The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will allow medication abortions, which involve a patient ingesting pills, to proceed in Texas during the coronavirus outbreak, the latest development in a weekslong legal dispute over state officials’ attempt to ban the procedure in nearly all circumstances as it combats the pandemic.
A previous ruling from the New Orleans-based appeals court lets patients near the legal gestational limit receive abortions as well.
Hundreds of abortions in Texas have been canceled since state officials barred the procedure, except when the woman’s health is at risk, as the novel coronavirus spreads. The prohibition is meant to preserve personal protective equipment, like masks and gloves, that is in short supply nationwide and to free up bed space as hospitals prepare for a possible surge in COVID-19 patients.
But abortion providers have accused state officials of exploiting “a public heath crisis to advance an extreme, anti-abortion agenda” and argued the procedure does not usually require hospitalization nor extensive protective gear.
On March 22, Gov. Greg Abbott barred medical procedures that are not “immediately medically necessary,” and Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly said the gubernatorial order applies to abortions, except when needed one is needed to protect the woman’s life or health.
The order, which extends through April 21 but can be modified, exempts procedures that would not deplete protective gear or eat up hospital resources needed to cope with the pandemic.
Lawyers for Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Lawyering Project sued state officials on behalf of abortion providers March 25, kicking off a weekslong court fight that has pingponged twice between a federal district judge in Austin and the politically conservative appeals court before landing at the Supreme Court this week.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel first blocked the state’s order, arguing that it “prevents Texas women from exercising what the Supreme Court has declared is their fundamental constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is viable.”
He later issued a more narrow ruling allowing abortion providers to offer medication-induced abortions — which are provided in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy — that do not consume the scarce protective equipment, he said. The state, represented by Paxton, argued in court filings that medication abortions may require personal protective equipment during initial doctors’ visits and in the small percentage of cases that result in trips to the emergency room.
“Respondents claim that medication abortion consumes little PPE, but, again, all PPE is valuable at this time,” a state filing said.
Yeakel, appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush, also made an exception for patients who would pass the legal limit for an abortion — 22 weeks after their last menstrual cycle — by April 22, when the gubernatorial order lapses.
Previously, the appeals court twice largely upheld the state’s restrictions, saying the order is a “valid public health measure” that does not single out abortions. Constitutional rights, including those to peaceably assemble, publicly worship and have an abortion, can be “reasonably restricted” during a public health crisis, the judges said — adding that the order is best understood as a “temporary postponement” and not an “absolute ban.”
Judge James Dennis, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, dissented. Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod and Kyle Duncan, nominated by Bush and President Donald Trump, respectively, were in the majority.
In a weekend filing to the Supreme Court, lawyers for the abortion providers had asked that pill-induced abortions be allowed to continue as the case proceeds.
Casting the state’s near-total ban as “the most restrictive abortion policy in the nation,” the lawyers said it would “continue to deny hundreds of Texas residents their constitutional right to obtain an abortion,” forcing patients to “either remain pregnant and endure the physical, economic, and emotional consequences of pregnancy or to undertake risky and expensive travel to other states where abortion is still available.”
Doing so could increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission, the filing said, and more personal protective equipment and hospital resources would be needed for patients having an abortion later in their pregnancy or giving birth.
The Texas decision comes as other states, like Alabama and Oklahoma, have waged similar legal battles over whether temporary restrictions on nonessential medical procedures apply to abortions.
The legal wrangling in Texas has thrown abortion providers into a state of uncertainty as the procedure flipped from permissible to illegal in most cases and back again in a matter of days.
Patients have been turned away from Texas clinics and sought abortions out of state, according to the lawyers and media reports. One woman who spoke to The Texas Tribune said she was planning to drive to New Mexico to get an abortion but was able to get oral medication to end her pregnancy from an Austin clinic in the midst of the legal whiplash.
Emma Platoff contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
For years, Iqra Beg dreamed of visiting Machu Picchu. But it turned into a nightmare just hours before she was to get on a tour bus to visit the famed Incan ruins in the Andes Mountains of Peru.
