The New York Times reports today that “the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether Arizona may impose tough anti-immigration measures. Among them, in a law enacted last year, is a requirement that the police there question people they stop about their immigration status.”

ABC News reports ”the case will be argued sometime this spring,” adding that, “although deeply opposed to the law, the Obama administration had asked the Supreme Court to refrain from taking up the case at this juncture.”

Kris Kobach, current Kansas secretary of state and the coauthor of S.B. 1070 and other immigration enforcement-only efforts, wrote in May 2010: “[S.B. 1070] makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration violations while in Arizona.”

S.B. 1070 was passed by the Arizona Legislature in the first months of 2010, and was signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer in April; the measure was immediately challenged by the Obama administration.

The Times adds that the Obama administration “challenged four provisions” of S.B. 1070: “The most prominent was a requirement that state law enforcement officials determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if officials have reason to believe that the individual might be an illegal immigrant.”

According to ABC News, “similar legislation is pending in Utah, South Carolina, Indiana, Georgia and Alabama.”

The Supreme Court of the United States Blog writes today: “The Arizona measure, and one in Alabama that goes even further, were passed by state legislatures with the specific intent of making life so difficult for undocumented aliens that they would choose to leave the state. Other states are also passing similar measures.”

“Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant law, SB 1070,” and other similar state laws, according to the Immigration Policy Center, ”impose unfunded mandates on the police, jails, and courts; drive away workers, taxpayers, and consumers upon whom the state economy depends; and invite costly lawsuits and tourist boycotts. These are economic consequences which few states can afford at a time of gaping budget deficits.”

Via The Hill:

The Department of Health and Human Services said Indiana and Louisiana do not need an adjustment from the health law’s medical loss ratio. That provision requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical care or offer rebates to their customers starting next year.

HHS can grant a temporary waiver if regulators determine that the requirement looks likely to destabilize a state’s individual health insurance market.

The agency determined that the health plans of Indiana and Louisiana can meet the threshold and that consumers will get better value without an adjustment, said Gary Cohen, acting director of oversight at the HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

The federal government announced two weeks ago that Florida would not hear a decision from Health and Human Services about its own waiver of the medical loss ratio (MLR) waiver until around Dec. 16, 30 days later than originally planned.

MLRs are used to set a standard on the amount of money collected by premiums that health insurance companies must spend on actual services, as well as a limit on how much goes to administration. In this case, insurance companies in Florida will be required by federal law to spend 80 percent of the money they collect on health services and 20 percent on administration.

Florida asked the federal government for permission to phase in the MLR over three years, as opposed to meeting the requirements as soon as they kick in.

Advocacy groups such as Florida CHAIN (the Community Health Action Information Network) have asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “to reject a request by Florida’s Insurance Commissioner to grant insurance companies a reprieve from new Affordable Care Act requirements intended to ensure that consumers get value for the health insurance premiums they pay.”

GOP state legislators have longed disliked federal mandates requiring companies to spend a certain amount of their premiums on services. One legislator claimed the MLR was an example of the state “commandeering” Florida’s budget.

But one aspect amid the increases has not changed -– there has been no federally-mandated minimal level of oversight for facilities run by private prisons.

There are three main issues that worry critics about the lack of oversight in privatized facilities: the standards of confinement, the cost oversight and the ability to get information on either of these points from privately-run detention facilities.

“I think that prisons are closed institutions in general as they are outside the public view … and most citizens have very little understanding of what goes on behind the closed doors,” said Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas School of Law. “But that changes dramatically when looking at private prisons.

“They are not subject to the same requirements about open records, the sharing of public information,” Deitch continued, “and because they have a contract with the government, not directly with the people, there is a layer of bureaucracy and privacy that is even deeper.”

This growth has been led by a handful of companies, including the two largest private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which partners with all three federal corrections agencies, according to its website, and “almost half of all states and several municipalities;” and GEO Group, which runs prisons outsourced by federal, state and local prison bureaus as well as immigration facilities around the country.

