cost covered over the last two decades was 88.1% in 2005. MSP funding was reduced for both the 2009-11 and 2011-13 budgets, with the current funding of $18.6 million being set since 2011. Despite Evers' proposal being removed from the state budget, Oshkosh may still have hopes for seeing increased state funding to the MSP. The proposal could be drafted and introduced in either the Assembly or the Senate as a standalone bill in the same language used in Oshkosh's resolution. But that bill would likely have to be referred to the same Joint Finance Committee that removed Evers' line in the budget and voted against the motion for the legislature to fully fund the MSP. 'This is falling on the backs of Oshkosh citizens and that's inappropriate, so I will keep fighting for them,' Dassler-Alfheim told the Northwestern Oshkosh City Manager Rebecca Grill explained the Joint Finance Committee's decision only further compounds the city's 2026 budget process, which starts with a budget deficit of over $3 million. Common council member DJ Nichols then made comments suggesting Oshkosh could contemplate legal action. "All options are on the table," Nichols told the Northwestern. "If the legislative branch can't solve this, maybe it's time to explore if the judicial branch can provide any relief — not just for Oshkosh, but for each of the over 360 municipalities that the JFC has betrayed." In a post on his official Facebook page, Nichols' fellow common council member Kris Larson took further issue with the situation seemingly becoming a partisan issue. 'MSP is a PERFECT example of something that all of your reps should be pushing for, for YOU, as it directly benefits YOU (and would benefit their communities ... which is literally their job),' Larson wrote. 'YOUR ability to pay the most fair property tax rate should not have anything to do with whether your representatives have an R or a D after their name ... but on this subject, it does.' The 2025-27 biennial state budget is slated to pass July 1. Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@ and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @justinmarville. This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Oshkosh legislators to continue pursuit of full MSP program funding
2 days ago
- Health
What to know about the impacts of the Supreme Court's ruling on transgender care for youth
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth in a ruling that's likely to reverberate across the country. Most Republican-controlled states already have similar bans. In his majority opinion Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Tennessee's ban does not violate the Constitution's equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. Since President Donald Trump returned to office this year, the federal government has been trying to restrict access. Here are some things to know about gender-affirming care and the court's ruling: Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person's gender identity, or their sense of feeling male, female, neither or some combination of both. Sometimes that's different from the sex they were assigned at birth. The services are offered to treat gender dysphoria, the unease a person may have because their assigned gender and gender identity don't match. Studies, including one from 2023 by researchers at institutions including London Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, have found the condition is linked to depression and suicidal thoughts. Gender-affirming care encompasses counseling and treatment with medications that block puberty and hormone therapy to produce physical changes. Hormone therapy for transgender men causes periods to stop, increases facial and body hair and deepens voices. The hormones used by transgender women can have effects such as slowing growth of body and facial hair and increasing breast growth. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 U.S. adolescents receive gender-affirming medications, a study released this year found. Gender-affirming care can also include surgery, including operations to transform genitals and chests. These surgeries are rarely offered to minors. There are documented uses of genital surgery for adults dating back to the 1920s. But for youth, gender-affirming care has been more common since the 1990s. As a medical consensus emerged in support of gender-affirming care for youth, the issue also became politically divisive in other ways. Some states approved measures to protect transgender people, who make up around 1% of the nation's population. Many critics dismiss the idea that gender is changeable and lies along a spectrum. About two-thirds of U.S. adults believe that whether a person is a man or woman is determined by biological characteristics at birth, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in May found. In the last five years, most GOP-controlled states have passed laws to block transgender girls from sports competitions for girls. About half the Republican-controlled states have now banned transgender people from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Opponents of gender-affirming care sometimes refer to it as 'mutilation" and say people who transition when they're young could later regret it. In addition to Tennessee, 26 other states have passed bans or restrictions on gender-affirming care for youth. Judges have struck down the bans in Arkansas and Montana, though the legal fights there aren't over. All of the laws have been adopted in the past five years and nearly all have been challenged in court. The Supreme Court's decision may doom some of those challenges. But lawyers who challenged Tennessee's law said the ruling applies only to that policy – and that it doesn't automatically end the cases against other bans on gender-affirming care. Lambda Legal lawyer Karen Loewy noted that the opinion focused on the fact that it involved minors and that the court did not find sex-based discrimination against transgender people. Further, some of the lawsuits against the bans — including in Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and Ohio — are based on arguments rooted in state constitutions. It still possible that judges could find more protections in those state constitutions than are in the U.S. Constitution. It probably won't make any difference immediately. Several of those states have laws or executive orders intended to protect access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors. But the question about whether the care will continue isn't only about what's legal. It's also about funding. That's where Trump comes in. Trump campaigned last year pledging to rein in rights of transgender people. He's followed through on many fronts, though court challenges have resulted in some of his efforts being blocked, at least for now. He has ordered that no