SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – The unusual legal strategy used to ban most abortions in Texas is already being used more and more in Republican-run states to target pornography, LGBT rights and other important cultural issues.
While private residents filing lawsuits are some of the scenes as environmental legislation, some warn that expanding and applying it to new areas could have a boomerang effect if Democrats used it on issues such as environmental control. ‘weapons.
When Attorney General Merrick Garland announced it the Justice Department would sue for Texas law, it said it could become a model “for action in other areas, in other states, and with respect to other constitutional rights and protections.” He was concerned about the “damage that would be done to our society if states were allowed to enforce laws and authorize any private person to violate the constitutional rights of another.”
The concept has already appeared in other states, including on issues such as abortion, where courts have been in favor of conservative-backed laws.
In Missouri, a new law allows local police departments to sue for enforcing federal gun laws. In Kansas, residents can go to court to challenge the limits and obligations of public meetings, and in Ohio people can sue for any action taken in response to an emergency.
It is also a law enforcement mechanism restricting the use of transgender student restrooms in Tennessee and the participation of their sports team in Florida.
“These laws are deliberately designed to avoid challenges in federal court,” said Jessica Clarke, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in anti-discrimination laws, on Tennessee and Florida measures.
In Utah, an anti-pornography law was passed last year that required sites to issue a warning about the dangers to minors. It was called a violation of freedom of expression by adult entertainment venues, but the possible onslaught of lawsuits convinced major venues to comply before a single person sued.
Utah Republican Representative Brady Brammer said he modeled his bill on Proposition 65, which allows people who may have been exposed to potentially carcinogenic materials to sue and collect some sort of “reward.” they win. Civil enforcement has long been an element of environmental legislation, as private lawyers act as a kind of extension of stretched regulators. Judicial agreements with companies often provide funding to green nonprofits.
“Republicans are putting together the tool that Democrats believed they possessed, which was civilian enforcement,” Brammer said. “They follow the tactics that Democrats have used for years, for decades, and they do it for conservative causes.”
Texas abortion law, which lawmakers in several states want to copy, has another unusual feature that greatly expanded the number of people who can sue. Unlike the vast majority of civil law, it does not require people to prove that they have been directly affected.
After the Supreme Court decided not to block the law, only the threat of being sued meant that some abortion providers in Texas had stopped offering abortions altogether, even those before the specified six weeks.
But others point out that the tactic could again haunt Republicans who have long been trying to limit the size of court settlements in cases such as cases of medical malpractice.
If, for example, a widely applied civilian tactic was applied to gun control, people could be allowed to sue gun dealers if the gun was used to injure someone, said the attorney for Texas Michelle Simpson Tuegel, who sued to block the abortion law.
“This law in Texas is a double-edged sword for Republicans,” he said. “It’s potentially dangerous for them to go through something like this with other problems that can ignite them in a similar way.”