Strikes by Greek teachers and island ferry crews trigger broader labor disputes

Associated Press Finance
Updated Wed 23 October 2024 



Greece Teachers Protest
The shadows of striking teachers are seen on the road during a protest against Greece's conservative government over labor rights, in Athens, Greece on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024

 (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)


ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Striking Greek public school teachers marched in protest through central Athens on Wednesday as tensions grow between labor organizations and the center-right government over workers’ rights.

Island ferry crews also decided to extend for another two days a strike that has left ships moored in port since Tuesday. Their demands include a 12% pay increase.

The 24-hour teachers' strike was called by Greece's civil servants’ union ADEDY, taking over from teaching unions after the government tried to block the action in court.

Labor unions are pressing for the restoration of rights that were significantly rolled back during successive international bailouts between 2010 and 2018. The austerity measures implemented as a condition for the rescue loans included severe cuts to public spending, tax increases and labor reforms that resulted in a weakening of collective bargaining rules.

Teachers' unions are seeking salary increases and more permanent positions for temporary staff among other demands.

The government maintains that the original strike failed to meet legal requirements under recent labor reforms, while ADEDY accused the government of trying to restrict workers' constitutional right to strike.

Wednesday's march ended peacefully.

Also Wednesday, Greece's Panhellenic Seamen's Federation decided to extend for another two days a two-day strike it launched Tuesday.

The union warned that it would likely consider further extending the strike. That would disrupt travel plans by thousands of Greeks planning a long island weekend ahead of a national holiday on Monday

Up next

European overtourism anger spreads to Greece as protests loom over higher pay demands

Prarthana Prakash

Updated Tue 22 October 2024 at 9:08 am GMT-6·3-min read

Greece is facing looming protests from workers in its tourism industry. (Nicolas Economou—NurPhoto/Getty Images)

Overtourism anger is coming to a head in Greece, with workers in the Greek tourism sector preparing to protest, demanding pay rises and shorter working weeks.

Labor unions are organizing protests in ports, airports, and archaeological sites to raise awareness about the poor wages paid to industry workers.

"We are asking for an increase of 12% for the next two years, that is 6% for each year. We are also asking—in 2024—that the five-day, 40-hour working week also be applied to us," Giorgos Hotzoglou, president of the Hellenic Federation of Tourism Employees, told Euronews in a report published Monday.

If the protests occur, they will be the first in Greece following a summer of antitourism backlash across Europe. This summer, Barcelona and Tenerife saw a wave of anger erupt on city streets after an influx of tourists pushed visitor numbers to a record high.

Greece has probably witnessed the worst side of tourism, an industry its economy has come to rely on heavily. Between 25% and 30% of the country’s GDP now comes from tourism-linked activities; on some islands, that proportion spikes to 90%.

Still, it’s hard to overlook mass tourism's impact on Greece in recent years. It has been blamed for exacerbating a housing and resource shortage.

Last year, the country welcomed nearly 33 million foreign visitors—over three times the size of Greece’s population.

Despite that staggering figure, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insists the country isn’t facing overtourism. Instead, it needs to improve its management of areas that have become tourist clusters.

“It is very dangerous to present Greece as a place that is not welcoming to tourists,” Mitsotakis told the Financial Times last month.

Tourism clearly has shown no signs of abating. Recent government data in Greece shows that revenues from the industry have ticked down this year despite an increase in arrivals.

If it were up to the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), it would turn the country’s “sun and sea” appeal and focus instead on offering experiences that truly help it improve.

SETE didn’t immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.

Europe’s battle over tourism

Residents of the towns that have been dealing with a swell in tourists have argued that the once-positive force is now hurting citizens' quality of life by pushing housing costs up and turning local neighborhoods into tourist attractions.

Greece is far from alone in the crisis it faces, and many countries have taken matters into their own hands.

Hungary is considering measures to pause the issuance of short-term Airbnb licenses in its capital city of Budapest.

Meanwhile, Venice has introduced a so-called tourist tax, banned loudspeakers, and capped visitor groups at 25 this year in hopes of keeping the impact of mass tourism under control. Not too far away, Amsterdam plans to halve the number of cruises docking in the town to limit tourist nuisance.

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Los Angeles Times editor resigns after newspaper withholds presidential endorsement

Associated Press
Wed 23 October 2024 

FILE - The Los Angeles Times newspaper headquarters is shown in El Segundo, Calif., Jan. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)


LOS ANGELES (AP) — The editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times has resigned after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president, a journalism trade publication reported Wednesday.

Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview that she resigned because the Times was remaining silent on the contest in “dangerous times.”

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza said. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”


In a post on the social media platform X that did not directly mention the resignation, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said the board was asked to do a factual analysis of the policies of Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump during their time at the White House.

Additionally, "The board was asked to provide (its) understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years,” he wrote. “In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being president for the next four years.”

Soon-Shiong, who bought the paper in 2018, said the board “chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision.”

Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review that the board had intended to endorse Harris and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial.

A LA Times spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

The LA Times Guild Unit Council & Bargaining Committee said it was “deeply concerned about our owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement in the presidential race."

“We are even more concerned that he is now unfairly assigning blame to Editorial Board members for his decision not to endorse," the guild said in a statement. “We are still pressing for answers from newsroom management on behalf of our members.”

Trump’s campaign jumped on Garza’s departure, saying the state’s largest newspaper had declined to endorse the Democratic ticket after backing Harris in her previous races for U.S. Senate and state attorney general.

Her exit comes about 10 months after then-Executive Editor Kevin Merida left the paper in what was called a “mutually agreed” upon departure. At the time, the news organization said it had fallen well short of its digital subscriber goals and needed a revenue boost to sustain the newsroom and its digital operations

Los Angeles Times Editorials Editor Resigns Over Owner’s Decision Not To Endorse In Presidential Race; Patrick Soon-Shiong Responds To Backlash

Ted Johnson
Wed 23 October 2024 


UPDATED, with comment from Times’ owner: After Mariel Garza resigned due to the Times’ owner refusing to allow an endorsement in the presidential race, proprietor Patrick Soon-Shiong took to X in an attempt to quell the resulting online backlash. He said soon after the news broke: “So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about. The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation. In addition, the Board was asked to provide their understanding of the policies and plans enunciated by the candidates during this campaign and its potential effect on the nation in the next four years. In this way, with this clear and non-partisan information side-by-side, our readers could decide who would be worthy of being President for the next four years. Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision. Please #vote.”

