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A woman walks past a "Covid-19 vaccine not yet available" sign outside a store in Arlington, Virginia on December 1, 2020. (Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
If the Trump administration's coronavirus vaccine distribution effort continues at its current sluggish pace, it would take nearly a decade for the United States to inoculate an adequate number of Americans to rein in the deadly pandemic.
That's according to an analysis released Tuesday by NBC News, which found that the U.S. is nowhere near on track to meet the Trump administration's stated goal of vaccinating around 80% of the population by late June of 2021.
"To meet that goal, a little more than three million people would have to get the shots each day," NBC noted. "But so far, only about two million people--most of them frontline healthcare workers and some nursing home residents--have gotten their first shots of the 11.5 million doses that were delivered in the last two weeks."
"States are stretched. Feds are supposed to help. But the same folks who blamed states for the testing mess now ready to blame states for the vaccine slowdown."
--Ashish Jha, Brown University School of Public Health
President-elect Joe Biden took aim at the Trump administration's slow and chaotic vaccine rollout in a speech Tuesday, declaring that the "plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind." Warning it will "take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people" if significant changes aren't made, Biden promised "a much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership, to get things back on track."
"We'll find ways to boost the pace of vaccinations," said Biden, who vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act to speed up the manufacture of necessary materials.
In response to Biden's remarks, outgoing President Donald Trump characteristically refused to take responsibility for the lagging distribution effort, instead placing the blame on crisis-ravaged states.
"It is up to the states to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the federal government," Trump tweeted. "We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states."
While there is plenty of evidence indicating that state officials are moving too slowly--Texas' health commissioner, for instance, warned last week that a "significant portion" of the state's vaccine supply is sitting on shelves--critics have argued that the Trump administration failed to lay the groundwork for a speedy and effective distribution effort, effectively guaranteeing that states would struggle getting vaccine doses out the door.
"This is warp speed?" Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), asked in a blog post Monday, pointing to the relatively small number of people in the U.S. who have received shots since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for emergency use earlier this month.
"We should have had major warehouses located around the country so that as soon as the FDA green-lighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered to hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country," Baker argued. "We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the day a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure."
Ashish Jha, a physician and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, echoed Baker's criticism of the Trump administration in a series of tweets on Monday.
"The worst part is no real planning on what happens when vaccines arrive in states. No plan, no money, just hope that states will figure this out," Jha wrote. "[State health departments] are trying to stand up a vaccination infrastructure. Congress had given them no money. States are out of money, so many are passing it on to hospitals, nursing homes."
"Public health has always been a state/federal partnership," Jha added. "States are stretched. Feds are supposed to help. But the same folks who blamed states for the testing mess now ready to blame states for the vaccine slowdown. They are again setting states up to fail."
\u201cCongress finally passed $ for vax distribution\n\nStates now building infrastructure. Should have been built by Feds months ago\n\nAfter a slow ramp up, it'll get better\n\nWe're learning again we can't fight pandemic with every state on its own\n\nAn effective federal govt helps\n\nFin\u201d— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH) 1609214326
Growing fears about the lagging pace of vaccinations come as Colorado on Tuesday reported the first U.S. case of a more contagious coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom. Experts said it is possible that the variant has spread in the Colorado patient's community and possibly elsewhere in the U.S., which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the world.
As the New York Times reported, "Scientists are worried about variants but not surprised by them. It is normal for viruses to mutate, and most of the mutations of the coronavirus have proved minor. There's no evidence that an infection with the variant--known as B.1.1.7--is more likely to lead to a severe case of Covid-19, increase the risk of death or evade the new vaccines."
"But the speed at which the variant seems to spread," the Times added, "could lead to more infections--and therefore more hospitalizations," heightening the urgency of the vaccine rollout.
Leana Wen, visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University's Milken School of Public Health, wrote in a column for the Washington Post on Tuesday that the speed of vaccinations thus far "should set off alarms."
"Remember, the first group of vaccinations was supposed to be the easiest: It's hospitals and nursing homes inoculating their own workers and residents," Wen wrote. "If we can't get this right, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the country."
Wen proceeded to take the Trump administration to task for repeatedly shifting the goal posts as it failed to meet its initial targets for the mass inoculation campaign.
"When states learned they would receive fewer doses than they had been told, the administration said its end-of-year goal was not for vaccinations but vaccine distribution," Wen noted. "It also halved the number of doses that would be available to people, from 40 million to 20 million. (Perhaps they hoped no one would notice that their initial pledge was to vaccinate 20 million people, which is 40 million doses, or that President Trump had at one point vowed to have 100 million doses by the end of the year.)"
