Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) with former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)

Long before Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) convinced most of the House Republican caucus to vote to phase out Medicare, and long before former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) ended his political career by claiming “legitimate rape” is a form of contraception, the two men were partners in pushing anti-woman legislation. Ryan and Akin were original co-sponsors of the so-called “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” a bill which, among other things, introduced the nation to the term “forcible rape.” And they partnered on a so-called “personhood” bill that would criminalize all abortions.

Todd Akin’s no longer an elected official, but Paul Ryan is still carrying Akin’s mantle in the new Congress:

Despite the deep unpopularity of fetal personhood bills in 2012, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has again decided to cosponsor the Sanctity of Human Life Act, a bill that gives full legal rights to human zygotes from the moment of fertilization.

Ryan, who reportedly has 2016 presidential ambitions, had to de-emphasize his opposition to abortion without exceptions during the 2012 election to align his position with presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But this year, Ryan has been tapped as a keynote speaker for the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List’s sixth annual Campaign for Life Gala, and he is re-upping his support for the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the country.

The personhood bill, first introduced in 2011 by Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and reintroduced by Broun last week, specifies that a “one-celled human embryo,” even before it implants in the uterus to create a pregnancy, should be granted “all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” Similar legislation has been rejected by voters in multiple states, including the socially conservative Mississippi, because legal experts have pointed out that it could outlaw some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization as well as criminalize abortion at all stages.

In the previous Congress, a total of 65 members of the House joined Akin and Ryan in co-sponsoring this bill.

Tactical Response CEO James Yeager

Pro-gun extremists have reached hysterics since reports that Vice President Joe Biden’s task force will consider executive orders to combat gun violence. The CEO of Tennessee-based Tactical Response, a firearms training company, delivered threats on YouTube that White House action would “spark a civil war.” CEO James Yeager said if gun violence prevention goes any further he would “start killing people”:

I’m telling you that if that happens, it’s going to spark a civil war, and I’ll be glad to fire the first shot. I’m not putting up with it. You shouldn’t put up with it. And I need all you patriots to start thinking about what you’re going to do, load your damn mags, make sure your rifle’s clean, pack a backpack with some food in it and get ready to fight. I’m not fucking putting up with this. I’m not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I’m not letting anybody take my guns! If it goes one inch further, I’m going to start killing people.

The video was replaced with an edited version, but Raw Story has the original:

The Drudge Report only fed conservative outrage yesterday by comparing President Obama to Hitler, and Stalin. And NRA board member Ted Nugent claimed gun owners are the true victims, likening them to civil rights hero Rosa Parks.

The reality is no one will take away Yeager’s guns. Any executive order would likely strengthen background checks, a safety measure most gun owners endorse. A ban on assault weapons and the gun show loophole would require congressional action.

Vice President Joe Biden will not deliver his suggestions for gun violence prevention measures to the President until Tuesday. But, in a move that is as unconstitutional as it is presumptuous, lawmakers in Wyoming have already mounted their effort to block whatever legislative measures Biden might suggest. They aim to nullify any federal law that they do not like, and to create punishments for federal agents who might try to enforce new gun safety measures.

In a bill sponsored by eight representatives and two state senators, the lawmakers stipulate that “any federal law which attempts to ban a semi-automatic firearm or to limit the size of a magazine of a firearm or other limitation on firearms in this state shall be unenforceable in Wyoming.” These two measures have been among Biden’s proposals. The Wyoming bill also makes it a felony to enforce federal gun laws:

Any official, agent or employee of the United States government who enforces or attempts to enforce any act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the United States government upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition that is owned or manufactured commercially or privately in Wyoming and that remains exclusively within the borders of Wyoming shall be guilty of a felony. and, upon conviction, shall be subject to imprisonment for not more less than one (1) year and one (1) day or more than five (5) years, a fine of not more than two thousand dollars ($2,000.00) five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both[...]

Any federal law, rule, regulation or order created or effective on or after January 1, 2013

shall be unenforceable within the borders of Wyoming if the law, rule, regulation or order attempts to:
(i) Ban or restrict ownership of a semiautomatic firearm or any magazine of a firearm; or
(ii) Require any firearm, magazine or other firearm accessory to be registered in any manner.

There’s just one glaring problem with the legislators’ plan: If the federal government were to pass such measures, the bill would be unconstitutional.