PREVIOUS STORY: The editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times has resigned after the owner of the publication’s owner refused to allow an endorsement in the presidential race.

Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review that she is “resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Times, informed the editorial board earlier this month that the publication would be making no endorsement in the presidential race. The Times has endorsed each cycle since 2008. According to CJR, the editorial board planned to endorse Kamala Harris.

In her resignation letter, per CJR, Garza wrote that while she had told herself “presidential endorsements don’t really matter,” the “reality bit me like cold water on Tuesday when the news rippled out about the decision not to endorse without so much as a comment from LAT management, and Donald Trump turned it into an anti-Harris rip.”

After the news on Tuesday that the Times would not be endorsing, the Trump campaign sent out an email calling the decision the “latest blow to Harris-Walz.” “Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job,” the Trump campaign wrote.

Garza wrote that the decision not to endorse “makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for the US Senate?”

L.A. Times Readers Vow to Unsubscribe After Non-Endorsement

Grace Harrington
Wed 23 October 2024 

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin


Los Angeles Times readers are threatening to unsubscribe from the paper after its owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, reportedly ordered the editorial board not to endorse a presidential candidate.

Semafor reported Tuesday that the paper was ready to endorse Kamala Harris for president—it has endorsed the Democratic candidate in every election cycle since it resumed making endorsements in 2008—before Soon-Shiong shot them down.

The only reference to the presidential election in the paper’s lengthy endorsement list calling the 2024 race “the most consequential election in a generation. And we’re not just talking about the presidential race.”

This ignited the ire of some L.A. Times readers, who flocked to X to say they’re canceling their subscription.

“Just canceled my subscription, @latimes. WTF is wrong with you?” wrote screenwriter Randi Mayem Singer. She also posted confirmation of her cancellation.

Evan Handler, who plays Harry Goldenblatt on Sex and the City, said he canceled his subscription and urged others to do the same.

“I don’t need to spend $15.96/month to read only what Patrick Soon-Schiong allows the paper’s staff to publish,” he wrote on X.

“Just cancelled my 30+ year subscription to the LA Times. Will miss it but if democracy is not important to the times then the times is not important to me,” said user Andrew Levey.

Sports journalist Jemele Hill criticized the editorial board for going along with the non-endorsement.

“The cowardice of journalists during this time is so utterly disappointing. The very nature of this job is to disrupt and sometimes tell people the uncomfortable truth. That a paper like the LA Times has abandoned that responsibility sadly speaks to where we are,” she wrote.

Other users criticized Soon-Shiong directly.

Actress Maya Contreras tweeted a screenshot of Tesla CEO Elon Musk congratulating Soon-Shiong on the purchase of the L.A. Times, and Soon-Shiong thanking him.

“Everyone should know that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is South African (like Elon Musk), a billionaire (like Elon Musk), and friends… with Elon Musk,” she wrote.

 CRYPTOZOOLOGY

Bristol Zoo Keepers 'Baffled' By 'Mysterious Winged And Horned Creature' Caught On Camera

Amy Glover
Wed 23 October 2024 


Bristol Zoological Society

’Tis the season for all things spooky ― and apparently, some keepers at the Bristol Zoo Project (run by the Bristol Zoological Society) have come across some suitably eerie footage.

A still image from night vision cameras that monitor the Zoo’s Bear Wood habitat “has us just a little stumped,” the Project’s Facebook Post reads.

The image comes from camera traps used by Bristol Zoological Society’s conservation team “to survey and monitor species of all sizes that inhabit Bear Wood’s 7.5 acres of ancient woodland.”

In a press release, Rosie Sims, Public Engagement Manager at Bristol Zoo Project, said: “The sighting of this mythical-like creature is a mystery to us here at Bristol Zoo Project.”

“Scotland has the Loch Ness monster and Cornwall has the Beast of Bodmin Moor – have we discovered a similar mythical here in Bristol perhaps?”

HuffPost UK asked the British Zoological Society whether they had a nickname for the animal, to which a spokesperson replied: “We haven’t actually got an in-house nickname for it yet, at the moment we are just referring to it as a ‘mysterious creature.’”
People had *thoughts* online

The Facebook post shared by the Bristol Zoo Project compared the night-time image to a daytime snap of a very, very similar-looking Muntjac deer.

Reddit member u/shellac, who’s part of the r/bristol subreddit, wrote into the forum to say: “It’s a Muntjac deer. I’m not an expert and even I can see that.”

The zoo’s press release says, “After reviewing the images they say the creature appears to have four legs and is like nothing [the conservation team] have spotted before.”

But a Facebook user wrote, “I realise this is a single frame, but what you call ‘wings’ looks a lot like the back of the deer’s head as it has turned to look over its back. I would expect more blurring if it were a single frame.”

Still, others have different thoughts: one Facebook user commented, “It’s obviously an infant Unicorn Pegasus,” while another said: “It is a twin birth gone awry.

“One twin did not develop separately. This sometimes happens in cattle and extra legs or two heads appear on one calf.”
It coincides with the zoo’s (genuinely exciting-sounding) Halloween trail

“The sightings come just before the launch of the zoo’s ‘Howl-oween: Myths and Legends trail’, which will give visitors the opportunity to see giraffes, lemurs, cheetah, wolves and wolverines, as well as potentially spot the mythical creature,” the press release reads.

“It will also include myth-busting talks, an interactive animal artefact experience in the Lodge of Legends, as well as the chance for visitors to create their own mythical creature in the Cauldron of Creation.”

The Bristol Zoological Society aim to tackle the genuinely scary issue of animal endangerment, sharing that “78% of the animals we care for are both threatened and part of targeted conservation programmes.”

“Our aim is for this to rise to 90% of species by 2035.”

Emissions from forest fires have tripled in one area – here’s why it’s worrying

Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Wed 23 October 2024

Carbon dioxide emissions from fires in the northern ‘boreal’ forests have almost tripled since 2001. (Alberta Wildfire/ZUMA Press Wire)


The world’s northernmost forests in Canada, Norway, Alaska and Russia are burning at a greater rate – and it’s helping to drive climate change.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fires in the northern ‘boreal’ forests have almost tripled since 2001 - part of a wider surge of 60% in forest fire-related emissions.

Emissions from forests outside the tropics – known as ‘extratropical’ fires – are now emitting half a billion tonnes more CO2 than two decades ago. Previous research has shown that fires in these remote areas are often started by lightning, with storms becoming more likely due to climate change.


