Abortion ban challenges and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin in South Carolina, where doctors in a federal trial questioned when they can offer abortion care under the state's strict ban. 

In Tennessee, advocates are challenging an abrupt shift in the state's rules for issuing licenses to immigrants authorized to live and work in the country. 

Federal appellate panels decided against the Trump administration in two elections-related cases on Friday, as new records show the federal government is turning to criminal investigations to target the work of state and local elections officials. 

And in the West, new research shows that even freshly fallen snow is not immune to environmental microplastics.

During a federal trial in South Carolina this week, doctors disagreed over what qualifies as a legal exception to the state’s abortion ban, South Carolina Daily Gazette reports. 

The case challenges the state’s so-called “fetal heartbeat” law. The 2023 law prohibits abortions after a fetus’ heartbeat is detectable, without setting the ban at any specific week. But rulings by the state Supreme Court make abortions illegal past six weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of rape and incest, to save the mother from life-threatening complications, or if the fetus is unlikely to survive.

When, exactly, those exceptions apply is unclear, making most doctors reluctant to perform abortions, two obstetrician-gynecologists testified. The punishment for doctors or anyone else performing an illegal abortion is up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000 and the possibility of losing a medical license.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel will have final say in the case. He is not expected to rule this week.

Related coverage: 

An immigrant advocacy organization filed a legal challenge on Friday to new Tennessee rules that deny driver’s licenses to immigrants who are legally authorized to work in the United States, Tennessee Lookout reports. 

The Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition argues that the state failed to follow its own rules by abruptly shifting long-standing license requirements and is seeking an immediate court order to temporarily block the state from denying licenses to immigrants authorized to live and work in Tennessee, among them thousands of state residents who have been able to legally hold and renew state licenses for nearly two decades.

More immigration coverage: 

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians lost millions to cryptocurrency scams last year, Pennsylvania Capital-Star reports. To help halt the flow of stolen funds, Republican Attorney General Dave Sunday is urging business owners with cryptocurrency kiosks to voluntarily place signage warning about popular tactics used to trick victims, especially the elderly.

It’s not clear how many cryptocurrency kiosks operate in the commonwealth, but one vendor reported upwards of 450 machines, which convert cash into digital currency. Legislation to regulate the kiosks failed to advance earlier this year. 

Arkansas: Officials in the state’s most populous county voted Thursday not to allow monitors from the U.S. Department of Justice inside polling sites on Election Day.

West Virginia: A federal judge issued a restraining order to prevent the state attorney general’s office from enforcing subpoenas sent to environmental advocacy groups.  

Kansas: A class action lawsuit accuses Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, who is in a tight race for reelection, and his former Great Bend medical practice of charging patients illegal interest rates on unpaid medical debt.

Michigan: In a highly favorable year for Democrats, the party is hoping to retake the state House and earn a trifecta of state control. 

Tennessee: Two independent expenditure groups have now spent just under $10 million attacking independent gubernatorial candidate David Hatley, who is running as a “conservative” independent, drawing ire from U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican nominee.

Maine: While never endorsing him, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills voted for Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee in the U.S. Senate race, a nomination she initially sought. 

Arizona: A political action committee run by a conservative political operative has spent thousands of dollars telling voters to support a “sham” Green Party candidate for governor who is facing two investigations for campaign finance fraud. 

Nebraska: Voters will decide on Tuesday whether to extend legislative term limits to allow lawmakers to serve up to three consecutive four-year terms.

Missouri: The state’s first report on the academic performance of students in its MOScholars voucher program found encouraging test scores but also exposed gaps in how the state collected the data, including information required by law that remains unavailable.

Seychell Williams stands on the steps of Virginia's State Capitol on Oct. 28, days ahead of voting for the first time and the three-year anniversary of her release from prison. (Photo by Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)

Despite advocating for criminal justice reform laws at the state Capitol over the years, Williams has been unable to vote herself due to a past felony conviction for which she served five years in prison. 

