August 2022

But following Wednesday’s vote, the groups supporting the amendment will have to petition the state’s Supreme Court on whether voters will be able to decide whether abortion remains legal in the swing state.

The board’s GOP members voted against approving the measure for the ballot after the anti-abortion group campaigning against the amendment, Citizens to Support MI Women and Children, argued that spacing and formatting errors in the text circulated to voters for their signatures rendered the effort invalid.

“Nonsense cannot be put into the Michigan constitution,” Eric Doster, the attorney for Citizens to Support MI Women and Children, argued on Wednesday. “Actual words are required.”

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Elections opted not to act on the challenge, saying it concerned an issue outside its purview, which is “whether there are sufficient signatures to warrant certification of the proposal.” But Republicans on the State Board of Canvassers felt otherwise.

“You wouldn’t sign a mortgage that had this kind of mistake in it. You wouldn’t turn in a term paper with this kind of mistake in it,” said the board’s Republican chair, Tony Daunt.

Mary Ellen Gurewitz, the board’s Democratic vice chair, vehemently disagreed.

“While the words are compressed, I think it’s easy to read. And 700,000 people also thought it was easy to read,” she said. “We simply have no authority to reject this petition based on challenges to the content. That is not within our purview.”

The vote throws into limbo whether Michigan will join a growing number of states where voters will determine to what extent abortion remains legal following the fall of Roe v. Wade — with votes scheduled for November in California, Vermont, Kentucky and Montana. Along with a slew of pending court cases and state legislative battles, these ballot initiatives have the potential to remake the country’s abortion access map as the number of states implementing near-total bans has mounted.

If the measure is ultimately placed on the ballot and Michigan voters approve it, it would insert permanent protections into the state’s constitution not only for abortion but also for other reproductive health services, including miscarriage management, birth control, prenatal care and in-vitro fertilization. It also would stop the state’s 1931 abortion ban from going back into effect should state courts uphold it in two pending cases involving lawsuits by Planned Parenthood and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The ban, which has no exemptions for rape or incest, remains blocked by a lower county court’s preliminary injunction.

Progressive activists in Michigan had planned a ballot initiative for years as they anticipated the fall of Roe v. Wade.

They officially kicked off at the beginning of 2022 — after oral arguments at the Supreme Court convinced many the fall of Roe v. Wade was only a matter of time. While the signature gathering started off slow, interest skyrocketed and tens of thousands of Michiganders volunteered to knock on doors after POLITICO published the draft court opinion overturning Roe at the beginning of May. When the Supreme Court ruling came down at the end of June, their campaign kicked into an even higher gear.

Now, pending court arguments on whether the measure will appear on the ballot at all, both sides are preparing for an intense and expensive campaign between now and November.

Michigan Right to Life has reserved nearly $16 million dollars worth of TV airtime for ads opposing the amendment. Michigan Reproductive Freedom for All is planning to open field offices across the state as early as this weekend and begin knocking on doors on Sept. 9.

Energy from Diablo Canyon, the governor said Wednesday, does not produce greenhouse gases and is needed to cover gaps in the grid as the state transitions away from fossil fuels.

“This is critical in the context of making sure we have energy reliability going forward,” he said in a speech addressing the looming heat wave.

Extending the life of the plant, he said, is a critical component of an energy and climate package that he sent to lawmakers in the final weeks of the session. It includes measures that would turn the goal of carbon neutrality by 2045 into a state law; the establishment of buffer zones of 3,200 feet between new oil wells and schools and homes; and new regulations on carbon capture technology.

Diablo Canyon, the governor said, is essential to the state’s ambitions to lead on climate issues. “That energy does not produce greenhouse gases. That energy provides baseload and reliability and affordability that will complement and allow us to store all the of the green energy that we’re bringing online at record rates.”

The bill Newsom requested would authorize a $1.4 billion forgivable loan to the plant’s operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, and extend its operations for five years, to 2030. The plant provides nearly 10 percent of California’s energy.

“What we’re trying to do is avoid the rolling blackouts,” state Sen. Bill Dodd, a Napa Democrat who co-authored the Diablo Canyon extension legislation, said in an interview. “These are things that have plagued us. If we don’t do this, we stand the risk of having significant cost increases.”

Environmentalists, who worked for years to close the plant along the seismically active Central Coast, are fighting the extension, and it is uncertain whether the administration can get the required two-thirds votes in the state Senate and Assembly.

Despite their opposition, Newsom said the state has little choice but to act given the severity of the climate crisis, which he said has been reflected by many recent events — pointedly noting the 2021 power outages in Texas during severe winter storms.

“We are used to record-breaking temperatures, maybe a day or two, more episodic, but this is an extended period,” he said. “As a consequence, it’s going to require us to extend our thinking and our imagination in terms of working together to keep people healthy.”