Now the Dallas educator is one of an estimated 1,600 people desperate to get out of Peru since President Martín Vizcarra declared a state of emergency last weekend over the coronavirus pandemic. Texans interviewed by The Texas Tribune say they scrambled to find flights or buses out — only to realize virtually none were available. The international airport in Lima has been closed to the public since Tuesday.
The U.S. government is trying to repatriate them. The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that military planes were en route to pick up Americans abroad, including in Peru. But many of the Texans there say that for days, their own embassy has been unable to help them or provide timely and useful updates — and they had not heard from U.S. officials that military aircraft were en route.
“I feel just completely unsupported and ignored by our government,” Beg, 26, told the Tribune over a video chat from her hotel room in Cusco. “I honestly have never felt so abandoned.”
Texans marooned with Beg say the U.S. embassy in Lima and a consulate in mountainous Cusco refused to let them inside and provided no guidance beyond recommendations to book commercial travel and check government websites. At one point, the consulate posted a sign saying so outside its door: “The Embassy will provide ongoing updates on” its website “as this situation develops.”
Americans should “contact their airlines to discuss options for rescheduling,” it said.
Then there was the insult added to the injury Thursday at the White House, when President Donald Trump seemed to suggest the tourists were to blame. “They got caught,” he said. “They were late with their flights. We gave them a period of time; they didn’t make it.”
Beg said Trump’s comments were quickly circulated in a WhatsApp group of Americans stuck in Peru, prompting outrage among those who feel their government not only left them in the lurch but now has begun pointing fingers at them. She said if the embassy had notified them in time, they could have gotten out, and she pointed to Trump’s efforts to minimize the crisis until fairly recently.
“I was pretty shocked that someone would blame us for being trapped in this situation,” she said. “No one actually took it seriously in the U.S., and the media is being played down in the U.S. by our president.”
The lockdown in Peru is expected to last until April, though a group of medically vulnerable citizens was repatriated today, along with some Peace Corps volunteers and embassy personnel and family members, according to an email Beg received from the State Department. The embassy has instructed Americans there to consult the tourist-guidance site iPeru and “arrange lodging for the duration of the quarantine period and plan to limit their movements,” according to an alert on its website.
A State Department official said the agency has “no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” and Secretary Mike Pompeo said Friday there is a task force to repatriate Americans stranded abroad amid the pandemic and that “we’re going to work to get people back” from countries including Peru and Morocco.
“We’re urging individuals, when they can get back on their own — they traveled there on their own, when they can get back there on their own, they ought to try to do that,” he said.
On Thursday, the State Department urged Americans to avoid all international travel and encouraged those overseas to return immediately, amid the pandemic.
Those who remain in Peru — frantically calling the consulate and lawmakers for help from Airbnbs and hotels — are under a daily curfew from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. that security forces have been asked to enforce. They can only leave to get food or medicine. Even on a trip to the grocery store, they go prepared with their passports.
Jonathan Du, a student at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, went to the airport around 3 a.m. in desperation and found himself among scores of stranded passengers.
“There was a lot of anxiety in the air, people were getting frustrated, people were calling their loved ones, and there were people that were crying,” Du recalled.
He said the outbreak was at the back of his mind while they were going but that it “was too late to cancel and get a refund.”
“We thought that we would at least have a couple days to adjust and head back should something happen in the country. Peru also had one of the fewest cases of coronavirus in [Latin America], so overall we thought it would be fine,” he said.
Du and other Texans say they’ve spent the last few days on the phone with airlines or fruitlessly trying to book tickets online. They’ve received cancellation notices for successfully booked flights, even those scheduled in April, after the lockdown is scheduled to lift.
That happened to Maggie Vasquez and Ron Longworth, a couple from Dallas whose “bucket list” adventure to visit Machu Picchu has turned into a disaster.
“This idea that the State Department's telling people to just book commercial flights home … what, we're not trying that? Everyone has been trying that for the past four days,” said Longworth, 36. “And meanwhile Israel came and got their people, France is getting their people out, all of these other countries are flying and getting their people.”
The two hope another flight they booked to Miami in April holds.
Sidney Bernal, a registered nurse from Houston, has had several flights canceled and spent “countless hours” trying to rebook them, she said in a WhatsApp message.