Dr Matthew Jones, a NERC independent research fellow at the University of Exeter, said: “The steep trend towards greater extratropical forest fire emissions is a warning of the growing vulnerability of forests and it poses a significant challenge for global targets to tackle climate change.

“We know that forests rebound poorly after the most severe fires, so there is huge interest in how the observed increases in fire severity will influence carbon storage in forests over the coming decades. This demands our close attention.”
Why are fires increasing in northern forests?

A major new study reveals that CO2 emissions from forest fires have increased everywhere - but in particular in the northern ‘boreal’ forests, also known as taiga.

Fires are getting bigger and more frequent in boreal forests. (Getty)

Boreal forests account for 27% of the world’s forest area, and have seen emissions from fires nearly triple between 2001 and 2023.

The change is linked to climate change as the fires and emissions are linked to the hot, dry conditions seen in heatwaves and droughts, the researchers believe.

Climate change is also driving increased rates of growth, which provides more ‘fuel’ for fires.

These trends are aided by rapid warming in the high northern latitudes, which is happening twice as fast as the global average.
Are forest wildfires getting more frequent or bigger?

Forest wildfires are getting both bigger and more frequent, the study found.

The carbon combustion rate, a measure of fire severity based on how much carbon is emitted per unit of area burned, increased by almost 50% across forests globally between 2001 and 2023.

Lead author Dr Jones, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, said: “Increases in both the extent and severity of forest fires have led to a dramatic rise in the amount of carbon emitted by forest fires globally.

“Startling shifts in the global geography of fires are also underway, and they are primarily explained by the growing impacts of climate change in the world’s boreal forests.

“To protect critical forest ecosystems from the accelerating threat of wildfires, we must keep global warming at bay and this underscores why it is so vital to make rapid progress towards net zero emissions.”
Why are forest fires important?

Forests are crucial to the world’s battle against climate change – and increased forest fires threaten that balance.

Forests are of worldwide importance for carbon storage, with their growth helping to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and reduce rates of global warming.

They also play a crucial role in meeting international climate targets.

Reforestation and afforestation schemes are being planned and used to remove carbon from the atmosphere and offset human CO2 emissions.

The success of these schemes relies on carbon being stored in forests permanently, and wildfires threaten that.

Man and woman carry out terror attack on Turkish aerospace company

Kieran Kelly

Wed 23 October 2024 

Four people have been killed after attackers opened fire at an aerospace company


A man and a woman wielding automatic weapons opened fire on staff at the headquarters of a Turkish aerospace company on Wednesday in a deadly terror attack.

Two attackers drove a beaten-up yellow taxi to the entrance of Turkish Aerospace Industries (Tusas) in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, before launching their assault.

CCTV footage showed at least two attackers shooting at people fleeing in the company’s car park.

Five people were killed and around a dozen more were injured in the attack, which occurred at around 3.30pm local time in the Kahramankazan district.

One assailant reportedly detonated a bomb at the entrance of Tusas’s HQ before a gunman dressed in black was filmed jumping over entry turnstiles and firing through automatic doors from inside the building.

One of the attackers, a woman, carried out the attack with a Kalashnikov rifle, according to reports, while the man wielded a PK machine gun.

Ali Yerlikaya, Turkey’s interior minister, confirmed that she and another assailant were “neutralised”.

Investigations into the identity of the perpetrators are ongoing. In the past, Kurdish militants, ISIS and leftist extremists have carried out terror attacks in Turkey.

Mr Yerlikaya said it was “most likely” carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist terror organisation.

Turkey’s interior minister confirmed the female attacker and another assailant were ‘neutralised’

The PKK is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, Britain, the US and the European Union. It has been fighting a separatist insurgency since 1984, with more than 40,000 people killed in the conflict.

In September, Turkey said it destroyed 20 PKK “targets” in a series of air strikes in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The PKK has been noted for its use of female fighters as around 40 per cent of the PKK’s troops were reported to be women in 2014.

It is not yet clear how many people were involved in the attack and whether there were other suspects still at large.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, said he condemned the “heinous terrorist attack” as he attended the Brics summit in the Russian city of Kazan, where he thanked Vladimir Putin for his condolences.

CCTV from the site showed an armed attacker entering the building

Mr Erdoğan later said in a statement: “Our nation should know that dirty hands reaching out to Turkey will definitely be broken; no structure, no terrorist organisation, no evil focused on our security will be able to achieve their goals.”

Tusas’s headquarters in Kahramankazan is believed to house around 15,000 employees.

Local media first reported that a huge explosion was followed by gunfire, before claiming that hostages had been taken in a suspected suicide bomb attack.

Security forces stormed the site as ambulances and firefighters were dispatched to the site, NTV television reported. Employees at the company were taken to a safe area.

Tusas is considered to be one of Turkey’s most important defence and aviation companies.

The company manufactures the advanced Kaan fighter jet along with other planes, helicopters and drones for the Turkish defence industry.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Security forces were deployed to the site of the attack - Serdar Ozsoy/Getty

The last terror attack in Turkey was claimed by Isis. Two gunmen opened fire inside a Catholic church in Istanbul, killing one, in January of this year.

Wednesday’s attack came after Devlet Bahçeli, Mr Erdoğan’s coalition partner and leader of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), suggested PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan could be granted parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the organisation.

Ocalan has been serving a life sentence on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara since February 1999 for founding and leading a terrorist organisation.

Mr Erdoğan is reportedly seeking support from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) to push for constitutional changes.

Rumours have grown in recent weeks of a possible resumption of talks between Turkey and the PKK as part of fresh efforts to end a conflict that began 40 years ago.

Mr Bahceli’s speech was extraordinary given his usual vitriolic rhetoric towards Ocalan, the PKK and DEM politicians.

The DEM party questioned the timing of the attack in parliament on Wednesday and referred to it as a “provocation”.

A member of Mr Erdoğan’s ruling party, Ozlen Zengin, also said: “I find the timing very significant... Why today? Why Tusas?”

Turkish politicians and international politicians were quick to condemn Wednesday’s attack. “We stand with Turkey. We strongly condemn all forms of terrorism,” Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of Nato, posted on X.

Turkey throttled social media following the attack and applied a broadcast ban, citing the sharing of unconfirmed images.

In a post on X on Wednesday evening, Sir Keir Starmer offered condolences to the families of the victims.

He said: “I am appalled by the terrorist attack in Ankara.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder with Turkey as a NATO ally and close friend.

“Our thoughts are with the families of victims and all those affected.”