"Instead of muddying the waters, the federal government needs to take three urgent steps. First, set up a real-time public dashboard to track vaccine distribution," Wen wrote. "Second, publicize the plan for how vaccination will scale up so dramatically... Third, acknowledge the challenges and end the defensiveness. The public will understand if initial goals need to be revised, but there must be willingness to learn from missteps and immediately course-correct."
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If the Trump administration's coronavirus vaccine distribution effort continues at its current sluggish pace, it would take nearly a decade for the United States to inoculate an adequate number of Americans to rein in the deadly pandemic.
That's according to an analysis released Tuesday by NBC News, which found that the U.S. is nowhere near on track to meet the Trump administration's stated goal of vaccinating around 80% of the population by late June of 2021.
"To meet that goal, a little more than three million people would have to get the shots each day," NBC noted. "But so far, only about two million people--most of them frontline healthcare workers and some nursing home residents--have gotten their first shots of the 11.5 million doses that were delivered in the last two weeks."
"States are stretched. Feds are supposed to help. But the same folks who blamed states for the testing mess now ready to blame states for the vaccine slowdown."
--Ashish Jha, Brown University School of Public Health
President-elect Joe Biden took aim at the Trump administration's slow and chaotic vaccine rollout in a speech Tuesday, declaring that the "plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind." Warning it will "take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people" if significant changes aren't made, Biden promised "a much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership, to get things back on track."
"We'll find ways to boost the pace of vaccinations," said Biden, who vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act to speed up the manufacture of necessary materials.
In response to Biden's remarks, outgoing President Donald Trump characteristically refused to take responsibility for the lagging distribution effort, instead placing the blame on crisis-ravaged states.
"It is up to the states to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the federal government," Trump tweeted. "We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states."
While there is plenty of evidence indicating that state officials are moving too slowly--Texas' health commissioner, for instance, warned last week that a "significant portion" of the state's vaccine supply is sitting on shelves--critics have argued that the Trump administration failed to lay the groundwork for a speedy and effective distribution effort, effectively guaranteeing that states would struggle getting vaccine doses out the door.
"This is warp speed?" Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), asked in a blog post Monday, pointing to the relatively small number of people in the U.S. who have received shots since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for emergency use earlier this month.
"We should have had major warehouses located around the country so that as soon as the FDA green-lighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered to hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country," Baker argued. "We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the day a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure."
Ashish Jha, a physician and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, echoed Baker's criticism of the Trump administration in a series of tweets on Monday.
"The worst part is no real planning on what happens when vaccines arrive in states. No plan, no money, just hope that states will figure this out," Jha wrote. "[State health departments] are trying to stand up a vaccination infrastructure. Congress had given them no money. States are out of money, so many are passing it on to hospitals, nursing homes."
"Public health has always been a state/federal partnership," Jha added. "States are stretched. Feds are supposed to help. But the same folks who blamed states for the testing mess now ready to blame states for the vaccine slowdown. They are again setting states up to fail."
\u201cCongress finally passed $ for vax distribution\n\nStates now building infrastructure. Should have been built by Feds months ago\n\nAfter a slow ramp up, it'll get better\n\nWe're learning again we can't fight pandemic with every state on its own\n\nAn effective federal govt helps\n\nFin\u201d— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH) 1609214326
Growing fears about the lagging pace of vaccinations come as Colorado on Tuesday reported the first U.S. case of a more contagious coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom. Experts said it is possible that the variant has spread in the Colorado patient's community and possibly elsewhere in the U.S., which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the world.
As the New York Times reported, "Scientists are worried about variants but not surprised by them. It is normal for viruses to mutate, and most of the mutations of the coronavirus have proved minor. There's no evidence that an infection with the variant--known as B.1.1.7--is more likely to lead to a severe case of Covid-19, increase the risk of death or evade the new vaccines."
"But the speed at which the variant seems to spread," the Times added, "could lead to more infections--and therefore more hospitalizations," heightening the urgency of the vaccine rollout.
Leana Wen, visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University's Milken School of Public Health, wrote in a column for the Washington Post on Tuesday that the speed of vaccinations thus far "should set off alarms."
"Remember, the first group of vaccinations was supposed to be the easiest: It's hospitals and nursing homes inoculating their own workers and residents," Wen wrote. "If we can't get this right, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the country."
Wen proceeded to take the Trump administration to task for repeatedly shifting the goal posts as it failed to meet its initial targets for the mass inoculation campaign.
