New tonight, the Arizona House is expected to consider tomorrow
whether to put three different abortion referrals on the November
ballot.
That's all according to an agenda posted by the legislature.
Lawmakers are returning to the capital tomorrow for the first
time in a week.
Rachel Louise, just with our ABC 15 political team,
tells us where things stand as the territorial abortion ban
is set to go in effect in just a few
weeks.
A day of action expected to come in the Arizona
Legislature on Wednesday,
with the House agenda revealing that up to three concurrent
resolutions or ballot referrals will be considered.
This comes after a Republican memo was leaked showing some
of the Republican caucus were considering how to get their
own abortion plans in front of voters.
For the last two weeks,
Democrats have pushed for a vote on a repeal of
the incoming 1864 ban,
but several Republicans are needed to join that effort.
Abortion is such a personal issue,
and it's an issue that Republicans,
generally speaking, have been fighting against for generations.
Now. Former President Donald Trump has said he's confident Republicans
will repeal the abortion ban,
but after two weeks of opportunities,
House Republicans haven't done that.
This is probably the one thing where Donald Trump.
Doesn't have a big sway over his.
Following There is almost nothing that Donald Trump couldn't do
or couldn't say to his followers that would get them
to move except abortion.
Multiple sources tell me Wednesday is likely to be a
movement towards some kind of less restrictive abortion policy that
could look like the ballot referrals and or a repeal
of the 1864 ban, which would keep in place the
existing 15 week ban with no exceptions for rape or
incest.
Voters really want some form of legal abortion in Arizona.
In the Senate, we should have some kind of vote
by next Wednesday.
Legislative procedures keep lawmakers from doing more than one reading
a day.
With the legislature only meeting once a week,
the process moves slower. A repeal bill is currently on
its first reading.
Here's a timeline of that ban.
On April 9th, the state Supreme Court upheld the near
total ban.
That brings us to now,
April 23rd. And a 14 day legal stay expires.
Next would come enforcement. But Attorney General Chris Mays and
abortion providers say the enforcement won't go into effect for
another 45 days.
So enforcement of the ban is expected to begin on
June 8th.
For ABC15 S political team I'm Rachel Louise just.