Tag Archives: state funding

Court allows Ohio law blocking Planned Parenthood funding

FILE PHOTO: A sign is pictured at the entrance to a Planned Parenthood building in New York August 31, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

(Reuters) – A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of an Ohio law to block state funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, in a victory for anti-abortion advocates.

By an 11-6 vote, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rejected arguments by Planned Parenthood affiliates that the law signed by Republican Governor John Kasich in 2016 barring funding for entities that perform abortions violated their due process rights.

“The affiliates are correct that the Ohio law imposes a condition on the continued receipt of state funds,” Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the majority. “But that condition does not violate the Constitution because the affiliates do not have a due process right to perform abortions.”

Tuesday’s decision overturned a lower court injunction against the law, which the appeals court had upheld last April 18.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)

Seven U.S. states still without budgets a week into new fiscal year

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the joint session of the General Assembly in the House Chambers of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois February 1, 2012. REUTERS/Sarah Conard/File Photo

By Robin Respaut and Karen Pierog

(Reuters) – Seven U.S. states are still without budgets, nearly a week into the new fiscal year that started July 1.

Legislatures in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin remain in disagreement about how to close ongoing budget gaps in their states or fund new budget initiatives.

“We always have some states that go into the new fiscal year without budgets, but the number is a bit high this year,” said Eric Kim, a director at Fitch Ratings.

Weak revenues complicated budget negotiations in several states, while idiosyncratic issues pushed others beyond their June 30 deadlines.

The Illinois House was poised to take final budget action on Thursday by attempting to override the governor’s vetoes of a $36 billion spending plan and $5 billion tax hike approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. A hazardous materials situation in the state Capitol in Springfield delayed the House session, but officials determined the substance was harmless and lawmakers were returning.

If enacted, the budget would mark Illinois’ first complete budget since 2015. No other U.S. state has lacked a budget for that long.

Thirty-three of the 50 U.S. states reported revenues that came in below projections in fiscal year 2017, the highest number of states since the recession decimated budgets in 2010, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Connecticut and Pennsylvania have the most challenging revenue situations, according to Fitch, as lower-than-anticipated tax collections exacerbated budget gaps and led to disputes over how to close them.

Massachusetts, also amid a revenue shortfall, enacted a one-month interim budget for July to provide additional time to negotiate a full-year budget. Wisconsin legislators are working to close a transportation funding shortfall.

Oregon’s budget process includes multiple bills, most of which have been approved. But the legislature is still debating several measures, including changes to hiring practices.

Rhode Island had appeared ready to finalize a budget by June 30, but late last week the state Senate amended a House proposal to phase out an automobile tax, causing the House to halt the budget process.

Many states retain the authority to make debt service payments without enacted budgets.

Over the holiday weekend, several states came to last-minute budget agreements.

New Jersey and Maine ended partial government shutdowns just in time for the Fourth of July holiday on Tuesday, while governors of Washington state and Alaska signed new operating budgets late last week, hours before deadlines that would have triggered partial government shutdowns.

(Reporting by Robin Respaut in San Francisco and Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S. top court backs church in key religious rights case

Activists rally outside U.S. Supreme Court after the Court sided with Trinity Lutheran Church, which objected to being denied public money in Missouri, in Washington, U.S.,

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with a church that objected to being denied public money in Missouri, potentially lessening America’s separation of church and state by allowing governments more leeway to fund religious entities directly.

The justices, in a 7-2 ruling, found that Missouri unlawfully prevented Trinity Lutheran Church access to a state grant program that helps nonprofit groups buy rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said that the exclusion of the church “solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution.”

In denying the church’s bid for public funding, Missouri cited its constitution that bars “any church, sect or denomination of religion” or clergy member from receiving state money, language that goes further than the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state.

Trinity Lutheran, which runs a preschool and daycare center, wanted a safer surface for its playground. Its legal fight was led by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative Christian legal advocacy group.

The dispute pitted two provisions of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment against each other: the guarantee of the free exercise of religion and the Establishment Clause, which requires the separation of church and state.