Southern Progressives

There were a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated stories in the news that all seem to point to an important theme: Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner of the Washington Post reported that lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was deeply involved in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, this weekend told Republican donors that the party must restrict access to the vote for young voters. Gen Z voters were the key element in providing the extraordinary 11-point victory for pro-choice Wisconsin supreme court candidate Janet Protasiewicz, and they are central to the movement to enact gun safety legislation.

Montana's House speaker is refusing to allow a transgender lawmaker to speak on bills for the rest of the session until she apologizes for saying lawmakers would have “blood on their hands” if they supported a bill to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. Speaker Matt Regier said Thursday he would not recognize any representative that he doesn't feel can "maintain decorum." A conservative group of lawmakers intentionally misgendered Rep. Zooey Zephyr in demanding that she be censured for her comments. Zephyr says she stands by her words.

The Supreme Court is facing a self-imposed Friday night deadline to decide whether women’s access to a widely used abortion pill will stay unchanged until a legal challenge to its Food and Drug Administration approval is resolved. The justices are weighing arguments that allowing restrictions contained in lower-court rulings to take effect would severely disrupt the availability of the drug, mifepristone, which is used in the most common abortion method in the United States. It has repeatedly been found to be safe and effective, and has been used by more than 5 million women in the U.S. since the FDA approved it in 2000.

Rep. Scotty Campbell, vice chair of the Tennessee House Republican Caucus, will not resign despite having sexually harassed interns.

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and Sen. Mark Pody, both Republicans, issued a proclamation honoring April as "Confederate History Month."

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