"When states learned they would receive fewer doses than they had been told, the administration said its end-of-year goal was not for vaccinations but vaccine distribution," Wen noted. "It also halved the number of doses that would be available to people, from 40 million to 20 million. (Perhaps they hoped no one would notice that their initial pledge was to vaccinate 20 million people, which is 40 million doses, or that President Trump had at one point vowed to have 100 million doses by the end of the year.)"
"Instead of muddying the waters, the federal government needs to take three urgent steps. First, set up a real-time public dashboard to track vaccine distribution," Wen wrote. "Second, publicize the plan for how vaccination will scale up so dramatically... Third, acknowledge the challenges and end the defensiveness. The public will understand if initial goals need to be revised, but there must be willingness to learn from missteps and immediately course-correct."
If the Trump administration's coronavirus vaccine distribution effort continues at its current sluggish pace, it would take nearly a decade for the United States to inoculate an adequate number of Americans to rein in the deadly pandemic.
That's according to an analysis released Tuesday by NBC News, which found that the U.S. is nowhere near on track to meet the Trump administration's stated goal of vaccinating around 80% of the population by late June of 2021.
"To meet that goal, a little more than three million people would have to get the shots each day," NBC noted. "But so far, only about two million people--most of them frontline healthcare workers and some nursing home residents--have gotten their first shots of the 11.5 million doses that were delivered in the last two weeks."
"States are stretched. Feds are supposed to help. But the same folks who blamed states for the testing mess now ready to blame states for the vaccine slowdown."
--Ashish Jha, Brown University School of Public Health
President-elect Joe Biden took aim at the Trump administration's slow and chaotic vaccine rollout in a speech Tuesday, declaring that the "plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind." Warning it will "take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people" if significant changes aren't made, Biden promised "a much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership, to get things back on track."
"We'll find ways to boost the pace of vaccinations," said Biden, who vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act to speed up the manufacture of necessary materials.
In response to Biden's remarks, outgoing President Donald Trump characteristically refused to take responsibility for the lagging distribution effort, instead placing the blame on crisis-ravaged states.
"It is up to the states to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the federal government," Trump tweeted. "We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states."
While there is plenty of evidence indicating that state officials are moving too slowly--Texas' health commissioner, for instance, warned last week that a "significant portion" of the state's vaccine supply is sitting on shelves--critics have argued that the Trump administration failed to lay the groundwork for a speedy and effective distribution effort, effectively guaranteeing that states would struggle getting vaccine doses out the door.
"This is warp speed?" Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), asked in a blog post Monday, pointing to the relatively small number of people in the U.S. who have received shots since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for emergency use earlier this month.
"We should have had major warehouses located around the country so that as soon as the FDA green-lighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered to hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country," Baker argued. "We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the day a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure."
Ashish Jha, a physician and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, echoed Baker's criticism of the Trump administration in a series of tweets on Monday.
"The worst part is no real planning on what happens when vaccines arrive in states. No plan, no money, just hope that states will figure this out," Jha wrote. "[State health departments] are trying to stand up a vaccination infrastructure. Congress had given them no money. States are out of money, so many are passing it on to hospitals, nursing homes."
"Public health has always been a state/federal partnership," Jha added. "States are stretched. Feds are supposed to help. But the same folks who blamed states for the testing mess now ready to blame states for the vaccine slowdown. They are again setting states up to fail."
\u201cCongress finally passed $ for vax distribution\n\nStates now building infrastructure. Should have been built by Feds months ago\n\nAfter a slow ramp up, it'll get better\n\nWe're learning again we can't fight pandemic with every state on its own\n\nAn effective federal govt helps\n\nFin\u201d— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH) 1609214326
Growing fears about the lagging pace of vaccinations come as Colorado on Tuesday reported the first U.S. case of a more contagious coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom. Experts said it is possible that the variant has spread in the Colorado patient's community and possibly elsewhere in the U.S., which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the world.
As the New York Times reported, "Scientists are worried about variants but not surprised by them. It is normal for viruses to mutate, and most of the mutations of the coronavirus have proved minor. There's no evidence that an infection with the variant--known as B.1.1.7--is more likely to lead to a severe case of Covid-19, increase the risk of death or evade the new vaccines."
"But the speed at which the variant seems to spread," the Times added, "could lead to more infections--and therefore more hospitalizations," heightening the urgency of the vaccine rollout.
Leana Wen, visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University's Milken School of Public Health, wrote in a column for the Washington Post on Tuesday that the speed of vaccinations thus far "should set off alarms."
"Remember, the first group of vaccinations was supposed to be the easiest: It's hospitals and nursing homes inoculating their own workers and residents," Wen wrote. "If we can't get this right, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the country."
