This Week in Congress

House and Senate

Lawmakers are back home for the August district work period.  The Senate will return on  September 5, and the House will be back in session on September 12.

Appropriations

Emergency Supplemental

This week the Biden Administration sent a supplemental request which includes more than $24 billion in aid to Ukraine; $12 billion for disaster relief; and $4 billion for shelter services for migrants; and $416 million for counter-fentanyl efforts. While lawmakers in both parties are determined to honor a U.S. commitment to help Ukraine, conservatives in both the House and Senate are opposed to giving Ukraine any further funding without a stringent accounting of how the $43 billion in assistance already allocated to the country has been spent. The funds are expected to be included in the continuing resolution to extend government funding when the current fiscal year ends on September 30, 2023.  But passing a short-term CR with emergency cash attached still presents a number of problems, given that GOP hardliners have already signaled they would reject a CR that fails to enact steep spending cuts.  The supplemental transmittal letter and funding requests can be found here

FY’24 Appropriations Bills

House Republicans have embedded at least 45 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions into must-pass funding bills — many of which would weaken discrimination protections for same-sex couples or restrict gender-affirming care for adults and minors. The volume and severity of these provisions is an unprecedented attempt by federal lawmakers to restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ people, activists say.

Federal News

National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

CDC’s new head, Mandy Cohen, has announced that she is changing the leadership of the CDC center that led the agency’s Covid-19 response. José Romero, who headed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases for the past 14 months, will be leaving the CDC at the end of August. He will be replaced by Demetre Daskalakis, who is currently the deputy director of the White House’s national Mpox response team. The White House Mpox operation will end on August 31.

Information System for Heat-Related Illnesses

The Biden administration has launched a new information system to map emergency medical services responses to heat-related illness across the US. The online dashboard is run by the Department of Health and Human Services in partnership with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agencies said the system is meant to help public health officials ensure that medical aid reaches the people who need it most during heat emergencies.

Postpartum Depression Drug

The FDA has approved the first pill to treat postpartum depression, a condition that data shows affect around 1 in 7 women in the US. Health experts say zuranolone, under the brand name Zurzuvae, could be a gamechanger for treating postpartum depression and other depressive disorders after clinical trials found the 14-day daily pill began alleviating symptoms in a matter of days.

Other Legislation and Happenings Around the Nation

Gonorrhea

A rise in gonorrhea infections has drugmakers racing to develop new therapies as STIs  evade the last medication that can effectively treat it. Resistant strains are surfacing around the world, and experts say they’ll soon arrive in the US. Two companies, GSK Plc and Innoviva Inc., have new antibiotics for gonorrhea in late-stage trials, with results expected in months. In the US, an injection called ceftriaxone is the last antibiotic the CDC  recommends for the disease. Even that drug has failed to treat patients in France, Japan, the UK and several other countries. A new strain found this year in Massachusetts that showed elevated defenses against a wide range of antibiotics raised alarms. The months ahead will show whether the drug industry can outpace gonorrhea’s adaptation. In early trials, two drugs in development treated gonorrhea more than 95% of the time in genital infections, though one was less effective in infections in the throat that are harder to treat.

Sexual health programs have seen budget cuts in recent years, leading to less screening. The recent debt-ceiling deal eliminated $400 million in grants for specialists who combat STIs. The CDC is studying the effect of the cuts, the agency said in a statement. Both the agency and the White House strategies to fight STIs call for continued monitoring for resistant cases and developing better tests.

Elizabeth Finley, Director of Communications for the National Coalition of STD Directors said “More attention and funding is needed to screen people for gonorrhea and connect them with treatment. We don’t think it’s a high enough priority. No new antibiotic or vaccine will reach someone who can’t make their way to an STI clinic or who isn’t aware that they should go.”

Abortion

Arizona

Abortion rights advocates began a push to ask Arizona voters to create a constitutional right to abortion. If proponents collect enough signatures, Arizona will become the latest state to put the question of reproductive rights directly to voters, who have turned out in large numbers to support abortion rights even in conservative states.

Hawaii

The US failed to convince a federal court in Hawaii to put off a case challenging regulations for the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone until after two other federal lawsuits involving the same drug have ended. Litigation in Texas likely won’t be decided until 2025, and there’s little likelihood that the Hawaii-based lawsuit and the Washington litigation will end inconsistently.

Idaho

Six university professors and two teachers’ unions are suing Idaho over a law that they say violates their First Amendment rights by criminalizing teaching and classroom discussion about pro-abortion viewpoints. The 2021 No Public Funds for Abortion Act prohibits state contracts or transactions with abortion providers and also bans public employees from promoting abortion, counseling in favor of abortion or referring someone to abortion services. Public employees who violate the law can be charged with misuse of public funds, a felony, and be fired, fined, and ordered to pay back the funds they are accused of misusing.

Illinois

A federal judge has blocked a new Illinois law that allows the state to penalize anti-abortion counseling centers if they use deception to interfere with patients seeking the procedure. U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston said the new law “is painfully and blatantly a violation of the First Amendment.”

Ohio

Ohio voters turned out in high numbers to reject a Republican-backed referendum that would have made it harder to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, Democrats are eyeing new opportunities to highlight abortion rights in the 2024 election. They are pushing new ballot initiatives on abortion access in places like Arizona and Florida, calling out Republicans in states where bans are taking effect.

Pennsylvania

Governor Shapiro says his administration will cut ties with an organization that funds “crisis pregnancy centers” when its state contract expires at the end of the year. In the past, Real Alternatives, a Harrisburg nonprofit, has received millions in funding from the state legislature earmarked for programs that dissuade pregnant women from seeking abortion care. State lawmakers have also sent Real Alternatives about $1 million per year in federal funding from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which is intended to provide cash assistance to women and children in poverty.

Texas

A late-night appeal from the Texas Attorney General’s office has paused an injunction that exempted people with medically complicated pregnancies from the state’s abortion ban. The state appealed directly to the Texas Supreme Court to stop “an activist Austin judge’s attempt to override Texas abortion laws,” First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster said in a statement. The stay of the injunction will remain in effect until the Texas Supreme Court makes a decision on the appeal.

Utah

As the Utah Supreme Court reviewed the pending abortion ban this week, attorneys defending the ban asked the five justices to focus on the intentions of the delegates who drafted the state constitution more than a century ago. It could be weeks before the Utah Supreme Court rules on whether to lift the injunction and allow the ban to take effect.

LBGTQ

Tennessee

The court gave a green light to Tennessee’s new law prohibiting so-called “gender-affirming” medical treatments for children.

Florida

Advanced Placement Psychology: Large school districts across Florida are dropping plans to offer Advanced Placement psychology, heeding a warning from state officials that the course’s discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity violates state law. Eight of the 11 districts with the largest enrollments in the class are switching to alternate courses, and just one said it will stick with AP psychology. Two others are still deciding.

Pronouns and Bathrooms: Florida’s Orange County Public Schools sent out a memo that says its transgender employees and contractors can’t use the pronouns or bathrooms that match their gender identity, citing state law. The memo discusses House Bill 1069, which focuses on sex defined as an “immutable biological trait” at birth based on hormones and genitalia. Under the law, no one is allowed to be required to use a person’s “preferred personal title or pronoun,” and students are not to be asked for their pronouns.

COVID-19

For the second week in a row, the number of people being admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 rose significantly, by more than 12%. An additional 9,056 people were hospitalized with the virus last week – that represents a 12.5% jump, according to data from the CDC.