(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS. By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

WASHINGTON, D.C.- In a 5-4 split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday refused to reverse the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and  allowed a Texas law that bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy to remain in effect, denying requested emergency relief from abortion providers who had asked the nation's highest court to put the law on hold as legal challenges from opponents of the new measure make their way through the courts.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat and former California attorney general, and the country's first woman and first Black vice president, was disappointed with the court decision and said in a press release on Saturday to Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com that "the harm to women remains," and that "we must protect the constitutional right recognized under Roe v. Wade by codifying it into law and we must pass the Women's Health Protection Act."

Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices, including two Obama appointees, dissented as to Friday's high court ruling with Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, writing the opinion for the majority, namely the five members of the court representing its conservative arm, including Justice Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the court and a George W. Bush appointee.

Gorsuch stressed in the court's 48-page majority opinion that the court's review in the matter was procedural and not a ruling on the merits or as to the constitutionality of the law. And he said on behalf of the court that the plaintiffs', who argued that the law is egregious enough to warrant emergency intervention by the court, did not meet the burden by which the court could intervene and block enforcement of the law pending the outcome of lower court litigation on the issue.

The court, however, did rule that lawsuits in federal court challenging the law, officially dubbed Senate Bill 8, can go forward, the only sliver of hope, say sources, for abortion and reproductive rights advocates who fear that SB8, which does not have a waiver for rape or incest, opens the floodgates for the passage of similar anti-abortion laws across the country by Republican- dominated state legislatures.

The controversial Texas law, which took effect on Wednesday, also permits random civilians to sue those who violate the law for such things of aiding an abortion for up to $10,000, activity that opponents say is ludicrous and commensurate to economic sanctions in the form of a bounty.

Like the aforementioned abortion clinics and other providers who had asked the court to block the new Texas law while lawsuits over the statute's legality continue, President Joe Biden's administration had also asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to lift a judge's order blocking the law until lower courts could rule in the cases before them. But the court, also on Friday, denied that request too.

In response the Democratic president said Friday that he is "very concerned."

Friday's Supreme Court decision comes on the heels of another recent precedent setting case relative to abortion rights. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec 1 in the celebrated abortion rights case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenges a Mississippi law that bans practically all abortions after 15 weeks. The case is, by most standards, the latest attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal nationwide.

Vice President Harris, 57, is the first woman of color to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America. Her parents, who divorced when she was five years old, were both immigrants, her mom from Chennai, India, her dad from Jamaica. She won the election for vice president in November of 2020 when Biden ousted then president  Donald Trump, Biden winning both the popular vote and the  electoral college. 

Then the California attorney general, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 2016. When she was chosen by Biden as his running mate on his presidential ticket she became the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

COLUMBUS, Ohio-The Ohio Supreme Court heard oral arguments via a hearing Wednesday relative to three pending lawsuits challenging Republican-approved state legislative district maps, controversial maps approved in September by the Ohio Redistricting Commission (ORC), which is under fire and accused of  approving illegally drawn maps that are racist and that favor Republican candidates for office. (Editor's note: The ORC also has jurisdiction under state law to approve congressional district maps when the state legislature reaches an impasse on the issue but this article pertains to the controversy around the ORC's drawing of maps for state legislative districts, and three pending lawsuits that say the new maps are unconstitutional).

Set to take effect for the 2022 elections for open seats on the  Ohio state legislature, such maps determine state district boundaries for elections of state representatives and state senators in Ohio, and in a discriminatory fashion, the lawsuits say. Currently, Republicans control the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate, which is partly why the ORC is largely Republican.

An amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2015 changed the way the process for drawing congressional and state legislative maps occurs and created the ORC, though districts are still drawn initially in conjunction with population dynamics in response to the U.S. Census every 10 years. The year 2020 marked 10-years since the last applicable census and, accordingly, this year is the first time that the new process that employs authority to the ORC to step in for the state legislature when a partisan conflict ensues over the maps has been put to a test.

The first lawsuit for which the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments at Monday's hearing was filed by the ACLU primarily on behalf of the League of Women Voters and the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the second by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee on behalf of a group of Ohio voters. A third suit was brought by plaintiffs who say the maps dilute Black Muslim votes. It was filed by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, the Ohio Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Ohio Environmental Council. All three of the lawsuits were filed in the Ohio Supreme Court and allege in large part that the ORC purposely gerrymandered the maps to help Republicans win elections over Democrats for state House and Senate races with the plaintiffs in the third lawsuit claiming also that the maps have racial implications that raise constitutional questions since a majority of Black and Muslim voters and voters of color in general are Democrats.

"OOC believes that the maps currently under scrutiny by the state's highest court are unconstitutional because of the ways they dilute the power of voters in Black, brown, immigrant, and Muslim communities through "cracking and packing," a spokesperson for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative said in a statement to Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader.

Led by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a Republican and the court's first woman chief justice, the seven member majority Republican court is composed of four Republicans and three Democrats, and it remains to be seen if the justices of the state's highest court, a majority of them women and only one of them Black, will rule along party lines as to the maps, sources said Wednesday. (Editor note: Justice Melody Stewart, a Democrat and a former 8th District Court of Appeals judge out of Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, is the only Black on the Ohio Supreme Court, and she is the first Black ever elected to the court).

The maps were approved by the commission (ORC) 5-2 on Sept. 16 with Democrats House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes of Akron and her father, state Sen Vernon Sykes, also of Akron, refusing to support the measure. Both of them are Black.

The five Republican members of the ORC, including Ohio Gov Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, eagerly voted for the new maps and subsequently issued a press release praising the process. The issue moved to the seven member commission (ORC) after state lawmakers as a whole and along party lines could not agree to the redistricting maps. Under the new redistricting rules that Ohio voters approved at the ballot box in 2015 the maps are for four years because Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature could not agree on 10-year maps.

Ohio lawmakers are term-limited. State law restricts state legislators in Ohio from holding office for more than eight years, and only after a four year period out of office.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.