Bernal went to Peru for what she thought would be a short trip to Machu Picchu with her 12-year-old son, and she was unable to find any flights or buses out after learning of the decree. She's eager to return to work combating the coronavirus, she said, like other doctors or nurses stuck in the country.
Texas State University student Cristina Rodriguez — one of several Texas college students stranded in the country — was in Peru for spring break with friends when she heard from an Uber driver that the president was planning to close the country’s borders.
They went straight to the Lima airport, she said, and stood in lines for more than eight hours trying to buy new plane tickets. But no matter which airline they spoke to, the group got the same answer: “that they were sold out, canceled or going to countries with closed borders already,” said Rodriguez. “Even when we heard of people being able to buy new flights, they were paying thousands of dollars. I saw one that went up to $10,000.”
The embassy has not returned her near daily phone calls “to this day,” she said. “If we thought that anything like this would happen, we definitely would not have come.”
Rodriguez said before she flew to Peru, she regularly checked to see if the U.S. had issued a travel advisory about the country and if it had reported cases of the virus.
For Beg, the educator from Dallas, the heartburn and paranoia started long before she even flew out. As it became clear that the coronavirus was spreading globally, she said, she and others on the trip tried to get a refund — even a partial one — from Exoticca, their tour operator.
The day Beg left, a customer service representative from Exoticca downplayed the risk of travel restrictions impacting Americans in Peru and said in an email, “Unfortunately at this moment to postpone the trip is not an option.”
Now waiting at a hotel near the airport in Cusco, she said she’s already spent more than twice what the trip was going to cost and could be out a lot more than that if she has to pay for a return flight home.
An email sent to Exoticca’s customer service email address triggered an automatic reply late Friday. A message left with a woman who answered the phone at Exoticca in Barcelona, Spain, was not immediately returned.
Beg had already decided last Sunday, two days after arriving in Peru, that she was going to get a flight back home right after visiting the famed ruins she’d always dreamed of seeing. But instead of going to Machu Picchu on Monday, she found out she had only hours to get out of Peru because of the newly announced travel ban. But she couldn’t get a flight out.
Now she and her fellow travelers are only dreaming of home.
"We just wanted to see Machu Picchu that one day, and now we just don't care. We want to go home," she said. "I would give anything in the world to be home right now."
Disclosure: Uber Technologies, the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Texas State University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
The inauguration of the Texas governor and lieutenant governor — traditionally two days of parties, picnics and parades — has been transformed into a giant payday for campaign staff and fundraisers.
The money spent on personnel, including payroll and fundraising,has skyrocketed during Gov. Greg Abbott's two swearing-in celebrations, dwarfing spending in those categories during the Rick Perry era, which spanned more than a decade, according to records obtained by The Texas Tribune.
The committee reported raising a record $5.3 million for inaugural events this year — $4.9 million of it from donors — and $1,860,624 of it was paid to inaugural committee salaries, “professional fees” and fundraising. That’s a six-fold increase from Perry’s last swearing-in ceremony, in 2011, when some $300,000 was spent on those categories.
Fundraising alone made up 19% of the amount raised from donors, or $931,000, and inaugural staffers received another $899,000. The categories were up 54% and 159%, respectively, from Abbott’s first inauguration in 2015 — which was the first year fundraising was listed as a line item, according to available inaugural records dating to 1979.
A Republican operative said spending that much of the total haul on fundraising fees “sounds exorbitant.” Another called it “absurd.”
“That is nuts!” the second operative said. “Egregious and wrong.”
Both requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.
The money for this year’s inaugural largely came from 219 contributions, 12 of which were for six-figure amounts. That would mean the committee spent more than $4,000 on fundraising for each contribution, which averaged $22,580.
One of the inaugural committee’s fundraisers was a team led by Abbott’s campaign finance director, Sarah Whitley. She referred questions to the governor’s spokesman, John Wittman, who said the fundraising figure appears correct but declined to comment on whether it was excessive.
Wittman could not say whether any of the money went to services like designing and printing materials — items that typically raise the cost of fundraising.
He has said no state dollars were spent on the festivities and that none of the $800,000 donated by the inaugural committee to charities — which he wouldn’t name — benefited entities tied to Abbott or the government.
Another inaugural fundraiser was a group called Fundraising Solutions, which lists Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as a “current client” and describes high-profile Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and former presidential contender Bob Dole as “past successes” on its website.
