Nebraska
ACLU sues to block new hybrid law restricting abortion and gender-affirming care for minors
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — As promised, the American Civil Liberties Union is suing to block the Nebraska Legislature’s most controversial measure combining an abortion ban with restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, just days after it was signed into law.
The lawsuit, filed in state court Tuesday by the ACLU on behalf of Planned Parenthood and one of its doctors who performs abortions in Nebraska, argues that the law violates a state constitutional requirement that legislative bills stick to a single subject. The lawsuit is also asking for an injunction to block enforcement of the trans health and abortion restrictions until the court case is decided.
The new law will prevent people under 19 from receiving gender-confirming surgery and restrict the use of hormone treatments and puberty blockers in minors when those restrictions go into effect Oct. 1. It will put the state’s chief medical officer — a political appointee who is an ear, nose and throat doctor — in charge of setting the rules for hormone therapies for those minors already receiving that therapy at the time the measure goes into effect and those who demonstrate a “long-lasting and intense pattern of gender nonconformity or gender dysphoria.”
The law also imposed an immediate ban on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. That ban was shoehorned into the trans care bill as an amendment after a separate bill to ban abortion at about six weeks failed to overcome a filibuster.
“We believe the combination of those bans violated the clear text of our state’s constitution,” ACLU Nebraska Executive Director Mindy Rush Chipman said. “The bottom line is that senators do not get to pick and choose which constitutional requirements they will follow when making laws.”
The proposal restricting gender-affirming care was the flashpoint of an epic filibuster led by Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh. She and a handful of progressive allies slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to nearly every bill that made it to the Senate floor. That sent leadership scrambling to prioritize which bills to push through.
Lawmakers opposed to the hybrid bill had warned that it would face a lawsuit if passed.
The ACLU’s lawsuit argues that the Legislature wrongly logrolled two distinct, unrelated subjects into one combined bill.
“The single-subject rule prevents logrolling, namely, the passage of legislation that, if standing alone, could not muster the necessary votes for enactment,” the lawsuit reads. “The single-subject rule also promotes transparency in the legislative process and accountability by lawmakers.
“When a bill contains more than one subject, it is impossible to know whether the lawmaker’s vote signaled support for — or opposition to — the entire bill, or just some of it.”
Omaha Sen. Kathleen Kauth, a freshman lawmaker who introduced the trans health restriction bill that later morphed into the hybrid bill, said she’s confident it will survive legal scrutiny.
“I mean, it’s called the ‘Let Them Grow Act,’” she said of her original bill. “I think restricting abortion is very much in that same subject.”
Gov. Jim Pillen declined to comment, citing his office’s policy of not commenting on pending litigation.
New York
Twitter cleaning workers sue over firings they say spoiled Christmas
NEW YORK (AP) — Eleven former Twitter cleaning workers at its New York City offices sued the company Tuesday, saying they are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay and damages after they were abruptly fired in December.
The lawsuit in Manhattan federal court maintained that the company violated New York City rules that protect union workers from being replaced by workers from another cleaning company for at least three months. That company was sued as well.
The firings came within days of four dozen janitors losing their jobs at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco in early December. The California workers protested outside their former workplace after they were dismissed. They maintained that state and local laws required new contractors to retain the workers for at least 60 days.
Twitter returned an email request for comment Tuesday with an automated response and no comment.
In their lawsuit, New York’s former Twitter cleaning workers sought an immediate court order reinstating them for at least 90 days, along with back wages and damages.
The lawsuit said the workers were fired on Dec. 19, leaving them “without any employment on the eve of the Christmas holidays.”
“As a result of Twitter’s actions, Plaintiffs were left jobless on Christmas Eve, forcing several of them to cancel or severely curtail their holiday celebrations,” the lawsuit said.
Eight of the 11 full-time workers, earning as much as $31 an hour, had worked there since 2015. Their jobs required them to sweep and mop floors, clean and sanitize kitchens and common spaces and empty and remove trash and recycling, along with other cleaning tasks.
The workers belonged to Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents over 20,000 cleaning workers in roughly 800 New York City buildings.
Wisconsin
Man gets life in prison for killing of man whose body was burned
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A Green Bay man has been sentenced to life in prison for a drug-related killing in which prosecutors said the victim’s body was later burned at his order.
Pedro Santiago-Marquez, 34, was sentenced Tuesday in Brown County Circuit Court to life in prison with the possibility of release on extended supervision in July 2064, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported.
A jury had convicted Santiago-Marquez in March of first-degree intentional homicide and mutilating a corpse in the 2021 slaying of Jason Mendez-Ramos, 36, of Ashwaubenon.
Santiago-Marquez was also sentenced Tuesday to 10 years on the charge of mutilating a corpse, with that sentence to be served concurrent with his life sentence.
Jurors determined that Santiago-Marquez either shot or ordered Mendez-Ramos’ shooting on Sept. 27, 2021, and later that day ordered his body burned. Mendez-Ramos’ remains were found the next day on the grounds of the Cofrin Memorial Arboretum.
Investigators said Santiago-Marquez had owed Mendez-Ramos money related to drug trafficking.
Santiago-Marquez maintained his innocence at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, saying he did not kill Mendez-Ramos and calling him his “best friend.”