CCA houses 75,000 inmates at more than 60 facilities in 19 states, and GEO Group follows closely behind with more than 60 facilities in more than 15 states, as well as a prison health-care arm.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (PDF), the growth of the inmate population in private prisons is 5 percent a year. This does not include jails or immigration detention facilities. In the latter, private companies control nearly half of all detention beds.

Private prison oversight so far

Historically, federal courts have stepped in to oversee particularly egregious examples of prison abuse, but because no federally-mandated minimal level of oversight exists, how private contractors are watched depends on the locality doing the contracting.

“The issue of transparency is really big,” said Mel Wilson, assistant director of Officer Workforce Studies at the National Association of Social Workers. “If you look closely at the criminal justice system, each state has a lot of latitude in structuring what level of oversight it has.”

At the federal level, the Office of Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT) was created in 2000 to provide oversight of federal prisons, but the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 — and decreased focus on the detention crisis — has left the OFDT to function primarily as a Department of Justice agency that contracts out prisons with private companies, according to a 2010 report from the Center for International Policy.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also established an Office of Detention Oversight in 2009 to look over the then-32,000 detention beds in 350 facilities. Most of these were not run by ICE employees, the ICE fact sheet noted, but were “operated by county authorities or detention centers operated by private contractors.”

Both CCA and GEO Group, the biggest players in the private-corrections-facility game, lobby directly to some of these agencies. In 2011, CCA spent $810,000 on lobbying agencies including the U.S. Marshals Service, which awards private-prison contracts, and the Bureau of Prisons. GEO Group spent $160,000 lobbying in 2011 -– it expanded its agency targets to ICE, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice, according to Open Secrets.

Recently, GEO Group lobbied on a DHS budget bill, in particular on the issue report related to alternatives to detention for immigrants. CCA also lobbied on the bill, focusing on three issue reports about budgeting for federal agencies overseeing detention. The filings do not say the position of the companies.

On the local level, 27 states have bodies with mandatory inspection duties, eight states have a discretionary monitoring authority, three have a statewide voluntary inspection body and five states have a local jail inspection body, according to a study (PDF) in Pace Law Review by Deitch.

Seventeen states — Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Washington, Wyoming — have no oversight bodies at all.

The states with the two fastest-growing prison populations (PDF) -– West Virginia and Indiana -– both have little or no regularized oversight, and no independent monitoring agencies.

In Indiana, where the prison population increased 5.2 percent between 2008 and 2010, according to the Pew Center (PDF), an ombudsman with the state government is charged with investigating any prison-related grievances submitted voluntarily.

West Virginia’s facilities are overseen by the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Authority, though its oversight is not enforced through regular inspections and the state has “no formal external prison or jail oversight mechanisms.”

This can be contrasted to what Deitch calls one of the best prison oversight systems –- Ohio, which provides external oversight of its prisons through the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, which was created by the state Legislature for independent oversight in 1977.

Private prison exceptionalism

But with private prisons, critics say setting up effective oversight mechanisms is only part of the battle.

“There is just example after example of the failure of oversight,” said David Shapiro, a staff attorney at the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has monitored prison issues since 1972.

The Corrections Corporation of America notes on its website that over 93 percent of it’s 60 facilities have passed an audit done every three years by the American Correctional Association (ACA), another private group that “offers training, support and operational standards to correctional facilities and officers.”

But critics question the reliability of the audit. A three-year accreditation (PDF) from the ACA costs $3,000 per day and $1,500 dollars for the each auditor on the team. Ken Kopczynski, with the non-profit Private Corrections Working Group, writes that this is a sign of pay-for-play.

Kopczynski also notes that “at least two CCA employees serve as ACA auditors – CCA warden Todd Thomas and company vice president Dennis Bradby,” further breaking down the ACA’s authority as an independent auditor.

