Red states are remaking the civil liberties landscape
CNN
From Florida, Georgia and Tennessee through Texas, South Dakota and Montana, Republican-controlled states are approving a torrent of culturally conservative hot-button legislation at a pace unmatched in recent times, and probably ever.
States where the GOP controls both the governorship and state legislature are moving in unprecedented numbers to restrict abortion, limit access to voting, ban books, retrench transgender rights and constrain teachers' ability to discuss race, gender and sexual orientation at public K-12 schools and increasingly at public colleges and universities.
Many of the same states are simultaneously rescinding restrictions on gun ownership, stiffening penalties for people engaged in unruly public protests and, in a new twist, empowering private citizens to bring lawsuits to enforce many of these initiatives, as Texas Republicans did on their recent law banning abortion after about six weeks.