Wen proceeded to take the Trump administration to task for repeatedly shifting the goal posts as it failed to meet its initial targets for the mass inoculation campaign.
"When states learned they would receive fewer doses than they had been told, the administration said its end-of-year goal was not for vaccinations but vaccine distribution," Wen noted. "It also halved the number of doses that would be available to people, from 40 million to 20 million. (Perhaps they hoped no one would notice that their initial pledge was to vaccinate 20 million people, which is 40 million doses, or that President Trump had at one point vowed to have 100 million doses by the end of the year.)"
"Instead of muddying the waters, the federal government needs to take three urgent steps. First, set up a real-time public dashboard to track vaccine distribution," Wen wrote. "Second, publicize the plan for how vaccination will scale up so dramatically... Third, acknowledge the challenges and end the defensiveness. The public will understand if initial goals need to be revised, but there must be willingness to learn from missteps and immediately course-correct."
"This massacre and Israel's media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately."
The international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders on Monday called on the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting following the massacre of six Palestinian media professionals in an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera reporters Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, and independent journalist Mohammed al-Khaldi were killed Sunday in a targeted Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike on their tent outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The IDF claimed that al-Sharif—one of the most prominent Palestinian journalists—"was the head of a Hamas terrorist cell," repeating an allegation first made last year. However, independent assessments by United Nations experts, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) concluded that Israel's allegations were unsubstantiated.
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill warned last year that the IDF's portrayal of al-Sharif and other Palestinian journalists as Hamas members was "an assassination threat and an attempt to preemptively justify their murder" for showing the world the genocidal realities of Israel's U.S.-backed war.
"Tonight Israel murdered the bravest journalistic hero in Gaza, Anas al-Sharif," Scahill said Sunday on social media. "For nearly two straight years, he documented the genocide of his people with courage and principle. Israel put him on a hit list because of his voice. Shame on this world and all who were silent."
Al Jazeera condemned Sunday's massacre as "a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza."
RSF issued a statement accusing the IDF of killing the six men "without providing solid evidence" of Hamas affiliation, a "disgraceful tactic" that is "repeatedly used against journalists to cover up war crimes."
The Paris-based nonprofit noted that Israeli forces have "already killed more than 200 media professionals"—including at least 19 Al Jazeera workers and freelancers—since the IDF began its annihilation and siege of Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attack led by Hamas.
These include Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in a targeted strike on the al-Shati refugee camp in July 2024 following an IDF smear campaign alleging without proof that al-Ghoul took part in the October 7 attack. The IDF claimed that al-Ghoul received Hamas military training at a time when he would have been just 10 years old.
"RSF strongly condemns the killing of six media professionals by the Israeli army, once again carried out under the guise of terrorism charges against a journalist," RSF director general Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement. "One of the most famous journalists in the Gaza Strip, Anas al-Sharif, was among those killed."
"This massacre and Israel's media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately," Bruttin continued. "The international community can no longer turn a blind eye and must react and put an end to this impunity."
"RSF calls on the U.N. Security Council to meet urgently on the basis of Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in times of armed conflict in order to stop this carnage," he added.
Israel's latest killing of media professionals sparked international condemnation. On Monday, Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, called for an investigation into the massacre, saying that "journalists and media workers must be respected, they must be protected and they must be allowed to carry out their work freely, free from fear and free from harassment."
Recognizing the possibility that he would become one of the more than 61,500 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, al-Sharif, like many Palestinian journalists, prepared a statement to be published in the event of his death.
"This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice," he wrote. "I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland."
"Make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family," al-Sharif added.
Since October 2023, RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court—which last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes—requesting investigations into IDF killings of journalists in Gaza and accusing Israel of a deliberate "eradication of the Palestinian media."
The six journalists' killings came as Israeli forces prepared to ramp up the Gaza invasion with the stated goal of occupying the entire coastal enclave and ethnically cleansing much of its Palestinian population.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday afternoon that at least 69 Palestinians, including at least 10 children and 29 aid-seekers, were killed in the past 24 hours. An IDF strike on Gaza City reportedly killed nine people, including six children. Five more Palestinians also reportedly died of starvation in a burgeoning famine that officials say has claimed at least 222 lives, including 101 children.
"The Trump-Vance administration is refusing to hand over documents that could show their culpability in hiding international human civil rights abuses," says the president of Democracy Forward.
A coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of State over its refusal to release congressionally mandated reports on international human rights abuses.
The Council for Global Equality (CGE) has accused the administration of a "cover-up of a cover-up" to keep the reports buried.
Each year, the department is required to report on the practices of other countries concerning individual, civil, political, and worker rights protected under international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Governments and international groups have long cited these surveys as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative sources on the state of human rights, informing policy surrounding foreign aid and asylum.