Turkey points finger at PKK as attack on defence firm kills five, injures 22

FRANCE 24
Wed 23 October 2024 at 7:54 am GMT-6·1-min read



Five people were killed and 22 others wounded in an attack on the headquarters of Turkish defence firm TUSAS, located near the capital Ankara, Turkish officials said Wednesday, pointing the finger at Kurdish separatists who have carried out attacks in the past.

Assailants set off explosives and opened fire in an attack Wednesday on the premises of the Turkish state-run aerospace and defence company TUSAS, killing five people and wounding several more, Turkish officials said. At least two of the attackers died.

“I condemn this heinous terrorist attack and wish mercy on our martyrs,” Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a BRICS meeting in Kazan, Russia.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya pointed the finger at the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the government.

"The identification process and the search for fingerprints are continuing and we will say which terrorist organisation was behind the attack... The way in which this action was carried out is very probably linked to the PKK," Yerlikaya said.

He said efforts to identify the perpetrators were ongoing.

Kurdish militants, the Islamic State group and leftist extremists have all carried out attacks in the country in the past.
'Terror attack'

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP)

UK Prime Minister ‘appalled’ by deadly attack on Turkish defence company

John Besley, PA
Wed 23 October 2024 



The Prime Minister said he was “appalled” by a terrorist attack on a Turkish defence company that left five people dead and more than 20 injured.

Authorities said suspected Kurdish militants set off explosives and opened fire at the state-run aerospace and defence company TUSAS on Wednesday.

Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said the two attackers – a man and a woman – were killed in the incident, while at least 22 people were wounded.



In a post on X on Wednesday evening, Sir Keir Starmer offered condolences to the families of the victims.

He said: “I am appalled by the terrorist attack in Ankara.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder with Turkey as a NATO ally and close friend.

“Our thoughts are with the families of victims and all those affected.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the attack “heinous”, while a US Embassy statement said Washington “strongly” condemned the attack.

The far-right megadonor pouring over $10m into the US election to defeat ‘the woke regime’

Jason Wilson
Tue, October 22, 2024 

THE GUARDIAN

Thomas Klingenstein has become one of the largest donors to the Republican party and has increasingly used his resources to pursue a hard-edged version of rightwing politics.Illustration: Tom Klingenstein YouTube/Guardian Design


Thomas Klingenstein, chair of the rightwing Claremont Institute, has cemented his place in the pantheon of Republican megadonors with a more than $10m spending spree so far in the 2024 election cycle, according to campaign contributions recorded by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Klingenstein has been one of Claremont’s largest donors for decades. As the institute has made its hard-right, pro-Trump drift in recent years, Klingenstein has continued to publicly describe US politics with extremist rhetoric, calling it a “cold civil war”, and has encouraged rightwingers to join the fight to defeat what he calls “the woke regime”.

His spending puts him at the forefront of a class of donors who are explicitly supporting more extreme and polarizing politics in Trump’s Republican party.


The largesse has already dwarfed his contributions in previous election seasons. The money has gone exclusively to Republicans, and has included seven-figure donations to at least four pro-Trump Pacs in recent months.

The Guardian emailed Klingenstein for comment on this reporting but received no reply.
Increased largesse

Federal Election Commission (FEC) data is a lagging indicator: currently available data only reflects contributions made before early July, so it is possible that Klingenstein’s spend has increased since the last available filings.

Nevertheless, Klingenstein’s almost $10.7m in contributions during this cycle is already more than his combined giving in the previous five cycles stretching back to 2013-2014.

The amount fits with a pattern of increasing giving to political causes in recent years.

Until 2017, Klingenstein was an intermittent and moderate donor: in the 2014 cycle Klingenstein made just 11 donations totaling $32,500, and in 2016 he scaled that back, contributing just $7,700 including $2,000 to Trump’s first campaign, according to records of his giving in previous cycles.

In the 2018 cycle there was a sudden uptick to almost $350,000 in contributions. The next two cycles saw six-figure spends: $4.23m in 2019-2020, and just over $4m in 2021-2022. It remains to be seen how much Klingenstein will add to his unprecedented spend this cycle.

Klingenstein’s contribution has also grown relative to other political donors.

The transparency organization Open Secrets maintains a ranked list of the top 100 political donors in each cycle.

Klingenstein first landed on the list at number 85 in 2020, according to Open Secrets. In 2022 he nudged up to 78. This year he is the 35th largest individual political donor in the country according to the rankings.

His contributions this year put him in a similar league as Republican donors such as the Walmart heiress Alice Walton – currently the world’s richest woman – who is the 32nd largest donor per Open Secrets, and Democratic donors such as James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn, the 28th largest political donors in the US.
Funding Super Pacs

Klingenstein has donated to individual congressional campaigns, but the recipients of his largest donations in this and other recent cycles have been Pacs, including several favored by the biggest Republican donors.

One favorite is Club for Growth Action (CFG Action), a Pac which is ostensibly committed to “small government”, and whose biggest funders are the billionaire megadonors including Jeff Yass, Richard Uihlein and Virginia James.

Klingenstein has contributed almost $9m to CFG Action over several cycles, including $3m in 2020, $1.45m in 2022, and $4.45m this cycle. That figure included a single donation of $2.5m last December.

Other recipients of six-figure Klingenstein donations include the Sentinel Action Fund, a Pac launched in 2022 by Jessica Anderson, until then executive director of Heritage Action, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, which is the force behind Project 2025.

Related: Crypto Super Pac spends $10m on Katie Porter attack ads in California race

This cycle, Sentinel has positioned itself as the sole conservative pro-cryptocurrency Pac, and has spent in support of Republicans in crucial Senate races in states including Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to FEC records and Facebook and Google advertising libraries.

Sentinel president Anderson also served in the Trump administration. Klingenstein gave Sentinel $1m in May.

Klingenstein has also been a rainmaker for prominent Maga-verse organizations this cycle, giving $1m to pro-Trump Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc in July, and $495,000 to Charlie Kirk-linked Turning Point Pac in February.

Not all of Klingenstein’s bets pay off. Last September, he handed $1m to American Exceptionalism Pac, a Super Pac supportive of failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Rightwing ties

The Guardian has previously reported on Klingenstein’s role as a financier and influencer in far-right circles.

Last March, it was revealed that he had funded Action Idaho, a far-right political website set up by Boise State political science professor and the Claremont Institute fellow Scott Yenor.

In documents pitching the idea of the site during late 2021, Yenor wrote that the site’s goal was to “translate anti-critical-race-theory (anti-CRT) movement and anti-lockdown movements into a durable political movement to radicalize political opinion in Idaho and shape the primaries to the advantage of conservatives”.