Meanwhile, CCA has dealt with lawsuits around the country. Hawaii took more than 200 prisoners back from CCA prisons outside the state after they alleged they had been abused by guards; 234 inmates from Colorado sued CCA for injuries suffered from guards after a riot they didn’t participate in; and in Minnesota the company was a defendant in eight cases between 1997-2006, according to court records obtained by staff at The Minnesota Independent.

Future steps

Deitch stresses the importance of independent oversight for objective observation of a facility. Budgets cuts could make localities “less likely to be able to conduct appropriate oversight,” which puts both prisoners and staff in danger.

Shapiro, with the ACLU, also worries about the revolving door. In New Mexico, the corrections secretary Joe Williams didn’t penalize CCA and GEO Group for breaking their contractual obligations by running under-staffed prisons and then pocketing extra profits. As The New Mexico Independent reported, before becoming corrections secretary, Williams was hired by GEO Group as a warden for the Lea County Correctional Facility.

The American Bar Association (ABA) passed a resolution in 2008 calling for independent correctional oversight in every jurisdiction that has now been adopted as part of ABA policy. Deitch co-chairs the ABA’s committee on correctional oversight.

But Shapiro says no amount of oversight can ever make as opaque an institution as a private prison function transparently. The ACLU has called for the “elimination of private prisons” in its policy priorities as far back as 2001.

“The best approach to private prisons is just say no,” said Shapiro “No amount of oversight can really account for the problems with the profit motive and the problematic incentives that it creates.”

(Jon Collins contributed to reporting this story)

Jennie Linn McCormack, a mother of three from Pocatello, Idaho, was initially arrested and prosecuted in December 2010 for inducing her own abortion, when she was between 20 and 21 weeks of gestation, with the abortion pill RU 486, which she bought on the Internet, reports Reuters. She was charged under a 1972 state law that classifies ending one’s own pregnancy as a felony, before a judge threw out her case for lack of evidence. Now McCormack is suing the attorney that prosecuted her, Mark Hiedeman.

Idaho’s new late-term abortion law — signed and enacted immediately by Republican Gov. Butch Otter in April — makes it a felony to perform an abortion after 20 weeks, except in a situation where the mother’s life is in danger. Though this law was not in effect when McCormack took the abortion drugs, her suit includes both the 20-week abortion ban and the 1972 law; in the suit she claims she induced her own abortion because of the general lack of access to abortions for women in her state. According to the Associated Press, McCormack was single and unemployed when police arrested her after discovering the dead fetus in a box at her home.

McCormack’s case -– depending on how far up the court system it goes –- could impact the five other states that have banned abortion after 20 weeks, beginning with Nebraska in 2010, followed by Kansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Alabama.

On August 1, Larry Bucshon, a freshman GOP representative from Indiana’s Eighth Congressional District, joined the majority of his caucus to vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling in exchange for a package of spending cuts and the promise of more to come. It’s a vote congressional Republican leaders desperately needed their freshmen members to support so as to avoid an impending national default. Back home in Bucshon’s district, however, the vote may come back to haunt him, as Bucshon is facing a tea party challenge at a time when he can least afford it.

Nicknamed “the Bloody Eighth” by political observers for its postwar tradition of tough campaigns and losing incumbents, Bucshon’s district is one of a handful being targeted and closely watched by national Democrats. A perennial swing district, its U.S. representative has been a reflection of who controls the House for the past two decades: John Hostettler, one of the most conservative of the Gingrich class of 1994, was defeated by Blue Dog Brad Ellsworth in 2006. When Ellsworth retired, the seat was won by heart surgeon Bucshon in the 2010 Republican sweep.

Like other states with newly GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country, Indiana has recently approved congressional redistricting plans that have strengthened the position of some of the Republican incumbents. Freshman Bucshon isn’t one of them, though: The Eighth District has lost three strongly conservative counties and gained three comparably more moderate ones, which Democrats believe puts the odds of regaining the seat more in their favor.

