- A lawsuit seeks to bar Trump from the primary in Colorado, citing Constitution’s insurrection clause The Associated Press
- Watchdog group sues to block Trump from Colorado ballot, citing 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause CNN
- Lawsuit filed to remove Trump from ballot in CO under 14th Amendment – CREW Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
- Opinion: Trump “engaged in insurrection or rebellion,” let us prove it in a Colorado court The Denver Post
- Opinion | Will Colorado Kick Trump Off the Ballot? The Wall Street Journal
Tag Archives: Constitutions
Slavery, involuntary servitude rejected by 4 states’ voters
Voters in four states have approved ballot measures that will change their state constitutions to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime, while those in a fifth state rejected a flawed version of the question.
The measures approved Tuesday could curtail the use of prison labor in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.
In Louisiana, a former slave-holding state and one of a handful that sentences convicted felons to hard labor, lawmakers trying to get rid of forced prisoner labor ended up torpedoing their own measure. They told voters to reject it because the ballot measure included ambiguous language that did not prohibit involuntary servitude in the criminal justice system.
Despite the setback in Louisiana, Max Parthas, campaigns coordinator for the Abolish Slavery National Network, called Tuesday’s vote on anti-slavery measures historic.
“I believed that the people would choose freedom over slavery, if we gave them the opportunity, by taking the slavery question away from the legislators and putting it into the hands of the people. And they proved us right,” he said.
The four approved initiatives won’t force immediate changes in the states’ prisons, but they may invite legal challenges over the practice of coercing prisoners to work under threat of sanctions or loss of privileges if they refuse the work.
Vermont’s constitutional amendment removes what supporters say is ambiguous language and makes clear that slavery and indentured servitude are prohibited in the state.
While Vermont’s legislature was the first state to abolish adult slavery in 1777, its constitution stated that no person 21 or older should serve as a slave unless bound by their own consent or “by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like.” The amendment removes that language and adds that slavery and indentured servitude in any form are banned.
“We think it shows how forward thinking and good-natured Vermonters are and we’re looking forward to using it as a springboard to do a lot of work on dismantling systemic racism going forward,” said Debbie Ingram, executive director of Vermont Interfaith Action and a former state senator who sponsored the proposal.
The results were celebrated widely among anti-slavery advocates, including those pushing to further amend the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits enslavement and involuntary servitude except as a form of criminal punishment. More than 150 years after enslaved Africans and their descendants were released from bondage through ratification of the 13th Amendment, the slavery exception continues to permit the exploitation of labor by incarcerated individuals.
“Voters in Oregon and other states have come together across party lines to say that this stain must be removed from state constitutions,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, told The Associated Press.
“Now, it is time for all Americans to come together and say that it must be struck from the U.S. Constitution. There should be no exceptions to a ban on slavery,” he said.
Coinciding with the creation of the Juneteenth federal holiday last year, Merkley and Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Georgia, reintroduced legislation to revise the 13th Amendment to end the slavery exception. If it wins approval in Congress, the constitutional amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of U.S. states.
After Tuesday’s vote, more than a dozen states still have constitutions that include language permitting slavery and involuntary servitude for prisoners. Several other states have no constitutional language for or against the use of forced prison labor.
Voters in Colorado became the first to approve removal of slavery exception language from the state constitution in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah two years later.
Parthas said he and other advocates in his network worked with 15 states on anti-slavery legislation in 2022, although only five made it to the ballot. In 2023, the network plans to work with two dozen states.
“We’ll keep doing it as many times as necessary,” until the U.S. reaches the threshold of 38 states needed to revise the 13th Amendment, Parthas said.
“Even our ancestors were unable to get this far,” he said.
The movement to end or regulate the use of prison labor has existed for decades, since the time when former Confederate states sought ways to maintain the use of chattel slavery after the Civil War. Southern states used racist laws, referred to as “Black codes,” to criminalize, imprison and re-enslave Black Americans over benign behavior.
Today, prison labor is a multibillion-dollar practice. By comparison, workers can make pennies on the dollar. And prisoners who refuse to work can be denied privileges such as phone calls and visits with family, as well as face solitary confinement, all punishments that are eerily similar to those used during antebellum slavery.
“The 13th Amendment didn’t actually abolish slavery — what it did was make it invisible,” Bianca Tylek, an anti-slavery advocate and the executive director of the criminal justice advocacy group Worth Rises, told the AP in an interview ahead of Election Day.
She said passage of the ballot initiatives, especially in red states like Alabama, “is a great signal for what’s possible at the federal level.”
“There is a big opportunity here, in this moment,” Tylek said.