The constitutional theory they are implementing is called “nullification” — where a state nullifies a federal law, in this case gun safety measures. The constitution actually stipulates that federal law “shall be the supreme law of the land.”

But the lawmakers seem to be ignoring that issue. Wyoming State Senator Larry Hicks tells the Washington Examiner that the he believes the measure is constitutional under the tenth and second amendments. His colleague, Rep. Kendell Kroeker adds that, no matter the constitutionality, “I think that its necessary when the federal government violates our rights in the Constitution we have to act.”

This isn’t the first effort by the Wyoming legislature to circumvent federal law. On the state’s ballot in November, lawmakers added a proposed constitutional amendment that would have exempted the state from Obamacare.

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA)

In his State of the Commonwealth address Wednesday, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) endorsed the automatic the restoration of civil rights for non-violent felons who have completed their sentences. Virginia is one of a handful of states that prohibits all citizens convicted of felonies from voting, even after they serve their terms, unless they are granted clemency by the governor.

The conservative McDonnell, who has earned praise from progressive leaders for using his clemency power to restore voting rights to a record number of Virginians, used his final State of the Commonwealth speech to endorse legislative efforts to amend the Virginia Constitution to restore voting rights automatically. While a variety of proposals have been filed, McDonnell mentioned by name two: one which would make restoration automatic for all felons after completing their sentences and one which would change the system for only non-violent felons.

McDonnell told the General Assembly:

While we have significantly improved and fast-tracked the restoration of civil rights process, it’s still an executive process. As a nation that believes in redemption and second chances, we must provide a clear path for willing individuals to be productive members of society once they have served their sentences and paid their fines and restitution. It is time for Virginia to join most of the other states and make the restoration of civil rights an automatic process for non-violent offenders.

This session, Delegates Greg Habeeb and Peter Farrell have introduced bills to address this issue, and I urge you to support legislation for the automatic restoration of rights for non-violent felons.

Habeeb and Farrell are both Republicans. Last year, Habeeb’s bill attracted 14 Democratic co-patrons but no other Republicans and was killed on a 3-2 vote in subcommittee.

California Gov. Jerry Brown

As the final deadline approaches in a Supreme Court order to reduce California prison overcrowding so severe it was deemed “cruel and unusual punishment,” California Gov. Jerry Brown says the state doesn’t need to comply with the order after all. In a press conference this week, Brown said ”the prison emergency is over“:

California is a powerful state. We can run our own prisons. And by God, let those judges give us our prisons back. We’ll run them right. […]

We’ve got hundreds of lawyers wandering around the prisons looking for problems. […]

We’ve spent billions and billions of money that’s not going to child care, that’s not going to schools, that’s not going to higher ed. It’s going to gold plate, at this point, our prisons.

These are puzzling assertions in a state whose prison system was described by the U.S. Supreme Court just a year and a half ago as so overcrowded that it has perpetuated “severe and unlawful mistreatment of prisoners through grossly inadequate provision of medical and mental health care.”

While a ”proclamation” issued by Brown rightly points out that prisoners are no longer housed in gymnasiums and triple bunks thanks to commendable progress, the facilities are anything but “gold plated.” Data since the 2011 ruling show that continued medical neglect caused 43 preventable deaths in a year, and that inmates in need of psychiatric hospitalization continue to be placed in “alternative locations” like infirmaries and holding cells. And while Brown asserts that the court order is forcing exorbitant state spending on prisons, a recent report on California corrections spending found that “fifty-five percent of the growth in corrections spending is the result of simply putting more people in jail.”

State officials have been pushing back against the order to reduce the population to 137.5 percent of capacity since at least August, when federal judges issued yet another order asking the state to find better ways to reduce its population. Officials said at the time that further population reduction was not the goal, and that the state’s investment in new medical facilities would achieve the goal of improved medical and mental health conditions.

But the U.S. Supreme Court specifically said in its 2011 ruling that “no other remedies” for improving medical and mental health conditions “have been found to be sufficient” other than reducing overcrowding. “Short term gains in the provision of care have been eroded by the long-term effects of severe and pervasive overcrowding,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

Setting aside Brown’s inflammatory rhetoric, his formal court motion arguing against population reduction also makes the more reasonable alternative argument that, even if California wanted to reduce its prison population, many of the remaining methods for doing so – granting low-risk inmates early release, shortening sentences and diverting more inmates to county jails — would require the court to authorize waivers of existing state laws. This is a remedy that the defendants also seek under the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

What Brown’s most recent motion reveals is that lasting reform of the U.S. system of mass incarceration will require both short-term solutions and permanent changes to sentencing and other criminal laws, of the sort Brown and other politicians are wary to publicly endorse in a culture of “tough-on-crime” law enforcers.

