WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 13: Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) at the National Republican Senatorial Committee building on June 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. Trump is visiting Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Republicans and participate in additional meetings. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republican members of the U.S. Senate striving for a takeover of their chamber in the November elections have a wish list for what they’d like to see in Donald Trump’s running mate.

A “little calmer” than Trump. Confident. Conservative. Military experience. Good relationships with senators. Ready to take over as chief executive if needed, they told States Newsroom in interviews.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has held off on revealing his pick. But he’s dropped tantalizing compliments about a few of the short-list candidates, producing non-stop headlines about the veepstakes in advance of the Republican National Convention next month.

So far, Trump hasn’t indicated a clear favorite, leading to incessant speculation about what characteristics he’s looking for in his second-in-command this time around, the person who will head up the GOP ticket with him in what’s likely to be a close election.

In 2016, Trump selected Indiana’s Mike Pence, in part to sway evangelical Christians who were skeptical about Trump’s moral character.

Trump is seeking a second term in office as a convicted felon found guilty on 34 counts in New York for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 election. He’s also facing federal charges for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has cast aside Pence after his former vice president refused to take part in the scheme.

That, however, hasn’t diminished the number of GOP lawmakers and former presidential hopefuls jostling to join his ticket.

Trump’s list of vice presidential candidates reportedly includes North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Arkansas U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, New York U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance.

Republican senators, including some thought to be in the running to be tapped as the veep candidate, met with Trump on June 13 to map campaign strategy and portray unity.

Trump told NBC News on Saturday his pick “most likely” will be at Thursday night’s debate with President Joe Biden in Atlanta.

Confidence and a coalition

Several Republican senators interviewed by States Newsroom offered suggestions for what traits might be most helpful for Trump in a vice president during a potential second term.

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s hoping to see a vice presidential pick who can bring confidence and a wider GOP coalition to the table.

“I think you want somebody who has broad knowledge, not just national, but international, (you want) decisiveness, and somebody who’s got leadership that you could actually see taking the reins of the presidency, somebody who has conservative principles on the Republican side and is a proven leader,” Capito said.

“I would imagine for President Trump, it’s going to be somebody that brings a broader constituency to him,” Capito said, adding “and is probably a little calmer than he is.”

‘Good relationships across the spectrum’

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said Trump would “benefit from somebody who, in the right setting, is providing a lot of good upward feedback, supporting the president’s agenda.”

The former and possibly future president would also gain from a pick who is “well studied on the issues,” and if it’s a senator, “a person with good relationships across the spectrum would help,” Tillis said.

“We’re probably going to have a tight margin, so if you think about maybe somebody who has past relationships with people in the House, good relationships with the Republican conference. I mean, we’re gonna have some tough votes,” Tillis said.

For example, Congress faces a massive tax code fight next year as several provisions in the 2017 Republican tax law are set to expire. Tillis recalled the internal GOP debate in 2017 “wasn’t a cakewalk.”

“We had to work to get Republican support,” Tillis said. “So having somebody that naturally has that chemistry, you know, whether or not you’ve worked on legislation, or you just have a good relationship going in. If I were in President Trump’s position, that’d be a key factor.”

Congress will also need to address the debt limit next year, a debate that carries significant economic consequences, both domestically and around the globe.

A stint in the military

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst — a top member of the Armed Services Committee and a retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard — said she “would love to see somebody that does have foreign relations or military policy experience.”

“I think that would be key, to have someone that’s young and enthusiastic and would be able to fill the role of our next president as well,” Ernst said.

Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran said that Trump might want to pick someone whom voters feel confident can follow him as the leader of the Republican Party.

“I’m not sure that vice presidential nominees have a lot of impact, influence on how people vote,” Moran said. “But I would say that this may be a year in which that matters — (given the) age of candidates. And so who might follow is probably of interest to people. And I would say that the best qualification is somebody who’d be a great president.”

Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, who is likely to become his home state’s next governor, said Trump needs someone who thinks like him politically, so the two don’t differ on policy issues, as well as someone ready to become president if required.

“I think someone’s going to have to be on the same wavelength politically, for sure,” Braun said. “I think I’ve heard him say that he wants somebody ready to step into the role if necessary. I think the loyalty factor is something he’s always stressed.”

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt said that no matter who Trump picks off his short list, Republicans will win back the Oval Office in November.

“Every senator on the list is outstanding,” Britt said. “And I’ll be excited about the good things that we’re going to be able to do with him back in office and us in control of the Senate.”

When asked his opinion of Trump’s VP short list, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said, “I haven’t seen anybody on the list that I would object to.”

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he wouldn’t comment on specific contenders, but added “all the names I’ve heard mentioned seem to be good people.”

“But what counts is what President Trump thinks, and I don’t have the slightest idea who he’s gonna pick,” Kennedy said.

A sitting senator

Republican senators who spoke to States Newsroom appeared mostly unfazed by the possibility that a vice presidential pick could be from among their ranks — even if that lowers what could be a very narrow majority in the Senate come January.

Capito said she thinks a Republican majority will likely remain safe even if Trump chooses one of her colleagues as his running mate.

“I think the ones he’s talking about are from pretty red states, but you know, you’re always concerned about that,” Capito said. “But I think it would be great to have a colleague who was in the Senate with me be our vice president.”

Braun said that Trump might want to consider the polling of several key races for the Senate before picking his nominee.

“I think that could be a consideration,” Braun said. “You take that risk off the table.”

When asked whether a VP pick from the Senate could weaken or upset a GOP majority, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said, “I’m sure Trump will take that into consideration.”

Tillis said he is not concerned about Trump’s VP pick threatening a Republican Senate majority, and he speculated that Trump may even pull from the upper chamber when choosing his Cabinet, should he be elected.

“I think the replacement protocol doesn’t make it a significant issue,” Tillis said.

Grassley echoed Tillis. “Are we talking about Ohio, Florida, South Carolina? That’s it. I don’t think you’d worry about that,” he said.

Forty-five states require the governor to appoint someone to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat, and 37 of those states fill the vacancy with the chosen appointment until the next statewide election, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

The remaining states — Kentucky, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin — require vacant Senate seats to be filled by a special election.

All of Trump’s picks from the Senate are from states with Republican governors.

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Supporters of reproductive rights protested outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 26, 2024, as justices heard oral arguments over access to mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Top Democratic campaign officials Thursday pressed their case for control of Congress and the White House by pointing toward the upcoming two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the constitutional right to an abortion.

More than a dozen Democrats also introduced legislation in Congress to prevent a future Republican administration from using an 1873 law, known as the Comstock Act, to bar mailing abortion medication.

On a call with reporters, the three campaign leaders said voters must flip the House from red to blue, keep Democrats in control of the Senate against the long odds and ensure President Joe Biden stays in the Oval Office to prevent the GOP from potentially implementing nationwide restrictions on reproductive rights.

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Vice Chair Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington repeatedly said that Democrats would restore nationwide protections for abortion access if given unified control of government.

They, however, didn’t provide a clear road map for what Democrats would do on reproductive rights, including access to contraception and in vitro fertilization, if divided control of government continues.

Instead, they pointed to what Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, might do in the event voters elect him president during November’s elections.

