Bills Modeled on Texas Abortion Law Target Sex Abusers, Gun Sellers
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California’s governor wants to use Texas tactics to go after assault weapons sold in his state, while an Illinois state lawmaker seeks to penalize sex offenders.
Democratic lawmakers in at least two states are using Texas’ controversial six-week abortion ban as a model for legislation focused on other areas—in one case restricting assault rifles and in the other establishing new penalties for people who commit sexual assaults or cause unintended pregnancies.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said this weekend he was "outraged" about a U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow the Texas law to remain in effect. In rebuttal, Newsom wants to use similar tactics from Texas’s law to target assault rifle sales in his state.
He said he has directed his staff to work with the state legislature and the attorney general on a bill that would allow private citizens to seek injunctive relief against anyone who manufactures, distributes or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts in California, according to a statement released Saturday. Statutory damages of at least $10,000 per violation plus costs and attorney’s fees would be assessed.
"If states can now shield their laws from review by the federal courts that compare assault weapons to Swiss Army knives, then California will use that authority to protect people’s lives, where Texas used it to put women in harm’s way," he said.
Newsom is referring to the Texas law, which took effect Sept. 1, that prohibits abortions whenever an ultrasound can detect a “fetal heartbeat,” which can occur as early as six weeks of pregnancy. (Medical experts have said that term is misleading, as ultrasounds at that stage of gestation are detecting electrical impulses from cells that will eventually form a baby’s heart.) The law provides no exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
Last week the Supreme Court ruled that abortion providers in Texas can challenge the law, allowing them to sue at least some state officials in federal court. But the high court refused to block the law in the meantime, saying that lower courts should consider it.
Texas will not use government officials to enforce the policy, relying instead on private citizens to sue medical providers as well as anyone who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets” an abortion.
The minimum penalty for those actions is $10,000, according to the law, which permits legal action even if defendants are not aware that they are “aiding and abetting” an abortion. Those bringing the lawsuits stand to win the penalties if their case is successful.
Legal experts have previously cautioned that state lawmakers may look to imitate the citizen enforcement aspect of the Texas statute in other controversial areas of public policy.
‘Texas Act’ Allows For Bounties on Sexual Abusers
In Illinois, a state representative is proposing legislation that would enable anyone to take legal action against a person who commits an act of sexual assault, domestic violence, or who causes an unintended pregnancy, or those who enable those acts. The minimum penalty for people found to be in violation of the policy would be $10,000.
If enacted, the fines would be managed by the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services, with $5,000 of each fine going into a state fund to help people "forced to flee their home states to seek reproductive health care."
The legislation called The Expanding Abortion Services Act—the TExAS Act for short—was proposed this fall by state Rep. Kelly Cassidy.
According to a Cassidy press release, the act would ensure that all Illinois citizens have a continued right to reproductive health services—and extend that right to those who travel from "jurisdictions seeking to restrict access to abortion and other reproductive health care."
“If folks are policing the bodies of people who are seeking reproductive health care in Texas, well, then maybe we should be policing the bodies of the people who are causing those problems here in Illinois,” Cassidy told NPR Illinois.
Although Cassidy acknowledged the bill’s name includes some element of trolling, she said she’s serious about getting co-sponsors and a hearing on the legislation.
"The measure in Texas is just one piece of the radical attempt to dismantle reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care across the nation," Cassidy said in a press release. "I'm proud to come from a state that will uphold the fundamental right for a woman to make the best decision for her own health."
Andre Claudio is associate editor of Route Fifty.
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