Two Democrats are currently vying for the nomination: Warrick County Democratic Party chair Terry White and former state representative Dave Crooks. Both fit within the tradition of moderate-to-conservative Blue Dog candidates that won districts like the Indiana Eighth all across the country when Democrats last took the House in 2006.

White describes himself as “pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-small business,” as is appropriate for a district that is “conservative in nature,” but he says he’s also “pro-union and pro-labor.” He told The American Independent that efforts by the Republicans in the General Assembly to pass anti-union legislation such as “right-to-work” and a school voucher program are going to mobilize traditionally Democratic constituencies, such as teachers and other public-sector workers, that were relatively more apathetic in the previous 2010 election cycle.

White thinks that because he’s from Evansville, the city that is the historical power center of the Eighth District, he has an advantage in the primary over Crooks, whose county is comparatively more rural. He also points to his lack of a voting record to defend as a good advantage he will have over both Crooks and, should he get the nomination, Bucshon as well.

Given the predicted favorable climate for whoever their party eventually nominates, both of the Democratic candidates also recognize the need to avoid a drawn-out primary. Crooks told the Evansville Courier & Press when he first entered the race that he has reached out to White, and is “doing everything I can to keep as many people out of the primary as possible.”

Whoever wins the primary, Indiana Democrats see 2012 as their best shot at winning back the Eighth District for a long time to come. As a freshmen representative, Bucshon has yet to accrue all of the advantages that incumbency brings in the House of Representatives. “He got elected in a tsunami last year,” White says, “where basically all you had to do was breathe and be a Republican and get elected.”

Bucshon is also facing a primary challenge from Kristi Risk, who ran against Bucshon in the 2010 primary to replace retiring Democratic incumbent Ellsworth. Running a campaign with strong support from the newly-founded tea party movement, Risk came very close to winning the nomination in an eight-candidate primary where national Republican leaders and donors had rallied behind Bucshon. Risk garnered 29 percent of the vote to Bucshon’s 33, a considerable achievement for a stay-at-home mother and political novice who designed and printed her own political fliers.

“I think that I would have voted differently in some areas,” Risk told TAI, on how she differentiates herself from Bucshon. In addition to the debt ceiling, Risk points to the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, which Bucshon voted for, and military withdrawal from Libya, which Bucshon voted against. Her website has a long list of issues that echo tea party themes, including a call for “sound monetary policy” (which would “remove the power of a few to create fiat money that enslaves the citizens of our nation”) and a promise to “defend against efforts by the United Nations to supersede our God-given parental rights.”

Risk says she hasn’t been following the Democratic primary, but they have certainly been following her. Were Risk to defeat Bucshon, White told TAI, it would give the Democrats an advantage.

“She is the tea party candidate and they don’t think that Bucshon is conservative enough.” In Southwest Indiana, he says, “we are conservative people, sure, but we are also reasonable people.”

Democrats in Evansville don’t think there’s a high probability that Risk will unseat Bucshon, but he will nevertheless be forced to spend time and money fighting her off, which will weaken him in a general election that’s sure to be heated. (Bucshon did not respond to TAI’s request for comment by publish time.) And just like in 2010, Risk won’t need money or the institutional support of a national party if she can get Evangelicals and tea party activists to canvass for her. She points to her campaign manager Sean Selby, a former organizer for Hotstettler, as a sign that her campaign will have the benefit of political experience this time around.

Democrats hope she’s right.

This report is part of collaboration with WNYC’s “It’s a Free Country” to cover the 25 most captivating congressional races from around the country.

School voucher opponents in Indiana were dealt a massive setback to overturning the state’s recently passed Indiana Choice Scholarship Program (CSP) when a county judge ruled down Monday an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect.

Marion County Judge Michael Keele ruled the plaintiffs insufficiently demonstrated “a likelihood of success on the merits,” a key requisite before any case can go to trial.