“We need to be clear that Trump and MAGA Republicans want to ban abortion and they have a plan to do it through executive action without any bill ever passing Congress; because they believe that politicians should have the power to make these decisions for women, whose lives and stories they will never know,” Smith said on the call.

Comstock Act fears

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has released “Project 2025,” a lengthy document that outlines what it believes Trump should do during a second term.

The Trump campaign hasn’t endorsed the document or said it would seek to implement it in full or in part, though a former Trump administration official led its development.

The proposal includes using the Comstock Act —  a law enacted more than 150 years ago to prevent the mailing of obscene materials, contraceptives and anything that could produce an abortion — to bar the shipment of medication abortion throughout the United States.

Smith on Thursday introduced a three-page bill that would eliminate that as a possibility, though the legislation may not advance in the Senate and is very unlikely to make it through the GOP-controlled House before November.

Medication abortion, which includes mifepristone and misoprostol, accounts for about 63% of abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The two pharmaceuticals are also used for miscarriage care. Misoprostol has other medical uses, as well.

The Comstock Act, enacted in 1873, originally barred the mailing of materials considered lewd or obscene at the time, but is written so broadly that it has been used to bar boxing photographs, art and information about contraception.

The law explicitly prohibits mailing “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use.” Smith’s bill would seek to eliminate those provisions.

Smith, when asked about the Comstock Act on the call Thursday, said the “zombie law” could be used to make medication abortion illegal without a vote in the Congress.

“It’s very clear what their plan is,” Smith said of Republicans. “And so this is another example of the very clear choice that American voters have.”

DelBene, who is leading Democrats’ campaign arm in the House, said on the call that Republicans are already trying to change when and how Americans have access to various reproductive rights by attaching amendments to the must-pass government funding bills.

“This election is fundamentally about our rights, our freedoms, our democracy and our future,” DelBene said. “House Republicans have made it clear they’re willing to do anything to take those away.”

A divided Congress predicted

The most likely outcome of November’s elections isn’t currently unified Democratic control in the eyes of some analysts however.

Three experts at Moody’s Analytics released an analysis this week, showing the most probable result is that Biden will remain president with a divided Congress.

That scenario had a 40% probability, while a Republican sweep had a probability of 35%. Trump winning the presidential election and gaining a divided Congress had a 15% probability. A Democratic sweep had a 10% probability, according to the report.

The most likely scenario of Biden remaining president with a split Congress suggests that the GOP would flip the Senate and the Democrats would regain the House of Representatives.

“With the retirement of West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, the deep-red state will almost surely elect a Republican senator, leaving the Senate evenly divided,” the report states. “But while recent polling shows that Senate races in Arizona, Maryland, Montana, Nevada and Ohio are close, Republicans need to take only one of these seats to regain the majority.”

“Each race has its own story, but helping the Republicans’ cause is angst over inflation and heightened concern over the immigrant crisis at the southern border,” the report adds.

The analysis goes on to say that “federal judicial decisions on redistricting efforts have also leaned in Democrats’ favor, boosting their chances” of regaining control of the House.

“Also, given that incumbents win reelection more than 90% of the time, the relatively high number of congressional retirements relative to previous cycles creates the potential for more change in the body,” the analysis states.

The report details the four outcomes of November’s election as well as the various economic scenarios that would play out under either a Biden or a Trump presidency for the next four years.

The report was written by Chief Economist Mark M. Zandi, Director/Senior Economist Brendan La Cerda and Economist Justin Begley.

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A coronavirus drive-through testing site at the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center on March 17, 2020 at Jones Beach State Park, New York. It was the first drive-through coronavirus testing site on Long Island. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Scientists debated the origins of COVID-19 on Tuesday, trading barbs over whether the bulk of evidence available points to a natural spillover event from a wild animal or a virus designed in a lab and then let loose through an inadvertent leak.

The hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was part of ongoing efforts in Congress to apply the lessons learned during the pandemic to prevent or blunt the next outbreak.

Gregory Koblentz, associate professor and director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University in Virginia, said during the two-hour hearing that debate continues in the scientific community about the origins.

“The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately developed as a biological weapon has been unanimously rejected by all U.S. intelligence agencies,” Koblentz testified. “While the intelligence community is divided on the origin of the pandemic, most of the agencies have determined that the virus was not genetically engineered.”

Residents in Wuhan, China, were first diagnosed with “an atypical pneumonia-like illness” in December 2019, according to a COVID-19 timeline from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Initial cases all appeared linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market at the time, though there has since been much speculation about the types of research taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Koblentz said he believes the available evidence points to a spillover event from an animal, though he added a “research-related accident can’t be ruled out at this time.”

The lack of transparency and data from the Chinese government has significantly hindered scientists’ efforts to unify around the origin of COVID-19, he said.

Scientists battle over lab vs. spillover

Richard Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology and laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, testified he believes a “large preponderance of evidence indicates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, entered humans through a research incident.”

Ebright also leveled criticism at fellow panelist Robert Garry, who, along with a handful of co-authors, published an opinion article in the journal nature medicine in March 2020, titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.”

In the commentary, Garry and the other scientists wrote, “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

Ebright said during Tuesday’s hearing that the opinion article represented “scientific misconduct up to and including fraud,” a characterization that Garry rejected during the hearing.

“The authors were stating their opinion, but that opinion was not well-founded,” Ebright said. “In March of 2020, there was no basis to state that as a conclusion, as opposed to simply being a hypothesis.”

Garry, professor and associate dean of the School of Medicine at Tulane University in Louisiana, argued on behalf of the spillover event during the hearing, testifying that the virus likely didn’t move directly from a bat to humans, but went to an unidentified intermediary animal.

“The bat coronaviruses are viruses that are spread by the gastrointestinal route,” Garry said. “For a virus like this to become a respiratory virus — it’s just going to require too many mutations, too many changes for a bat virus to spill directly over to a human being. That could only really happen in nature with replication through an intermediate animal.”

Garry also defended gain-of-function research during the hearing, arguing that it has had some beneficial impact, though he noted that it does need “appropriate safeguards and restrictions.”

Lawmakers and pundits have used several, often evolving, definitions for gain-of-function research in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Society for Microbiology defines it as techniques “used in research to alter the function of an organism in such a way that it is able to do more than it used to do.”

When research is “responsibly performed” on highly transmissible and pathogenic viruses, it can lead to advances in public health and national security, Garry testified.

“Without gain-of-function research, we’d have no Tamiflu. Without gain-of-function research, we wouldn’t have a vaccine to prevent cancer caused by infection by the human papilloma virus,” Garry said. “And without gain-of-function research, we won’t be able to identify how novel viruses infect us. And if we don’t know how they infect us, we cannot develop appropriate treatments and cures for the next potential pandemic creating virus.”

Oversight of funding, research 

New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan raised several questions about whether there’s enough oversight of how the United States spends research dollars as well as what mechanisms are in place to monitor how private entities conduct certain types of research.

“While their research has the potential to cure diseases and boost our economy, unless they accept federal funding, there is very little federal oversight to ensure that private labs are engaged in safe and ethical research,” she said.

Koblentz from George Mason University said there is much less oversight of biosafety and biosecurity for private research facilities that don’t receive federal funding.

“In order to expand the scope of oversight to all privately funded research, (it) would require legislative action,” Koblentz said.

