On Monday, Planned Parenthood Arizona (PPAZ) filed a motion to stay a court ruling reinstating Arizona’s total abortion ban.
Last Thursday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson lifted an injunction on the 1901 total abortion ban in Planned Parenthood Center of Tucson, et al. v. Gary Nelson, et al. The court case is a continuation of the 1970s case that enjoined the total abortion ban as unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling in Roe v. Wade.
Johnson ruled that SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade earlier this year nullified the Pima County Superior Court’s injunction against Arizona’s total abortion ban. Johnson added that she wouldn’t be addressing the legality of Arizona’s abortion statutes.
“The Court finds that because the legal basis for the judgment entered in 1973 has now been overruled, it must vacate the judgment in its entirety,” stated Johnson. “The Court finds an attempt to reconcile fifty years of legislative activity procedurally improper in the context of the motion and record before it. While there may be legal questions the parties seek to resolve regarding Arizona statutes on abortions, those questions are not for this Court to decide here.”
The 1901 ban, which predated Arizona’s statehood, resembles the most recent abortion law enacted by Governor Doug Ducey in March. While the former institutes a total abortion ban, the latter limits abortions to 15 weeks. However, the latter law stipulates that it doesn’t supersede the 1901 ban.
In a press release, PPAZ President and CEO Brittany Fonteno had a different view of the two laws’ relationship. Fonteno contended that Johnson’s ruling enabled conflicting laws to exist in the state, therefore forcing their facilities to continue suspension of abortions.
“This confusion has forced Planned Parenthood Arizona to pause abortion services and cancel appointments scheduled this week — meaning that members of the community once again have been and will continue to be denied medical care that they deserve and need while this decision is in effect,” said Fonteno. “This is unacceptable.”
BREAKING: Planned Parenthood Arizona Seeks Immediate Stay of Pima County Superior Court Ruling pic.twitter.com/MAE46nwS2P
— Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona (@ppazaction) September 26, 2022
The few abortion clinics that continued to provide certain services while awaiting the court ruling, such as Camelback Family Clinic, have suspended their services due to this latest ruling.
Arizona’s abortion fund providers — Abortion Fund of Arizona (AFAZ) and the Tucson Abortion Support Collective (TASC), as well as a national network that serves Native American women only in Arizona, Indigenous Women Rising (IWR) — continue to collect funds to provide abortions and all associated costs, such as transportation and time off work.
The fundraising page for the three abortion fund providers, launched through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, has raised nearly $47,800 with a goal of $100,000 as of press time.
“Funding abortion care is a radical act of compassion and you, too, can be a part of this work!” reads the fundraiser page.
A cruel, pre-statehood, 1864 abortion ban has gone into effect in AZ that bans nearly all abortions.
It's time to stand up//fight back & show some love to the AZ abortion funds, incl @abortionfundAZ, @IWRising & Tucson Abortion Support Collective.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who argued for the court to lift the 1973 injunction on the state’s total abortion ban, commended Johnson for issuing proper legal recourse.
“We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue. I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans,” stated Brnovich.
A Pima County judge lifted an injunction that was placed on AZ’s abortion statute. We applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue. I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans.
In addition to Arizona, 14 other states have total abortion bans: Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. 9 more states are fighting to restore or have total abortion bans on the books in addition to current abortion restrictions: Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and North Carolina.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said she’s glad to hear that ousted congresswoman Liz Cheney launched a $15 million political action committee (PAC) to defeat her and other Trump-backed candidates. Lake called Cheney’s plan “a gift.”
Lake made those remarks during an interview with Fox News pundit Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.” Cheney first promised to defeat Lake about a month ago through her newly-launched “The Great Task” PAC, shortly after she lost her own re-election.
“That might be the biggest, best gift I’ve ever received,” said Lake. “The new Republican Party is the party of ‘we the people,’ it is no longer the party of warmongers. Liz Cheney probably should change her voter registration — turns out she really is a Democrat after all.”
As AZ Free News reported last month, one of the top donors to Cheney’s PAC was James (Jim) Kennedy, chairman of Arizona’s top communications services provider, Cox Enterprises, who gave $10,800.
Other principal donors included Jeffrey Katzenberg: former Walt Disney Studios chairman, co-founder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation, and one of the Democratic Party’s top fundraisers dubbed “Hollywood’s political kingmaker.”
Since last month, Cheney has embarked on a press tour to discuss her plan to defeat Trump-endorsed candidates like Lake.
Last weekend, Cheney told The Texas Tribune that she would do everything necessary to ensure Lake’s defeat, such as campaigning for Democrats like Lake’s opponent Katie Hobbs.
