One Country Project

Good afternoon,

Yesterday, Florida's Supreme Court banned abortions after six weeks. Fittingly, this incredibly foolish judgement was handed down on April 1. However, it's no laughing matter for the over 4 million women of childbearing age now trapped in Florida without access to abortion services. If you haven't heard in the nearly two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many women do not even know they're pregnant at six weeks. Since women lost their rights and reproductive freedoms, state abortion bans and restrictions have led to doctors moving their practices out of state, maternity ward closures and maternity care desert expansion, and worsening health outcomes for women throughout the country.

Florida's ban will essentially eliminate abortion access in the South. Even former president Donald Trump – who, through his extreme partisan nominees to the Supreme Court, has done more than any other politician to take away basic rights – criticized Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the six-week ban, which will now go into effect starting in May.

However, the court also allowed for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access up to about 24 weeks to appear on the ballot this November. Florida, a former swing state, has reliably gone red in recent elections. That hasn't stopped voters from approving more liberal ballot measures – creating some hope that Florida will follow the lead of Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio, red states whose voters elected to preserve abortion access. It remains to be seen if abortion politics revives Florida's purple past.

A Fox News survey found that a record number of voters (59 percent) believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 44 percent in April 2022, before the Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned Roe. Since then, support for abortion has seen double-digit increases in points amongst conservative voters. Overall, voters oppose a six-week abortion ban by a 20-point margin, in contrast to 2022's 4-point pro-ban margin, and oppose a 15 week ban by 11-points, compared to a 13-point margin in favor in 2022.

Voters' support of access to abortion continues to rise in direct contrast to elected Republicans, who are hellbent on restricting their constituents' personal health care decisions.

Here's what else you need to know this week...

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS UN-BARRED

The Social Security Administration issued a new rule that will prevent food assistance from reducing payments to Supplementary Security Income (SSI) recipients, adults and children who are disabled or blind, or 65 years and older who have little to no income or financial resources.

Currently, support in the form of food or shelter can count as unearned income for SSI beneficiaries known as In-Kind Support and Maintenance (ISM), and affect eligibility for benefits or reduce payments. Starting September 30, food will no longer count towards eligibility calculations.

Streamlining and simplifying this process will better help the 7.4 million Americans – a disproportionate number of whom live in rural regions – who receive SSI support to pay for food, clothing, rent, and medicine, and reduce administrative costs of making benefits assessments.

Republicans in Congress continue to advocate cutting Social Security benefits for millions of Americans who pay into the program, threatening to raise the Social Security retirement age in the name of "fiscal sanity" – a plan of fiscal stupidity which would financially fail families in their districts. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is working to remove barriers for Americans in need and improve access to these critical benefits.

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TRIBES, TRANSPORTATION, AND THE ENERGY TRANSITION

A separate Biden administration initiative seeks to support Tribal Nations, who have suffered from a lack of public funding and support and are often on the frontlines of climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean School Bus Program, part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is helping to connect 1,550 Red Lake Nation students in northern Minnesota with electric school buses.

Tribal school systems often rely entirely on federal support, with no assistance from state and local governments. Unsafe roads and bridges in reservations, which have long been denied infrastructure resources, create greater wear on school buses and increase maintenance costs – and in extreme weather conditions, can't operate at all, failing to deliver students to school and resulting in higher school absenteeism and lower educational outcomes for American Indian students. In Red Lake, 45 percent of children live in poverty and less than 1 in 4 graduate from high school.

Red Lake's 26 buses produce 11,5000 metric tons of emissions, or 7.4 pounds per student annually – much higher per capita than buses travelling similar distances in urban districts. In a small, rural district where buses must travel farther distances to reach students, two electric buses is a small but necessary step to reducing pollution.

The district will be a proving ground for electric buses' viability, in not only ability to get students to school and effectiveness in reducing emissions amidst an energy transition, but also in the federal government's commitment to Tribal America's unique needs.