Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died at 96 last week, offered steadfast support for her husband, Jimmy Carter, throughout their 77-year marriage — but she forged her own legacy through humanitarian causes, including as a dedicated mental health advocate.

The Carter family released a statement Wednesday, acknowledging the impact Rosalynn Carter had on people’s lives.

“Rosalynn Carter’s deep compassion for people everywhere and her untiring strength on their behalf touched lives around the world,” the statement said. “We have heard from thousands of you since her passing. Thank you all for joining us in celebrating what a treasure she was, not only to us, but to all humanity.”

Her mission of mental health advocacy began during her husband’s 1966 campaign for Georgia governor, she wrote in her book, “Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis.”

As she campaigned for her husband, Carter wrote, she frequently heard from voters distressed about the conditions of family members living at a crowded psychiatric center in Milledgeville, Georgia. Then, one morning, an exhausted cotton mill worker shared that she and her husband worked opposite shifts to take care of their daughter with a mental illness.

Carter was “haunted” by that conversation, she wrote, and she set out to do something.

She learned her husband was holding a rally the same night she spoke with the family, she wrote. She surprised her husband in the greeting line, telling him, “I came to see what you are going to do to help people with mental illnesses when you are governor.”

He said he had been hearing the same things in his campaigning for governor. Jimmy Carter promised to help — when he was elected president, he named his wife as the active honorary chair of the President’s Commission on Mental Health during his White House tenure.

A report published by the commission led to the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. It would have funded community mental health centers and services for low-income populations, however, it was mostly repealed by President Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Jimmy Carter months after it passed.

Carter was devastated when Reagan abandoned the new mental health policy, she wrote in her book. But it did not stop her from continuing her work through The Carter Center, the nonprofit she founded with her husband in 1982.

She continued to work for decades to drive mental health legislation, accurate media coverage and social change.

In 1996, Carter launched the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism to combat stigmas through storytelling. Since then, the program has awarded more than 220 fellows worldwide, according to The Carter Center website.

Fellowship recipient Aaron Glantz, bureau chief and senior editor at The Fuller Project, wrote on X that the former first lady “was the first person to ever ask me how my journalism would make an impact.”

“This simple question changed my life & so many others. Thank you,” Glantz wrote.

Tributes poured in after Carter’s death, including on a memorial page set up by The Carter Center. Many on the page mentioned the impact of her advocacy in their remembrances.

“My mother, who was from Alabama, suffered with mental illness all of her life from the 1950’s through 2016 when she passed. She experienced first hand the tragedy of stigma, discrimination and frightening treatment both in and out of hospitals. … She wrote to Mrs. Carter to thank her for her help. She was so thrilled to receive a response back,” one user wrote.

Another person recalled being sent to the same Georgia hospital that had helped spark Rosalynn Carter’s crusade decades ago.

“To me, the most meaningful of all of Rosalynn’s accomplishments was her work with mental illness. Mental illness is like any other disease. I was 14 years old when I was sent to Milledgeville,” the user wrote.

Caregivers — such as the cotton mill worker Carter met in 1966 — played a key role in her activism, she said. Carter founded the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers at Georgia Southwestern State University and later wrote a book focused on caregiving, one of three books she published drawing on her own advocacy experience.

Carter’s book “Helping Someone with Mental Illness: A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers” discussed the latest mental health treatments and how to help people with illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anxiety.

The former first lady’s final book released in 2010, “Within Our Reach,” was a call to action, according to The Carter Center website. In the book, she describes a mental health system that continues to fail people in need.

But the former first lady had hope, too.

Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Forum upon the book’s release, she said she never dreamed that people could recover from mental illness when she began her work.

Carter said her goal was for the book to help dispel stigmas that cause people with mental illness to hide from help.

“To neglect those who, through no fault of their own, are in need, runs counter to our values, our decency and equality,” Carter said at the forum. “Today, with our knowledge and expertise, we have a great opportunity to change things forever, for all people with mental illnesses, with what we know now, to move forward to a new era of understanding, care and respect.”

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(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Influential Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, officially endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primary race during a Tuesday night appearance on Fox News.

“I’m thrilled to throw my personal endorsement and support behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida,” Vander Plaats told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.

Vander Plaats’ endorsement of DeSantis should come as no surprise, as he has praised the governor over the past few months. On Tuesday night, he called DeSantis a “bold and courageous leader.”