Yenor used the now defunct website and an associated account on Twitter/X to make rightwing attacks on Idaho politicians and activists, including Republicans.

Last August, the Guardian reported on Klingenstein’s growing largesse including his donations to his own Pac, American Firebrand, whose funds were spent in part on producing a series of videos that showcased Klingenstein’s apocalyptic vision of US politics.

Those videos portrayed liberals and the left as implacable internal enemies, and as “woke communists”.

In one, Klingenstein said: “We find ourselves in a cold civil war,” and defined the warring sides as “those who want to preserve the American way of life, and those who want to destroy is”, and adding: “These differences are too large to bridge. This is what makes it a war. In a war you must play to win.”

Klingenstein’s recent rhetoric has continued in much the same vein.

On X, he has portrayed disparate political developments as elements of “cold civil war” such as Trump’s New York felony convictions, the Colorado supreme court’s judgement that Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot due to the 14th amendment’s prohibition on elected officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”, and former Republicans’ public support of that reading of the amendment.

Related: Racism, misogyny, lies: how did X become so full of hatred? And is it ethical to keep using it?

He has also opened up his personal website to a rotating cast of rightwing writers, whose articles have claimed that the US is subject to “woke totalitarianism”, advocated for a total freeze on immigration, and claimed that Kamala Harris’s nomination is an outcome of “group quota regime – the paradigm of racial outcome-engineering”.

He has also been the leading financial supporter of the rightwing Claremont Institute, where he also serves as chair.

Available tax filings for his foundation, the Thomas D Klingenstein fund, indicate that he has directed at least $22m to Claremont since 2004.

That giving has stepped up significantly in the Trump era: in returns from 2004 to 2014, Klingenstein gifted an average of about $307,000 to Claremont, and even skipped a year in 2013. In returns from 2015 on he has given an average of $2.3m, and in 2021 his donation to Claremont was just shy of $3m.

His heightened giving has coincided with Claremont’s embrace of Trumpism, which writers including Laura Field have argued has transformed it from a respected conservative thinktank into a propaganda juggernaut that envisions a radical remaking of the US along far-right lines.

The Guardian has reported extensively on the Claremont Institute’s ties to radical far-right politics.

Claremont’s president is one of the senior figures there who are members of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), an exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the US government with an authoritarian “aligned regime”. Claremont has also provided direct funding for SACR. In turn, one of SACR’s leading lights, shampoo tycoon and would be “warlord” Charles Haywood, has made five-figure donations to Claremont.

UAW members support Harris over Trump by 22 points in swing states – poll

Michael Sainato

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, October 23, 2024 



United Auto Workers (UAW) members in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada support the presidential candidate Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by 22 points, according to a poll conducted by the union.

UAW members in Michigan – the center of the US auto industry – support Harris over Trump by 20 percentage points, with 54% supporting Harris over 34% supporting Trump, the poll found. The union claimed in 2020 that UAW members accounted for 84% of Joe Biden’s margin of victory in Michigan.

The poll also found that support among non-college-educated men – a key demographic where Harris has been lagging – gave Harris a 14-point margin over Trump.

Both Trump and Harris have courted the UAW’s members. The UAW president, Shawn Fain, has backed Harris and become a target of Trump’s ire. Biden supported the UAW in its strike against the US’s big three auto companies last year, becoming the first president to walk a picket line.

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The union is also running door-knocking operations in battleground states to turn out the vote for Harris. According to the union, the poll has engaged with 293,000 active and retired union members and their families in election battleground states.

The union also noted union members who reported being contacted by the UAW about the election had increased their support for Harris over Trump by 29 points.

“When members hear directly from other members about what’s at stake and which candidate will have their backs, we’re able to break through,” said Fain. “By engaging our members and highlighting the issues that matter – their paychecks, their families, and their futures – the union makes a real difference.”

The poll comes as Fain is set to speak to members via live stream next week and is making voter turnout event appearances with other Harris supporters, including the senator Bernie Sanders in Michigan and the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in Pennsylvania.

Both Harris and Trump have been vying for working class and union member votes. Trump held a staged event at a closed McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania earlier this week.

Though most labor unions have supported Harris, the Teamsters International made waves after deciding in September 2024 to refrain from making an endorsement this election and claiming the majority of the union’s membership supported Trump.

Workers wait for Kamala Harris during a campaign event at the UAW Local 652 at an airport in Lansing, Michigan on 18 October 2024.Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Pennsylvania Democrats push to counter Trump’s growing rise with union workers

Sarah Ferris, CNN
Wed, October 23, 2024 

Bushy-bearded United Auto Workers leader Dan Vicente has watched first-hand as his fellow union workers have drifted away from the Democratic Party here in Pennsylvania.

He was almost one of them.

The plain-spoken UAW Region 9 director told a bustling hall on Sunday that he nearly voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Now, two elections later, Vicente said he’s still “not super into” either party but is backing Kamala Harris because she “at least comes from the working class.”


But he worries that Trump is still the one breaking through in many union shops like his.

“Let’s be real, a huge number of our unionized members are going to vote for Trump,” Vicente told CNN at the pro-Democrat rally. “The national Dems have a real problem with messaging to regular working people. You can give all the policy speeches you want. Nobody’s listening.”

The labor leader’s warning is yet another alarm bell for Democrats about their clout with labor nationally, which has been slipping for decades, according to interviews with more than a dozen union workers and local Democrats. Trump’s strength in places like eastern Pennsylvania have made it a far more urgent problem for Harris, whose ability to win the White House could come down to a few thousand votes here in the state.

It’s a challenge, too, for down-ballot Democrats in the Rust Belt. But in interviews, many labor leaders said the national party could learn from labor stalwarts here who are working hard to buck the trend, like Sen. Bob Casey and Reps. Susan Wild in the Lehigh Valley and Matt Cartwright in Scranton. For years, they’ve gone to the factory plants, gone to the picnics and gone to the picket lines.

That’s why Wild — who holds a critical toss-up seat in Democrats’ battle to flip the House — sat on stage Sunday morning alongside the UAW leaders. The room was filled with volunteer door-knockers and organized in support of Wild and Harris.

US Rep. Susan Wild poses for photos at UAW Local 677 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. Wild is seeking a fourth term in one of the nation’s most competitive districts. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

“Democratic candidates, at least on the presidential level, aren’t nearly as good at showing up for labor and getting to know them. And that’s what they want,” Wild told CNN. When asked how Harris and the Democratic Party can fix that, she said: “You gotta show up and you gotta get shit done.” But, she added, it’s much harder with only a 100-day campaign.