She is among more than 200,000 Virginians who regained their voting rights after a court ruled earlier this year they never should have lost them based on a Reconstruction-era law. In addition to that case, Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger restored voting rights for about 60,000 others over the summer. 

On this year's ballot, state voters will decide a proposed constitutional amendment that could shift voting restoration to an automatic right after incarceration in the future, replacing the state’s current petition-based system. 

Read more from Virginia Mercury.

As President Donald Trump’s administration loses round after round in federal court in his quest for authority over state-run elections, the U.S. Department of Justice is turning to criminal investigations to dig into documents and records held by election officials, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

Democrats, election officials and legal experts warn the subpoenas are intended to intimidate in the absence of favorable court decisions for the president.

Earlier this month, a federal grand jury in California issued a series of subpoenas to election officials in Los Angeles County, following the Trump administration’s demand to set aside 20,000 ballots from voters it suspected were not citizens. 

A grand jury subpoena represents an intermediate investigative step by the Justice Department, which has also threatened to criminally prosecute California election officials. 

A federal appeals court on Friday denied the Trump administration's demand that California set aside and not count the ballots of 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters, setting the stage for a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. And a separate panel on Friday also denied a Justice Department request to allow Homeland Security to restart election-related field operations that could sweep up U.S. citizens, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

Related coverage: 

As of early Friday, more than 46 million Americans had cast ballots ahead of Election Day, eclipsing the early voting turnout of the 2022 midterms, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

It’s still unclear if this year’s midterm elections will break the overall record voter turnout of 2018. The 53% turnout that year was the highest rate in a midterm since 1914.

Of the early voting participants up to Friday, 43.9% are registered Democrats, 31.3% are registered Republicans and 24.8% have no party affiliation, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.

Related coverage: 

Meanwhile, Trump’s two previously canceled Midwestern rallies are back on this weekend, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

With just four days to go, the Republican Party is aiming to keep its narrow majority in the U.S. House and control of the Senate. 

But elections forecasters see a bleak outlook for the GOP, saying Democrats remain heavily favored to win the U.S. House, while Senate races continue to move in Democrats’ direction. 

In another court ruling, a federal judge ruled that Medicaid recipients who are disabled or have a chronic illness will not have to prove they are unable to work to be exempted from new work requirements that take effect next year, Stateline reports. 

The decision comes after 25 Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration, arguing that the new “medically frail” designation was too narrow and would make it too difficult for ill and disabled people to remain on Medicaid.

In some states, ballot measures are expected to be the main force driving voters to the polls in November.  Across the country, voters will decide 145 questions during the midterms.

Reproductive rights are on the ballot in four states. In California, residents will decide on a “billionaire’s tax,” among other issues. Elsewhere, ballot questions could determine who has the power to initiate future questions and whether lawmakers have the power to overturn them. There’s a lot on the line.

In Episode 52 of the Stories From The States podcast, States Newsroom journalists discuss the questions before some voters and how interest in the issues might affect state-level races.  

Listen to Stories From The States below, or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Youtube.

Apparently, microplastics are everywhere — including in the snowpack of California and Nevada, Nevada Current reports. 

After years of skiing on freshly fallen snow in remote locations across the Sierra Nevada, Aleksandra Karapetrov — an environmental toxicologist at the University of California, Riverside — wondered how pristine the snow really was. 

Over six months, Karapetrov and a team of scientists tested fresh snowfall at seven sites across the Sierra Nevada and found something they did not expect: a steady delivery of tiny plastic fibers, even in the most remote locations.

“It was surprising the consistency at which we found microplastics everywhere,” Karapetrov said. “It’s kind of disrupting this narrative of pristineness. I hope it brings awareness to the circularity and widespreadness of pollution. There’s this boomerang effect, and it’s important we recognize that.”

The study, published this month in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found significant amounts of microplastics in fresh snowfall at both remote and populated sites across the Sierra Nevada, which supplies about 60% of freshwater in northern Nevada.