Congress, he said, should establish a national bio-risk management agency that would have authority over biosafety and biosecurity “regardless of the source of funding.”

“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter where the funding comes from in terms of making sure this research is being done safely, securely and responsibly,” Koblentz said.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, ranking member on the committee, said the panel will hold an upcoming hearing specifically on gain-of-function research, including what steps Congress should take to ensure it doesn’t put the public at risk.

The next pandemic

Committee Chairman Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, said during the hearing that lawmakers “must learn from the challenges faced during this pandemic to ensure we can better protect Americans from future potential biological incidents.”

“Our government needs the flexibility to determine the origins of naturally occurring outbreaks, as well as potential outbreaks that could arise from mistakes or malicious intent,” Peters said.

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, after listening to some of the debate, expressed exasperation that so much attention is going toward what caused the last pandemic and not on how to prepare for the next one.

“Given the fact that it could have been either, we know what action we ought to take to protect from either,” Romney said. “And so why there’s so much passion around that makes me think it’s more political than scientific, but maybe I’m wrong.”

The United States, he said, shouldn’t be funding gain-of-function research and should “insist” that anyone who receives federal funding follow the standards of the International Organization for Standardization.

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TALLAHASSEE, FL - NOVEMBER 03: Hired security personnel wait for voters outside the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office on November 3, 2020 in Tallahassee, Florida. After a record-breaking early voting turnout, Americans head to the polls on the last day to cast their vote for incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The federal government has sought to bolster election security for years through a popular grant program, but the wildly fluctuating funding levels have made it difficult for state officials to plan their budgets and their projects.

Rising misinformation and disinformation about elections, often fueled by conspiracy theories, as well as threats against election workers, make the grants especially important, according to elections officials.

But U.S. House Republicans are seeking to eliminate funding for election security grants — known as Help America Vote Act, or HAVA grants — in this year’s appropriations process, a move they unsuccessfully attempted last year as well.

“We continue to unnecessarily risk the very integrity of our elections and American democracy,” Georgia Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop said Thursday during committee debate on the funding bill.

Bishop, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he was “concerned about the outdated and the insecure voting systems around the country that pose a very, very serious threat to our national security and to our democratic system.”

“It is irresponsible to ignore the wake-up call,” Bishop added. “Our nation’s election systems are currently and constantly under attack by foreign actors that are threatening our democratic values.”

The bill was approved by the GOP-led House Appropriations Committee with no money in it for the grants.

Gideon Cohn-Postar, legislative director at Issue One & Issue One Action, said during an interview with States Newsroom that while the grants have traditionally been bipartisan, several factors have affected backing for the program in recent years.

“It remains something that many Republicans in both the House and the Senate support,” Cohn-Postar said. “But it’s also been caught up, I think, in some of the false information about elections that began to spread in 2020.”

Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

Issue One writes on its website that the organization strives to “unite Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build an inclusive democracy that works for everyone”.

Grant funding decreases

Congress approved $55 million in election security grants during the last appropriations process, which wrapped up this spring. That action came after the Republican-controlled House, which proposed zero dollars, conferenced with the Democratic-controlled Senate, which had proposed $75 million in funding.

That final funding level was a decrease from the $75 million that Congress approved in both fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2022.

Congress didn’t approve any election grant funding in the annual appropriations bill during fiscal year 2021. However, that followed lawmakers’ allocation of $425 million in the prior year’s bill as well as an additional $400 million in one of the COVID-19 emergency spending bills.

Cohn-Postar said that several states have sought to make their HAVA grants last more than one year by spending less than they receive, or saving the money up for bigger projects.

Louisiana, for example, hasn’t spent any of its election security grant funding since 2018, in preparation for overhauling its election system. New Hampshire passed a state law that collects the grant funding in an endowment and then only spends a portion of that each year.

But that “careful” budgeting and uncertainty about how much grant funding Congress might provide in the next year has led federal lawmakers to look at states’ use of the grants skeptically, Cohn-Postar said.

“The key thing we’ve come across … is about half of the states have only spent about half of their HAVA grants,” Cohn-Postar said. “And that gets brought up in every conversation that Congress has about these grants. They say, ‘Hey, why should we appropriate more if you haven’t spent?’”

Congress, he said, sometimes uses states’ “careful, thoughtful budgeting as an excuse to not give them money.”

Republicans in Congress are also looking to reduce federal spending overall and have made cuts throughout many of the dozen annual spending bills, including the Financial Services bill, which includes the HAVA grants.

‘Incredibly important’ in Maine

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said during an interview the grants “have been incredibly important, especially in the absence of sustainable elections funding from the federal government.”

“We have seen the rapid evolution of cybersecurity threats and threats against election infrastructure over the last several years,” Bellows said. “As the threats evolve, so must our preparedness. The election security grants are fundamental to our ability to make investments in improvements in our central voter registration system and cybersecurity protections for that system.”

Congress’ inability or unwillingness to create a predictable, stable funding program for states to administer federal elections is “unfortunate,” she said.

“We are very proud that Maine has always enjoyed safe, free and secure elections,” Bellows said. “But make no mistake, the lack of sustainable ongoing federal funding is a potential vulnerability in the future.”

Washington state Elections Director Stuart Holmes said in an interview he plans his annual budget around not getting HAVA election security grants and is pleasantly surprised when Congress does provide the funding.

“Through my entire career, there’s only been two rounds of HAVA that were significant investments into elections,” Holmes said. “So it’s a great surprise to get an extra million dollars at the beginning of the year. But it does make it pretty much impossible to prepare and plan for anything if you have to spend it.”

The grants don’t expire at the end of the fiscal year and the federal government doesn’t claw back unspent funding, allowing the states to take different approaches to how they use the money.

Holmes said during his interview with States Newsroom that the funding approved in fiscal 2020 allowed the state to “create an entire team of cybersecurity professionals to be dedicated to protecting our infrastructure.”

“In the state of Washington, we have a centralized voter registration and election management system, and never before had we had dedicated election professionals that are watching the logs, preparing our system, testing our system and collaborating with other professionals to do testing,” Holmes said. “So we’re in a better position than we’ve ever been.”

Even so, he said, “local election officials would certainly look forward to a stable funding source from the federal government as it relates to federal elections.”

New Hampshire election fund

New Hampshire Secretary of State David M. Scanlan said when Congress passed the HAVA program in 2002, it told states the funding was primarily to set up a statewide voter registration database, ensure every polling place had accessible voting equipment, provide poll workers with training and set up voter education programs.

The New Hampshire Legislature at the time told the secretary of state to use the initial allocation from Congress to meet the requirements, but then to establish an election fund with the remaining money.

Originally, the secretary of state could use one-twentieth of the total funding in the account for annual costs of maintaining the federal mandates, but that is currently one-twelfth of the total amount in the fund.

“New Hampshire has been doing a good job with the money that we have, but there’s no question that the funds have helped us put in place security measures for our electronic systems,” Scanlan said.

The state, he said, has used its federal election security grants to hire vendors that specialize in keeping the electronic systems safe.

When New Hampshire set up a new voter registration database, the state used the funding to ensure none of the software included anything nefarious.

“We’ve really been making sure that the systems that we’re building are clean and that there’s not something malicious lurking in the shadows,” Scanlan said. “We’ve taken some really good steps that give me real confidence that our systems are in good shape.”

