Missouri
GOP AG says abortions after viability remain illegal under new amendment
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican attorney general has pledged to enforce some laws restricting abortion despite a new constitutional amendment widely expected to undo the state’s near-total ban on the procedure.
In an opinion requested by incoming GOP governor Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote that his office will continue enforcing a ban on abortion after fetal viability.
There is an exception carved out in the amendment for cases in which a health care provider deems an abortion necessary to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
“Under the express terms of the amendment, the government may still protect innocent life after viability,” Bailey wrote. “The statutes thus remain generally enforceable after viability.”
Bailey said his office also will continue to honor a Missouri law requiring parental permission for minors to receive abortions.
Bailey’s opinion comes after voters approved a ballot measure this month that enshrines abortion rights in the state constitution while allowing lawmakers to restrict or ban it after fetal viability.
The term “viability” is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say it is sometime after the 21st week of pregnancy.
The measure’s passage was one of seven victories for abortion rights advocates this past election, while Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The Missouri amendment, which is to take effect Dec. 5, does not specifically override any state laws. Instead the measure leaves it to advocates to ask courts to knock down bans that they believe would now be unconstitutional.
Planned Parenthood affiliates that operate in Missouri sued the day after the election to invalidate the state’s abortion ban and several laws that regulate the care. That lawsuit is still pending.
Allowing restrictions on abortions after viability was a sticking point for some abortion rights supporters in Missouri.
Advocates had worried that failing to include such limits would sink their chances of passing abortion protections. But others cautioned against giving the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to enact regulations that could effectively end access.
California
Oil field owner sues state over law that would end its LA-area operations
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The owner of an oil field in Los Angeles County is suing the state of California over a law that will require it to stop production and plug its wells or face costly fines.
Inglewood Oil Field owner Sentinel Peak argues in the lawsuit, filed this week, that the law, which was signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is unconstitutional, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
It is was one of several laws aiming to reduce pollution by giving local governments more authority to restrict oil and gas operations by shutting down so-called idle wells, which are not in use but have not been properly sealed and closed, and fining companies for operating low-producing oil wells in the Inglewood field.
The 1,000-acre area southwest of downtown Los Angeles has approximately 820 unplugged wells, including 420 that are actively pumping. Roughly 80% of the operating wells are considered low-producing, meaning they yield less than 15 barrels of oil or 60,000 cubic feet of gas per day, the newspaper reported.
Attorneys for Sentinel Peak argue that the law “represents an illegal attempt to coerce an individual company to stop operation of its legal business,” according to court documents. They allege that mandatory fines, in particular, violate federal and state laws forbidding excessive fines.
The suit calls the penalties “grossly” disproportionate, with “no apparent upper limit” or “relationship to any actual harm.”
The California Department of Conservation’s Geological Energy Management Division, the state oil and gas regulator, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
But Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, a Democrat who represents the area where the oil field is located and who authored the law, vowed to defend it.
“Our community has stood strong for decades to close this dangerous low-producing oil field, and we will stand strong in court to protect those frontline communities who have long deserved the right to live a full and healthy life,” Bryan told the Times. “The people of California spoke through their legislature that dangerous oil wells have no business right next to the community.”
Texas
Court backs state over razor wire installed on US-Mexico border
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court Wednesday ruled that Border Patrol agents cannot cut razor wire that Texas installed on the U.S.-Mexico border in the town of Eagle Pass, which has become the center of the state’s aggressive measures to curb migrant crossings.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for Texas in a long-running rift over immigration policy with the Biden administration, which has also sought to remove floating barriers installed on the Rio Grande.
Texas has continued to install razor wire along its roughly 1,200-mile (1,900 kilometers) border with Mexico over the past year. In a 2-1 ruling, the court issued an injunction blocking Border Patrol agents from damaging the wire in Eagle Pass.
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted on the social platform X in response to the ruling.
Some migrants have been injured by the sharp wire, and the Justice Department has argued the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help. Texas contended in the lawsuit originally filed last year that federal government was “undermining” the state’s border
security efforts by cutting the razor wire.
The ruling comes ahead of President-elect Donald Trump returning to office and pledging a crackdown on immigration. Earlier this month, a Texas official offered a parcel of rural ranchland along the U.S.-Mexico border to use as a staging area for potential mass deportations.
Arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped 40% from an all-time high in December. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoint
GOP AG says abortions after viability remain illegal under new amendment
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican attorney general has pledged to enforce some laws restricting abortion despite a new constitutional amendment widely expected to undo the state’s near-total ban on the procedure.
In an opinion requested by incoming GOP governor Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote that his office will continue enforcing a ban on abortion after fetal viability.
There is an exception carved out in the amendment for cases in which a health care provider deems an abortion necessary to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
“Under the express terms of the amendment, the government may still protect innocent life after viability,” Bailey wrote. “The statutes thus remain generally enforceable after viability.”
Bailey said his office also will continue to honor a Missouri law requiring parental permission for minors to receive abortions.
Bailey’s opinion comes after voters approved a ballot measure this month that enshrines abortion rights in the state constitution while allowing lawmakers to restrict or ban it after fetal viability.
The term “viability” is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say it is sometime after the 21st week of pregnancy.
The measure’s passage was one of seven victories for abortion rights advocates this past election, while Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The Missouri amendment, which is to take effect Dec. 5, does not specifically override any state laws. Instead the measure leaves it to advocates to ask courts to knock down bans that they believe would now be unconstitutional.
Planned Parenthood affiliates that operate in Missouri sued the day after the election to invalidate the state’s abortion ban and several laws that regulate the care. That lawsuit is still pending.
Allowing restrictions on abortions after viability was a sticking point for some abortion rights supporters in Missouri.
Advocates had worried that failing to include such limits would sink their chances of passing abortion protections. But others cautioned against giving the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to enact regulations that could effectively end access.
California
Oil field owner sues state over law that would end its LA-area operations
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The owner of an oil field in Los Angeles County is suing the state of California over a law that will require it to stop production and plug its wells or face costly fines.
Inglewood Oil Field owner Sentinel Peak argues in the lawsuit, filed this week, that the law, which was signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is unconstitutional, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
It is was one of several laws aiming to reduce pollution by giving local governments more authority to restrict oil and gas operations by shutting down so-called idle wells, which are not in use but have not been properly sealed and closed, and fining companies for operating low-producing oil wells in the Inglewood field.
The 1,000-acre area southwest of downtown Los Angeles has approximately 820 unplugged wells, including 420 that are actively pumping. Roughly 80% of the operating wells are considered low-producing, meaning they yield less than 15 barrels of oil or 60,000 cubic feet of gas per day, the newspaper reported.
Attorneys for Sentinel Peak argue that the law “represents an illegal attempt to coerce an individual company to stop operation of its legal business,” according to court documents. They allege that mandatory fines, in particular, violate federal and state laws forbidding excessive fines.
The suit calls the penalties “grossly” disproportionate, with “no apparent upper limit” or “relationship to any actual harm.”
The California Department of Conservation’s Geological Energy Management Division, the state oil and gas regulator, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
But Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, a Democrat who represents the area where the oil field is located and who authored the law, vowed to defend it.
“Our community has stood strong for decades to close this dangerous low-producing oil field, and we will stand strong in court to protect those frontline communities who have long deserved the right to live a full and healthy life,” Bryan told the Times. “The people of California spoke through their legislature that dangerous oil wells have no business right next to the community.”
Texas
Court backs state over razor wire installed on US-Mexico border
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court Wednesday ruled that Border Patrol agents cannot cut razor wire that Texas installed on the U.S.-Mexico border in the town of Eagle Pass, which has become the center of the state’s aggressive measures to curb migrant crossings.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for Texas in a long-running rift over immigration policy with the Biden administration, which has also sought to remove floating barriers installed on the Rio Grande.
Texas has continued to install razor wire along its roughly 1,200-mile (1,900 kilometers) border with Mexico over the past year. In a 2-1 ruling, the court issued an injunction blocking Border Patrol agents from damaging the wire in Eagle Pass.
“We continue adding more razor wire border barrier,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted on the social platform X in response to the ruling.
Some migrants have been injured by the sharp wire, and the Justice Department has argued the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help. Texas contended in the lawsuit originally filed last year that federal government was “undermining” the state’s border
security efforts by cutting the razor wire.
The ruling comes ahead of President-elect Donald Trump returning to office and pledging a crackdown on immigration. Earlier this month, a Texas official offered a parcel of rural ranchland along the U.S.-Mexico border to use as a staging area for potential mass deportations.
Arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped 40% from an all-time high in December. U.S. officials mostly credit Mexican vigilance around rail yards and highway checkpoint