Harris, too, has been showing up at union events from Pittsburgh to Lansing, Michigan, in her 100-day sprint as Democratic nominee.

But while Scranton-born Joe Biden calls himself the most pro-union president ever, Harris’s support for labor has sometimes gotten lost in the broader messaging of her campaign. A September Fox News poll found Harris leading Trump among likely voters in union households, but by a smaller margin than Biden eventually won among that group in 2020.

The Democratic presidential nominee has also racked up endorsements from many of the biggest union groups, from the United Steelworkers to Pennsylvania’s own chapter of the Teamsters. But Harris failed to win an endorsement from the powerful national Teamsters group, as well as the International Association of Fire Fighters, when both declined to endorse in the presidential race.

And it’s tougher to reach those beyond the leadership table.

“The ones you really need to get to are the rank-and-file members,” Wild said.
‘They really need to trust you’

When Wild, the three-term House Democrat, showed up to a local firehouse last week to speak with members of the Carpenters Union Local #167, the mostly male crowd initially seemed skeptical.

She knew what issue was on their mind — immigration — and she decided to bring it up directly. She talked about how Capitol Hill Republicans, egged on by Trump, killed a bipartisan border security bill. And she talked about how Trump’s rhetoric, which she described as focusing on “rapists and murders and fentanyl” belied the truth of most migrants’ stories, who, she said, were more likely to join a union than to take a union worker’s job.

“A lot of these guys are not registered Democrats. So they really need to trust you,” Wild told CNN.

A pro-Harris union organizer walks into UAW Local 677 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

Yard signs for US Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania lean agains the wall in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

Harris is making a pro-labor pitch a big part of her closing message to voters. In speeches, ads and interviews, she’s calling out Trump for auto factory closures during his time in office and tax incentives for companies to move jobs overseas.

Gregg Potter, the president of the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, said he’s seen the Democratic Party sometimes takes union votes for granted. But he is fully on board with Harris and said: “I believe that she’s learning what’s important to us.”

“I did not know of her record that much, so I delved into it. She is the real deal,” said Potter, who showed up at the Allentown canvassing rally in a Harris-Walz t-shirt. “It took a couple weeks, but I’m firmly there.”

Potter added, though, “People say, well unions are all Democrat. Well, hardly the case.”

“It’s split,” he said.

Democrats struggle to break through

Thirteen days before the election, the highways of eastern Pennsylvania were dotted with highlighter-yellow Harris billboards. Each massive sign touts a different economic policy, from raising the minimum wage to protecting Social Security.

Along those same roadways, Trump’s own signs offer a simpler message: “DONALD TRUMP, LOWER TAXES. KAMALA HARRIS, HIGHER TAXES.”

Democrats insist it’s their agenda — not the GOP’s — that actually benefits the working class. But they also acknowledge they still struggle to pierce through Trump’s real-talking rhetoric.

Recently, though, Trump and his GOP allies have handed the Democrats a convenient new talking point: A video clip of Trump promising tax cuts for supporters, even as he jokes that they are already “rich as hell.”

In one ad that airs constantly here, an Allentown UAW member shakes his head as he watches Trump’s “rich as hell” remarks and says he plans to vote for Harris. (That member, Buddy Maxwell Jr., was among the canvassers on Sunday, and he told CNN that several people have approached him to tell him he helped sway their votes for Harris.)

Still, Democrats are clear-eyed that they won’t win the working class vote in Pennsylvania, especially among White voters. Instead, their strategy is this: Lose by less.

“Margins matter,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a southeastern Pennsylvania Democrat. He said Biden was able to win the state in 2020 because he improved “marginally” among these voters compared to Hillary Clinton.

“A Democratic nominee doesn’t need to win them. A Democratic nominee still needs to get a significant amount of the vote,” he told CNN.

Republicans, meanwhile, are working to make sure that doesn’t happen. Trump, for instance, won over a local steelworker’s union. And some Republican candidates here are taking pro-labor positions that would have been unusual to see from the GOP of previous decades.

“I’m the kind of candidate that can resonate on inflation and the economy and I can still be pro-collective bargaining,” said GOP candidate Rob Bresnahan, who is challenging long-time Rep. Matt Cartwright in Biden’s birthplace of Scranton.

But there’s another hugely important voting bloc among union workers that is giving Democrats hope in Pennsylvania and elsewhere: Women.

On a recent sunny Sunday morning, a pair of union leaders — Angela Ferritto, president of Pennsylvania’s AFL-CIO, and Jim Hutchinson, UAW Local 644 president — knocked on nearly a dozen doors before arriving at the home of Cindy and Cheyenne Lazarus.

Angela Ferritto, president of Pennsylvania’s AFL-CIO, and Jim Hutchinson, UAW Local 644 president, speak to Cheyenne and Cindy Lazarus as they knock doors for Democrats around Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 20. - Sarah Ferris/CNN

And those two women are exactly the kind of voters that makes them believe Harris and Democrats can win in November.

Cheyenne, who is in her twenties, answered the door in a pro-Harris “Childless Cat Ladies Social Club” t-shirt. Both she and her mom, Cindy, a SEIU union worker at an Allentown retirement community, had already voted early for Wild, Casey and Harris.

“I’ve been known to split my ticket, but not in the last 12 years though, because Republicans are — crazy. I won’t say the word that I was thinking,” Cindy quipped. “They’ve just gone crazy.”

“I couldn’t wait to put that dark circle in front of a woman’s name,” she said about filing in her early ballot. “I was waiting for it for a long time.”

Blue States Are Trying To Get Ahead Of The Conservative Supreme Court On Same-Sex Marriage

Lil Kalish
Tue, October 22, 2024 at 4:13 PM MDT·7 min read

LGBTQ+ advocates are hoping to enshrine marriage protections for same-sex couples in several state constitutions this fall — a preemptive effort to protect that right from a conservative U.S. Supreme Court and a possible second Donald Trump presidency.

Voters in California, Colorado and Hawaii will have the opportunity next month to repeal language in their state constitutions that defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman, and to further solidify protections for LGBTQ+ families.

Same-sex marriage has been federally protected since 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state bans barring same-sex couples from getting married violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

But when the Supreme Court ― stacked with three more conservative justices appointed by Trump ― ruled against federal abortion protections in its 2022 decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, advocates took note that other rights may also be on the chopping block.

