Democratic Wins in Five State AG Races Could Reshape Pending Lawsuits on Abortion Drugs, Immigration and Climate
Democrats will take over the attorney general offices of Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas and Texas following the November 3 midterm elections, a shift that could change the course of a string of pending lawsuits championed by outgoing Republican attorneys general, Reuters reported on November 8.
Abortion litigation comes first. Texas is among the states suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its approval of the abortion drug mifepristone; if Texas Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson withdraws, Florida would remain as a plaintiff. Kansas Attorney General-elect Chris Mann could withdraw his state from a separate challenge to rules that expanded access to mifepristone, leaving Missouri and Idaho as plaintiffs. Johnson told Reuters he will assess the pending lawsuits brought by Ken Paxton's office: "Everything will be examined." Texas could also decline to defend its near-total abortion ban and back away from at least three cases enforcing a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In Georgia, Attorney General-elect Tanya Miller's win could affect the state's defense of HB 481, its six-week abortion ban.
Pharmaceutical cases are also in play, including Texas's suit against Kenvue over alleged links between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism, which Kenvue has denied, and suits by Paxton and Kansas's Kris Kobach accusing Pfizer of misrepresenting its COVID-19 vaccine, which Pfizer has said were accurate and science-based.
Environmental and immigration cases could shift as well. Kansas is among the plaintiffs in Texas's antitrust suit against BlackRock and other asset managers over climate activism; BlackRock has denied wrongdoing and Vanguard settled its claims for $29.5 million in February. Texas's new attorney general could drop the state's defense of SB4, which lets state authorities arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the border, and Iowa Attorney General-elect Nate Willems could decline to defend a similar Iowa law. A federal judge in Atlanta paused Georgia's congressional-map litigation on Thursday, citing the impending change in the attorney general's office, and Texas's positions in the Ten Commandments classroom-display case and the ActBlue fundraising-platform suit could also be revisited.
(Source: Reuters)
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于 Austin 的德克萨斯州议会大厦。Daderot 摄，CC0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Texas State Capitol in Austin. Photo by Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
