Good morning, it’s Thursday, August 15, 2024. In today’s edition, pharmacy benefit manager fight heads to the states; abortion measure makes South Dakota ballot; Mitch Daniels has faith in the next generation:
Top Stories
HEALTH CARE: California lawmakers are set to approve legislation in the coming weeks to clamp down on pharmacy benefit managers, which manage drug benefits for insurers and employers. The bill, from state Sen. Scott Wiener (D), would create a new PBM regulator housed within the state Department of Insurance and require PBMs to disclose information about their business practices.
It would also prohibit some of the industry’s most lucrative practices, like steering patients to affiliated pharmacies, and spread pricing, when a PBM charges insurers or drug plans more than the cost of reimbursing pharmacies.
If that all sounds familiar, it should. The battle between PBMs and pharmaceutical industries has emerged as one of the more public lobbying fights in D.C. in recent years. Now it’s spreading to state capitols, opening a new front outside the Beltway. In California alone, public records show the two sides have spent about $5 million so far this year. Read more at Pluribus News.
ELECTIONS: Nine red states are suing the Biden administration over an executive order requiring federal agencies to develop expanded voter registration strategies. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas, alleges the administration has not made documents related to the order available to the public. (Jackson Clarion Ledger)
GUN POLITICS: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has threatened legal action against Dallas if the Texas State Fair does not rescind a new policy banning firearms. The new policy comes a year after a gunman injured three people in a shooting at the fair. Dallas owns the fair’s event space. (Texas Tribune)
ABORTION: The Montana Supreme Court has ruled minors do not need parental permission to obtain an abortion. The high court agreed with a lower court ruling that the state’s parental consent law violates a privacy clause in the state constitution. (Associated Press)
MORE: Ohio lawmakers will consider legislation allowing expectant parents to claim unborn children as dependents on state income taxes. Sponsor Rep. Gary Click (R) acknowledged the bill is unlikely to pass this year, but he hopes to get feedback so he can reintroduce a new version next year. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
BUDGETS: Louisiana faces a projected half-billion dollar budget shortfall next year. Lawmakers are considering allowing a temporary teacher stipend to sunset, redirecting the motor vehicle sales tax to the state general fund and extending a business utilities tax to close the gap. (Baton Rouge Advocate)
In Politics & Business
SOUTH DAKOTA: Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s (R) office says supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee a right to an abortion has qualified for November’s ballot. Anti-abortion rights groups are still suing to block the measure over the signature-gathering process. (South Dakota Public Broadcasting)
South Dakota makes the third state this week — along with Arizona and Missouri — where abortion measures have formally made the ballot.
ARIZONA: The state Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a proposed referendum allowing local police to make arrests near the border with Mexico. Latino groups had challenged the order under single-subject rules, but the high court said the measure conforms to state law. (Associated Press)
WISCONSIN: Seven incumbent legislators lost primary elections this week, including state Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R), who was ousted from the Republican caucus after denying results of the 2020 elections. Three other Republicans and three Democrats lost to intra-party rivals. (Associated Press)
MEDIA: David Nir and the team from Daily Kos Elections and the Swing State Project launches a new campaigns-and-elections newsletter Thursday, The Downballot, covering congressional, state and local contests. We’re big fans of our fellow political nerds from across the political spectrum, so check out their work.
PEOPLE: North Dakota Rep. Randy Schobinger (R) has died at 54, after a battle with cancer. Schobinger spent more than half his life in the legislature, after winning a state Senate seat at the age of 26 in 1995. (Jamestown Sun) Our condolences to the North Dakota political family.
By The Numbers
$52.5 million: Idaho’s surplus at the end of Fiscal Year 2024, according to the Division of Financial Management. State agencies returned another $24 million in unspent money. The combined $76.5 million will go toward property tax cuts under a bill passed in 2023. (Idaho Capital Sun)
80: The number of consecutive days in which the Phoenix area has reached triple-digit temperatures, beating the previous streak set in 1993. The mercury has topped 100 degrees every day since May 27. (Arizona Republic)
Off The Wall
Wally Amos, creator of the Famous Amos cookie empire, has died at 88. Amos opened what he claimed was the world’s first cookie store on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in 1975, and later became a children’s literacy advocate. (Los Angeles Times)
Ryan Martin, a high school basketball coach in Naples, Maine, sank 1,134 three-point shots in one hour to set a new Guinness World Record. Martin’s effort beat out the previous record of 1,077, set by an Oregon man in 2012. (UPI)
Quote of the Day
“I do think that today’s young people are going to be at the plate when history throws the United States its next curveball and I think they’ll hit it out of the park.”
— Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), assessing America’s next generation. (Indiana Capital Chronicle)