The July 1 suit was filed by teachers unions and religious groups wary the voucher program, the most expansive in the country, violates the state constitution’s restrictions on public spending for faith-based organizations. The plaintiffs wrote in a brief 90 percent of private schools that would receive taxpayer dollars to enroll K-12 students are affiliated with religious institutions. A public announcement by the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA) following the ruling put the number at 97 percent.

In a press release, Dr. Brenda Pike, executive director of ISTA said, “We will take a little time to discuss the next steps we will take in this process. It’s clear, despite this single ruling, that this voucher program clearly violates provisions of the Indiana Constitution.”

According to the July 1 brief, of the 353 private schools that are accredited and could participate in the voucher program, 185 are Catholic. With the exception of three Muslim and Jewish academies, the remaining religious institutions are of a Christian denomination.

A spokesperson for the union told The American Independent in a previous interview the school voucher program would drain $65 million from public school state coffers, a significant amount he said on top of the $600 million in education budget cuts supported by Gov. Mitch Daniels that were passed in the last two years.

By its third year, 60 percent of Indiana students will be eligible to participate in CSP. That estimate is based on the income restrictions established by the law, stipulating only students of families earning below $62,000 can participate.

Other complaints in the suit included the provision state education officials cannot regulate the curriculum, staffing or teaching requirements of schools accepting CSP students.

The Indianapolis Star Tribune reports that Hinkle met the young man through a m4m — men for men — casual sex ad on the website. Email exchanges between Hinkle and Kameryn Gibson show the anti-gay politician offering to pay the young man $80 plus this statement in an email allegedly sent by the lawmaker:

“Final for the record, for a really good time, you could get another 50, 60 bucks. That sound good?”

Bil Browning, the owner and publisher of the Bilerico Project — a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender news website based in Indiana — says this is not the first time he has heard that Hinkle was having sex with men on the side. Browning advertised on his site for information about lawmakers who were closeted and voted for an anti-marriage equality amendment — which defines marriage as only being between a man and a woman — to the Indiana state constitution.

“I’ve followed Indiana’s closeted legislators for years and Rep Phil Hinkle’s sexuality has long been an open secret,” Browning said in an email. “When I put out my call for information about anti-gay closet cases, tips about Phil were the clear majority. Sadly, none of the three young men I spoke to were willing to provide definitive proof that would tie them to the representative. All three had corresponding stories, but without being able to provide solid proof I decided not to run it. There are at least two other anti-gay Republican closet cases in the Indiana legislature and a few Democrats as well. Eventually they’ll also be exposed as the hypocrites they are.”

In addition to voting for the marriage amendment, Hinkle — who serves as the representative of the state’s 92nd House district — also opposes nondiscrimination legislation that would protect the LGBT community, the Indiana Family Institute 2008 voter guide reports (PDF). The leader of the IFI told TheIndyChannel.com that Hinkle’s ability to serve was “dramatically damaged,” but did not call for his resignation.

The station also reports that politicians in the state are tip-toeing around the issue of Hinkle’s liaison with Gibson, noting that Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, had this to say about the situation:

“A family tragedy, very sad thing, nothing much more to say,” Daniels said. “Not for me to say (if he should resign). It’d be between him and his constituents.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Speaker of the Indiana House Brian C. Bosma (R-Indianapolis) said that if the situation as reported by the newspaper was accurate, it was “sad,” and the next move would be to meet with Hinkle. The station also reports that Hinkle has often bucked his party, putting him in a precarious situation with his leadership in the House.

Five bills — passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — were omnibus laws inspired by Arizona’s 2010 immigration law. These laws share common qualities like a requirement that law enforcement check the legal status of people detained for traffic violations, as well as mandatory implementation by employers of the E-Verify system, which aims to verify worker identification. In addition to the states with Arizona-style omnibus laws, five other states passed bills requiring E-Verify.

Not all bills were enforcement-only measures, however. In addition to its Arizona-style legislation, Utah enacted legislation which would create a temporary guestworker program allowing undocumented immigrants to legally work in the state, a policy innovation which GOP state lawmakers disagree on and which the federal government has said it finds objectionable.

