In November 2008, almost 70 million people turned out to vote for the nation’s first Black president and their hope for once-in-a-generation political change.

Barack Obama, a young, former community organizer, promised he’d help more people afford health care, stop the pollution of the planet, expand pathways to legal citizenship and help families dig their way out of the worst recession in decades.

With congressional majorities at his back, it seemed Republicans in D.C. would be hard-pressed to stop Obama's liberal juggernaut. But 1,500 miles away, a group of conservative attorneys were loading the canons and pointing them north.

Over the previous eight years, the Texas Office of the Attorney General had transformed from a Democrat-led bureaucratic workhorse into a Republican war machine, peppering the federal courts with conservative cases and friend-of-the-court filings. Now, Greg Abbott, a man elected by 2.5 million people to be the top lawyer for one of fifty states, stepped up to do what his fellow conservatives in Washington could not: stop, or at least slow, Obama’s agenda.

During the Obama administration, Abbott's office, and especially its elite appellate unit, the Office of the Solicitor General, became a government in exile, a refuge for the Republican party’s brightest minds. Top-tier conservative attorneys came to Texas for the chance to gain courtroom experience, burnish their bonafides and strengthen their commitment to the cause.

They had plenty of opportunities. Under Abbott, Texas brought more than 30 lawsuits against the Obama administration in six years, including an average of one suit a month in 2010. Texas used the federal courts to try to stop the federal expansion of government subsidized health care; block protections for young people who entered the country illegally with their parents; guard businesses against environmental regulations intended to stave off climate change; and even extend the fishing season by two weeks.

Texas emerged as an almost co-equal party to the federal government, casting itself as the defender of state sovereignty, federalism and the U.S. Constitution, and quietly helping push the nation’s legal apparatus to the right.

Abbott defined his role quite simply: “I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and then I go home.”

In his first morning as state attorney, Andrew Bain made immediate and sweeping changes: He fired two executive staff members, canceled the office’s catch-and-release policy and discontinued the office’s diversion programs while he “evaluate[s] their effectiveness.”

The actions by Bain, a member of the conservative Federalist Society who Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the Orange County judicial bench in 2020, represent a sharp departure from Monique Worrell, the elected state attorney for Orange and Osceola Counties who DeSantis ousted from office Wednesday. Bain’s actions also caused concern for local defense attorneys whose clients have gone through the programs.

“… [E]ffective immediately, I am rescinding the catch and release policy that has been in place for too long,” Bain wrote in an email Wednesday morning to State Attorney’s Office staff obtained by the Orlando Sentinel through a public records request. “We must return the principle of prosecutorial discretion, one that relies on a thorough analysis of each case’s facts and the laws of Florida.”

The catch-and-release policy allowed people awaiting a hearing in immigration court to be released from custody.

Diversion programs were central to Worrell’s policy platform, both during her initial campaign in 2020 and while she was the top prosecutor in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

One of her major efforts in office was the expansion of diversion programs to connect those arrested with low-level charges to services that address the root causes of crimes, she has said. The same programs also seek to avoid penalizing those accused of non-violent crimes with a criminal record that may stop them from being able to find work or qualify for housing.

An effort by the Broward School Board to honor its diverse communities over the next year turned into more of a feud than a celebration Tuesday.

In past years, resolutions recognizing certain events or groups have passed with little notice. But this year, resolutions to support the LGBTQ community and the instruction of African American history fueled the same angry culture war debates that have become increasingly common statewide.

By the time the 3½-hour discussion was over, the left-leaning majority on the School Board prevailed in passing 98 resolutions, including three in support of the LGBTQ community.

They also postponed one in support of the state-mandated African American history curriculum, which has generated national controversy due to a line about slaves learning job skills that may benefit them.

A crowd of dozens included members of the LGBTQ community who clashed with conservative opponents, with each side accusing the other of heckling.

Idaho’s restrictive abortion laws have attracted another lawsuit, this time from educators.

Six professors and two teachers unions Tuesday sued the state over a 2021 law that bars public employees from promoting abortion or counseling in favor of the procedure. Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, representing the educators, called the prohibitions “simultaneously sweeping and unclear,” leading professors to censor themselves and eliminate class content for fear of prosecution.

The lawsuit asked the U.S. District Court for Idaho to declare the law an infringement of First Amendment rights and block state and local prosecutors from enforcing it.

“It’s vital for Idaho’s public universities to have autonomy in fostering vibrant debate on their campuses, free from government interference,” Leo Morales, executive director for the ACLU of Idaho, said in a news release. “However, Idaho’s abortion censorship law directly undermines that autonomy, attempting to restrict educators’ free speech and stoke fear of retaliation for such speech in our state.”

State Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, former Sen. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, and the Idaho Family Policy Center, a religious lobbying group, co-wrote the legislation. Most Republicans in the Legislature supported the 2021 bill.

Utah Supreme Court Judge Paige Petersen is a member of the court’s first female-majority.