A Republican lawmaker in the state of Georgia is pushing for a bill that would allow students to carry concealed firearms on college campuses, despite the reservations of Georgia law enforcement and school security.

Kicking off the newly-elected state assembly, state Rep. Charles Gregory (R) introduced four piece of legislation that would weaken gun laws in the state. Among them is a provision that would allow any student with a permit to carry a concealed weapon on campus. But just last month, a similar bill died in committee after university officials and security expressed concerns about whether it would actually quell any violence:

Jasper Cooke, the director of the Department of Public Safety at Augusta State University and the chief of Campus Police, agreed.

“Especially with our colleges across the country, we have enough issues with alcohol and drugs and legitimate prescription medicines without throwing a bunch of guns in the middle of it,” Cooke said. “You see the brawls and the fights that break out at big sporting events and this, that or the other. Well, think if half those folks were carrying weapons.”

Georgia is not alone in considering repealing restrictions on guns on campuses. The state of Indiana is mulling a similar measure as a way to protect against gun violence on campuses, particularly the kind of mass shooting events like that at Virginia Tech or, most recently, the December 14, 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

According to the Brady campaign, “Eighty-six percent of campus police chiefs disagree or strongly disagree that allowing students to carry concealed weapons on campus would prevent some or all campus killings.” But despite the general consensus among law enforcement, the gun lobby is engaged in a serious effort to put guns on school grounds.

The claim that adding more guns decreases violence is unfounded. College campuses are actually among the safest communities in the country — much safer, even, than the areas surrounding them. Ninety three percent of the violence perpetrated against students happens off campus. At the same time, the risks of keeping guns in the home translate to campuses, too. Whether by homicide or suicide, people in a home — or, indeed, a dorm — with a firearm, are more likely to be killed by gunshot wound than in a home without a gun.

America’s craziest sherriff, Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio, has announced plans to use money seized from drug dealers to arm his deputies with automatic weapons. Speaking to local television station 3TV on Wednesday, Arpaio said “thanks” to “dope dealers” for providing him the money to acquire unnecessary deadly weapons:

VOLENTINE: Why don’t you already have automatic weapons?

ARPAIO: We do have some, but everybody does not. I’m trying to get 500 weapons more to arm all our deputies.

VOLENTINE: How difficult will that be?

ARPAIO: It’s not going to be difficult. I’m going to use money that we seized from dope peddlers. So, I’m going to thank them for helping arm our deputies.

Watch it:

Arpaio’s “free guns for everyone!” strategy is a recipe for getting bystanders killed. During a shootout outside the Empire State Building last August, all nine civilians injured were hit by stray bullets fired by handgun-wielding police officers. Average police accuracy, according to data from the New York and Los Angeles police departments, ranges from 18 to roughly 30 percent. Those numbers are so low despite extensive police training with handguns because of the inherently unpredictable human response to life-or-death situations. So simply providing officers with exponentially more deadly automatic weapons without first requiring an extensive training regimen, as Arpaio appears to be proposing, is a recipe for deadly accidents.

There’s also reason to believe the Maricopa County deputies in particular shouldn’t be trusted with automatic weapons. Arpaio has instructed his deputies to use automatic weapons against undocumented immigrants who are “attempting to escape.” The Maricopa County department is under investigation by the Department of Justice Civil Rights division for systematic discrimination against Latinos. And Arpaio responded to the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut by sending armed civilian posses with “questionable pasts” into public schools.

Finally, the notion of using profits from drug arrests to fuel the militarization of police forces is uniquely dangerous. This practice, known as “asset forfeiture,” has become a way to make our violent and counterproductive “war on drugs” self-sustaining: police get huge windfalls for making drug busts, which they then use to buy bigger guns and invest in more anti-drug policing. Moreover, as Radley Balko notes, “Asset forfeiture not only encourages police agencies to use resources and manpower on drug crimes at the expense of violent crimes, it also provides an incentive for police agencies to actually wait until drugs are on the streets before making a bust.”

Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The Virginia State Board of Elections received dozens of complaints from voters across the Commonwealth about the November elections, suggesting widespread issues beyond just the long lines emblematic of 2012 swing states. Correspondence obtained by ThinkProgress under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act shows voter complaints alleged significant problems including understaffed polls and errors made by poll workers.