Two states, Connecticut and Maryland, passed bills allowing undocumented immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition. A total of twelve states have passed similar legislation in the past decade.

The number of state-level immigration bills introduced yearly has risen since 2005, and the range of issues covered by the bills has also expanded. The year 2007 holds the record for most immigration-related bills introduced in a single year. If past trends continue, 2011 looks to break that record.

Despite the increasing interest from state legislatures in immigration issues, undocumented immigration to the United States has substantially decreased in the past two years. Experts credit the stagnated U.S. labor market, improved economic conditions in Mexico (and other developing countries) and more effective border security for the decline in undocumented immigration.

On its website, the SBA List is keeping a “State by State Scoreboard” showing that to date, approximately $60,399,000 in federal and state funding has been stripped from Planned Parenthood affiliates in eight states. SBA breaks down that total amount by how much Planned Parenthood has been “defunded” in each state:

• Indiana: $2 million
• Kansas: $330,000
• New Hampshire: $1.8 million
• New Jersey: $7.5 million
• North Carolina: $434,000
• Tennessee: $335,000
• Texas: $47 million
• Wisconsin: $1 million

The SBA List has essentially declared war on the “abortion giant.” On its website, SBA notes that: “Our efforts during the federal budget fight gave Planned Parenthood a black eye.” The group recently garnered much attention surrounding a presidential pledge to support only judicial nominees and cabinet members opposed to abortion rights in most cases, to defund Planned Parenthood and to support a national “fetal pain” bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Americans United for Life (AUL) has similarly taken credit for the state-by-state defunding trend. Last week, the group released a report accusing Planned Parenthood of financial and criminal wrongdoing and distributed copies of this report on Capitol Hill. As The Florida Independent reported, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, has suggested he might look at the report and launch an investigation of Planned Parenthood, telling POLITICO PULSE:

“I believe my Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee should review the findings of this report and possibly hold a hearing on why taxpayers are funding Planned Parenthood with its record of abuse and violations of state laws. The American people deserve a concrete reason for funding Planned Parenthood; a reason I do not believe exists.”

In the past, Stearns has identified himself as a friend to the anti-abortion rights movement and several times has introduced legislation to give federal funding to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” but his proposed legislation has never moved. Back in February, Stearns promised anti-abortion rights groups that he would call a hearing to investigate Planned Parenthood, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Since Planned Parenthood released a rebuttal, fact-checking AUL’s report, the anti-abortion rights groups has renewed its call for a congressional investigation and has released its own rebuttal (PDF) to Planned Parenthood’s rebuttal. On Tuesday, Kellie Fiedorek, staff counsel for AUL, is scheduled to discuss her organization’s allegations against Planned Parenthood at a Bloggers Briefing sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.

Though Indiana’s law was recently struck down by a federal judge for violating federal Medicaid rules and the others are beginning to face legal challenges, anti-abortion rights groups like Americans United for Life (AUL) are pushing every state in the country to eliminate family planning funds that go to Planned Parenthood. In an AUL-penned op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week, the group’s leaders promised that “measures to defund the abortion industry will remain a top priority for states in 2011 and will re-emerge in 2012.”

In its effort to push this priority, Americans United for Life has emailed supporters several times a week throughout the past month to ask for money to cover a budget gap. On Wednesday, Yoest emailed supporters asking for an “emergency contribution” because, she said, the organization has until Thursday to raise $65,700; the initial budget goal for June was $116,000.

In the WSJ piece, Yoest and legal affairs vice president Denise M. Burke blamed Planned Parenthood for the Indiana’s potential loss in funding for reproductive services — because Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) challenged the state for pulling its family-planning funding. Due to the way Indiana’s government chose to cancel Medicaid contracts with PPIN (which the state’s Legislative Services Agency initially warned might not be legal), the federal government threatened to block all Medicaid funding to the state.