Anti-abortion attorneys defending Utah’s abortion trigger ban, which is currently blocked, on Tuesday appealed to the state Supreme Court by calling on the justices to focus on the state Constitution in deciding whether to lift the injunction on the ban. They argued that Utah’s Constitution is clear that abortion should be prohibited: “There is an unbroken history and tradition … before 1973 [when Roe v. Wade was decided], of prohibiting abortion. And that unbroken history has to be part of this Court’s analysis, rather than present-day policy arguments about the benefits or the or lack thereof of abortion,” attorney Taylor Meehan argued.

In response, Judge Paige Petersen reminded Meehan of some state history that the attorneys defending the law seemed to be forgetting: “Women were in the audience, but they weren’t any of the delegates” who helped create the state Constitution in 1895, Petersen said, according to Axios. “How do we know … what they thought the meaning of their rights were? It seems important in this context because women are the ones that experience pregnancy and experience childbirth.”

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is livid that his plan to overthrow local democracy was thwarted by democracy, and the Senate candidate has decided the best response is to insult his own constituents.

Ohioans on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to raise the threshold for ballot initiatives to 60 percent of votes, which would have paved the way for minority rule in the state. Republicans had argued the amendment was needed to protect the state constitution from the influence of special interest groups.

But in reality, the measure was put forward to block another amendment, which goes up for a vote in November, to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution. LaRose himself admitted as much, saying in June that the August election “is 100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”

Now that his central issue has lost (badly), LaRose, who will likely be the Republican candidate challenging Democrat Sherrod Brown for Senate, is blaming all the people he claims to want to represent. “I’m grateful that nearly 1.3 million Ohioans stood with us in this fight, but this is only one battle in a long war. Unfortunately, we were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant ‘for sale’ sign still hangs on Ohio’s constitution,” he said in a statement.

This is blatantly untrue. Both campaigns supporting and opposing raising the vote threshold were primarily funded by out-of-state donors, but the “yes” campaign significantly out-fundraised the “no” side.

For the first time in two decades, next year’s elections for constitutional officers in Polk County will be partisan races.

Joseph S. Van de Bogart, general counsel for Florida’s Department of State, sent a letter Friday to Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards directing her to administer the relevant elections as partisan.

Van de Bogart’s order applies to the contests for supervisor of elections and property appraiser, along with three others up for election in 2024: Polk County sheriff, clerk of the circuit court and tax collector.

Edwards responded Friday with a one-sentence letter to Van de Bogart, saying she would conduct Polk County’s constitutional officer elections as partisan races.

The exchange settled a question that has been simmering for months. Polk County Commissioner Neil Combee filed in February to run for Polk County property appraiser. Both Combee and the other current candidate, Gow Fields, are registered Republicans, and both initially appeared as nonpartisan candidates in a listing on the Supervisor of Elections’ website.

The overwhelming defeat of Issue 1 is a triumph for those who believe in a strong constitutional republic. The Ohio Legislature was trying to remove any vestige of balance of power in our state. In the last few years, they have ignored Supreme Court decisions which have said they are violating the Constitution of Ohio concerning public school funding and redistricting. They have defied public opinion which favors more responsible gun ownership and have actually gone in the other direction. But this power-hungry majority in Columbus will show no signs of relenting. We must be no less bold. We must continue to hold their feet to the fire by communicating on a regular basis with our state representatives to express our feelings and tell them when they are stepping out of line. If we neglect our duty going forward, then the events on election night will prove to be little more than a pyrrhic victory.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday suspended the top prosecutor in Orlando, saying she had neglected her duty to prosecute criminals.

“It is my duty as Governor to ensure that the laws enacted by our duly elected Legislature are followed,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Tallahassee announcing the suspension of State Attorney Monique Worrell of the 9th Judicial Circuit, which serves Orange and Osceola counties.

This is the second elected state attorney DeSantis has suspended in the past year. Last August he removed Andrew Warren, the Tampa area state attorney, from office, accusing him of neglect of duty and incompetence. Warren, who like Worrell is a Democrat, joined other prosecutors across the country in signing statements opposing criminal charges against abortion providers or women seeking abortions. He also said he wouldn’t prosecute people for providing gender-affirming health care, and his office’s policies didn’t charge people with some minor crimes.

The governor appointed Andrew Bain, an Orange County judge, to replace Worrell. Bain previously served as assistant state attorney in Orlando.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday suspended the top prosecutor in Orlando, saying she had neglected her duty to prosecute criminals.

“It is my duty as Governor to ensure that the laws enacted by our duly elected Legislature are followed,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Tallahassee announcing the suspension of State Attorney Monique Worrell of the 9th Judicial Circuit, which serves Orange and Osceola counties.

This is the second elected state attorney DeSantis has suspended in the past year. Last August he removed Andrew Warren, the Tampa area state attorney, from office, accusing him of neglect of duty and incompetence. Warren, who like Worrell is a Democrat, joined other prosecutors across the country in signing statements opposing criminal charges against abortion providers or women seeking abortions. He also said he wouldn’t prosecute people for providing gender-affirming health care, and his office’s policies didn’t charge people with some minor crimes.

The governor appointed Andrew Bain, an Orange County judge, to replace Worrell. Bain previously served as assistant state attorney in Orlando.