Advocating for ‘consistent, reliable federal funding’

JP Martin, deputy communications director for the Arizona secretary of state, declined States Newsroom’s request for an interview with the secretary of state, offering only to provide written responses to questions on HAVA election security grants.

Martin wrote in an email that “fluctuating levels of federal funding have significantly impacted our strategic planning and budgeting.”

“The uncertainty of future allocations compels us to be cautious with expenditures, focusing on priorities such as enhancing physical security measures for voting equipment,” Martin wrote. “For instance, securing equipment in cages—now requires a liftgate-equipped truck due to their increased weight—demonstrates the challenges of managing technological and budgetary constraints under limited HAVA funding.”

Congress declining to provide election security grants in the future “could significantly strain Arizona’s election infrastructure,” he wrote.

“Currently, the state is under a hiring freeze, and our focus remains on supporting counties, especially with the recent changes such as the date of the primary and legislation extending ballot curing to weekends,” Martin wrote. “We are prioritizing increased cybersecurity training and advocating for consistent, reliable federal funding to ensure the smooth administration of elections, emphasizing the necessity of sustained financial support from Congress.”

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ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND - APRIL 13: In this photo illustration, packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023 in Rockville, Maryland. A Massachusetts appeals court temporarily blocked a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling that suspended the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug Mifepristone, which is part of a two-drug regimen to induce an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy in combination with the drug Misoprostol. (Photo illustration by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a much-anticipated decision Thursday that mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion, can remain available under current prescribing guidelines.

The high court unanimously rejected attempts by anti-abortion groups to roll back access to what was in place more than eight years ago, writing that they lacked standing to bring the case.

Those limits would have made it more difficult for patients to get a prescription for mifepristone, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and is used in about 63% of U.S. abortions.

Erin Morrow Hawley, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case in front of the court on behalf of the legal organization, doesn’t believe this is the end of efforts to challenge access to mifepristone.

She said on a call shortly after the ruling was released the three states that intervened in a lower court — Idaho, Kansas and Missouri — could still advance their arguments against mifepristone and potentially hold standing, the legal right to bring a case.

“I would expect the litigation to continue with those three states,” Hawley said.

Kavanaugh writes opinion

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion in the united ruling from the Supreme Court, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing a concurring opinion.

“Plaintiffs are pro-life, oppose elective abortion, and have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to mifepristone being prescribed and used by others,” Kavanaugh wrote.

The four anti-abortion medical organizations and four anti-abortion doctors who originally brought the lawsuit against mifepristone have protections in place to guard against being forced to participate in abortions against their moral objections, he noted.

“Not only as a matter of law but also as a matter of fact, the federal conscience laws have protected pro-life doctors ever since FDA approved mifepristone in 2000,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The plaintiffs have not identified any instances where a doctor was required, notwithstanding conscience objections, to perform an abortion or to provide other abortion-related treatment that violated the doctor’s conscience.”

“Nor is there any evidence in the record here of hospitals overriding or failing to accommodate doctors’ conscience objections,” he added.

Alliance Defending Freedom has not “identified any instances where a doctor was required, notwithstanding conscience objections, to perform an abortion or to provide other abortion-related treatment that violated the doctor’s conscience since mifepristone’s 2000 approval,” the opinion said.

Kavanaugh might have also included hints on how the court will rule later this session on a separate abortion access case that addresses the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, known as EMTALA.

“EMTALA does not require doctors to perform abortions or provide abortion-related medical treatment over their conscience objections because EMTALA does not impose obligations on individual doctors,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Thomas agrees but questions who can sue

Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in the case, saying that he agreed with the court’s unanimous decision, which he did join, but brought up concerns with how a certain type of standing is used by the Court.

“Applying these precedents, the Court explains that the doctors cannot establish third-party standing to sue for violations of their patients’ rights without showing an injury of their own,” Thomas wrote.

“But, there is a far simpler reason to reject this theory: Our third-party standing doctrine is mistaken,” Thomas added. “As I have previously explained, a plaintiff cannot establish an Article III case or controversy by asserting another person’s rights.”

Reaction pours in

Politicians, anti-abortion groups and reproductive rights organizations all reacted to the ruling within hours of its release, often pointing to November’s elections as a potential next step.

President Joe Biden released a written statement saying the “decision does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues.”

“It does not change the fact that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, and women lost a fundamental freedom,” Biden added. “It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.”

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, was in meetings most of Thursday with U.S. House Republicans and then separately with Republican U.S. Senators.

Neither Trump nor his campaign released a statement by early Thursday afternoon addressing the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote in a statement that the justice didn’t actually address the merits of the case.

“The Court did not weigh in on the merits of the case, but the fact remains this is a high risk drug that ends the life of an unborn child,” Cassidy wrote. “I urge FDA to follow the law and reinstate important safeguards.”

President of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Stella Dantas related a statement saying the ruling “provides us with long-awaited relief.”

“We now know that patients and clinicians across the country will continue to have access to mifepristone for medication abortion and miscarriage management,” Dantas wrote. “Decades of clinical research have proven mifepristone to be safe and effective, and its strong track record of millions of patient uses confirms that data.”

Hawley from Alliance Defending Freedom wrote in a written statement the organization was “disappointed that the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the FDA’s lawless removal of commonsense safety standards for abortion drugs.”

“While we’re disappointed with the court’s decision, we will continue to advocate for women and work to restore commonsense safeguards for abortion drugs—like an initial office visit to screen for ectopic pregnancies,” Hawley wrote. “And we are grateful that three states stand ready to hold the FDA accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of women and girls across this country.”

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote in a statement she had “both relief and anger about this decision.”

“Thank goodness the Supreme Court unanimously rejected this unwarranted attempt to curtail access to medication abortion, but the fact remains that this meritless case should never have gotten this far,” Northup wrote.

“The FDA’s rulings on medication abortion have been based on irrefutable science,” Northup wrote. “Unfortunately, the attacks on abortion pills will not stop here — the anti-abortion movement sees how critical abortion pills are in this post-Roe world, and they are hell bent on cutting off access.”

Scientific evidence argued

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in March, during which Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued the FDA’s guidelines for prescribing mifepristone were based on reputable scientific evidence and years of real-world use.

“Only an exceptionally small number of women suffer the kinds of serious complications that could trigger any need for emergency treatment,” Prelogar said. “It’s speculative that any of those women would seek care from the two specific doctors who asserted conscience injuries. And even if that happened, federal conscience protections would guard against the injury the doctors face.”

Hawley of ADF told the court that conscience protections in federal law didn’t do enough to protect anti-abortion doctors from having to possibly treat patients experiencing complications from medication abortion.

“These are emergency situations,” Hawley said. “Respondent doctors don’t necessarily know until they scrub into that operating room whether this may or may not be abortion drug harm — it could be a miscarriage, it could be an ectopic pregnancy, or it could be an elective abortion.”

The case reached the Supreme Court within two years of ADF originally filing the lawsuit in the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where ADF wrote the FDA “exceeded its regulatory authority” when it originally approved mifepristone in 2000.

ADF filed the case on behalf of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Pediatricians and Christian Medical & Dental Associations, as well as four doctors from California, Indiana, Michigan and Texas.

