Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
How Weak Federal Ethics Laws Enable Presidential Profiteering

How Weak Federal Ethics Laws Enable Presidential Profiteering

Is The War on Iran Unlawful And Unfair To U.S. Troops?

Is The War on Iran Unlawful And Unfair To U.S. Troops?

Protestors holding signs, many that say "Stop Bombing Iran."

Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization

The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

The Iran War’s Price Tag: Billions Lost While Americans Go Without

With the focus on the voting posters, the people in the background of the photo sign up to vote.

Stop Fighting Voter ID. Start Defining It.

What is a trigger law?

Anti-abortion protest at the Supreme Court

Proponents and opponents of abortion rights gather outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
David Meyers
By David MeyersMay 04, 2022
David Meyers

David Meyers is the Executive Editor of The Fulcrum. Before launching The Fulcrum, David spent more than two decades at CQ Roll Call, a leading publisher of political news and information. During his time there, David served as managing editor of Roll Call (“the newspaper of Capitol Hill”) and as managing editor of member information and research, which included co-editing the definitive biographical directory of Congress, “Politics in America.” David went on to lead all of CQ Roll Call’s congressional research teams as vice president of research and content development before shifting to a revenue and strategy role as vice president of business operations for Roll Call, working with the advertising and editorial teams to develop new revenue models and expand the company’s events business. David lives in Fairfax, Va., with his wife, two daughters and rottweiler. A graduate of Tufts University, David is a past president of the Tufts University Alumni Association. He is also a past president of the Washington Press Club Foundation, which works to celebrate and advance the role of women and minorities in the media. David currently serves on the board of directors for Temple B’nai Shalom in Fairfax Station.

See More Writings by author

If the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade becomes an official court decision, states will be free to legislate abortion issues as they see fit. Abortions will immediately become illegal in 13 states that have passed “trigger laws” tied to a court decision.

What does that mean?

A trigger law is designed to take effect when certain conditions are met. The legislative maneuver is in the news this week because more than a dozen states, mostly in the South and the Plains, have laws that would ban or restrict abortions as soon as the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision is overturned.

Trigger laws are now solely the province of legislatures that oppose abortion. For example, a handful of states will automatically shut down their Medicaid expansion if certain conditions change at the federal level.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the following states have trigger laws that would restrict, if not ban, abortions:

  • Arkansas
  • Idaho
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • North Dakota
  • Oklahoma
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Wyoming

Nine states, some overlapping with the above list, already had abortion ban laws on the books prior to Roe, and those laws would once again be in effect if the the court acts as expected:

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • Michigan
  • Mississippi
  • Oklahoma
  • Texas
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin

If these laws go into effect, millions of people would be barred from having an abortion unless Congress passes legislation making abortion legal nationwide. However, any such bill would need 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster (which is not going to happen). The alternative would be to change or eliminate the filibuster rule so legislation can be passed by a simple majority vote. But centrist Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema remain opposed to changing the filibuster rules.


Latest news

A balance.
Democracy

A Pay‑to‑Play Presidency Testing the Limits of Our Institutions

President Trump Demonstrates Why Euphemisms Damage Democracy
Ethics & Leadership

President Trump Demonstrates Why Euphemisms Damage Democracy

Children's books on a shelf.
Education

Expanding Access to Books and Literacy Opportunities for Underserved Youth

A person signing a piece of paper with other people around them.
Electoral Reforms

The Nation Is Missing Millions of Voters Due to Lack of Rights for Former Felons

Read More

Confirmation on Easy Mode: Sen. Mullin’s nomination to lead DHS

U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) testifies during his confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Confirmation on Easy Mode: Sen. Mullin’s nomination to lead DHS

Since arriving in Congress in 2013 Sen. Markwayne Mullin has been known for disappearing for a few weeks to Afghanistan in a putative effort to rescue Americans still there after withdrawal and tried to draw the president of the Teamsters into a fight during a hearing. Ironically, or possibly appropriately, Sean O’Brien, that same president of the Teamsters, endorsed Mullin’s nomination. He has written several laws supporting Native American communities and pediatric cancer research. A Trump loyalist, on January 6, 2021 in the hours after the riot at the Capitol, Mullin voted to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election by omitting Arizona and Pennsylvania’s votes for Joe Biden.

His work experience prior to his political career was primarily in running his family’s plumbing business after his father became ill. He spent four months as a mixed martial arts fighter with a record of three wins. (He’s also gotten a lot richer while in Congress.)

Keep ReadingShow less
Two people signing papers.

A deep dive into the growing uncertainty in the U.S. legal immigration system, exploring policy shifts, backlogs, and how procedural instability is reshaping the promise of lawful immigration.

Getty Images, Halfpoint Images

When Immigration Rules Keep Changing, the System Stops Working

For generations, the United States has framed legal immigration as a kind of social contract. Since 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act ended the national-origin quota system, the U.S. has formally opened legal immigration to people from around the world without racial or national-origin preferences. If people from across the globe sought to reunite with family or bring needed skills to the American economy, they were told they would be welcomed. If they sought U.S. citizenship, the country would provide a clear route to reach it.

Follow the procedures, submit the forms, pay the fees, pass the background checks, and your time will come. Legal immigration has never been easy or quick. But the promise has always been that the path exists.

Keep ReadingShow less
A New Norm of DHS Shutdown & Long Airport Lines

Travelers wait in a TSA Pre security line at Miami International Airport on March 17, 2026, in Miami, Florida. Travelers across the country are enduring long airport security lines as a partial federal government shutdown affects the Transportation Security Administration officers working the security lines.

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images/TCA)

A New Norm of DHS Shutdown & Long Airport Lines

If you’ve ever traveled to France, chances are you’ve come up against this all-too-common phenomenon. You get to the train station and, without warning, your train is out of service. Or a restaurant is oddly closed during regular business hours.

“C’est la grève,” you may hear from a local, accompanied by a shrug. It’s the strike.

Keep ReadingShow less
Constitutional Barriers to Nationalizing Elections
US Capitol
US Capitol

Constitutional Barriers to Nationalizing Elections

In the run-up to the midterms, President Trump continues to call for nationalizing congressional elections. He has sought to initiate the process through executive orders, such as one proposing to set “a ballot receipt deadline of Election Day for all methods of voting.” The words and spirit of the United States Constitution—the bedrock textualism and originalism of conservative constitutional interpretation—say he can’t nationalize elections.

Unlike some consequential constitutional questions, it’s not a close call.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026