The Foreign Assistance Act requires that these reports be sent to Congress by February 25 each year, and they are typically released in March or April. But nearly six months later, the Trump administration has sent nothing for the calendar year 2024.
Meanwhile, NPR reported in April on a State Department memo requiring employees to "streamline" the reports by omitting many of the most common human rights violations:
The reports... will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won't condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on "free and fair elections."
Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations...
...reports of violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people will be removed, along with all references to [diversity, equity, and inclusion] (DEI).
Among other topics ordered to be struck from the reports: involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices, arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, serious restrictions to internet freedom, extensive gender-based violence, and violence or threats of violence targeting people with disabilities.
Last week, The Washington Post obtained leaked copies of the department's reports on nations favored by the Trump administration—El Salvador, Russia, and Israel. It found that they were "significantly shorter" than the reports released by the Biden administration and that they struck references to widely documented human rights abuses in these countries.
In the case of El Salvador, where the administration earlier this year began shipping immigrants deported from the United States, the department's report stated that were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" there, even though such abuses—including torture, physical violence, and deprivation have been widely reported, including by Trump's own deportees.
Human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people were deleted from the State Department's report on Russia, while the report on Israel deleted references to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial and to his government's threats to the country's independent judiciary.
"Secretary Rubio's overtly political rewriting of the human rights reports is a dramatic departure from even his own past commitment to protecting the fundamental human rights of LGBTQI+ people," said Keifer Buckingham, the Council for Global Equality's managing director. "Strategic omission of these abuses is also directly in contravention to Congress's requirement of a 'full and complete report' regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights."
In June, the CGE sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the State Department calling for all communications related to these decisions to be made public. The department acknowledged the request but refused to turn over any documents.
Now CGE has turned to the courts. On Monday, the legal nonprofit Democracy Forward filed a complaint on CGE's behalf in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the department had violated its duties under FOIA to turn over relevant documents in a timely manner.
"The Trump-Vance administration is refusing to hand over documents that could show their culpability in hiding international human civil rights abuses," said Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward's president and CEO.
"The world is watching the United States. We cannot risk a cover-up on top of a cover-up," Perryman continued. "If this administration is omitting or delaying the release of information about human rights abuses to gain favor with other countries, it is a shameful statement of the gross immorality of this administration."
"Our elections should belong to us, not to corporations owned or influenced by foreign governments whose interests may not align with our own," said the head of the committee behind the measure.
The Associated Press reported Monday that a federal appeals court recently blocked Maine from enforcing a ban on foreign interference in elections that the state's voters passed in 2023.
After Hydro-Quebec spent millions of dollars on a referendum, 86% of Mainers voted for Question 2, which would block foreign governments and companies with 5% or more foreign government ownership from donating to state referendums.
Then, the Maine Association of Broadcasters, Maine Press Association, Central Maine Power, and Versant Power sued to block the ballot initiative. According to the AP, last month, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston affirmed a lower-court ruling that the measure likely violates the First Amendment to the federal Constitution.
Judge Lara Montecalvo wrote that "the prohibition is overly broad, silencing U.S. corporations based on the mere possibility that foreign shareholders might try to influence its decisions on political speech, even where those foreign shareholders may be passive owners that exercise no influence or control over the corporation's political spending."
As the AP detailed:
The matter was sent back to the lower court, where it will proceed, and there has been no substantive movement on it in recent weeks, said Danna Hayes, a spokesperson for the Maine attorney general's office, on Monday. The law is on the state's books, but the state cannot enforce it while legal challenges are still pending, Hayes said.
Just months before voters approved Question 2, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the ban, citing fears that it could silence "legitimate voices, including Maine-based businesses." She previously vetoed a similar measure in 2021.
Still, supporters of the ballot initiative continue to fight for it. Rick Bennett, chair of Protect Maine Elections, the committee formed to support Question 2, said in a statement that "Mainers spoke with one voice: Our elections should belong to us, not to corporations owned or influenced by foreign governments whose interests may not align with our own."
A year after Maine voters approved that foreign election interference law, they also overwhelmingly backed a ballot measure to restrict super political action committees (PACs). U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Frink Wolf blocked that measure, Question 1, last month.
"We think ultimately the court of appeals is going to reverse this decision because it's grounded in a misunderstanding of what the Supreme Court has said," Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard professor and founder of the nonprofit Equal Citizens that helped put Question 1 on the ballot, told News Center Maine in July. "We are exhausted, all of us, especially people in Maine, with the enormous influence money has in our politics, and we want to do something about it."