Red States

• Half a dozen states, including Tennessee, Montana, Iowa, and Texas, have passed legislation allowing gun owners to carry their weapons without a permit.
• Texas, South Carolina, Idaho, and Oklahoma have passed legislation banning abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, after about six weeks of pregnancy (before women typically even know they are pregnant); Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas also passed virtually complete bans on abortion. Arizona approved an extremely restrictive bill that includes barring abortions for certain genetic conditions.
• Ten states have adopted about two dozen laws in total targeting transgender individuals, including legislation in seven states that bars transgender athletes from competing in school sports. In the U.S., “2021 has officially surpassed 2015 as the worst year for anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent history,” the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ-advocacy group, recently concluded. “States have now enacted more anti-LGBTQ laws this year than in the last three years combined.”
• Through mid-May, “14 states have enacted 22 new laws with provisions that make it harder for Americans to vote,” and many other laws are still pending, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. “At this rate,” the organization wrote, “the United States is on track to far exceed its most recent period of intense legislative activity to restrict the vote—2011.” More red states may join this push: After a walkout by state House Democrats blocked a restrictive Texas voting law this week, Governor Greg Abbott announced that he would call a special session to pass the law later this year.
• Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and about half a dozen other states have passed laws stiffening penalties against demonstrators who block traffic or cause property damage, and several of those states have simultaneously provided civil or criminal protection for drivers who hit protesters, according to a tally by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.
• Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas have barred public schools from teaching “critical race theory,” which focuses on racism as an endemic feature of American history. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is moving to prohibit it through a ruling by the state board of education.
• Florida, Georgia, and Texas have all passed laws penalizing local governments that cut funding for their police department. One of the measures approved in Texas stipulates that a county looking to cut police funding must first win voter approval through a referendum—but would apply only to counties with a population of 1 million or more, almost all of which lean Democratic.
• Over the past year, several red-state governors have issued executive orders or signed laws barring local governments from mandating the use of face masks or limiting local businesses’ hours of operation; Florida and Tennessee have passed laws barring local governments or businesses from requiring residents to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination. Restrictive voting laws passed in Georgia and proposed in Texas explicitly outlaw measures used to increase voter turnout in the states’ largest cities (Atlanta and Houston, respectively).