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AP writer Lisa Rathke in Montpelier, Vermont, contributed.
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Aaron Morrison is a New York City-based member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play.
Michigan election board rejects abortion rights initiative
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan elections board on Wednesday rejected an abortion rights initiative after its two Republican board members voted against putting the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
The two Democrats on the Board of State Canvassers voted in favor, but getting the measure on the ballot required at least three votes of the four-member board. The Reproductive Freedom for All campaign, which gathered signatures to get the measure on the ballot, is expected to appeal to the Democratic-leaning Michigan Supreme Court in the coming days and expressed confidence it would prevail.
Abortion rights have become a powerful motivator for voters since Roe was overturned. In conservative Kansas, voters overwhelmingly defeated a ballot measure that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright, and the issue has swayed votes in special elections for Congress, including in a battleground district in upstate New York. Nationally, Democrats have seen an increase in fundraising since the Supreme Court decision.
The proposed constitutional amendment aims to negate a 91-year-old state law that would ban abortion in all instances except to save the life of the mother. The meeting drew hundreds of people, who packed the hearing room and overflow rooms for a chance to comment. Abortion opponents also protested outside.
Michigan’s 1931 law — which abortion opponents had hoped would be triggered by a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade in June — remains blocked after months of court battles. A state judge ruled Aug. 19 that Republican county prosecutors couldn’t enforce the ban, saying it was “in the public’s best interest to let the people of the great state of Michigan decide this matter at the ballot box.”
Darci McConnell, a spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom for All, the group backing the measure, said she remains confident.
“We had more than 730,000 people who read, signed and understood what they signed. The board was supposed to do one thing today and affirm that we had the signatures, their own bureau said we did. So we’re still optimistic that we’ll be on the ballot in November,” McConnell said.
Supporters of another initiative that didn’t make the ballot Wednesday — a measure to expand voting, including adding ballot drop boxes — also are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Groups have seven business days to appeal and the ballot must be finalized by Sept. 9.
Having abortion rights on the ballot in November would almost certainly be a boon for Democrats in Michigan, a swing state where voters will also be deciding whether Democrats keep control of statewide offices, including governor and secretary of state. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Democrats have put abortion rights front and center in their campaigns, and after Republicans chose businesswoman Tudor Dixon as the GOP nominee for governor, Democrats released an ad blasting her strong opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.
Abortion opponents protested noisily outside as the meeting got underway Wednesday. Their muffled yells could be heard inside the hearing room, and the Republican board chairman at one point asked security to tell them to stop banging on the windows.
During the public comment period, Dr. Jessica Frost, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Lansing, told the board “we must restore the reproductive protections lost when Roe was overturned.”
Opponents said the ballot language was confusing. Several called abortion immoral and warned board members against approval.
“I can’t imagine a more important decision that you have to ever make in your life, because I know that you and I will kneel before Christ someday and answer for the decision you make today,” Billy Putman said.
The Bureau of Elections verified last Thursday that the abortion ballot initiative petition contained enough valid signatures for the amendment to qualify for the ballot and recommended that the state Board of Canvassers approve the measure.
On Wednesday, Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a Democratic canvasser, said the board had “no authority to reject this petition due to challenges to the content of the petition.” But Tony Daunt, a Republican canvasser, said errors in some petition language were “egregious.”
The Michigan Board of Canvassers, comprising two Republicans and two Democrats, has become increasingly partisan in recent years.
The board made national headlines following the 2020 presidential election when one member, who has since resigned, abstained from voting to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the state. The other GOP board member, who voted to certify, wasn’t nominated again by the state GOP party and was replaced by Tony Daunt, the board chairman.
Earlier this year, two leading candidates for the GOP nomination for governor were dropped from the primary ballot after the board deadlocked along partisan lines on whether too many fraudulent signatures on their nomination papers made them ineligible. A tie vote meant the candidates lost.
The board also voted Wednesday not to place another initiative, to expand voting in the state, on the fall ballot, though the committee backing the measure is expected to appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.
The measure would expand voter rights by allowing nine days of in-person early voting, state-funded absentee ballot postage and drop boxes in every community. The four-member board split 2-2, with Democrats voting to certify the initiative for the ballot and Republicans opposing certification, saying some of its language is unclear.
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Burnett contributed from Chicago.
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Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Trump testimony in New York investigation: Live updates
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment and wouldn’t answer questions under oath in the New York attorney general’s long-running civil investigation into his business dealings, the former president said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump arrived at state Attorney General Letitia James’ offices in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., before announcing more than an hour later that he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question,” the statement said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
As vociferous as Trump has been in defending himself in written statements and on the rally stage, legal experts say the same strategy could have backfired in a deposition setting because anything he says could potentially be used in the parallel criminal investigation pursued by the Manhattan district attorney.