The company did not respond to a request for comment, but its contact information appears at the bottom of a solicitation obtained by the Tribune that was sent to potential donors before the January inauguration. The company also features an image from the 2019 inaugural on its website and lists the event’s logo on its page of current clients.
A senior adviser for Patrick, Sherry Sylvester, said two of the lieutenant governor's campaign fundraisers were part of the inaugural fundraising team. They met their goal of raising $1 million, and each was paid $50,000, a 10% rate, she said. One Patrick staffer also worked with the inaugural committee and was paid $9,800 for two months of work, according to Sylvester, who declined to provide names.
It's unclear whether any other fundraisers received a cut of the $931,000. Wittman declined to comment on that point.
The executive director of the 2019 inaugural committee, Kim Snyder, who also serves as Abbott’s campaign director, did not respond to a request for comment.
Gov. Greg Abbott was sworn in Jan. 15 at the state Capitol.
Miguel Gutierrez Jr. / The Texas Tribune.
Like "shooting fish in a barrel"
Spending on each of the last two inaugurals eclipsed that of any other Texas inaugural for at least 40 years, even when adjusted for inflation. The closest contender is the inaugural featuring Democrat Ann Richards, but the spending on that 1991 event — $2.9 million in 2019 dollars, or $1.5 million at the time — is only half what Abbott and Patrick’s first inaugural cost.
The Texas inaugural’s fundraising costs also appear to be out of step nationwide.
Although the Trump inaugural committee came under fire for excessive administrative costs, it reported spending just $236,750 on fundraising for the 2017 events — and was able to raise $107 million. That would mean less than 1% of the haul was spent on fundraising.
In Florida, the inauguration for newly elected Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also ran up a far smaller fundraising tab, according to an analysis of campaign finance reports. The Republican Party of Florida, which handles funding for the event, reported spending $184,500 on fundraising from the time the inaugural committee was announced through the swearing-in ceremony. The money could have been used for both the Republican Party and the inaugural, which cost about $3.5 million, according tomedia reports. The state GOP did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Rice University political scientist Mark Jones, who analyzed the Florida finance reports, said there is no reason to spend heavily on inaugural fundraising.
“It doesn't make any sense that a sitting governor of Texas who's going to be in office for four more years needs to do anything more than something purely administrative, that is: providing someone to receive the checks and cash the checks, and providing some type of online method for people to give donations,” Jones said. “A gubernatorial election ball sells itself.”
A former Republican officeholder in Texas similarly likened raising money for the inaugural to “shooting fish in a barrel.”
“It’s easy. You won,” said the former official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.
Donations to the inauguration are not deemed political contributions under state statute — and corporations barred by state law from giving directly to Texas candidates have been among the biggest underwriters of the festivities.
Inaugural contributions differ from campaign giving in another respect: For both the Texas and presidential inaugurals, donors were offered a package of perks, including access to top officials and entree to special events.
“You really know what you're getting for [your contribution] with these big donor packages that are given out around inaugurations,” said Carrie Levine, a senior reporter for the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. who covered the Trump inaugural. “They're giving to a sure thing.”
Tribune has sued for records
Created by state statute, the inaugural committee is a unique and short-lived public entity. A 1998 letter from the attorney general’s office describes it as an “agency of the state of Texas,” but its powers are “relatively small” and “its object highly limited.”
The committee’s chairs are typically politically connected appointees, tapped by the governor and lieutenant governor to arrange two days’ worth of parties. State law requires that they maintain a record of their expenditures and file a brief financial report with the secretary of state’s office when the events are over. The committee can then be dissolved.
But where the spending records for the 2019 inaugural are now, and who has access to them, is not clear.
The Texas Legislative Council — a nonpartisan agency that assists lawmakers with bill drafting and other matters— provided the Tribune with invoices and checks that show the committee paid the council nearly $150,000 from a Frost Bank account for labor, a panoramic photo, supplies and coordinating the stage setup for the swearing-in ceremony.
This check from from the Texas Inaugural Committee was obtained under transparency laws from the Texas Legislative Council. An invoice says the check paid for stage setup, labor, printing, supplies and a “Capital Extension Load Test Review."