“He closed the sale of me. He was very clear about how we need a president who can serve two terms, not one term,” Vander Plaats said. “We don’t need a president who’s gonna be a lame duck on day one.”

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds has said DeSantis is the only candidate who can beat former President Donald Trump in the primary despite still notably trailing Trump in the polls.

The DeSantis campaign has prioritized winning the Iowa caucus, scheduled for Jan. 15, as the governor has spent much of his time in the state and has visited 98 of the 99 counties there.

The governor entered the primary race with much fanfare, but state and national polling shows he has not managed to eat away at Trump’s enormous support with the Republican base.

While DeSantis and Trump are campaigning on similar policies, DeSantis has argued the party needs a new leader after a string of disappointments at the ballot box — as Trump faces mounting legal troubles, all of which he denies.

In Iowa, DeSantis has touted his ties to figures like Vander Plaats and Reynolds.

He appeared with Vander Plaats over the weekend, participating in a Family Leader Thanksgiving Forum, which Vander Plaats moderated.

DeSantis also had the Iowa governor attend several campaign events with him in different parts of the state, including Reynolds going to his campaign office opening in Des Moines.

Supporters of DeSantis see the recent endorsements from Vander Plaats and Reynolds as a result of the governor putting time and energy into Iowa and trying to connect with as many voters in the state as possible.

“Gov. DeSantis has done the work in Iowa, unlike Trump, and it’s showing,” Dan Eberhart, a donor and supporter of his campaign, told ABC News.

In past years, Vander Plaats’ endorsement has proven critical in Iowa — though not influential elsewhere. He supported candidates who went on to win the caucus in past elections, like Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Ted Cruz in 2016.

All three, though, did not go on to win the Republican nomination for president.

Asked by reporters in New Hampshire earlier Tuesday if he had secured Vander Plaats’ endorsement, DeSantis played it cool, not saying he had Vander Plaats’ support but emphasized their strong relationship.

“I think that Bob has been somebody that’s been very vocal about [how] Donald Trump is not going to be the way forward, not going to be able to get the job done,” DeSantis said.

“So we’re hopeful that we’re able to secure that endorsement, and if that does happen, to have so many members of the Iowa Legislature, to have the governor, then to have Bob and his network, that’s going to be a pretty powerful machine,” he said, “and we’re going to turn all that on — or they’ll turn it on — and we’re going to go there and do that.”

A spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign declined to comment for this story.

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(WASHINGTON) — Newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson met with former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday night, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The meeting, which took place at a fundraiser for Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., marked the first time the two have met in-person since Johnson was elected on Oct. 25. (The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.)

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, was relatively little known before being chosen by the House GOP to lead the chamber. Unlike predecessor Kevin McCarthy, he quickly jumped into the 2024 presidential race, saying on CNBC this month that he was “all in for President Trump” in the upcoming election and had “endorsed him wholeheartedly.”

The speaker also recently moved to release the complete surveillance footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying in a statement that he wanted the public to be able to “see for themselves what happened that day.”

Democrat Rep. Joe Morelle of New York criticized him for “allowing virtually unfettered access to sensitive Capitol security footage.”

Johnson, who helped lead the effort in the House to reverse Trump’s 2020 election loss, has recently declined to answer whether he stood by that decision.

His views on Trump have evolved over time, with comments from 2015 recently resurfacing in which he wrote on Facebook that Trump was a “hot head” and “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”

The meeting between the highest elected Republican in the nation and the leading GOP presidential contender comes as Johnson is adjusting to his speakership after a fractious, weekslong battle among Republicans following McCarthy’s ouster in early October.

As speaker, Johnson helped pass a short-term government funding bill earlier this month that didn’t include steep spending cuts — similar to the kind of legislation that led GOP hard-liners to remove McCarthy — and Johnson faces the same challenges running the House, though he is seen as more economically and socially conservative.

Johnson’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago further underscores Trump’s continued sway with conservatives, even as he faces an unprecedented four criminal cases, all of which he denies.

Trump maintains large leads in both nationwide and early state polling of Republican voters as he seeks the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

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(WASHINGTON) — Following the death of former first Lady Rosalynn Carter, President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered flags to be flown at half-staff from Saturday, Nov. 25 until the day of her burial next week.

The former first lady died at age 96 Sunday at her home in Georgia, days after her family announced she was entering hospice care. She was diagnosed with dementia in May.

