The Florida legislature approved a bill this month that would further limit local civilian police oversight boards by barring them from investigating allegations of police misconduct. Police unions support the bill as a measure to protect the rights of officers, though critics say it represents yet another blow to police accountability efforts already shackled by existing state laws giving cops extraordinary legal protections.

Some of these civilian oversight agencies have been around for decades. The Civilian Investigative Panel in Miami, for instance, was created in 2002 amid concerns about police conduct in a number of high-profile shootings, as well as in the aftermath of the Elián González standoff when the city’s Cuban American community decried police treatment of protesters in the wake of the crisis. Miami’s panel was formed to investigate police misconduct incidents alongside the local police agency’s internal affairs departments.

But many of the 21 agencies across the state that would be affected by the ban emerged in cities like Pensacola and Key West following the 2020 George Floyd protests amid widespread calls for additional police accountability. After the national uprisings, many local Florida governments threw their cities a bone in the form of hamstrung civilian oversight panels that could review cases but had practically no legal authority.

Critics say this current bill would undermine what were already baby-steps toward greater police accountability and walk back cities’ efforts to improve public trust in law enforcement.

“They’re making it seem un-American to question policing, which should be a huge red flag to everybody,” said Taylor Biro, a former member of Tallahassee’s police oversight board. “It is another way of showing how far to the right Florida wants to be seen. It’s a lot of political theater, and there’s not a lot of thought behind what the community review boards’ goals are.”

The Florida legislature approved a bill this month that would further limit local civilian police oversight boards by barring them from investigating allegations of police misconduct. Police unions support the bill as a measure to protect the rights of officers, though critics say it represents yet another blow to police accountability efforts already shackled by existing state laws giving cops extraordinary legal protections.

Some of these civilian oversight agencies have been around for decades. The Civilian Investigative Panel in Miami, for instance, was created in 2002 amid concerns about police conduct in a number of high-profile shootings, as well as in the aftermath of the Elián González standoff when the city’s Cuban American community decried police treatment of protesters in the wake of the crisis. Miami’s panel was formed to investigate police misconduct incidents alongside the local police agency’s internal affairs departments.

But many of the 21 agencies across the state that would be affected by the ban emerged in cities like Pensacola and Key West following the 2020 George Floyd protests amid widespread calls for additional police accountability. After the national uprisings, many local Florida governments threw their cities a bone in the form of hamstrung civilian oversight panels that could review cases but had practically no legal authority.

Critics say this current bill would undermine what were already baby-steps toward greater police accountability and walk back cities’ efforts to improve public trust in law enforcement.

“They’re making it seem un-American to question policing, which should be a huge red flag to everybody,” said Taylor Biro, a former member of Tallahassee’s police oversight board. “It is another way of showing how far to the right Florida wants to be seen. It’s a lot of political theater, and there’s not a lot of thought behind what the community review boards’ goals are.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to let its blocked abortion law go into effect and uphold it altogether, disputing abortion providers’ claims it infringes on women's rights to exercise bodily autonomy.

The law, which bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant, was in effect for a few days last July. A district court judge soon after put it on pause for the courts to assess its constitutionality. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds appealed the decision with the state Supreme Court’s permission.

Abortion remains legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the new law is on hold.

Iowa lawmakers passed the measure with exclusively Republican support during a one-day special session. The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed a legal challenge the next day.

Most Republican-led states have limited abortion access following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and 14 states have near total bans at all stages of pregnancy. Earlier this week, Arizona joined that set when the state's Supreme Court upheld a long-dormant law that bans nearly all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

A ban on nearly all abortions in Arizona doesn’t sit well with the Republican former governor whose expansion of the state Supreme Court allowed him to appoint the four conservative justices whose ruling cleared the way for it.

Doug Ducey is among Republicans in several states who are wrestling with the consequences of their opposition to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. He expanded the state court in 2016, but thinks its ruling this week went too far.

After the Arizona court ruled 4-2 on Monday to revive an 1864 law that criminalizes abortion throughout pregnancy unless a woman’s life is at risk, Ducey posted on the platform X that it was “not the outcome I would have preferred." He said a law he signed in 2022 banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy was more in line with what voters want.

In Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, where an abortion ban signed into law by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine got overturned in a referendum that enshrined the right to an abortion in the state constitution, the issue has helped Democrats win races and in some cases begin to reverse Republican-led bans.

More may be in store. In Florida, the state's high court cleared the way for a six-week ban that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed while also allowing an abortion-rights referendum go before the state’s voters this November.

No well-intentioned reform could have been sabotaged more thoroughly than Gov. Reubin Askew’s historic effort to protect Florida’s courts from politics and ensure their independence.

Under his 1971 merit selection model, which became part of the state Constitution, the new Democratic governor gave up the traditional perquisite of draping robes on his friends.

Instead, judges would be appointed from lists recommended to him by nominating commissions. He designed them to be independent by limiting the governor to three persons on each nine-member panel. The Florida Bar appointed three members and those six then chose three non-lawyers.

“It was the most unselfish thing any governor ever did,” said Richard McFarlain, a prominent Republican lawyer on the Florida Bar staff.

The system worked well with rare exceptions until 2001. (Broward’s JNC was notorious for cronyism and favoritism in the 1980s and 1990s.)

