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William J. Samford Hall at Auburn University in in Auburn, Alabama. The Auburn University Board of Trustees earlier this month voted to dissolve the university's faculty senate. New laws in Alabama and other states give greater power to politically appointed state university boards and administrators while weakening tenure protections and faculty sway over curriculum and university leadership. (Photo by Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) Jennifer Brooks, a history professor at Auburn University, had barely unpacked from a trip out of town earlier this month when the messages started blowing up her phone. Texts from colleagues and rumors on social media delivered the unsettling news: The Auburn Board of Trustees had voted to dissolve the school’s faculty senate and give itself ultimate authority over academic decisions, including curriculum. “What was really surprising … is the lack of knowledge that most of our faculty leaders had about the decision,” said Brooks, who’s been teachi...

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., amid fog on Dec. 10, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — Republicans have one more opportunity to use the complex process they relied on to enact their “big, beautiful” law and provide tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement — a chance that becomes less likely the more divisions over a voter identification bill splinter the party.  Debate over a third reconciliation bill has been simmering in the background for months, though GOP lawmakers have yet to reach consensus about whether they should draft another massive package, like they approved last year, or a more narrow one that could help the party boost defense spending. That budget reconciliation process gives Republican leaders a way to get around Senate rules that would otherwise force bipartisanship, giving them a loophole out of negotiating major legislation with Democrats.  But it comes with several hurdles in order to get that...

Erika Christensen, left, with her husband, Garin, and her daughter in New York in 2018. Christensen and her husband founded Patient Forward, a nonprofit organization that advocates for later abortion access, after she had to fly to Colorado from New York to terminate a pregnancy with severe complications in 2016. (Photo courtesy of Erika Christensen) Kate Dineen assumed she would always have access to reproductive healthcare because of where she lived. It came as a shock when she was denied an abortion in 2021 because of gestational limits to the procedure in Massachusetts law. Dineen was 33 weeks into her pregnancy, the third trimester, when a routine ultrasound detected a problem with the fetus’s brain. An MRI showed that her son, whom she’d named Teddy, had suffered a catastrophic stroke in utero. A pediatric neurologist gave her the news over a Zoom call during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I said, ‘What’s the best-case scenario? Is there any chance of a normal, healthy outcome?’ And ...

Voters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, cast their ballots during the state’s August 2024 primary. (Photo by Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline) A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled the Department of Justice isn’t entitled to access the sensitive personal data of Michigan voters, a setback in President Donald Trump’s push to assert power over state-run elections. The decision moves the country closer to a potential fight at the U.S. Supreme Court over state voter rolls ahead of the November midterm elections, with Michigan at the center.  The Trump administration has sued 30 states for copies of their voter information. Federal officials want to run the data through a Department of Homeland Security computer program to identify possible noncitizen voters. In  a 2-1 decision , a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson isn’t required to turn over sensitive voter data, including dates of birth, driver’s license a...

Ahead of the May 2024 primary, a drop box for mail-in ballots sits outside the Shelby County Courthouse Annex in Shelbyville, Kentucky. (Photo by McKenna Horsley/Kentucky Lantern) The U.S. Postal Service won’t deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to turn over lists of voters under a proposed rule, the agency’s chief executive said Wednesday, angering Democrats who warn the decision will disenfranchise voters. Postmaster General David Steiner defended  the rule at a Senate hearing and dismissed accusations that the Postal Service was acting politically after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March restricting voting by mail.  “If a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the federal government, will the Postal Service still mail their ballots under this proposed rule?” Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, asked Steiner. “Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner replied. Steiner’s testimony, before the Senate Homeland Security & Gove...

A lawsuit led by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a Republican, alleges that California’s single-use plastics law will drive up consumer costs. (Photo by Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) Seventeen Republican attorneys general have sued California over a state law that requires plastic packaging producers to move away from single-use plastics, alleging that the law will raise costs for consumers across the country. Led by Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, the complaint filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of California challenges California’s Plastics Act. Under the law, which took effect May 1, plastic packaging producers must reduce single-use plastic by 25% and ensure all packaging is recyclable or compostable by 2032. Joining Hilgers in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South...