Evening Wrap

The Nebraska legislature on Wednesday blocked a proposal to change the way the state awards its Electoral College votes, resisting pressure from Donald Trump to embrace a winner-take-all system that would have likely helped him in November. The measure, tacked on to an unrelated bill, required 23 votes to pass. It received just eight, per the Nebraska Examiner.

If you’re a politician hoping to do some good in the world (hello, beautiful unicorn), there is no shortage of issues to tackle. Can I interest you in the astronomical cost of housing? How about wage stagnation? Perhaps you’re more concerned about the ongoing climate crisis or the gun violence epidemic? Maybe you’d prefer to roll everything together, focus on the cumulative impact our prolonged inaction is having on kids and teens? Take! Your! Pick!

The Florida Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-1 that privacy protections in the state constitution do not extend to abortion, a stunning reversal of its own decades-old precedent that will allow a six-week ban to take effect on May 1, the Florida Phoenix reported. The decision stemmed from a 2022 lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of a 15-week ban approved by lawmakers following the demise of Roe v. Wade, a seismic shift the justices said affected the breadth of abortion protections in Florida.

A proposal to regulate hemp under the same framework as more-potent marijuana could force Missouri convenience stores and gas stations to pull most Delta-8 drinks and edibles from shelves, though officials said the full impact of the legislation is still unknown, the Missouri Independent reported. 

Scheduling is for suckers in Idaho, where lawmakers continued to squabble over a major transportation bill on Thursday — a full six days past the legislature’s slated adjournment date, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

Let’s start here: You get a ride home from work with your cousin, who makes a pit stop along the way to pick up some marijuana, then forgets to turn the headlights back on and gets pulled over by police. You’re arrested and released on bond after 72 hours. You’ve never been charged with a crime, but now you’re facing a felony and a misdemeanor. You get an attorney and prepare for court. And then, if you’re lucky, someone steps in with another option: Pretrial diversion.

Kansas Republicans on Wednesday donned their national security hats, approving a trio of bills designed to deter “countries of concern” by mandating divestment of state-managed investments, restricting property ownership and grounding imported drones used by government agencies, the Kansas Reflector reported.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed deeply skeptical of efforts to limit access to mifepristone, questioning whether a coalition of anti-abortion groups had the right to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug or a pair of decisions that broadened access to it, our D.C. bureau reported.

Lawmakers in Georgia are expected to consider sweeping changes to the state’s election rules before the conclusion of legislative session Thursday, leaving local officials on alert for policies that might need to be implemented ahead of November, the Georgia Recorder reported.

The U.S. House on Friday approved a $1.2 trillion spending plan to fund the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year, sending the bill to the Senate hours ahead of a midnight shutdown deadline, our D.C. bureau reported. It was unclear as of Friday afternoon if senators would approve it in time to avoid a funding lapse, though the effects of the ensuing shutdown would likely not be felt until Monday, when most federal employees return to work.

In October 2021, the state of Ohio settled a lawsuit against Centene, a Medicaid managed-care contractor prosecutors said had fleeced the state for millions of dollars by overcharging for prescription medications. The $88.3 million settlement did not come with an admission of wrongdoing, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost noted at the time. 

Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to grant him blanket immunity from federal charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that allowing the case to proceed would “incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office” as well as years of “post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents,” our D.C. bureau reported.