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Thursday, July 28, 2022

Two Republican gutless wonders. Schultz and Wardlow. Ellison declines to appeal a correct district court decision. Those two piss and moan over it, with neither moving to intervene and take up an appeal. Total gutless. It's their chance to show their chops.

 Ellison made the sane choice. Zero likelihood that carefully drawn decision following precedent would be reversed. There is cost, no benefit, an easy decision to not contest a proper decision. However:

 Strib

Ellison's decision comes more than two weeks after a district court judge ruled many state laws restricting abortion access were unconstitutional, immediately blocking their enforcement. By not appealing, Ellison's move will indefinitely ensure expanded access to abortion in Minnesota, now a haven for the procedure in the Midwest following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

"I must consider the broad public interest in deciding whether to appeal any court outcome, including rulings related to the constitutionality of state laws," Ellison said in a lengthy statement about his decision. "The public interest includes a number of factors, including the likelihood of success of an appeal, the proper and careful use of state resources, the impact on other areas of state law, and the public's need for finality."

In his 140-page ruling, Ramsey District Judge Thomas Gilligan cited the 1995 state Supreme Court ruling in Doe v. Gomez, which found abortion access was a constitutional right and certain restrictions were a violation of the right to privacy. Ellison said he thought it was "unlikely" the state would get a different result if they appealed.

[...]  Abortion rights advocates are waiting to see if anyone will try to intervene in the case and appeal during the 60-day window following the July 11 ruling. In the meantime, they celebrated Ellison's decision, saying it will expand abortion access at a time when there's increased demand and a backlog of appointments in Minnesota.

[...] 

The top two GOP candidates for attorney general — Jim Schultz and Doug Wardlow — criticized Ellison's decision, saying they would appeal if they held the job.

"Yet another dereliction of duty by Keith Ellison. All motivated by his far-left politics," Schultz, the Republican-endorsed candidate, said in a Tweet on Thursday. "These bi-partisan statutes are clearly constitutional and Minnesota deserves an Attorney General who will stand up to activist judges."

Wardlow accused Ellison of "pushing his pro-abortion agenda" and said he would do everything in his power to defend the law, including appealing decisions when they don't go "the right way."

Ellison's office has been in litigation in the case, known as Doe v. Minnesota, for more than three years, after abortion rights groups sued to try and cancel more than a dozen restrictions in one fell swoop.

He estimated his staff has spent more than 4,000 hours and upwards of $600,000 defending those laws. Ellison said he makes appeal decisions on a case-by-case basis, declining to appeal rulings in other cases. DFL Gov. Tim Walz, listed as a defendant in the case, has said the ruling was "clear" and wouldn't ask Ellison to appeal.

"I have made clear throughout that my personal view has been that the challenged laws were not good public policy," Ellison said. "I have nonetheless vigorously defended those laws."

Ellison says, in effect, enough is enough.

Those two Republican wimps grump but don't have the bal wherewithal to do anything but crab. Action Jackson, they ain't. Neither proves himself fit for the job, nor really caring beyond getting the ticket punched, "We disagree, we say he has a duty to perform a useless act. Shame, shame, shame."

If either really feels it is a winnable appeal, jump in and prove it, or shut tf up.

It really is galling to see complaint instead of back-up-your-carping action. It's a dog of an appeal, a loser, they both know it, and yet throw stones. Would a more honest candidate behave differently? Either not moan and groan, or intervene, but not what both of the two do?

_________UPDATE________

After settling down a bit with the outrage waning, another Strib item (worth reading in full), notes in ending:

Minnesota reported 10,136 abortions in 2021, a 2% increase from 2019. Ellison's campaign said he supports Roe's framework establishing fetal viability — generally considered between 23 and 24 weeks of pregnancy — as a threshold for state restrictions, with "critical exceptions" for the health of the baby and "the health and well-being of the pregnant person."

With 2020 - the pandemic year -  possibly an exception, ten thousand of any medical procedure per year shows the procedure was available, utilized, and not abnormal in terms of general medical practice. Without the Gomez Supreme Court holding being the controlling law, think of the anguish those numerous women would have faced in having to possibly travel out of state to exercise basic, fundamental autonomy over their bodies and their lives. Inflicting anguish upon other real and sentinent humans, over an aspect of one's own religeous belief, is untenable. Such a degree of interference into someone else's life choices - on such a thin basis - offends any sane idea of freedom and rights in a civil society. Separation of church and state was and remains a bedrock principle held by the nation's founders, with it being expressly, clearly, put into the Constitution

The rats are eating away at separation of church and state, but have not consumed it entirely.