The dozens of complaints submitted mostly fell into a few areas:

1) Insufficient equipment and staffing at polling places. Voters in Arlington County, Chesterfield County, Norfolk, and Prince William County complained of long lines and insufficient numbers of poll workers. Virginia State Board of Elections Secretary Donald Palmer told ThinkProgress that while a few jurisdictions shortage of poll workers, lack of equipment was a more widespread problem. “The long lines were the result of people waiting for a voting system. Virginia localities utilize a large number of electronic voting systems (DREs) and there is no way to purchase or acquire new or additional DREs to meet the highest possible demand for voting equipment. Virginia will need to provide resources for localities to transition to paper based voting systems, which will increase overall capacity to meet high numbers of voters and the speed of the voting process.”

2) Confusion among poll workers about the the state’s voter ID laws. While Virginia’s revised voter ID law requires voters to present one form of identification, several voters complained that local election officials improperly demanded too much. In Arlington County, Henrico County, Newport News, Prince William County, Richmond, and Washington County, voters were allegedly asked for multiple forms of ID or had their valid ID rejected (the chief election official in Prince William County assure the state board that the allegation against that county was incorrect). A voter in Chesterfield County claimed that a “large handmade sign on poster paper that listed the forms of identification allowed,” but “neglected to indicate that a current utility bill, bank statement, government check or paycheck indicating the name and address of the voter was acceptable.” Secretary Palmer told ThinkProgress the state conducted multiple voter ID trainings for local election officials and that “there were relatively few complaints from voters on the issue of ID on election day.” He added that the state provides official posters listing acceptable forms of ID and that “it would be a rare case in which a hand-made poster would be permitted inside a polling place,” but promised to look into the matter.

3) Errors by poll workers. Voters in Chesterfield County, Culpeper County, Fairfax County, and Fauquier County alleged that election officials had incorrectly marked them as having already voted, even though they had not yet done so. In two cases, replies from the state board noted that these presumably resulted from “operator errors.” Another voter, in York County, complained that an elections official gave biased instructions to voters. He claimed that a poll worker had called out: “Vote for only one Republican for president, err, I mean, candidate. That is me showing my true colors.” Secretary Palmer noted to ThinkProgress that local electoral board investigations determine “whether the provisional ballot voted was a result of fraud or operator error. Sometimes the error is quickly realized by the poll workers; however, the potential duplicate voting is investigated by the local electoral board.” York County registrar Walt Latham told ThinkProgress than he received only that one complaint and that workers were specifically instructed to avoid offering personal opinions to voters. If the voter correctly heard the poll worker, Latham added, “I apologize for the incident.”

Secretary Palmer also noted that the State Board of Elections has identified several areas for future improvement. “Some are legislative in nature and some are steps that the election community may take to mitigate the changes of inordinate lines,” he said. The board “would also recommend that the Commonwealth fund a grant program for localities over the next four years to finish the transition to paper-based voting systems prior to the 2016 presidential election. Over 90 percent of the Commonwealth uses electronic voting systems (DREs) and the current election code prohibits the purchase and acquisition of additional DRE machines to meet the demand of high volume elections. The DREs have reached the end of their life-span, thus a grant program to transition to paper voting systems would allow localities to increase the number of voting systems and more quickly process voters waiting in line to vote,” he added.

Welcome to Justiceline, ThinkProgress Justice’s morning round-up of the latest legal news and developments. Remember to follow us on Twitter at @TPJustice

• The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on whether a warrant should be required to test the blood alcohol level of someone suspected of drunk driving.
• The court also held that a death row appeal cannot be delayed because of alleged incompetence of the defendant, and that a company was bound by its promise not to sue Nike for trademark infringement.
• In addition to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s push for stronger gun laws during his state of the state address, he also laid out a progressive agenda that included a higher minimum wage, a 10-point Women’s Equality Act,  videotaping of confessions and reform of New York’s marijuana possession laws.
• In a CNN op-ed arguing that marijuana should be legal for adults, professor and psychologist David L. Nathan writes:

Throughout my career as a clinical psychiatrist, I have seen lives ruined by drugs like cocaine, painkillers and alcohol. I have also borne witness to the devastation brought upon cannabis users — almost never by abuse of the drug, but by a justice system that chooses a sledgehammer to kill a weed.