Kacsmaryk ruling started journey to high court

Judge Matthew Joseph Kacsmaryk essentially agreed with the anti-abortion groups, in a ruling in April 2023, where he wrote he did “not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly.”

“But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions,” Kacsmaryk wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay at the request of the Justice Department, which put the district court’s ruling on hold until the appeal process could work itself out.

The Justice Department also appealed the district court’s ruling to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, where a three-judge panel heard the case in May 2023.

The panel — composed of Jennifer Walker Elrod, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, as well as James C. Ho and Cory T. Wilson, who were both appointed by former President Donald Trump — issued its ruling in August 2023.

The appeals court disagreed with the district court’s ruling that mifepristone’s original approval should be overturned, though it said that the FDA erred in making changes to prescribing guidelines in 2016 and 2021.

“It failed to consider the cumulative effect of removing several important safeguards at the same time. It failed to consider whether those ‘major’ and ‘interrelated’ changes might alter the risk profile, such that the agency should continue to mandate reporting of non-fatal adverse events,” the appeals judges wrote. “And it failed to gather evidence that affirmatively showed that mifepristone could be used safely without being prescribed and dispensed in person.”

That ruling didn’t take effect under the Supreme Court’s earlier stay.

The Department of Justice wrote to the high court weeks later in September, urging the justices to take up an appeal of the 5th Circuit’s decision.

“The loss of access to mifepristone would be damaging for women and healthcare providers around the Nation,” the DOJ wrote in the 42-page document. “For many patients, mifepristone is the best method to lawfully terminate their early pregnancies. They may choose mifepristone over surgical abortion because of medical necessity, a desire for privacy, or past trauma.”

Briefs filed with court

Dozens of abortion rights organizations and lawmakers filed so-called amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs to the Supreme Court calling on the justices to keep access to mifepristone in line with the FDA guidelines.

A group of more than 16 medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, wrote that “restricting access to mifepristone will not only jeopardize health, but worsen racial and economic inequities and deprive women of the choices that are at the very core of individual autonomy and wellbeing.”

Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers opposed to mifepristone wrote numerous briefs as well.

Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming sent in a 28-page brief.

They wrote that the availability of mifepristone undermined states’ rights, since some of their states had sought to restrict abortion below the 10 weeks approved for mifepristone use or had sought to bar access to medication abortion.

“The FDA’s actions undermine these laws, undercut States’ efforts to enforce them, and thus erode the federalism the Constitution deems vital,” the attorneys general wrote. “Given these harms to federalism, this Court should view the FDA’s actions with skepticism.”

During oral arguments in March, several Supreme Court justices brought up conscience protections that insulate health care workers from having to assist with or perform procedures they have a religious objection to, like abortion.

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was “worried that there is a significant mismatch in this case between the claimed injury and the remedy that’s being sought.”

“The obvious, common-sense remedy would be to provide them with an exemption that they don’t have to participate in this procedure,” Jackson said.

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch said the case seemed “like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule, or any other federal government action.”

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Washington Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray speaks during a press conference on in vitro fertilization outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Also pictured are supporters of Senate Democrats’ IVF access bill as well as New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt’s efforts to pass legislation that would block Medicaid funding from going to states that ban in vitro fertilization were unsuccessful Wednesday when Democrats blocked the bill from advancing.

Britt, who introduced the legislation earlier this year alongside Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, said during brief debate the bill would assuage concerns about couples losing access to IVF, though Democrats said the measure fell short of providing real protections.

Debate took place shortly after the Southern Baptist Convention, the United States’ largest Protestant religious organization and one with significant influence in conservative politics, voted to condemn IVF.

It also came one day before the entire U.S. Senate is set to vote on a bill from Democrats that would provide nationwide protections for IVF. That measure also lacks the bipartisan backing needed to advance to final passage.

“For the millions of Americans who face infertility every year, IVF provides the hope of a pathway to parenthood,” Britt said on the floor. “We all have loved ones — whether they’re family members or friends — who have become parents or grandparents through IVF.”

Britt said that ensuring access to IVF is “fundamentally pro-family” and that the legislation should provide couples with “certainty and peace of mind that IVF will remain legal and available in every single state.”

Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said the Britt-Cruz bill would still allow states to “enact burdensome and unnecessary” regulations on IVF that could lead to the kind of “legal uncertainty and risk” that forced IVF clinics in Alabama to close temporarily earlier this year.

“Even though it is an inherent part of the IVF process that families will make more embryos than they need,” Murray said. “This bill does absolutely nothing — not a single thing — to ensure families who use IVF can have their clinics dispose of unused embryos without facing legal threats for a standard medical procedure.”

Murray said GOP senators were completely ignoring the issue of what happens to frozen embryos and using the bill as a “PR tool.”

“The stone-cold reality is that you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood,” Murray said.

State access

The Britt-Cruz legislation would prevent a state from receiving Medicaid funding if it barred access to IVF, though the bill didn’t say anything about states that define life as beginning at fertilization.

The Alabama state Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that frozen embryos constituted children didn’t explicitly ban IVF, but all of the state’s clinics stopped operating until the legislature provided civil and criminal protections.

Cruz sought to pass the bill using the unanimous consent process, where any one senator can ask for approval and any one senator can block that legislation from moving forward. Murray blocked Cruz’s request.

Unanimous consent requests don’t include a recorded vote.

The legislation had three additional co-sponsors — Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Roger Marshall of Kansas.

Democrat bill

The Senate is set to take a procedural vote as soon as Thursday on legislation from Democrats that would bolster protections for IVF, though that bill isn’t expected to get the GOP support needed to move forward.

That bill is more detailed and broader than the Britt-Cruz bill, which has received criticism from Democrats as being insufficient.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said Wednesday during a press conference that access to IVF shouldn’t be turned into a political issue and called on GOP senators to back the bill.

“We can’t make this seem like a left-right issue. It’s absolutely not,” Booker said. “This is an issue that’s overwhelmingly supported in America by Republican families, Democratic families and independent families. And so trying to make this into some kind of typical political debate in Washington is just wrong.”

Booker said protecting access to IVF is, instead, “about protecting fundamental rights, expanding opportunity, taking care of our military families.”

Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill’s lead co-sponsor who has been open about using IVF to have her two daughters, threw cool water on working with Republicans on a bipartisan bill when asked about the possibility during the press conference.

“Well, they’re welcome to join ours and make it bipartisan. We’ve got 47 co-sponsors thus far and it’s a very simple piece of legislation,” Duckworth said. “I can’t see why they wouldn’t join it.

“In contrast, 90% of Republicans have not signed on to Senator Britt’s bill,” Duckworth added.

Southern Baptists’ resolution

Senate debate on in vitro fertilization is taking place the same week the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Indiana for its annual convention.

During that two-day gathering more than 10,000 Baptists, called messengers, voted on official policies of the SBC, which included objecting to how IVF is practiced now.

The SBC wrote in its resolution that IVF “most often engages in the destruction of embryonic human life and increasingly engages in dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life and genetic sorting, based on notions of genetic fitness and parental preferences.”

The resolution on IVF “resolved” that members of the SBC should “only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation” as well as several other affirmations within the document.

The resolution was titled, “On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies and the Dignity of the Human Embryo.”