Messages seeking comment were left with James’ office.
Wednesday’s events unfolded as a flurry of legal activity surrounds the former president — just days before, FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of an unrelated federal probe into whether he took classified records when he left the White House.
The civil investigation, led by state Attorney General Letitia James, involves allegations that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, misstated the value of prized assets like golf courses and skyscrapers, misleading lenders and tax authorities.
“My great company, and myself, are being attacked from all sides,” Trump wrote beforehand on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded. “Banana Republic!”
In May, James’ office said that it was nearing the end of its probe and that investigators had amassed substantial evidence that could support legal action against Trump, his company or both. The Republican’s deposition — a legal term for sworn testimony that’s not given in court — was one of the few remaining missing pieces, the attorney general’s office said.
Former President Donald Trump will be questioned under oath Wednesday in the New York attorney general’s long-running civil investigation into his dealings as a real estate mogul, he confirmed in a post on his Truth Social account.
Two of Trump’s adult children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, testified in recent days, two people familiar with the matter said. The people were not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. It’s unclear whether they invoked the Fifth Amendment during their depositions. When their brother Eric Trump sat for a deposition in the same investigation in 2020, he invoked the Fifth more than 500 times, according to court papers.
The three Trumps’ testimony had initially been planned for last month but was delayed after the July 14 death of the former president’s ex-wife, Ivana Trump, the mother of Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric.
On Friday, the Trump Organization and its longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, will be in court seeking dismissal of tax fraud charges brought against them last year in the Manhattan district attorney’s parallel criminal probe — spurred by evidence uncovered by James’ office. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty.
James, a Democrat, has said in court filings that her office has uncovered “significant” evidence that Trump’s company “used fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.”
James alleges the Trump Organization exaggerated the value of its holdings to impress lenders or misstated what land was worth to slash its tax burden, pointing to annual financial statements given to banks to secure favorable loan terms and to financial magazines to justify Trump’s place among the world’s billionaires.
The company even exaggerated the size of Trump’s Manhattan penthouse, saying it was nearly three times its actual size — a difference in value of about $200 million, James’ office said.
Trump has denied the allegations, contending that seeking the best valuations is a common practice in the real estate industry. He says James’ investigation is politically motivated and that her office is “doing everything within their corrupt discretion to interfere with my business relationships, and with the political process.” He’s also accused James, who is Black, of racism in pursuing the investigation.
“THERE IS NO CASE!” Trump said in a February statement, after Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that James’ office had “the clear right” to question Trump and other principals in his company.
Once her investigation wraps up, James could decide to bring a lawsuit and seek financial penalties against Trump or his company, or even a ban on them being involved in certain types of businesses.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney’s office has long pursued its parallel criminal investigation. No former president has even been charged with a crime.
In fighting to block the subpoenas, lawyers for the Trumps argued New York authorities were using the civil investigation to get information for the criminal probe and that the depositions were a ploy to avoid calling them before a criminal grand jury, where state law requires they be given immunity.
That criminal probe had appeared to be progressing toward a possible criminal indictment of Trump himself, but slowed after a new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, took office in January: A grand jury that had been hearing evidence disbanded. The top prosecutor who had been handling the probe resigned after Bragg raised questions internally about the viability of the case.
Bragg has said his investigation is continuing, which could be behind Trump’s decision to decline to answer questions from James’ investigators during the deposition in a Manhattan office tower that has doubled as the headquarters of the fictional conglomerate Waystar Royco — run by a character inspired partly by Trump — on HBO’s “Succession.”
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Balsamo and Sisak reported from Washington. Associated Press journalist Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
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On Twitter, follow Michael Balsamo at twitter.com/mikebalsamo1 and Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak
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More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump
Supreme Court’s abortion ruling sets off new court fights
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Judges temporarily blocked abortion bans Monday in Louisiana and Utah, while a federal court in South Carolina said a law sharply restricting the procedure would take effect there immediately as the battle over whether women may end pregnancies shifted from the nation’s highest court to courthouses around the country.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to end constitutional protection for abortion opened the gates for a wave of litigation. One side sought quickly to put statewide bans into effect, and the other tried to stop or at least delay such measures.
Much of Monday’s court activity focused on “trigger laws,” adopted in 13 states that were designed to take effect swiftly upon last week’s ruling. Additional lawsuits could also target old anti-abortion laws that were left on the books in some states and went unenforced under Roe. Newer abortion restrictions that were put on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling are also coming back into play.
