Pennsylvania Supreme Court Sets Up Showdown on Medicaid Abortion Ban

The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruled Monday that a 40-year-old law banning Medicaid from covering abortions could be considered discriminatory based on sex, and sent the case back to a lower court, setting up a battle to establish financial coverage for the procedure.

The case stems from the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982, which prohibits Medicaid from covering abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or it puts the patient’s life at risk. A state Supreme Court ruling three years later established that the law is not a form of sex discrimination, meaning it cannot be challenged under the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment.

In 2019, a coalition of seven state abortion providers filed a lawsuit arguing that the law discriminates based on sex and therefore violates the ERA. The plaintiffs urged the justices to recognize that the state constitution guarantees people the right to abortion access.

On Monday, the justices stopped just short of stating a constitutional right to abortion, but they did rule 3–2 that the state’s ERA applied to Medicaid coverage of abortion access. Justices Christine Donohue and David Wecht, who were in the majority, said that “the right to reproductive autonomy, like other privacy rights, is fundamental.”

In the 219-page majority opinion, Donohue wrote that “the right to make healthcare decisions related to reproduction is a core important right encompassed by the enmeshed privacy interest protected by our Charter.”

“Whether or not to give birth is likely the most personal and consequential decision imaginable in the human experience. Any self-determination is dependent on the right to make that decision,” she said.

Justice Kevin Dougherty, who concurred with the overall majority decision, called Donohue and Wecht’s argument “incredibly insightful.” But he said he felt the gist of the current case was too narrow to decide the constitutionality of abortion.

Donohue noted that refusing to cover abortion discriminates against people trying to exercise the right to reproductive autonomy and therefore violates state constitutional protections against discrimination by the government.

“The government does not bear a constitutional obligation to provide medical care to the indigent, nor is the government required to financially support the exercise of a fundamental right, including a woman’s exercise of her right to reproductive autonomy,” Donohue wrote.

“However, once the government chooses to provide medical care for the indigent, including necessary care attendant to pregnancy for those women exercising their right to reproductive autonomy who decide to carry a pregnancy to term, the government is obligated to maintain neutrality so as not to intrude upon the constitutional right to full reproductive autonomy, which includes the right to terminate a pregnancy.”

The case will now return to the lower Commonwealth Court to determine if Medicaid should cover abortion and if abortion is constitutionally protected. The state government must prove that banning Medicaid from covering most abortions does not violate the ERA.

David Cohen, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, told The New Republic that the Pennsylvania government has a “very high bar” to clear to justify Medicaid excluding abortion coverage after this ruling.

The government must prove it has a “compelling state interest” in prohibiting Medicaid from covering abortion, and no other “less intrusive methods” to implement the policy, Cohen, who is also a constitutional law professor at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law, explained. The “least intrusive method” is a way of analyzing laws to determine whether they do the least amount of harm possible in achieving the measure’s stated goal.

“The court said that [the law] is a form of sex discrimination and that sex discrimination under the state’s Equal Rights Amendment needs to be very strictly scrutinized,” Cohen said. “But it’s not an absolute bar. It’s not like the court didn’t say all sex discrimination is prohibited. It’s just a very difficult hurdle for the state to overcome.”

Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema has spent an outsize portion of her U.S. Senate office budget on charter private jets.

The former Green Party turned Democrat turned independent politician has reportedly spent roughly $210,000 of her $4.1 million taxpayer-funded budget on private jet travel, shipping herself and her staff around the country, according to a public records analysis by The Daily Beast.

Since 2020, Sinema has booked at least 11 private trips, with almost half of them occurring in 2023 alone. Nearly all of the flights were chartered for travel within the boundaries of Arizona, shuttling Sinema and her staff around the state on one- or two-day trips, reported the Beast.

On August 8, 2023, Sinema flew herself and four staffers from Washington to the Grand Canyon with Florida-based Monarch Air Group—which cost a whopping $50,250—for a national park law signing featuring President Joe Biden and other federal and state politicians.

While it isn’t against the rules for lawmakers to use their annual budgets for private air travel, there are several reasons why it’s problematic. Being scrupulous with your money means you can stretch your budget further and spend taxpayer money, instead, on things like hiring extra aides and staff to help accomplish the job you were elected for.

In Sinema’s case, the Arizona lawmaker has spent more on private jets in just one year than she paid practically every member of her staff. Her flight to the Grand Canyon alone cost nearly as much as the annual income of her deputy press secretary or her military and veterans affairs representative, according to reports by the secretary of the Senate.

Arizona’s other Senate representative, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, has never used his Senate budget for privately chartered jets, despite the fact that he is more often than not traveling to the same locations as Sinema, according to the Beast.

Florida Representative Maria Salazar said she doesn’t remember voting against two key pieces of legislation—even though she’s regularly claimed credit for their successes in her congressional district.

In an interview on CBS News Miami, Salazar aggressively skirted direct questions about her voting record on the CHIPS and Science Act and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, at one point telling the host that she needed to speak to her staff to remind her of her voting record in Washington, D.C.

