Supremes strike down clinic buffer zones in Massachusetts

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down protest-free buffer zones around abortion clinics in Massachusetts as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s ruling was a narrow one, pointing out that other states and cities had found less-intrusive ways to both protect women entering clinics and accommodate the First Amendment rights of those opposed to abortion.

Massachusetts asserts “undeniably significant interests in maintaining public safety on [its] streets and sidewalks, as well as in preserving access to adjacent healthcare facilities,” Roberts wrote. “But here the commonwealth has pursued those interests by the extreme step of closing a substantial portion of a traditional public forum to all speakers.”
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The Puckett resignation: Smelling a huge giant stinky rat

MoonHowler

Richmond Times Dispatch:

 

A series of emails from the interim director of the Virginia Tobacco Commission outline plans hatched by Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, to offer Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, D-Russell, a senior job with the commission once he resigned from the Virginia Senate.

The emails, obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, document the overtures made by Kilgore through the commission in the week leading up to Puckett’s June 9 resignation, which effectively transferred power from Senate Democrats to Senate Republicans — giving the GOP a majority in the evenly divided chamber prior to a crucial vote on the state budget and Medicaid expansion.

“If you’re in tomorrow Terry would like us to call Puckett to discuss what kind of role he might like with w/ Commission,” Interim Executive Director Tim Pfohl wrote to commission staffer Ned Stephenson on Thursday, May 29.

 

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