#bryan slaton

Last year, when Justice Ginsburg was still on the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court narrowly rejected a Louisiana anti-abortion law that was "almost word-for-word identical" to a Texas anti-abortion law that the Court had already held unconstitutional back in 2016. Good ol' justice Thomas--who firmly believes that the Constitution guarantees only the most minimal rights--issued a blistering dissent, in which he (as usual) indicated his strong desire to overrule every single past decision of the Supreme Court on abortion.

"[T]hose decisions created the right to abortion out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution's text. Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled. ... The Constitution does not constrain the States ability to regulate or even prohibit abortion." (June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo (2020) 591 U.S. ___., 140 S.Ct. 2103)

A few weeks before the 2020 election, Justice Ginsburg passed away. Donald Trump promptly nominated, and the GOP-controlled Senate promptly confirmed, Amy Coney Barrett, a far-right religious conservative who (among other things) in 1998 published a law review article stating that "abortion ... is always immoral," and in 2006 added her signature to a two-page advertisement demanding that the Court overturn Roe v Wade and calling the 1973 landmark abortion rights decision "barbaric" and a "raw exercise of judicial power." Unsurprisingly, anti-abortion-rights groups widely praised Barrett's confirmation.

The Royse City Republican had come under growing pressure to step down after an investigation determined he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 19-year-old woman on his staff.

Rep. Bryan Slaton resigned from the Texas House on Monday after an investigation determined that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 19-year-old woman on his staff, providing her with enough alcohol before their encounter that she felt dizzy and had double vision.

Pressure had mounted on the Royse City Republican to resign since Saturday, when the House General Investigative Committee released a 16-page report finding Slaton, who is 45 and married, had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with his aide. The committee of three Republicans and two Democrats recommended that Slaton be the first state representative expelled from the body since 1927.