“Who here is really endangering women?” Yoest and Burke wrote. “Clearly, Planned Parenthood and the administration are willing to deny thousands of needy men, women and children health care in order to protect the bottom lines of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.”

Planned Parenthood’s argument looks a little different, of course, claiming that states are reducing access to affordable reproductive services for women who are on Medicaid or who have no health insurance based on ideological beliefs about abortion.

“I am extremely disappointed that the [Wisconsin] state legislature would wage a political attack against each and every one of the 73,000 patients Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin serves,” said Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin President Teri Huyck in a statement released last week after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a budget bill that eliminated state and federal funding for Planned Parenthood. “It is greatly disturbing that some politicians’ personal beliefs are trumping our shared responsibility to make sure women and men have access to preventive reproductive health care. The health care we provide saves lives and saves money for all Wisconsin taxpayers.”

To recap, here are the states that have moved to strip family planning funding from Planned Parenthood this legislative session:

• Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed legislation on May 10, essentially banning all contracts between state agencies and Planned Parenthood and prohibiting grants for any entity that performs abortions or operates a facility where abortions are performed. This week, part of the law was overturned and Planned Parenthood of Indiana is currently allowed to serve Medicaid beneficiaries, though the state has since filed an appeal. Planned Parenthood has 28 clinics in the state, four of which that provide abortions.

• Kansas approved legislation redirecting more than $300,000 in family-planning funding away from Planned Parenthood to “full-service health clinics.” Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri operates three clinics in Kansas, only one of which provided abortions, until the state recently passed another abortion-related law requiring abortion clinics to obtain licenses and meet specific criteria. Kansas’ abortion-providing clinic in Overland Park was inspected last week butdid not meet the new criteria.

• Tennessee passed a new budget on May 21 that prevents Planned Parenthood from receiving federal Title X family planning funding. Approximately $335,000 in funding is to be redirected to government-run health agencies, exclusively. AsThe Commercial Appeal pointed out following the bill passage, Tennessee law says that all Title X money must go to state and local health departments unless all the required services cannot be provided, at which time they can go to private agencies such as Planned Parenthood. The Appeal also reported that another amendment in the same budget appears to contradict the Section 78 amendment responsible for defunding Planned Parenthood: “Section 78 of this act shall not be construed to supersede applicable provisions of federal and state law.” Inmost recent news, Planned Parenthood’s Memphis location is continuing to deliver reproductive services on a monthly basis until the county health department can take over the services or find new providers. Planned Parenthood has three centers in Tennessee, all which offer abortion services.

• North Carolina’s legislature voted on June 15 to override Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto of its new budget (which takes effect July 1) that eliminates all state and federal funding to the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliate except for Medicaid funding. North Carolina has nine Planned Parenthood clinics, four of which offer medication and surgical abortion services.

• New Hampshire defunded Planned Parenthood by executive order, voiding a $1.8 million family-planning contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. The Union Leader reported that New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Nick Toumpas said he was unsure how retracting these funds from Planned Parenthood will affect the delivery of services to New Hampshire residents. New Hampshire has six Planned Parenthood-runclinics, three of which offer medication and surgical abortion services. Of those three, only two centers — in Manchester and West Lebanon — offer surgical abortions at only 12.6 weeks from the last date of the woman’s most recent menstrual cycle.

• Wisconsin Gov. Walker last weekend signed a new state budget that eliminated $1 million in federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood. There are 29 Planned Parenthood clinics in the Badger State. Of those, three clinics provide surgical and medical abortions. Two clinics, in West Allis and Madison, offer colposcopy services, a method of examining the cervix in the event of an abnormal Pap smear.

• Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign a recently passed bill that would convert Texas’ Medicaid program into a block grant, allowing it to defund abortion providers — in other words, Planned Parenthood. The new law would take away approximately $37 million from Planned Parenthood, which was already reduced from $111 million in the state’s 2012 budget, according to the New York Daily News. There are 84 Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas, of which 13 provide abortions.