“We’ll be back in court tomorrow and the next day and the next day,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which argued the case that resulted in the high court ruling, said Friday.
Rulings to put trigger laws on hold came swiftly in Utah and Louisiana.
A Utah judge blocked that state’s near-total abortion ban from going into effect for 14 days, to allow time for the court to hear challenges to the state’s trigger law. Planned Parenthood had challenged the law, which contains narrow exceptions for rape, incest or the mother’s health, saying the law violates the equal protection and privacy provisions in the state constitution.
“I think the immediate effects that will occur outweigh any policy interest of the state in stopping abortions,” Utah Judge Andrew Stone said.
In Louisiana, a judge in New Orleans, a liberal city in a conservative state, temporarily blocked enforcement of that state’s trigger-law ban on abortion, after abortion rights activists argued that it is unclear. The ruling is in effect pending a July 8 hearing.
At least one of the state’s three abortion clinics said it would resume performing procedures on Tuesday.
“We’re going to do what we can,” said Kathaleen Pittman, administrator of Hope Medical Group for Women, in Shreveport. “It could all come to a screeching halt.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican and staunch abortion opponent, vowed to fight the judge’s ruling and enforce the law.
“We would remind everyone that the laws that are now in place were enacted by the people through State Constitutional Amendments and the LA Legislature,” Landry tweeted Monday.
In South Carolina, a federal court lifted its prior hold on an abortion restriction there, allowing the state to ban abortions after an ultrasound detects a heartbeat, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. There are exceptions if the woman’s life is in danger, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
Planned Parenthood said after the ruling that it will continue to perform abortions at its South Carolina clinics within the parameters of the new law.
Also Monday, abortion rights advocates asked a Florida judge to block a new law there that bans the procedure after 15 weeks with some exceptions to save a mother’s life or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality, but no exceptions for rape, incest or human trafficking. The ACLU of Florida argued that the law violates the Florida Constitution. A ruling on that is expected Thursday — a day before the law is scheduled to take effect.
Abortion rights activists also went to court Monday to try to fend off restrictions in Texas, Idaho, Kentucky and Mississippi, the state at the center of the Supreme Court ruling, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona filed an emergency motion there on Saturday seeking to block a 2021 law they worry can be used to halt all abortions.
In Friday’s ruling, the Supreme Court left it to the states to decide whether to allow abortion.
“The expectation is that this will result in years of legislative and judicial challenges,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University law school.
As of Saturday, abortion services had stopped in at least 11 states — either because of state laws or confusion over them.
In some cases, the lawsuits may only buy time. Even if courts block some restrictions from taking hold, lawmakers in many conservative states could move quickly to address any flaws cited.
That’s likely to be the case in Louisiana. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in state court don’t deny that the state can now ban abortion. Instead, they contend Louisiana now has multiple, conflicting trigger mechanisms in the law.
They also argue that state law is unclear on whether it bans an abortion prior to a fertilized egg implanting in the uterus. And while the law provides an exception for “medically futile” pregnancies in cases of fetuses with lethal abnormalities, the plaintiffs noted the law gives no definition of the term.
Now that the high court has ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion, abortion rights groups are seeking protection under state constitutions. Challenges to trigger laws could be made on the grounds that the conditions to impose the bans have not been met, or that it was improper for a past legislature to bind the current one.
James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said the wave of suits from abortion rights advocates is not surprising. “We know that the abortion industry has basically unlimited funds, and its allies have basically unlimited funds, and of course they’re fanatical about abortion on demand throughout pregnancy,” Bopp said in an interview.
But he said that that the Supreme Court ruling should preclude abortion rights supporters from prevailing in any federal challenges. And he called efforts based on state constitutions “fanciful.”
Still other cases could be filed as states try to sort out whether abortion bans in place before Roe was decided — sometimes referred to as “zombie laws” — apply now that there is no federal protection for abortion.
For instance, Wisconsin passed a law in 1849 banning abortions except to save the life of the mother. Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said he does not believe it is enforceable. Abortion opponents have called on lawmakers to impose a new ban.
In the meantime, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said it immediately suspended all abortions.
In Michigan, Planned Parenthood challenged a 1931 abortion ban ahead of last week’s Supreme Court ruling. In May, a judge said the ban could not be enforced because it violates the state’s constitution. Abortion rights supporters are now trying to get a proposed state constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to protect abortion and birth control.