Conservative justices argued in that decision that substantive due process — a principle in the Constitution that bars the government from interfering with certain rights — should be reexamined.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas specifically wrote in his concurring opinion that the court should “reconsider” the precedents created through this process in cases “including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” These are landmark civil rights statutes that protect the right to contraception, the right to privacy and sexual acts in one’s own home, and the right to same-sex marriage, respectively. Thomas later wrote that the justices have a “duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”

Some states are trying to get ahead of a potential rollback of Obergefell with ballot measures that would add constitutional amendments to safeguard and reaffirm marriage equality.

California’s Proposition 3 would repeal and overwrite the state’s ban on same-sex marriage that’s still in California’s constitution. In 2008, the voters in the state approved Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman and banned the state from recognizing same-sex marriage. It was made void after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry and allowed the state to resume same-sex marriages.

Colorado’s Amendment J similarly seeks to remove this narrow definition of marriage from the state constitution. And in Hawaii, voters will answer Question 1, which asks if voters want to remove language from the state constitution that gives Hawaii lawmakers the authority to reserve marriage only for “opposite-sex couples.”

“As someone who fought to establish and protect marriage equality in Hawaii for more than a quarter of a century, I refuse to stand by and watch this Court take a hatchet to rights won that had previously been denied,” wrote Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii), in support of Hawaii’s amendment. “If this Court follows through on its threat to revisit Obergefell, we could easily see nationwide rights to same-sex marriage restricted again.”

Viktor Staroverov (left) and Iurii Sigarev fill out paperwork to marry on Feb. 14, 2023, at City Hall in San Francisco. On Nov. 5, California voters will decide on a state constitutional amendment to protect the right to same-sex marriage. Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Thomas’ mention of Obergefell in his opinion sounded the alarm for many LGBTQ+ advocates. In the unlikely scenario in which Obergefell is reversed, states would individually be able to determine the legality of same-sex marriage — much like the current landscape for accessing abortion. Twenty-nine states have some kind of constitutional amendment or statutory ban on same-sex marriage on the books, which could be triggered if Obergefell is overturned.

“We actually already know what it’s like to live in that world,” Andy Izenson, the senior legal director of the LGBTQ+ legal nonprofit Chosen Family Law Center, told HuffPost. “We lived in that world until 2015 and people were traveling to other states where marriage was legal to get married. They were going back to their home states and not really having recognition of their marriage.”

Currently, 69% of Americans support same-sex couples’ right to legally marry, which is more than double the rates of support in the late 1990s, according to a poll from Gallup.

And in solid blue states like California, Colorado and Hawaii, these constitutional amendments are likely to pass — though some organizers worry that voters may not fill out that part of their ballots.

In other states, efforts to extend or strengthen protections for LGBTQ+ people are hitting a snag. Organizers in New York are trying to drum up support for a constitutional amendment to protect people seeking abortion and LGBTQ+ people. But a small and vocal group of opponents have started to sow doubts and confusion about what the amendment will do.

New York’s Proposition 1 is a state version of the Equal Rights Amendment, a more than 100-year-old feminist effort to guarantee equal rights for women in the U.S. Constitution, which has been stalled in Congress for decades. New York’s measure would strengthen protections in its state constitution, which currently bans discrimination only on the basis of race and religion. Proposition 1 would also prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, with an expansive definition to include “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

Similar to marriage equality and abortion amendments, New York’s effort would protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination during a time when transgender youth and adults face numerous barriers to health care, the ability to update their legal documents and to use bathrooms and facilities that align with their gender identity.

An opposition group called the Coalition to Protect Kids, funded by an anti-abortion activist, has leveraged transphobic rhetoric to stoke fears about the presence of trans people in girls’ sports and women’s bathrooms — and that the amendment would somehow lead to dangerous outcomes. One campaign mailer sent by the New York Republican State Committee said that Prop. 1 would lead to children undergoing gender-affirming care “without the benefit of parental guidance.”

Trump and other Republicans have used similar rhetoric throughout the campaign cycle, hoping to drum up support among conservative voters by pushing baseless information about the risk that the existence of transgender people poses to the greater society. Republicans have shelled out more than $65 million in television advertisements that stoke fears about Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on LGBTQ+ rights and play to conservative fears about transgender athletes in school sports.

On same-sex marriage, however, the official Republican Party platform has softened its position. The current party platform removes language from the 2016 platform that defined marriage as “between one man and one woman, and is the foundation for a free society.” This year the GOP approved a platform that says it promotes a “culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, the blessing of childhood, the foundational role of family, and support working parents.”

Though the party has on paper seemed to remove mention of the definition of marriage, Izenson said that Project 2025 — the more than 900-page policy handbook for a second Trump presidency written by the right-wing Heritage Foundation — lays out in greater detail what the legal landscape could look like for LGBTQ+ families in the coming years.

Among other policies aimed at LGBTQ+ people, Project 2025 proposes to protect religious organizations that maintain “a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family” and argues that same-sex marriages have “higher levels of instability” because the average length of those marriages is half that of heterosexual ones — even though same-sex marriage wasn’t the law of the land until 2015.

The outcome of the November presidential election will play a major role in whether policies like these and increasingly religious carve-outs come into fruition. But in the meantime, LGBTQ+ people are hoping that ballot amendments in progressive states offer a stopgap and affirmation of LGBTQ+ equality.

“Just with the upcoming election, who knows how things are going to work out federally,” John Wolfe, the owner of the Colorado LGBTQ+ bar Icons said to KKTV in Colorado Springs, “so this can protect our queer community and make sure that everybody is on the same playing field.”

Following fall of Roe v. Wade, organizers get same-sex marriage on the ballot in three states

Maura Barrett and Halle Lukasiewicz
Tue, October 22, 2024 

Freedom to Marry Colorado, a bipartisan organization dedicated to preserving equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, holds a rally outside the State Capitol in Denver.


Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, doing away with a half-century of precedent, activists worried that other high court decisions could be in jeopardy are taking their concerns to the polls. California, Colorado and Hawaii will soon allow their residents to vote on ballot measures that would remove language from their state constitutions prohibiting same-sex marriage.

The landmark 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, guaranteeing same-sex couples across the country the right to marry, makes these state bans unenforceable. However, these ballot measures seek to proactively protect these marriage rights should Obergefell ever be overturned.

Paul Smith, a Georgetown law professor who argued the landmark 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down the country’s remaining anti-sodomy laws, said the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, should serve as a cautionary tale.

