From abortion access to eviction relief, Gov. Baker and lawmakers clash on key protections
Updated Dec 23, 2020;
If Massachusetts lawmakers get their way, teens ages 16 and up will have access to abortions without needing parental consent and renters facing eviction will have more time to apply for relief without being forced out by a court order.
Lawmakers voted on Tuesday to send back to Gov. Charlie Baker an amendment to expand abortion access, rejecting his proposed changes. The House and Senate also rejected the governor’s amendment on eviction proceedings, suggesting they’ll soon send back its own proposal to the governor, too. The Legislature’s provision requires a judge to pause eviction proceedings if a tenant applies for emergency rental assistance by the time a first trial is scheduled.
At the end of 2019, we predicted that 2020 was going to be “the most expensive election year” we’d ever seen little did we know then that the price of the 2020 cycle would approach the mind-blowing figure of $14 billion, roughly double the cost of the 2016 election. In the presidential race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as well as high-profile races for Congress, fundraising records were obliterated as both parties sought control.
But elections weren’t the only place political money was spent. As the novel coronavirus pandemic spread across the nation, virtually every industry shelled out cash to lobby for relief. As the crisis began to impact the stock market, a number of prominent political figures found themselves in hot water for suspiciously-timed trades.
By Mike Leischner
BERKELEY, CA (WSAU) A long-time Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice has passed away.
Shirley Abrahamson died at her home in Berkeley, California Sunday at the age of 87.
Abrahamson was the first woman appointed to the state’s highest court in 1976 by then-Governor Patrick Lucey. She retired from the court in July of 2019 after 43 years, serving as Chief Justice for 19 of those years. She participated in over 3,000 written opinions including 450 majority opinions.
Nationally she was viewed as one of the top state justices in the country, even drawing praise from the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg whom she counted as a friend. Former President Bill Clinton reportedly considered her for a position on the US Supreme Court.
Massachusetts House rejects Gov. Charlie Baker’s abortion amendment in fiscal 2021 budget
Updated Dec 17, 2020;
The House made good on its promise to overturn Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposed changes to the measure expanding abortion access within the fiscal 2021 budget.
House lawmakers rejected Baker’s proposed changes, which sought to rein in efforts to expand access to abortions for some teenagers and in certain cases past 24 weeks into a pregnancy. The House barely secured a two-thirds majority in the vote with 107 rejecting the governor’s amendment and 49 supporting it. Rep. Marcos Devers, a Lawrence Democrat, voted present.
“The House today reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to protecting reproductive rights in Massachusetts under threat by changes in the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court,” House Speaker Robert DeLeo said in a statement Wednesday. “The House acted to keep intact those provisions in Massachusetts that safeguard reproductive choices for all.
The Year That Stopped the World: A Look Back at 2020 Much of the world spent its time indoors and isolated from each other for the majority of 2020 as a new, highly transmissible virus swept into every corner of everyday life
Published December 16, 2020 •
Updated on December 23, 2020 at 9:31 am
Published December 16, 2020 •
Updated on December 23, 2020 at 9:31 am
On the last day of 2019, a year so filled with news of Jeffrey Epstein, raging wildfires scorching the Amazon basin and the third presidential impeachment in United States history that most were ready to shake the dust off for a fresh start, the World Health Organization reported new, mysterious cases of pneumonia discovered in China’s Wuhan City.