Idaho, Oklahoma and Texas have adopted laws that allow people to seek bounties against those who help others get abortions. It is an open question as to whether that means people can be pursued across state lines, and legal challenges over the issue are likely to come up in cases of both surgical abortions and those involving medicine mailed to patients.
The California Legislature, controlled by Democrats, passed a bill Thursday to shield abortion providers and volunteers in the state from civil judgments imposed by other states. In liberal Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed an executive order Friday that prohibits state agencies from assisting other states’ investigations into anyone who receives a legal abortion in Massachusetts. Rhode Island’s Democratic governor said he would sign a similar order.
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Forliti reported from Minneapolis and Mulvihill from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Samuel Metz in Salt Lake City; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Florida; and other AP reporters throughout the U.S. contributed to this report.
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For AP’s full coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, go to https://apnews.com/hub/abortion.
Putin signs law allowing him 2 more terms as Russia’s leader
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in a vote last year.
The July 1 constitutional vote included a provision that reset Putin’s previous term limits, allowing him to run for president two more times. The change was rubber-stamped by the Kremlin-controlled legislature and the relevant law signed by Putin was posted Monday on an official portal of legal information.
The 68-year-old Russian president, who has been in power for more than two decades — longer than any other Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — said he would decide later whether to run again in 2024 when his current six-year term ends.
He has argued that resetting the term count was necessary to keep his lieutenants focused on their work instead of “darting their eyes in search for possible successors.”
The constitutional amendments also emphasized the primacy of Russian law over international norms, outlawed same-sex marriages and mentioned “a belief in God” as a core value. Nearly 78% of voters approved the constitutional amendments during the balloting that lasted for a week and concluded on July 1. Turnout was 68%.
Following the vote, Russian lawmakers have methodically modified the national legislation, approving the relevant laws.
The opposition criticized the constitutional vote, arguing that it was tarnished by widespread reports of pressure on voters and other irregularities, as well as a lack of transparency and hurdles hindering independent monitoring.
In the months since the vote, Russia has imprisoned the country’s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny,
The 44-year-old Navalny was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
In February, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation while convalescing in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated — and which the European Сourt of Human Rights has ruled to be unlawful.
His team says Navalny had lost a substantial amount of weight even before he started a hunger strike Wednesday to protest authorities’ failure to provide proper treatment for his back and leg pains.
Navalny complained about prison officials’ refusal to give him the proper medications and to allow his doctor to visit him. He also protested the hourly checks a guard makes on him at night, saying they amount to sleep deprivation.
In an Instagram post Monday, Navalny said that three of 15 people in his room at the penal colony were diagnosed with tuberculosis. He noted that he had a strong cough and a fever of 38.1 Celsius (100.6 Fahrenheit).
Later on Monday, the newspaper Izvestia carried a statement from the state penitentiary service saying Navalny was moved to the prison colony’s sanitary unit after a checkup found him having “signs of a respiratory illness, including a high fever.”
In an acerbic note, Navalny said he and other inmates studied a notice on tuberculosis prevention that underlined the importance of strengthening immunity with a balanced diet — advice that contrasted with a prison ration of “glue-like porridge and frozen potatoes.”
Putin signs law allowing him 2 more terms as Russia’s leader
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036, a move that formalizes constitutional changes endorsed in a vote last year.
The July 1 constitutional vote included a provision that reset Putin’s previous term limits, allowing him to run for president two more times. The change was rubber-stamped by the Kremlin-controlled legislature and the relevant law signed by Putin was posted Monday on an official portal of legal information.
The 68-year-old Russian president, who has been in power for more than two decades — longer than any other Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — said he would decide later whether to run again in 2024 when his current six-year term ends.
He has argued that resetting the term count was necessary to keep his lieutenants focused on their work instead of “darting their eyes in search for possible successors.”
The constitutional amendments also emphasized the primacy of Russian law over international norms, outlawed same-sex marriages and mentioned “a belief in God” as a core value. Nearly 78% of voters approved the constitutional amendments during the balloting that lasted for a week and concluded on July 1. Turnout was 68%.
Following the vote, Russian lawmakers have methodically modified the national legislation, approving the relevant laws.
The opposition criticized the constitutional vote, arguing that it was tarnished by widespread reports of pressure on voters and other irregularities, as well as a lack of transparency and hurdles hindering independent monitoring.
In the months since the vote, Russia has imprisoned the country’s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny,
The 44-year-old Navalny was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
In February, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation while convalescing in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated — and which the European Сourt of Human Rights has ruled to be unlawful.
His team says Navalny has lost a substantial amount of weight while on a hunger strike to protest what he said was poor medical care.