Kristen Ferguson, from 11th Street Baptist Church in Upland, California, who announced the resolution before the vote, opposed an amendment that would have made several changes to the text.

Ferguson said during a brief debate the committee that wrote the resolutions for the SBC to vote on wanted to make sure it addressed IVF “with the utmost sensitivity.”

She added that members of the resolutions committee did “not take this topic lightly and we want to make sure that we’re speaking carefully about it.”

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NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND - FEBRUARY 24: Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on February 24, 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland. Attendees descended upon the hotel outside of Washington DC to participate in the four-day annual conference and hear from conservative speakers from around the world who range from journalists, U.S. lawmakers, international leaders and businessmen. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said Monday that if reelected he plans to work “side by side” with a newly formed religious organization that says abortion is the “greatest atrocity facing” the United States and should be “eradicated entirely.”

During two-minute recorded remarks played at The Danbury Institute’s inaugural Life & Liberty Forum in Indianapolis, Trump avoided using the word “abortion,” but said he hopes to protect “innocent life” if reelected in November.

“We have to defend religious liberty, free speech, innocent life, and the heritage and tradition that built America into the greatest nation in the history of the world,” Trump said. “But now we are, as you know, a declining nation.”

Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, said that he hopes to work alongside the institute to defend those values.

“These are going to be your years because you’re going to make a comeback like just about no other group,” Trump said. “I know what’s happening. I know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And I’ll be with you side by side.”

Trump also called on The Danbury Institute and church members to vote for him during the November presidential election, saying that President Joe Biden and Democrats are “against religion.”

Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a written statement released before Trump’s message was played that a second term for him “is sure to bring more extreme abortion bans with no exceptions, women punished for seeking the care they need, and doctors criminalized for providing care.”

“Women can and will stop him by reelecting President Biden and Vice President Harris this November,” Chitika wrote.

Abortion position

The Danbury Institute writes on its website that it opposes abortion from “the moment of conception, meaning that each pre-born baby would be treated with the same protection under the law as born people.”

“The intentional, pre-meditated killing of a pre-born child should be addressed with laws already in place concerning homicide,” its website states. “We also support bolstering the foster care system and encouraging Christian adoption and are working with churches around the country to help them become equipped to care for children in need of loving families.”

Another section of the Danbury Institute’s website states the organization believes, “the greatest atrocity facing our generation today is the practice of abortion—child sacrifice on the altar of self.”

“Abortion must be ended,” the website states. “We will not rest until it is eradicated entirely.”

The website doesn’t mention if the organization supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest or the woman’s life, nor does it say if women who receive abortions should be protected from criminal prosecution. The institute did not return a request from States Newsroom seeking to clarify if it supports any or all of those three exceptions.

The institute writes on its website that it “does not endorse any candidate for public office nor participate in political campaign activities. Contributions to The Danbury Institute are not used for political campaigning and are conducted in accordance with IRS regulations for nonprofit organizations.”

Florida minister takes issue with abortion letter

Tom Ascol, president of Founders Ministries in Florida, spoke on a panel discussion about the “Sanctity of Life” at Monday’s event, during which he said “abortion is the greatest evil of this nation in our day.”

Ascol also appeared frustrated with a public letter released by dozens of anti-abortion organizations in May 2022, arguing that no laws should criminalize women who have abortions. He took particular exception to the acting president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission signing his name to the document.

“It grieves me that when there was legislation before the Louisiana legislature that had a real opportunity to be passed, because there were lawmakers that were willing to go forward … that 75 pro-life organizations penned an open letter, including the leader of our Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Brent Leatherwood, who attached his name to that letter, saying, ‘We do not think that any legislature should criminalize abortion to the degree that those who offer their bodies up to be given over to abortion would be held liable,’” Ascol said during the conference.

That letter was released the same day in 2022 that state lawmakers in Louisiana were debating House Bill 813, which had been on track to criminalize women who receive abortions in addition to the doctors who provide them. Prosecutors would have been able to charge the women with murder.

Louisiana lawmakers instead opted to rework the language of the original bill to replace it with another anti-abortion measure that didn’t include criminal penalties for women who receive abortions.

Ascol said he believed the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission must say publicly if “the goal (is) the abolition of abortion. And if it is and they’re sincere, then okay, let’s work together.”

“If we can do that, I think we can have some opportunity for coalition building,” Ascol said. “If we get more of these open letters by so-called pro-life organizations helping to spike legitimate legislation, then I think we’re going to continue to see the fragmentation and understandably so.”

National Right to Life, Susan B. Anthony List and Americans United for Life were among the organizations that signed the May 2022 letter.

Trump and abortion, contraception

Trump’s comments to The Danbury Institute on Monday didn’t clear up the confusion stemming from his comments to news organizations during the past few months.

Trump said during an interview with TIME Magazine published in April that his campaign would be releasing a policy in the weeks that followed on access to medication abortion, a two-drug regimen approved for up to 10 weeks gestation.

“Well, I have an opinion on that, but I’m not going to explain,” Trump said, according to the transcript of the interview. “I’m not gonna say it yet. But I have pretty strong views on that. And I’ll be releasing it probably over the next week.”

That policy had not been released as of Monday.

Medication abortion, which include mifepristone and misoprostol, makes up about 63% of pregnancy terminations within the United States, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.

U.S. Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in a case about mifepristone’s use in late March and are expected to publish their ruling before the Fourth of July.

During an interview with a Pittsburgh TV news station in May, Trump hinted that he might be open to states limiting or banning access to contraception, though he walked back his remarks the same day in a social media post.

“We’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting,” Trump said on KDKA after being asked if he could support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception. “It’s another issue that’s very interesting. But you will find it very smart. I think it’s a smart decision, but we’ll be releasing it very soon.”

Trump later posted on social media that he never had and never would “ADVOCATE IMPOSING RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL, or other contraceptives.”

Trump’s campaign had not released a policy on contraception as of Monday.

U.S. Senate vote on IVF set this week

Access to reproductive health care, including contraception and IVF, has become a recurring issue in the U.S. Senate ahead of November’s elections, with Democrats seeking to put GOP members on the record.

The Senate tried to pass legislation last week that would have provided protections for access to contraception, but the vast majority of the chamber’s Republicans voted against advancing that bill.

Access to contraception is currently protected by two U.S. Supreme Court cases — Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird — where the justices ruled that Americans’ privacy rights allow them to make those decisions for themselves.

Democrats and reproductive rights advocates are concerned that the justices could eventually overturn those two cases the same way the court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The Senate is set to vote this week on legislation guaranteeing access to in vitro fertilization, though GOP senators are expected to block that bill as well.

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LE BAVENT, FRANCE - JUNE 7: US WWII veteran PFC John M. Wardell and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken watch U.S. President Joe Biden deliver a speech at Pointe du Hoc, where U.S. Army Rangers scaled cliffs over 100 feet high on D-Day to destroy a heavily fortified German position, on June 7, 2024 at Pointe du Hoc, near Le Bavent, France. Biden is in France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy and to emphasize the continued role of the United States in helping to protect democratic values in Europe. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, speaking from the site of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, said Friday that those who support democracy must remember what World War II soldiers sacrificed and to live up to those ideals.

Biden’s remarks came during commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day and sought to tie the threats to democracy in the 1940s to those that exist today in the United States and Europe.