Temperatures are expected to soar past 100 degrees in the coming days, even in places such as downtown Los Angeles unaccustomed to such extreme heat this time of year. The state capital is bracing for a high of 110 degrees on Monday.

California’s Independent System Operator projected that the grid would see the highest demand of the year on Monday. It has already taken measures to avoid power going down and warned that it would likely ask the public to voluntarily conserve energy throughout the long weekend to avoid stressing the grid further.

Such warnings have become familiar to Californians in the heat of summer, and officials and energy experts say they could become more frequent as the state phases out natural gas-fired power plants in the transition to alternative fuels.

“At the same time, we have to recognize that political conversation and debates are becoming more bitter and more aggressive. … And it’s something that should worry us profoundly as a democracy.”

Aside from the prime minister, Canadian politicians — including Cabinet ministers and opposition leaders — are not automatically assigned security details. But amid a spate of harassment and violent threats being reported against politicians and journalists in recent weeks, the government is facing increased pressure to respond.

On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was accosted at the city hall in Grande Prairie, Alberta, as she was entering an elevator. In a video widely circulated on social media, a large man approached her, calling her a “f—ing traitorous f—ing b–h,” and told her to leave the province. Freeland appeared to be accompanied only by female staffers.

At a press conference Wednesday in Calgary, Freeland deflected questions about whether she needs heightened security, saying only that she will “always follow the advice” of police. She said she still feels welcome in Alberta, the province where she was born and raised, and where she still has family.

Freeland has spoken recently about wanting political leaders to remain accessible to voters, in contrast with the United States. When U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Toronto in June, Freeland later recounted, she asked how Freeland’s security detail felt about the deputy prime minister biking to the Royal Ontario Museum to meet her. Freeland said she had to explain to Yellen that she had no such detail.

“A real strength of Canada is that I feel safe being out there on my own,” she said. “I hope that that can continue.”

Other politicians evidently disagree. “It’s time for ministers to have security … worthy of a G-7 country,” Conservative MP Gérard Deltell said Monday on Twitter. Provincial ministers in Quebec, Deltell’s home province, are accompanied by armed drivers who act as bodyguards.

Trudeau acknowledged Wednesday there’s disagreement among members of his Cabinet about whether every minister needs a bodyguard. “I think it’s a very personal decision for many ministers,” he said.

Earlier in the week, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told reporters the government is looking at options to improve security for politicians, but didn’t offer specifics. Canadian members of Parliament are now being issued panic buttons they can use to immediately alert local police.

The incident involving Freeland occurred amid a broader discussion of harassment and abuse directed at public figures in Canada, including journalists. In recent weeks, a number of female journalists, including several journalists of color, have reported receiving violent, misogynistic, racist threats online.

Trudeau and other leaders have publicly denounced the pattern of threats. The Canadian Association of Journalists is calling on police forces to improve their processes for responding to complaints of hate speech and harassment.

On Wednesday, Procurement Minister Helena Jaczek told reporters she believes the impact of Covid-19 on social interaction is partly to blame for the increasing toxicity. “It’s not Canadian behavior,” she said. “It’s surprising.” Jaczek said she was subject to “verbal abuse and somewhat intimidating behavior” during Canada’s 2021 federal election.

The Liberal government has promised to tackle the rise in hate with new “online safety” legislation that would aim to make social media companies more accountable for harmful content on their platforms. But the government’s initial proposals, which included forcing tech giants to take down flagged content within 24 hours, met with heavy pushback and concerns about censorship.

There’s no timeline for legislation to be introduced.

The bill is sure to be contentious, however, particularly if Canada’s opposition Conservatives elect frontrunner Pierre Poilievre as their leader next month. Poilievre has accused the Liberals of “attack[ing] free speech at every opportunity,” and has promised to protect Canadians’ “freedom of expression online.”

But Gorbachev is to be buried in the cemetery of Novodevichy Convent, the resting place for the ousted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who had criticized Stalin’s “cult of personality,” and for Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president who became the ex-USSR’s dominant leader.

He is to be buried next to his wife Raisa, a demonstration of their public affection, which was such a contrast to the other leaders’ barely visible personal lives.

The Kremlin has not announced whether it will be a state funeral. Gorbachev was a divisive, often-detested figure in Russia, and the state he led — the Soviet Union — no longer exists.

Gorbachev was praised Tuesday by some world leaders, including President Joe Biden, for being open to democratic changes. Others criticized efforts by Soviet authorities to crush dissent in their countries under his leadership.

When the death was announced of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Europe’s Western elites lined up to pay glowing tributes to the heroic statesman who helped end the Cold War. For many Eastern Europeans, the truth is bitterly different.

