Tag Archives: U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian

U.S. judge orders Post Office to expedite November election mail

By David Shepardson and Joseph Ax

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday ordered the U.S. Postal Service to expedite all November election mail and to approve additional overtime for postal workers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan said the Postal Service must treat to the extent possible all election mail as first-class mail or priority mail express and “shall pre-approve all overtime that has been or will be requested” between Oct. 26 and Nov. 6.

Marrero’s opinion said that in prior elections, including 2018, the Postal Service typically treated election mail as first-class mail, even if it was sent at marketing mail rates.

“Multiple managerial failures have undermined the postal employees’ ability to fulfill their vital mission,” he wrote.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, said he was issuing a nationwide injunction sought by 14 states in a case against President Donald Trump, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and the U.S. Postal Service over July changes to the service.

The 14 states, led by Washington, had filed a motion for a preliminary injunction asking the court to immediately halt a “leave mail behind” policy that required postal trucks to leave at certain times, regardless of whether mail was loaded.

DeJoy, a Trump supporter, said in August that he would halt many of the cost-cutting changes he put in place until after the presidential election after Democrats accused him of trying to put his thumb on the scales to help Trump, which he has denied. A surge in mail-in ballots is expected because of the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Dave Partenheimer said last week while the agency was exploring its legal options, it was “ready and committed to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives.”

“Our number one priority is to deliver election mail on time,” Partenheimer said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. judge blocks new Trump abortion rule for health clinics

An exam room at the Planned Parenthood South Austin Health Center in Austin, Texas, U.S. June 27, 2016. REUTERS/Ilana Panich-Linsman

By Steve Gorman and Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Washington state on Thursday blocked a Trump administration rule that would prohibit taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from referring patients to abortion providers.

The preliminary injunction bars enforcement nationwide of a policy that was due to go into effect on May 3 over the vehement objections of abortion supporters who have decried it as a “gag rule” designed to silence doctor-patient communications about abortion options.

“Today’s ruling ensures that clinics across the nation can remain open and continue to provide quality, unbiased healthcare to women,” Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement announcing the decision.

Washington state was a named plaintiff in the case challenging restrictions proposed by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to its Title X program subsidizing reproductive healthcare and family planning costs for low-income women.

Neither the White House nor HHS immediately responded to requests from Reuters for comment.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, in eastern Washington, capped a hearing in which oral arguments were presented by both sides.

“There is no public interest in perpetuating unlawful agency action,” Bastian wrote in his ruling.

Bastian also wrote that the “Plaintiffs have presented reasonable arguments that indicate they are likely to succeed on the merits.”

He said that the plaintiffs “are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction.”

A federal judge in Oregon earlier this week said he intended to grant a preliminary injunction in a similar but separate lawsuit brought by 20 states and the District of Columbia. Two more lawsuits challenging the Title X restrictions are pending in California and Maine.

The restrictions are aimed at fulfilling Republican President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to end federal support for Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides abortions and other health services for women under Title X.

Congress appropriated $286 million in Title X grants in 2017 to Planned Parenthood and other health centers to provide birth control, screening for diseases and other reproductive health and counseling to low-income women.

The funding is already prohibited from being used for abortions, but abortion opponents have long complained that the money in effect subsidizes Planned Parenthood as a whole.

Planned Parenthood provides healthcare services to about 40 percent of the 4 million people who rely on Title X funding annually, and the organization has argued that community health centers would be unable to absorb its patients.

Under the new rule, clinics that receive Title X funding would be barred from referring patients for abortion as a method of family planning. The regulation also would require financial and physical separation between facilities funded by Title X and those providing abortions.

Abortion opponents have argued the plan would not ban abortion counseling but would ensure that taxpayer funding does not support clinics that also perform the procedure.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Nate Raymond in Boston; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Tom Brown and Cynthia Osterman)