.@Liz_Cheney: “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Kari Lake is not elected.”
Cheney also told the outlet that she would no longer be a Republican if former President Donald Trump became the 2024 presidential nominee.
In addition to her engagements with the press, Cheney recently worked with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-19) on legislation to limit objections to electors.
Other Trump-endorsed candidates in Arizona are Blake Masters (U.S. Senate), Mark Finchem (Secretary of State), Abraham Hamadeh (Attorney General), David Farnsworth (State House), Anthony Kern (State Senate), Wendy Rogers (State Senate), Robert Scantlebury (State Senate), and Janae Shamp (State Senate).
Save Our Schools Arizona (SOSAZ), the teachers union-backed group, claimed to have turned in more signatures than they did for a ballot initiative to end Arizona’s universal school choice.
SOSAZ claimed to have just over 141,700 signatures, above the minimum requirement of over 118,800.
However, an open records request by one pro-school choice mother, Christine Accurso, revealed that a sample of the petitions yielded about 10 signatures per page, not nearly 14 as SOSAZ claimed.
There’s been a pattern of lies coming straight from @azbethlewis over the past 3 months. Her claim of nearly 142,000 signatures was just the latest. After a weekend of hard work at the Secretary of State’s office, the petition count is final and it’s only 8175 total. 1/
Accurso leads AZ Decline to Sign, a countermovement to SOSAZ’s ballot initiative. She told AZ Free News in a statement that she wasn’t surprised by SOSAZ’s overestimation.
“I am not surprised at all that Save Our Schools lied again,” said Accurso. “Saying you are turning in 10,200 petitions when in reality it was only 8,175 is not a rounding error, it’s another way they are deceiving the public. To what end, I don’t know, but the public isn’t buying what they are selling, so I am not surprised.”
The 8,175 petitions that were submitted by Save Our Schools only appear to have 88,866 signatures on them. That is WELL below the minimum required.
It's not official yet until the Secretary of State announces it, but Arizona parents can claim the VICTORY! ESA's for all SOON! https://t.co/TrsiPOIQVs
Accurso credited SOSAZ’s shortcoming to AZ Decline to Sign and its supporters. She noted that even the overestimation by SOSAZ was a number able to be overcome by school choice supporters.
“Thousands of Arizonans pushed back against their tactics this summer,” recalled Accurso. “Without our efforts, they should have easily been able to get 250k – 300k signatures, so even when they reported 142k we were thrilled because challenging that number is very doable. With the new evidence of 8,175 petitions, we are confident more than ever on how this battle ends.”
On Friday, Secretary of State (SOS) Katie Hobbs, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, accepted SOSAZ’s claims without scrutiny. Within hours of SOSAZ turning in its signatures, Hobbs announced that implementation of universal school choice would be suspended while her office reviewed their petition signatures.
Today a Citizen Referendum has filed with our office to refer part of HB2853 to the ballot! The committee is reporting 141,714 signatures which is above the min required: 118,823 signatures.
Neither SOSAZ or Hobbs’ office have addressed the open records discovery. We reached out to both SOSAZ Director Beth Lewis and the secretary of state’s office for comment, but neither responded by press time.
Through a public records request I was given access to all of the 🆘 petitions. They uploaded 8,175 yesterday. When I inquired if more would be uploaded, they responded. ⬇️
It seems mathematically impossible to reach the required # of 118,832, but we will know very soon. pic.twitter.com/dcX0OowHTF
Kevin Gemeroy, a parent involved with AZ Decline to Sign, told AZ Free News that he and other school choice advocates witnessed SOSAZ signature gatherers providing false information to petition signers for weeks about universal school choice through the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program.
“Just last weekend, I heard an SOSAZ representative tell a woman that HB2853 would ‘steal $2 billion from public schools,’ which is over $182,000 per child that applied for the universal ESAs,” stated Gemeroy. “I’m unfortunately not surprised Save Our Schools lied to the media and Secretary of State’s office on Friday, and I hope the proper authorities are alerted and take action to protect our democratic process from these lies and attacks in the future.”
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) hasn’t addressed the open records discovery, either. However, ADE Superintendent Kathy Hoffman has made it clear that she opposes school choice programs of any kind and fully supports the SOSAZ initiative.
As of last Tuesday, the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) received over 10,900 applications for the universal ESA Program.