“American democracy asks the hardest of things — to believe that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves,” Biden said. “So democracy begins with each of us.”

Biden spoke from the Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc, where former President Ronald Reagan in 1984 delivered a memorable speech on the invasion’s 40th anniversary.

The monument, constructed by the French, sits eight miles west of the Normandy American Cemetery and was built to honor the members of the American Second Ranger Battalion.

Biden walked in to give the speech alongside Scott Desjardins, the superintendent of the Normandy American Cemetery, who later told reporters that he spoke with the president about the battle.

“I explained to him that when the Rangers were still living, they would tell us climbing up the cliff was not the difficult part,” Desjardins told White House pool reporters. “Holding onto this terrain for two and a half days, being outnumbered, is really the amazing thing about Pointe du Hoc.”

First Sergeant Gavin Stith, U.S. Army, 2nd Ranger Battalion, and his spouse, Kourtney Stith, attended the speech alongside about 150 other people. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken both attended as well.

​Pfc John M. Wardell, 99, from New Jersey, who landed in France on June 18, 1944, was seated in the audience as well and spoke with Blinken, according to pool reports.

Standing up to dictators

Biden said during the 12-minute speech the soldiers who stormed the beach in 1944 had decided that it was necessary to stand up to a dictator who threatened democracy in Europe and that people today must live up to that benchmark.

“Does anyone doubt that they would want America to stand up against (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin’s aggression here in Europe today?” Biden asked.

“They fought to vanquish a hateful ideology in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” Biden added. “Does anyone doubt they wouldn’t move heaven and earth to vanquish the hateful ideologies of today? These rangers put mission and country above themselves. Does anyone believe they would exact any less from every American today?”

Biden met earlier in the day with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced a $225 million aid package for the country to assist in its war against Russia’s invasion.

Biden told Zelenskyy during the meeting that his country’s efforts to win the war are “remarkable” and apologized for how long it took Congress to approve the latest round of military and humanitarian assistance.

“I apologize for the weeks of not knowing what’s going to pass in terms of funding because we had trouble getting the bill that we had to pass that had the money in it,” Biden said during the Zelenskyy meeting. “Some of our very conservative members were holding it up. But we got it done finally.”

‘Be part of something bigger than ourselves’

Biden said during his speech at Pointe du Hoc the Allied soldiers who scaled those cliffs on D-Day, all of whom are deceased, would ask every American today to “stay true to what America stands for.”

“They’re not asking us to give or risk our lives, but they are asking us to care for others in our country more than ourselves,” Biden said. “They’re not asking us to do their job. They’re asking us to do our job; to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy, to stand up to aggression abroad and at home, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.”

If Americans wish to honor the sacrifices of our country’s WWII soldiers, they must “ensure that our democracy endures and the soul of our nation endures,” he said.

Biden did not mention the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, by name, but Democrats have repeatedly stressed the danger they believe Trump poses to democracy.

Biden spoke Thursday at the Normandy American Cemetery near Omaha Beach about the bravery of the soldiers who stormed the beaches on D-Day and the allied forces who worked together to defeat Nazi Germany and end the Holocaust.

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Virginia Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine speaks during a press conference on access to contraception on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Washington D.C. Also pictured from left Virginia state Del. Marcia Price; Karen Stone, vice president for public policy and government relations at Planned Parenthood; Mini Timmaraju, president and chief executive officer of Reproductive Freedom for All; Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono; a supporter of Democrats’ contraception access bill; and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — An attempt to reinforce Americans’ access to contraception failed Wednesday when U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill from advancing toward final passage.

The 51-39 procedural vote required at least 60 senators to move forward, but fell short after GOP lawmakers said the measure was too broad as well as unnecessary. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, both Republicans, broke with their party and voted to advance the legislation.

Democrats argued during debate on the 12-page bill that it would provide a safety net should a future Supreme Court overturn two cases that ensure married and unmarried Americans have the right to make decisions about when and how to use contraception.

GOP senators contended the vote was mere politics and that if Democrats were serious about safeguarding access to contraception for future generations, they’d work with Republicans on a bipartisan bill.

Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion in the Dobbs decision two years ago showed women how quickly things can change.

“It demonstrated that a fundamental right, the right of women to make decisions over their own bodies, could be taken away in the blink of an eye,” Rosen said.

Women, she said, can’t rely solely on the Supreme Court to uphold the cases that have guaranteed Americans access to contraception for more than 50 years.

“Contraception has been safely used by millions of women for decades,” Rosen said. “It’s allowed women to take control over their own bodies — to decide when they want to start a family, how many kids they have, who they want to start a family with.”

“For these very same reasons, the right to contraception has been a target of anti-choice extremists for years,” Rosen added.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, the South Dakota Republican seeking to become the chamber’s next GOP leader, said the bill was meant to “provide a talking point for Democratic candidates.”

“These votes have nothing to do with legislating and everything to do with boosting Democrats’ electoral chances, he hopes, in this fall’s election,” Thune said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The legislation was a non-starter with many Republicans, Thune said, because it didn’t carve out the conscience protections that exist under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The federal law, enacted in 1993 after being sponsored by Schumer, established “a heightened standard of review for government actions that substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion.”

Sales of contraceptives

Democrats’ bill would have protected “an individual’s ability to access contraceptives” and “a health care provider’s ability to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.”

The legislation would have barred state and federal governments from prohibiting the sale of any contraceptives or blocking “any individual from aiding another individual in voluntarily obtaining or using any contraceptives or contraceptive methods.”

The bill defined contraception as “an action taken to prevent pregnancy, including the use of contraceptives or fertility-awareness-based methods and sterilization procedures.”

House Democrats introduced an identical bill in that chamber on Tuesday, though it’s unlikely to get a vote while Republicans remain in control.

Following the vote, Schumer moved to schedule a procedural vote next week on legislation that would guarantee access to in vitro fertilization.

Schumer said during a press conference afterward that vote would give Americans an opportunity to “see where Republicans stand on the so very important issue” of reproductive rights.

Supreme Court opinion

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas stirred up concerns about access to contraception two years ago when he wrote a concurring opinion in the Dobbs case.

Thomas wrote that the justices should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”

None of the other nine justices joined Thomas in writing that opinion, likely signaling they didn’t agree with some or all of it.

The 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case was the first time the court recognized that married couples’ constitutional privacy rights extend to decisions about contraception. That ruling struck down a Connecticut state law that barred access to contraceptives.

The Supreme Court, in 1972, extended the right to make private decisions about contraception to unmarried people in the Eisenstadt v. Baird ruling.

Following the release of Thomas’ concurring opinion, Democrats and reproductive rights organizations immediately began pressing for federal laws that would reinforce current contraception access. Congress has not passed any so far.

Mini Timmaraju, president and chief executive officer of Reproductive Freedom for All, said during a press conference with Senate Democrats on Wednesday before the vote that women should talk with their mothers and grandmothers about when they were first able to obtain birth control.

“When we talk about the generations of women in this country who didn’t have access to birth control, we’re just talking about my mother’s generation — 1965,” Timmaraju said. “It was not that long ago and that should really be a wake-up call.”

White House, Biden campaign weigh in

The Biden administration signaled its support for Senate Democrats’ bill hours before the vote, writing in a Statement of Administration Policy the measure “would protect the fundamental right to access contraception and help ensure that women can make decisions about their health, lives, and families.”