federal taxpayer money be used to pay for the care for those under 19. Enforcement of that order is on hold. Trump has also tried to block federal funding from institutions — including hospitals and the universities that run some of them — that provide gender-affirming care for youth. A judge has blocked that effort while challenges to it proceed. His administration published recommendations that therapy alone – and not medication – be used to treat transgender youth. The position contradicts guidance from major medical organizations. But it could impact practices. Other actions Trump has taken including initiating the removal of transgender troops from military service; ordering that transgender women and girls be kept out of sports competitions for females; erasing the word 'transgender' from some government websites; and saying the government would recognize people only by their sex at conception. That's resulted in efforts to move transgender women inmates to men's prisons and change how passports are issued to transgender and nonbinary people. A judge this week blocked the Trump administration from limiting passport sex markers for many transgender and nonbinary Americans. ___
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Health
- Hamilton Spectator
What to know about the impacts of the Supreme Court's ruling on transgender care for youth
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth in a ruling that's likely to reverberate across the country. Most Republican-controlled states already have similar bans. In his majority opinion Wednesday , Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Tennessee's ban does not violate the Constitution's equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. Since President Donald Trump returned to office this year, the federal government has been trying to restrict access. Here are some things to know about gender-affirming care and the court's ruling: What is gender-affirming care? Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person's gender identity, or their sense of feeling male, female, neither or some combination of both. Sometimes that's different from the sex they were assigned at birth. The services are offered to treat gender dysphoria, the unease a person may have because their assigned gender and gender identity don't match. Studies, including one from 2023 by researchers at institutions including London Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, have found the condition is linked to depression and suicidal thoughts. Gender-affirming care encompasses counseling and treatment with medications that block puberty and hormone therapy to produce physical changes. Hormone therapy for transgender men causes periods to stop, increases facial and body hair and deepens voices. The hormones used by transgender women can have effects such as slowing growth of body and facial hair and increasing breast growth. Fewer than 1 in 1,000 U.S. adolescents receive gender-affirming medications, a study released this year found. Gender-affirming care can also include surgery, including operations to transform genitals and chests. These surgeries are rarely offered to minors . There are documented uses of genital surgery for adults dating back to the 1920s. But for youth, gender-affirming care has been more common since the 1990s. What is the controversy? As a medical consensus emerged in support of gender-affirming care for youth, the issue also became politically divisive in other ways. Some states approved measures to protect transgender people, who make up around 1% of the nation's population. Many critics dismiss the idea that gender is changeable and lies along a spectrum. About two-thirds of U.S. adults believe that whether a person is a man or woman is determined by biological characteristics at birth, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in May found. In the last five years, most GOP-controlled states have passed laws to block transgender girls from sports competitions for girls. About half the Republican-controlled states have now banned transgender people from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Opponents of gender-affirming care sometimes refer to it as 'mutilation' and say people who transition when they're young could later regret it. What could the ruling mean for bans in states besides Tennessee? In addition to Tennessee, 26 other states have passed bans or restrictions on gender-affirming care for youth. Judges have struck down the bans in Arkansas and Montana , though the legal fights there aren't over. All of the laws have been adopted in the past five years and nearly all have been challenged in court. The Supreme Court's decision means that federal challenges to those laws aren't likely to prevail. However, some of the lawsuits against them are based on arguments rooted in state constitutions, and it's still possible that judges could find more protections in those state constitutions than are in the U.S. Constitution. What will the ruling mean for states without bans on gender-affirming care? It probably won't make any difference immediately. Several of those states have laws or executive orders intended to protect access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors. But the question about whether the care will continue isn't only about what's legal. It's also about funding. That's where Trump comes in. Trump campaigned last year pledging to rein in rights of transgender people. He's followed through on many fronts, though court challenges have resulted in some of his efforts being blocked, at least for now. What has Trump done on transgender issues? He has ordered that no federal taxpayer money be used to pay for the care for those under 19. Enforcement of that order is on hold . Trump has also tried to block federal funding from institutions — including hospitals and the universities that run some of them — that provide gender-affirming care for youth. A judge has blocked that effort while challenges to it proceed. His administration published recommendations that therapy alone – and not medication – be used to treat transgender youth. The position contradicts guidance from major medical organizations. But it could impact practices. Other actions Trump has taken including initiating the removal of transgender troops from military service; ordering that transgender women and girls be kept out of sports competitions for females ; erasing the word 'transgender' from some government websites; and saying the government would recognize people only by their sex at conception. That's resulted in efforts to move transgender women inmates to men's prisons and change how passports are issued to transgender and nonbinary people. A judge this week blocked the Trump administration from limiting passport sex markers for many transgender and nonbinary Americans.
