About Lynn Shapiro

After writing about business and health for nearly 30 years, Lynn began her legal and political writing career in 2016 at Personalinjury.com and American Legal News. Since then, she’s become a more fervent Democrat than ever. In her writing career, she has covered gun laws, LGBT rights, cannabis litigation, Obamacare, and obstruction of justice for many publications, including Newsweek. Before writing about law and politics, Lynn wrote about medicine and prior to that, Wall Street. Lynn is a graduate of Hampshire College, and studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts. She lives in New York City for the time being.

Attorney General Brnovich Set to Use Nazi Gas as He Restarts Executions

The gas chamber used for executions in Florence, Ariz. The state last killed a death row inmate with lethal cyanide gas in 1999, drawing outrage. Moratoriums on the death penalty have been the rule in Arizona for the last seven years, resulting from the torturous death of Joseph Wood in 2014. Wood took almost two hours to die when Arizona Corrections Department officials injected him with 15 doses of a lethal cocktail. One of the drugs used to kill Wood was midazolam, a sedative also used in Oklahoma's botched execution of Clayton Lockett two months earlier. Adding to the death penalty's suspension in [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-06-12T13:15:39-07:00June 12th, 2021|Arizona, Criminal Justice|

Marcos Ysmael: How to Find Help for Tenants Facing Eviction

Video editing by Anne Simmons. As the June 30 termination looms for the federal eviction moratorium, Marcos Ysmael, the Pima Country Housing Program manager, is acting to rescue Arizonians from eviction. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) might extend the moratorium on COVID-related evictions beyond June 30, he told Democrats of Greater Tucson at their April 19 meeting. Ysmael has 37 years of experience leading community development and housing programs. He is devoted to securing affordable homeownership and affordable rentals for Arizonans. Now, he's facing his biggest test yet: A pandemic-related recession that continues to force millions of [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-04-24T15:12:13-07:00April 21st, 2021|Economics, Housing|

Supreme Court Tosses Trump’s Sanctuary City and Election Challenges

Tossing out the last of the election challenges and sanctuary city claims, the US Supreme Court proved that Chief Justice John Roberts’ statement “that there are no Trump Justices, no Obama justices” to be true. Last week, Biden’s Justice Department and New York and San Francisco asked Scott Harris, the Court clerk, to dismiss the three sanctuary city cases in New York City, New York State, and San Francisco. Their Attorneys General refused to cooperate with Federal ICE authorities. The Trump administration had retaliated against the Blue states and cities by blocking approximately $385 million in justice assistance grants. Trump’s ICE [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-03-09T19:41:54-07:00March 9th, 2021|Elections, Immigration/Refugees|

Sotomayor Pans GOP Lawyer in Arizona Ballot-Collection Case in Supreme Court

"Excuse me," Justice Sonia Sotomayor interrupted. "if you just can't vote for those reasons and your vote is not being counted, you've been denied the right to vote, haven't you?" While the Supreme Court could uphold voter suppression laws in Arizona and across the nation, Justice Sotomayor leveled withering criticism at the GOP’s anti-voter lawyer. Barrett, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, appear to have formed a moderately conservative bloc, judging from Arizona ballot-harvesting oral arguments on March 2, as well as prior cases the Justices have argued this term. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee The [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-03-05T12:35:31-07:00March 3rd, 2021|Voter Suppression|

Barbara Warren on Why Tucson is Not Prepared for a Heat Emergency

The Tucson power grid is vulnerable in the event of a climate disaster, according to Barbara Warren, speaking at the Democrats of Greater Tucson on February 1, 2021. At risk are Native Americans and Arizonians housed in trailer parks, as are older Americans in nursing homes who have no place to go, should the power grid crash. Warren spoke about how to prepare for power outages and how to develop extreme heat awareness. An internal medicine physician and community health organizer, Warren is trying to prevent the people in the fastest-warming cities -- Tucson and Phoenix -- from experiencing extreme [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-02-20T21:37:02-07:00February 10th, 2021|Arizona, Environment/Climate Change|

Pima Dems Chair Bonnie Heidler on Removing Finchem, Ballot Harvesting and Redistricting

Many thanks to video producer Anne Simmons for editing this recording. Elected as Pima Country's Chair in December, Bonnie Heidler spoke before the Democrats of Greater Tucson on January 11. At Monday's meeting, she discussed: The indictment by the Republican attorney general of two Democratic Latinas for so-called "ballot harvesting." This is a case of voter suppression that the US Supreme Court will hear on March 3 and rule on in June. Efforts to penalize AZ Rep. Mark Finchem, member of a right-wing fringe militia, for attending the January 6 domestic terror takeover of the US capitol. Developing [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-01-14T09:22:14-07:00January 14th, 2021|Local Candidates and Electeds, Tucson|

House Votes to Legalize Marijuana as Racial Justice Mandate

This article first appeared on the Blog for Arizona. The House of Representatives voted by a bipartisan majority of 228-164 to pass the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act, ending the Federal ban on cannabis. The MORE Act would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and expunge nonviolent pot-related offenses. The New York Times reports the law, “would require Federal courts to release those serving sentences for nonviolent marijuana-related offenses, and set up grant programs focused on providing job training, legal aid, and substance use treatment, as well as grants for small business in the marijuana [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2020-12-05T08:52:50-07:00December 5th, 2020|Ballot Referenda and Initiatives|

National Pot Legalization Expected to Pass in the House This Week

This article first appeared on the Blog for Arizona. A historic House vote to end the federal prohibition of cannabis is expected to pass this week. It would mark the "first time that the House or the Senate has ever voted as a full chamber on legislation to end the federal cannabis prohibition since it went into effect following the passage of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970," writes Leafly's Bruce Barcott. Known as the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, the bill was introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D–N.Y.) (who led the House impeachment [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2020-12-03T13:20:54-07:00December 3rd, 2020|Democratic Convention|

Obamacare Survival Hinges on Doctrine of Severability

The Supreme Court is arguing Obamacare for the third time on Tuesday, November 10, in Texas v. California. “The tax will come back to haunt him,” one legal observer remarked after Roberts first designated Obamacare a tax, rather than entitlement in a 5-4 decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius in 2012. Obamacare was spared again in 2015 in King v. Burwell. And indeed, the tax has come back to haunt Obamacare. The story goes like this: In September 2017, Senator John McCain gave the famous thumbs down to the Graham-Cassidy Repeal and Replace bill —sponsored by Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2020-11-09T08:54:09-07:00November 5th, 2020|Healthcare|

It’s Already Too Late to Stop Climate Change

Joseph Weinberger, a climate activist and second-year UCLA medical student, says it is already too late to stop climate change. Speaking as a member of the progressive Jewish community, he says we are past the time of “Tikkun Olam” (fixing the world), using a Hebrew phrase. Joseph Weinberger says we are past the global climate tipping point. Meanwhile, Biden’s $1.7 trillion climate plan aims to remove carbon from the power grid by 2035. Biden’s recovery act would provide millions of jobs and attempt to save the planet from its sixth mass extinction, the first from human action. Weinberger [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2020-10-28T17:34:43-07:00October 28th, 2020|Environment/Climate Change|