Expanding the governor’s reach

With Republicans in full control in Tallahassee, the Legislature changed the law in the Jeb Bush era to allow governors to appoint all nine members of each commission. Critics warned that it would have far-reaching repercussions, and they were right.

No well-intentioned reform could have been sabotaged more thoroughly than Gov. Reubin Askew’s historic effort to protect Florida’s courts from politics and ensure their independence.

Under his 1971 merit selection model, which became part of the state Constitution, the new Democratic governor gave up the traditional perquisite of draping robes on his friends.

Instead, judges would be appointed from lists recommended to him by nominating commissions. He designed them to be independent by limiting the governor to three persons on each nine-member panel. The Florida Bar appointed three members and those six then chose three non-lawyers.

“It was the most unselfish thing any governor ever did,” said Richard McFarlain, a prominent Republican lawyer on the Florida Bar staff.

The system worked well with rare exceptions until 2001. (Broward’s JNC was notorious for cronyism and favoritism in the 1980s and 1990s.)

Expanding the governor’s reach

With Republicans in full control in Tallahassee, the Legislature changed the law in the Jeb Bush era to allow governors to appoint all nine members of each commission. Critics warned that it would have far-reaching repercussions, and they were right.

No well-intentioned reform could have been sabotaged more thoroughly than Gov. Reubin Askew’s historic effort to protect Florida’s courts from politics and ensure their independence.

Under his 1971 merit selection model, which became part of the state Constitution, the new Democratic governor gave up the traditional perquisite of draping robes on his friends.

Instead, judges would be appointed from lists recommended to him by nominating commissions. He designed them to be independent by limiting the governor to three persons on each nine-member panel. The Florida Bar appointed three members and those six then chose three non-lawyers.

“It was the most unselfish thing any governor ever did,” said Richard McFarlain, a prominent Republican lawyer on the Florida Bar staff.

The system worked well with rare exceptions until 2001. (Broward’s JNC was notorious for cronyism and favoritism in the 1980s and 1990s.)

Expanding the governor’s reach

With Republicans in full control in Tallahassee, the Legislature changed the law in the Jeb Bush era to allow governors to appoint all nine members of each commission. Critics warned that it would have far-reaching repercussions, and they were right.

North Carolina Democrat Josh Stein is seeing his lead over Republican Mark Robinson grow in one of this year's most closely watched races for governor, which is being advertised as a pivotal bellwether in the 2024 presidential election.

A new Quinnipiac University Poll released Wednesday shows Stein, the state's attorney general, at 52% among registered voters and Robinson, who serves as lieutenant governor, behind with 44%.

That's far better than the 2% lead Stein held over Robinson in two previous surveys conducted in early March as the two candidates vie to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.

The Tar Heel State will be in the spotlight this year largely due to how competitive it has been in the past few election cycles.

MADISON, Wis. — The longest-serving member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 4-3 liberal majority announced Thursday she would not run for reelection next spring, shaking up a consequential race in a swing state and improving the odds that conservatives can retake the control they lost last year.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who has served on the court since 1995, told The Washington Post ahead of her announcement that she is confident someone who shares her judicial philosophy can replace her after she completes her term. But her unexpected retirement sets the stage for an intense race for control of the court two years after candidates, political parties and interest groups spent more than $50 million in the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

In recent years, the court voted 4-3 to confirm Joe Biden’s win in the state’s last presidential election, ban ballot drop boxes and end a Republican gerrymander of the state legislature. Soon, by a similar margin, it could determine whether abortion remains legal in one of the country’s most closely watched presidential battlegrounds.

Bradley, 73, spent most of the past decade and a half writing dissents for a court run by conservatives. That majority upheld limits on labor unions, approved a voter ID law, limited the powers of the state’s Democratic governor and shut down a campaign finance investigation of Republicans.

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch are all members of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a group launching coordinated attacks on abortion access.


In a recent podcast interview Leonard Leo, anti-abortion power broker and engineer of the Supreme Court’s far-right faction, called on ultra-wealthy donors to join his roughly $2 billion war chest dedicated to turning back our rights. He described his strategy: “It’s really important that we flood the zone with cases that challenge misuse of the Constitution by the administrative state and by Congress.”

At his disposal, Leo also has a veritable legal army of far-right attorneys general, members of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), to helm these litigation efforts. RAGA-member attorneys general have already been especially active in pushing for and enforcing oppressive abortion bans.

RAGA is a pay-to-play 527 group that can accept unlimited contributions from corporations, dark money groups and individuals, which it in turn uses to help elect far-right attorneys general. These AGs then use their power to push extreme policies that attack our rights, democracy, environment and more. Notoriously, RAGA’s 501(c)(4) Rule of Law Defense Fund arranged robocalls urging Trump supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol and calling on Congress to “stop the steal” ahead of the violent Jan. 6 insurrection.

The extent to which RAGA’s AGs are willing to advance Leo’s agenda recently reached new heights. Politico reported that past and present RAGA members wrote a letter to D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb—who is leading the investigation into Leo’s dark money empire—calling on him to stand down.

The letter threatened that Schwalb’s investigation could compel other AGs to come for pro-abortion access organizations, “Once the dam breaks, we and our successors will be under intense pressure to investigate the inner workings of every abortion advocacy group. … We can only stop it if each of us conscientiously stays in his or her lane.”

While RAGA AGs may not be targeting specific abortion access groups yet, they are certainly working to fulfill Leo’s anti-abortion agenda.