“Lithuanians will not glorify Gorbachev,” Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said. “We will never forget the simple fact that his army murdered civilians to prolong his regime’s occupation of our country. His soldiers fired on our unarmed protestors and crushed them under his tanks. That is how we will remember him.”

As the European Union grapples with how to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, disagreements over Gorbachev’s legacy once again expose the deep divisions among the bloc’s 27 member states over policy toward Moscow.

It is countries like Lithuania, which are closest to the front line, that are at greatest risk from a newly aggressive Russia and have the greatest reason to fear a complacent reading of history.

Coming less than 24 hours after Gorbachev’s death was announced, the outburst from Landsbergis was remarkable. Only a few hours earlier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had praised Gorbachev as a “trusted and respected leader,” who “opened the way for a free Europe.” 

French President Emmanuel Macron also weighed in, saying Gorbachev’s “commitment to peace in Europe changed our common history.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the former Soviet Union leader had made his country’s existence as a unified state possible.

Similar words of praise came from Washington, London and Dublin.

But for Lithuanians like Landsbergis, the events of Gorbachev’s rule remain painful today. In January 1991, the Soviet army stormed parliament and a television and radio center, killing 14 people. Days later, five people were killed when troops broke into a Latvian government ministry and opened fire.

The bloodshed didn’t stop there. In Azerbaijan, 150 people were killed by the Soviet military, while more than 20 people were massacred by Soviet forces, armed with batons and shovels, in Tbilisi, Georgia.

These violent episodes are often overlooked when Western politicians give accounts of those heady, history-making times as the Soviet Union disintegrated.

Gorbachev, who was president during this era, himself denied any knowledge of the atrocities. In his 1995 book, “Memoirs,” Gorbachev addressed the controversy, claiming he was unaware of what was happening in the Baltics, and vaguely hinting at a conspiracy.

“When it comes to memories of Gorbachev, the Baltic experience is different,” said Kadri Liik, senior policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations. “For much of Europe, Gorbachev was the one who ended the Cold War, he allowed Germany to reunify, whereas the memory in the Baltic states is that — yes, he launched perestroika, glasnost — but he was against the independence drive in the Baltic states.”

The pain of the violent events of 1991 is still felt, particularly in Lithuania.

Earlier this year, families of those killed in the Soviet crackdown of 1991 filed a civil lawsuit against Gorbachev. The plaintiffs argued that, as commander-in-chief of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1991, Gorbachev had the power to prevent the event but didn’t.

In 2019 several dozen former Russian officials were convicted of war crimes in a Vilnius court for their part in the raids. But their convictions were handed down in absentia because Russia and Belarus refused to extradite them.

As Gorbachev’s death reopens these wounds, it also accentuates the current divides within Europe about Russia.

From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the trio of Baltic countries — along with former eastern bloc states such as Poland — have embraced a hawkish position on the war, advocating a more robust response from the EU. 

Armed with an historical memory of Soviet control that Western Europe simply does not possess, the Eastern members of the EU have chastised their Western partners for their perceived naivety when it comes to Vladimir Putin. 

The east-west divide about how to respond to Putin has permeated every part of EU policymaking since the war began — from the tortured rounds of negotiations on sanctions, to the need to accelerate energy independence from Russia — with the Baltic and East European countries repeatedly calling for more forceful action.

It is also driving the current standoff about banning Russian visitors from Europe. The Baltics have been urging the EU to implement an all-out ban on Russian visitors, a proposal that has met resistance from a group of Western European states.

As the comments lionizing Gorbachev for his role in ending the Cold War and championing a détente with the West continue to come thick and fast, there has also been a notable silence from the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Gorbachev’s handling of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 looms large in the history of Ukraine.

The then-Soviet leader famously chose to play down the disaster, not informing the general population of what had happened until weeks after. Labor Day parades in cities and towns went ahead as planned, even as radiation drifted over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Gorbachev’s views on Putin’s war in Ukraine over the last few months are not clear — a day after the invasion he called for a “cessation of hostilities” and for peace talks to begin, though stopped short of blaming Russia. 

Gorbachev also supported Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, a takeover that is deemed illegal by the EU and by most of the international community.

As with many figures in world history, the legacy of Gorbachev is part myth, part fact.  Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs perhaps came closest to reality in his response to Gorbachev’s death on Tuesday. 

Gorbachev “tried to reform Soviet Union and he failed,” Rinkēvičs tweeted. The collapse of the Soviet Union was “the best moment of the 20th century,” he said, but it wasn’t that simple.

“The end of the Cold war was great but killing of people in Tbilisi, Vilnius, Riga is also part of his legacy. It is up to the History to judge him.”

Camille Gijs and Zoya Sheftalovich contributed reporting