“The money that you talk about—the $40 million that you bring back to the district—sometimes that money comes from bills that you voted against,” pressed CBS News’s Jim DeFede. “You voted against the CHIPS Act and yet you praise the fact that the south Florida climate resilience tech hub is going to be started in Miami, right? You voted against the infrastructure bill and you talk about all the money that comes back to the airport.”

“So, at the same time that you’re taking credit for the money that you bring back to the district in Washington, you’re voting against these projects on party line votes,” he added.

“Listen I, that was, I think, last cycle, I cannot really remember right now, but just look, just look at the Americas Act,” Salazar started before DeFede cut her off, asking why she doesn’t want to explain her vote.

“I mean right now, and I’m not trying to be a politician, there’s so many bills that I’ve introduced and I know that many of them—,” Salazar continued while DeFede interjected again that she had voted against the bills.

“I understand and, but, the—OK. Sometimes I vote, and sometimes I don’t, but let’s look at the positive, let’s look at the $40 million that I brought, and let’s look at the dignity,” she said, still trying to take credit for the funding she voted against.

The far right is convinced that the Super Bowl will be rigged in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs so that Taylor Swift can get more attention before she endorses another competition-rigger, President Joe Biden.

The Chiefs defeated the Baltimore Ravens Sunday night and will go on to defend their Super Bowl champions title. Much of the buzz around the recent Chiefs games, though, is due to the presence of music superstar Swift, who is dating the Chiefs’ tight end, Travis Kelce.

The relationship has won her no friends on the right, for reasons of staggering strangeness. But this new wave of acrimony has got to be the weirdest yet.

Former presidential candidate and current Donald Trump toady Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted Monday that he wonders “who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month.”

“I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall,” he continued. “Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”

Ramaswamy was replying to a tweet from Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who managed to link Swift to billionaire George Soros, Republicans’ favorite scapegoat. (It’s worth noting that Swift has enough money to rig a football game on her own.)

Since the Chiefs’ victory Sunday night, other right-wing accounts have also accused Swift of being an “op.” Far-right activist Jack Lombardi insisted Swift and Kelce would use the extra media attention to endorse Biden, while conservative podcast host Mike Crispi claimed they would announce their endorsement during the half-time show.

Georgia GOP district chair Kandiss Taylor said Swift uses “witchcraft” that is “demonic, evil, and Luciferian.” Meanwhile, in its rush to bash Swift, Fox News pulled a 180 on acknowledging climate change is real, and accused Swift of making things worse with her private jet travel to the game.

Not all the hate is directed at just Swift. Republicans also dislike Kelce because he has promoted vaccines, Bud Light beer, and Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest.

But Swift is the target of the majority of GOP vitriol. In early January, Fox News contributor Stewart Kaplan claimed she was a Democratic psyop, after Swift posted on social media encouraging people to register to vote.

Swift rarely weighs in on politics, instead tending to encourage her fans to act without telling them how to do so. She did endorse Biden in 2020 but has given no indication that she intends to throw her support behind any candidate this time around.

The reason why conservatives get so up in arms about Swift, as Edith Olmstead wrote for The New Republic in September, shortly after Swift and Kelce went public as a couple, is “less about the content of her political worldview and more about her vast, earth-moving popularity.”

“It’s not because she is rich, famous, and beautiful,” Olmstead noted. “It’s because of her vast influence over a younger demographic that conservatives have famously struggled to attract or exert an influence upon themselves.”

Donald Trump lit into the president of the United Auto Workers after the union endorsed Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

During a Sunday appearance on Face the Nation, UAW chief Shawn Fain explained why the powerful organization chose to throw its weight behind Biden. Fain said Biden “has always bet on the American worker and stood with the American worker,” particularly during his presidency. Trump, meanwhile, “has a history of serving himself and standing for the billionaire class.”

Trump exploded at Fain on social media Sunday night, which is a great way to get someone to start liking you and change their presidential endorsement.

“55% of the industry has already left the U.S., and the rest will soon be following if I am not elected President,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “Shawn Fain doesn’t understand this or have a clue. Get rid of this dope & vote for DJT. I will bring the Automobile Industry back to our Country.”

Since becoming UAW president less than a year ago, Fain has had a banner time at the union’s helm. He organized a series of escalating strikes against the so-called Big Three: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler). The strike, the first ever conducted against the trio, was wildly successful. Autoworkers won huge contract gains, and the outcome prompted Honda and Toyota to hike workers’ pay.

The UAW endorsed Biden last week after months of withholding its support. Fain stressed during his Sunday interview that the endorsement had to be earned.

“Joe Biden has a history of serving others, and serving the working class, and fighting for the working class, standing with the working class,” Fain said.

Trump, on the other hand, has for nearly two decades repeatedly disparaged the working class, undermined union demands for better working conditions, and blamed laborers for downturns in the economy. He even “cycled through White House staff like toilet paper,” Fain said, a sign of how little he cares for others.

“I can’t fathom any union would support Donald Trump for president,” Fain said.