“We’ve had the example of how Dobbs can take down a long-standing precedent. Suddenly there are these state laws that were sitting there dormant, that came springing back to life,” he said, referring to the dozens of states that now have abortion bans following the Dobbs decision. “These states don’t want their same-sex marriage bans to come springing back to life, so they’re going to do something about it, if just in case.”

Smith validated the potential concern, pointing to Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the 2022 Dobbs decision.

Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in Washington in 2021.

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.” Thomas wrote. (Griswold v. Connecticut is a 1965 high court ruling that established the right of married couples to use contraception.)

Earlier this year, Justice Samuel Alito renewed his criticism of the Obergefell ruling in declining to weigh in on a lower court case involving a dispute over dismissed jurors who had expressed religious concerns over same-sex relationships. Alito wrote that the case “exemplifies the danger” he sees in the 2015 decision.

“Namely, that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government,” he wrote.

The nine-member Supreme Court is the most conservative in a century, with six justices having been nominated by Republican presidents and three by Democrats. Ahead of the 2024 election, GOP senators are hopeful about the prospect of confirming even more conservative justices, as well as lower-court judges, if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Mary Bonauto, one of the lawyers who argued Obergefell before the Supreme Court, said the high court is “a very unpredictable court at this point” and added that ballot measures like the ones in California, Colorado and Hawaii are a way for states to use their power.

“They have been aggressive about reversing precedents,” Bonauto said of the Supreme Court. “They have completely remade how they deal with the powers of the government.”

Bonauto, now the senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, said that under the current circumstances, she doesn’t understand why anyone who has a chance to remove currently unenforceable language banning same-sex marriage from their state constitution “wouldn’t jump on it.”

Currently, 30 states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, with five also having statutes that prohibit such marriages, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. An additional five states have bans through statutes, though no constitutional amendments. In most of these cases, Smith said, the currently dormant provisions would become law again should Obergefell be overturned, just as long-dormant state abortion bans took effect after Roe v. Wade was struck down (constitutional amendments to protect or expand abortion rights will be on the ballot in 10 states next month).

Without Obergefell, there is federal legislation that would keep same-sex marriage rights mostly, but not entirely, intact: the Respect for Marriage Act. Signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, the bipartisan measure ensures federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. The law requires the federal government to recognize these marriages and guarantee them the full federal benefits of marriage, but it stops short of requiring states to issue marriage licenses contrary to state laws.

Bonauto and Smith agree it’s an important piece of legislation, but Bonauto noted there’s always a chance it could be repealed, should the balance of power shift in Congress, and Smith said the measure would leave those in conservative states vulnerable.

“Even if you can travel to New York to get married, to have suddenly in the law a provision that says you, out of all the people in our state, don’t get to pick your spouse… that would be a terrible thing to have on the books,” Smith said. “I don’t think states want to have that kind of thing — that second-class citizenship — restored, even if there is a workaround through the Respect for Marriage Act.”

Susy Bates, the campaign director of Freedom to Marry Colorado, a bipartisan organization dedicated to preserving equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, said if Obergefell were overturned and states had to rely on the Respect for Marriage Act, it would be “really murky.”

“Unless we take proactive measures, we can’t guarantee that marriage equality will be protected in the state,” she said.

It’s a personal issue for LGBTQ couples who had to navigate a time when same-sex marriage wasn’t legal or straightforward.

Anna and Fran Simon, the first gay couple to marry in Denver in 2014, had a large media presence at their civil union in 2013.

Before Anna and Fran Simon became the first same-sex couple in Denver to be legally married, in 2014, Anna was fingerprinted and had to undergo an FBI background check to change her last name. To have both of their names on their son’s birth certificate, the threshold was even higher: They hired a lawyer and petitioned a judge. It’s a process they want to ensure same-sex couples never have to go through.

“We had to cobble together all of the rights and protections we could, so we first paid lawyers thousands of dollars.” Fran said.

Anna added: “Having the legal recognition was extremely powerful for feeling like a full citizen. Those very real protections were extremely important psychologically, not just for us, but also for our son.”

Recent Gallup polling indicates 69 percent of Americans believe marriage between same-sex couples should be legal, and nearly as many say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable, at 64 percent. Support for same-sex relationships has drastically increased over the past few decades: When Gallup first polled the issue, in 1996, just 27% of Americans thought these unions should be legal.

Advocates of the proposition in Colorado say they’re pleasantly surprised they haven’t faced significant organized opposition against the ballot measure.

“Our largest party registration is No Party, or Independent,” Bates said. “I think Coloradans are really used to taking issues specifically as it relates to individual freedoms, individual rights, and really analyzing what that means for the day-to-day of people’s lives.”

When Colorado’s ballot measure was being considered in the state Legislature, Republican state Rep. Scott Bottoms, an opponent of the proposal, invoked religion in his nearly 8-minute speech, saying same-sex marriage, “goes directly against God’s laws.”

Bottoms then posted a video of his remarks on X, telling his followers: “The Democrats want to remove the idea of marriage between a man and a woman. You will have an opportunity to vote against this initiative in November.”

Bottoms did not respond to NBC News’ request for additional comment about his opposition to the proposal.

Even with every indication that the ballot measures will pass in all three states, Anna and Fran Simon say the fight for equal rights is long from over.


Fran Simon, left, with Anna and their son.

“We’ve seen how our lives as LGBTQ individuals have been used as a political football,” Anna said.

Fran added, “We feel like we always have to constantly fight to keep the protections and rights that we’ve worked so hard to to win.”

The Supreme Court does not currently have any cases on its docket that could threaten Obergefell’s precedent, but Smith pointed to the case of a former Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, that has been caught up in appeals for nine years. It first made national headlines in 2015, when Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to several same-sex couples based on her religious beliefs.

The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel recently filed a brief with the 6th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The group, which has a long history of opposing LGBTQ rights in the court system, is headed by Mat Staver, who spelled out the suit’s intention in a release: “This case has the potential to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges and extend the same religious freedom protections beyond Kentucky to the entire nation.”

“It would not be at all surprising that in the next several months, we might see a petition for review ... to the Supreme Court,” Smith said. “I’m not predicting that the court would be all that excited about taking it right now — they have other things to think about but — but it’s certainly not impossible, and so there’s every reason for states that disagree with these same-sex marriage bans to get them off the books while they can.”

CORRECTION (Oct. 22, 2024, 5:20 p.m.): A previous version of this article misstated the historical significance of Anna and Fran Simon’s marriage. They were the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Denver and to get a civil union in the state; they were not the first same-sex couple to be legally married in Colorado.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com