As of September 19th, @azedschools has received 10,906 total ESA applications since opening the universal application on Aug 16th. 10,338 applied under universal eligibility, an addition of 1,087 in the last week. https://t.co/6UNzVySrz1
Next month, teams from all over the world will participate in the Arizona State University (ASU) “Hacks for Humanity,” a 3-day hackathon to develop socially beneficial technical solutions — but participants don’t have to have coding knowledge to win.
Hacks for Humanity encourages non-coder participants in order to expand the creation of social justice solutions.
The purpose of the annual hackathon is to problem-solve social justice issues locally and globally. This year, the hackathon theme challenges participants to answer whether or not people are losing their humanity, citing the contexts of social disparities, racial injustices, and the COVID-19 pandemic generally.
“An unforgiving global pandemic as the backdrop for ongoing social disparities and racial injustice nationally and globally once again draws attention to this critical question: ‘Are we losing our humanity?’” stated the page.
Hacks for Humanity encouraged any member of the public to participate. The event page specifically named activists, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, scientists, and social workers as desired participants.
“When these diverse perspectives come together, innovation is the exciting result,” stated Hacks for Humanity.
Participating teams must select one of three topics: aging and wellbeing, civic engagement, and environmental justice. The winning hackathon team will receive $10,000 in cash prizes and $1,000 per team member.
The annual hackathon began nearly a decade ago through Project Humanities, an ASU initiative founded in 2011 by Neal Lester focused on social justice theories such as diversity and intersectionality. Lester has defended controversial concepts like Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology.
This year’s sponsors are State Farm, ASU University Technology Office, ASU Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute, JDT Family Foundation, and Jenny Norton & Bob Ramsey. Additional supporters are the Odysea Aquarium, ASU School of Social Transformation, Heard Museum, Arizona Cardinals, Desert Botanical Garden, Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix, the Nile, Tempe Boat Rentals of America, and the Phoenix Symphony.
The hackathon will take place from October 7-9, and is open to individuals aged 16 and older.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In 2020, illegal immigrants cost Arizona public schools over $748 million — an economic burden that will likely increase due to the ongoing border crisis. 99 percent of these funds come from Arizona taxpayers’ local and state taxes, not the federal government.
The cost estimate comes from a report released this month by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Despite the hundreds of millions poured into these limited English proficiency (LEP) programs, only 32 percent (about 23,900) of illegal immigrant students in Arizona graduate on time.
As of 2020, there were over 74,800 LEP students. That’s just over half of a percent of the total student population at most: 1.1 million. Nationwide, that number is 5.1 million students costing taxpayers over $78 billion.
American taxpayers spend nearly $80 billion a year to educate students with limited English proficiency.
More than one in ten U.S. public schoolchildren are enrolled in LEP programs.https://t.co/18CoV9YNlO
Under President Joe Biden, there have been over 277,300 accompanied minors and unaccompanied children that crossed the border illegally. That doesn’t account for those apprehended minors within family units, nor does it account for gotaways.
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) handles LEP students, which they refer to as English Learners (EL), through their Office of English Language Acquisition Services (OELAS). Arizona schools’ LEP programs are known as Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs.
In May, the ADE invested $10 million of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to train teachers for SEI programs.
Today, @azedschools is proud to announce support for English Language Learners through a $10 million investment in @WestEd's Quality Teaching for English Learners program. The funding will assist #WestEd in preparing educators to meet the needs of Arizona's multilingual students. pic.twitter.com/Eb9hQ5Jlje
ADE Superintendent Kathy Hoffman opposes the SEI programs. Hoffman supported Arizona legislators’ efforts to repeal Proposition 203, which has required Arizona schools to educate EL students in English only since 2000, not their native language.
Repealing the English-only was a cornerstone of my campaign and remains critically important to my administration as we advocate for equity for all students to achieve their full potential. https://t.co/GeNEzVpv1L
American schools weren’t always required to provide taxpayer-funded public education to illegal immigrant children. That changed in 1982 when the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled in Plyler v. Doethat illegal immigrant children were entitled to public schooling.
The taxpayer burden of illegal immigrant education may not end with K-12 schools. Come November, voters must decide whether to approve Proposition 308, which will grant in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants so long as they’ve graduated from an Arizona high school.
Arizona voters don’t just vote on people, we vote on policy too!
Prop 308 gives AZ Dreamers equal affordability if they attend a state school, has bipartisan support, and puts no additional costs on the taxpayer.
The state legislature approved the resolution last year through the combined efforts of Arizona House Democrats and several House Republicans: State Representatives Michelle Udall (R-Mesa), Joel John (R-Buckeye), David Cook (R-Globe), and Joanne Osborne (R-Goodyear).
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