The city of Austin, whose event center hosted the inaugural ball featuring country star George Strait, also received checks, which totaled $55,993. Invoices provided by the city bear Snyder’s signature and list her as the “bill-to” contact, along with her Abbott campaign email and a post office box used by the inaugural committee.
Most of the Tribune’s other requests for records have been futile.
Several state agencies pointed to the secretary of state’s office as the likely custodian of any records. But an employee there said this summer that the office has little expenditure information beyond a short financial report and that state law instructs the inaugural committee to maintain those records. When reporters visited the secretary of state’s office in person, a clerk said the financial report can only be obtained through a written request.
The Tribune also submitted public information requests to committee chairs. Snyder, the executive director, said in an email that they have “no responsive records.”
In mid-September, the Tribune asked the secretary of state’s office not to dissolve the state-created committee until the pending requests for information were fulfilled. But Secretary of State Ruth Hughs nevertheless abolished the committee Sept. 19, three days after the Tribune filed a lawsuit to obtain the records.
The office of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a prominent client of Fundraising Solutions, cites that order to dissolve the committee as its chief argument for why the Tribune’s lawsuit should be thrown out. A spokesperson for the attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Attorney General Ken Paxton (center) appears in a photo that says "Meet The Fundraising Solutions Team" on that company's website. Fundraising Solutions helped to solicit contributions for the 2019 Texas inauguration. Paxton's office is fighting The Texas Tribune's attempt to obtain records from organizers.
Bill Aleshire, the Tribune’s lawyer, said, “The answer from the attorney general’s office misses the point. Regardless of whether the committee is dissolved, the records should have been retained or moved to the comptroller’s office or the state library, as required by law. The point of the lawsuit is to get the records disclosed, and we will continue to pursue all appropriate strategies for getting that done.”
Previous inaugural committees or organizers have turned over extensive records, though the quantity and format has varied over the decades.
In 2015, Abbott and Patrick’s first inaugural, a spreadsheet of wages given to inaugural staff was provided to the secretary of state’s office. Several Abbott staffers were among the committee employees who received some of the $1,389,551 spent on personnel, including salaries and fundraising, that year.
Past committees have also sent reams of documents to the state’s Library and Archives Commission for preservation. Among them are minutes of inaugural committee meetings, contracts and detailed expenses, down to a $500 outlay for a “Luckenbach Oompah” band and $21 to Fred’s Fruit Stand in 1979.
In 1979, the Texas Inaugural Committee kept extensive expenditure records, including this ledger showing items such as a $500 payment to a "Luckenbach Oompah" band. Forty years later, the state is fighting to shield scrutiny of the 2019 Texas Inaugural Committee spending.
Richards’ inaugural in 1991 include guidelines for commemorative souvenirs — “no junk; no items not environmentally sound” — and letters inviting celebrities like Tina Turner to perform, in which Richards hints that Texans will be spared “another four years of Republican waltzes at state functions.”
Exhaustive files were also preserved for the next inaugural, after George W. Bush defeated Richards to become only the second Republican governor in Texas since the post-Civil War era. According to minutes of inaugural committee meetings, its chairman, Don Evans (who later became U.S. commerce secretary), “spoke about his desire that the staff sign an ethics statement.”
At one meeting in December 1994, “emphasis was placed upon the facts that the inaugural committee should be considered a ‘state agency’ and its funds, staff and property should not be used for anything other than the planning and funding the inaugural, conducting the inaugural and keeping the necessary records in compliance with the statute,” minutes show.
Programs, memorabilia and other documents from past inaugurals are stored at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Shannon Najmabadi/The Texas Tribune
Detailed memos and planning documents from the time capture everything from a proposal for “personnel with carts and shovels to follow behind horse units [in the inaugural parade] to pick up horse droppings” ($750) to repeated asides that corporate money would be used to make the events more affordable to the public.
Even after inaugural committees are dissolved, bills can keep coming in — and the law says the state has the authority to pay them. That happened after Abbott’s first inaugural in 2015 when records management company Iron Mountain submitted an invoice for $110.
The secretary of state’s office then “contacted a committee member and determined this claim is valid,” according to a letter obtained by the Tribune.
The purpose of the expenditure: document shredding.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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