“Women must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions, including the right to decide if and when to start or grow their family,” the policy states. “Now is the time to safeguard the right to contraception once and for all.”

The Biden-Harris campaign held a press call on reproductive rights Wednesday morning to highlight the differences between the presidential candidates on reproductive rights, including access to abortion, contraception and in vitro fertilization.

Biden-Harris Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said during the call that Donald Trump, Republicans’ presumptive nominee for president, couldn’t be further away from Biden on access.

Rodriguez said Trump’s comments during an interview with TIME magazine in April and his statements to a local Pennsylvania TV news station in May show he’s not supportive of women’s reproductive rights.

Decisions about contraception, abortion and in vitro fertilization belong to women and their doctors, “not politicians and the government,” Rodriguez said.

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a member of the Biden-Harris campaign’s advisory board, said on the call this year’s election will be a “defining moment” for the country.

Republican efforts to restrict access to reproductive health care, he said, mean they are trying to “control women.”

Ernst alternative proposal 

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said during debate on the bill that Democrats’ legislation went too far and pressed for the Senate to take up a bill she introduced earlier this week.

The measure has since gained nine co-sponsors including Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Steve Daines of Montana, Todd Young of Indiana, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, James E. Risch of Idaho and John Cornyn of Texas.

Iowa Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson plans to introduce the companion bill in the House, according to an announcement from Ernst’s office.

“With my bill, we’re ensuring women 18 and over can walk into any pharmacy, whether in Red Oak, Iowa, or Washington, D.C., and purchase a safe and effective birth control option,” Ernst said. “This Republican bill creates a priority review designation for over-the-counter birth control options to encourage the FDA to act quickly.”

Ernst said she was “encouraged” that one over-the-counter oral contraceptive has been approved and is available, but that should be “just a starting point.”

The four-page bill would encourage the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve additional over-the-counter oral contraceptives and “direct the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study on federal funding of contraceptive methods.”

The legislation would require the secretary of the Health and Human Services Department to give priority review to a supplemental application for oral contraceptives “intended for routine use.” But it does not extend that to “any emergency contraceptive drug” or “any drug that is also approved for induced abortion.”

Access to over-the-counter oral birth control that receives FDA approval so that it no longer requires a prescription would be available for people over 18.

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 03: Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 03, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Subcommittee is holding a hearing on the findings from a fifteen month Republican-led probe of former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci and the COVID-19 pandemic's origins. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci defended his decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, testifying before Congress about his work on the virus as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during two presidencies.

House Republicans who called the hearing grilled Fauci during the contentious three-hour session about the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1 million Americans, as well as Fauci’s role in the response. It was the first time Fauci, 83, who also served as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, had appeared before Congress since leaving government employment in 2022.

Fauci repeatedly said he didn’t conduct official business using personal email in response to allegations he did so to avoid oversight. He also said he has kept an open mind about the origins of the virus, and explained to members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic why guidance shifted so much during the first several months of the pandemic.

“When you’re dealing with a new outbreak, things change,” Fauci said. “The scientific process collects the information that will allow you, at that time, to make a determination or recommendation or a guideline.”

“As things evolve and change and you get more information, it is important that you use the scientific process to gain that information and perhaps change the way you think of things, change your guidelines and change your recommendation,” Fauci added.

Republicans on the panel repeatedly asked Fauci about how the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China received grant funding from the U.S. government, as well as whether it, or another lab, could have created COVID-19. That theory is counter to another that the virus emerged from a “spillover event” at an outdoor food market.

Fauci testified that it was impossible the viruses being studied at the Wuhan Institute under an NIH subgrant could have led to COVID-19, but didn’t rule out it coming from elsewhere.

“I cannot account, nor can anyone account, for other things that might be going on in China, which is the reason why I have always said and will say now, I keep an open mind as to what the origin is,” Fauci said. “But the one thing I know for sure, is that the viruses that were funded by the NIH, phylogenetically could not be the precursor of SARS-CoV-2.”

Fauci added that the $120,000 grant that was sent to another organization before being sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was a small piece of the budget.

“If they were going to do something on the side, they have plenty of other money to do it. They wouldn’t necessarily have to use a $120,000 NIH grant to do it,” Fauci said.

The NIH subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he testified, “funded research on the surveillance of and the possibility of emerging infections.”

“I would not characterize it as dangerous gain-of-function research,” Fauci said. “I’ve already testified to that effect, a couple of times.”

Politicians have used multiple, often shifting, definitions for gain-of-function research during the last few years. The American Society for Microbiology writes in a two-page explainer that it is “used in research to alter the function of an organism in such a way that it is able to do more than it used to do.”

Saving lives

Actions taken during the first several months of the pandemic were essential to saving lives, Fauci testified. Those steps included encouraging people to socially distance, to wear masks and to obtain the vaccine once it was approved.

Fauci said that had public health officials just let the virus work its way through the country without any precautions or safety measures, “there very likely would have been another million people (who) would have died.”

Information about the COVID-19 vaccine, he said, was communicated as it came in, including particulars about whether it would stop the spread of the virus entirely or whether it predominantly worked by limiting severe illness and hospitalizations.

The issue is particularly “complicated,” Fauci said, because at the very beginning of the vaccine rollout, data showed the shot did “prevent infection and subsequently, obviously, transmission.”

“However, it’s important to point out, something that we did not know early on that became evident as the months went by, is that the durability of protection against infection, and hence transmission was relatively limited — whereas the duration of protection against severe disease, hospitalization and deaths was more prolonged,” Fauci testified.

“We did not know that in the beginning,” he added. “In the beginning it was felt that, in fact, it did prevent infection and thus transmission. But that was proven, as time went by, to not be a durable effect.”

Republican members on the subcommittee, as well as those sitting in from other committees, repeatedly asked Fauci about allegations that he avoided using his government email address to circumvent requests for those communications under the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA.

Fauci vehemently denied the accusations, saying he “never conducted official business using” his personal email.

Death threats

Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell asked Fauci during the hearing about threats he and his family have faced during the last few years, especially as misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 have spread.

“There have been credible death threats, leading to the arrests of two individuals. And credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me,” Fauci testified.

Fauci and his wife and three daughters have received harassing emails, text messages and letters. Fauci said people targeting his family for his public health work makes him feel “terrible.”

“It’s required my having protective services, essentially all the time,” Fauci testified. “It is very troublesome to me.”

One of the most critical Republicans on the panel, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, caused the hearing to grind to a halt during her questioning, refusing to address Fauci as a medical doctor and instead calling him “Mr. Fauci.”

Greene also alleged that Fauci should be in jail, though she didn’t present any evidence of actual crimes, nor has any police department or law enforcement agency charged him with a crime.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, of which the subcommittee is a part, said repeated GOP-led investigations into Fauci’s conduct show “he is an honorable public servant, who has devoted his entire career to the public health in the public interest. And he is not a comic book super villain.”

Raskin later apologized to Fauci for several GOP lawmakers treating him like a “convicted felon,” before seemingly referencing that former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a convicted felon.

“Actually, you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon. They treat convicted felons with love and admiration,” Raskin said. “Some of them blindly worship convicted felons.”

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