Flags will be flown at half-staff “at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the federal government,” Biden said in the announcement.

In his proclamation, Biden remembered the late first lady as “a champion for equal rights and opportunities for women and girls; an advocate for mental health and wellness for all; and a supporter of the often unseen and uncompensated caregivers of our children, aging loved ones, and people with disabilities.”

Former President Jimmy Carter, who has been in hospice care since February, called his wife “my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” in a statement Sunday announcing her death.

President Biden commended the Carters’ lasting marriage in his order to lower the flags.

“Above all, the deep love shared between Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter is the definition of partnership, and their humble leadership is the definition of patriotism,” Biden wrote.

Rosalynn Carter’s life and legacy will be celebrated next week in her home state of Georgia.

The public will be able to pay respects when the family motorcade carries her remains to her alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University, on Monday, the Carter Center said.

On Tuesday, there will be a tribute service at Glenn Memorial Church at Emory University in Atlanta.

Her funeral service will be held the following day at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.

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(WASHINGTON) — Both the legal team for former President Donald Trump and a group of six voters represented by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on Monday evening appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court over a lower court’s ruling that Trump should appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot despite finding that he engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

CREW’s initial legal challenge sought to bar Trump from appearing on the ballot in 2024 due to an alleged violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a constitutional clause that prevents anyone from holding office again if they took an oath “as an officer of the United States” but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”

CREW argued that Trump’s conduct around Jan. 6 and his push to overturn his 2020 election defeat were disqualifying, but that was rejected by Colorado District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace on Friday.

In a lengthy opinion, however, Wallace also issued a historic set of findings, including the first legal ruling that concluded that the former president had incited insurrection through his actions on Jan. 6, which was also the first time a presidential candidate has been found to have engaged in insurrection by a court.

“The Court finds that Petitioners have established that Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech,” Wallace wrote.

But she then cited “competing interpretations” of Section 3 and a “lack of definitive guidance in the text or historical sources” and ultimately ruled to keep Trump on the ballot.

Those different outcomes led to the competing appeals this week.

Trump adamantly denies any wrongdoing related to Jan. 6. He was impeached by Democrats and some Republicans in the House on similar accusations, shortly after the Capitol attack, but was acquitted by Republicans in the Senate.

CREW’s suit is one of multiple complaints seeking to have Trump ruled ineligible for 2024 under the 14th Amendment, which he and his attorneys reject completely, claiming it’s “undemocratic.” Other such challenges in Michigan and Minnesota have failed, and experts have told ABC News that the U.S. Supreme Court could have to weigh in.

CREW is disputing Wallace’s final determination that Trump qualifies for Colorado’s primary ballot, while Trump’s team identified 11 issues for review from the final order, including but not limited to the finding that he engaged in an insurrection.

Trump’s lawyer Scott Gessler said that their team’s appeal was filed so that the state’s high court would “consider all issues” if it accepts CREW’s appeal. Gessler has been vocal about the fact that he and Trump’s legal team were “satisfied” with Wallace’s ruling but that he objects to many of the findings in her opinion.

“People get to choose who gets to be their president,” Gessler said on CNN last week.

He called the determination on incitement “flat-out wrong.”

“It was a little bit unusual for her to spend lot of time talking about that and then at the end rule that the 14th Amendment didn’t apply,” he said.

Throughout a five-day evidentiary hearing and about an hour of closing arguments, Trump’s legal team argued in Denver that the efforts to bar him from the ballot undermined the power of voters to make their own choice and that the former president’s speech on Jan. 6 before the attack was protected by the First Amendment.

Trump’s team celebrated Wallace’s ruling, with spokesman Steven Cheung saying in a statement afterward, in part: “These cases represent the most cynical and blatant political attempts to interfere with the upcoming presidential election.”

CREW appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court to challenge Wallace’s rulings that the president was not an “officer of the United States” because a president’s oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution” is not an oath to “support” the Constitution as required by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

“We always knew this case would end up before the Colorado Supreme Court and have been preparing for that from the beginning,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who was also being challenged by CREW in the lawsuit because of her role as the state’s chief elections officer, said after the ruling that she would “always ensure that every voter can make their voice heard in free and fair elections” by adhering to the court’s decisions.

In an interview with ABC News, Griswold expressed concern over several aspects of Wallace’s ruling, including that the presidency is not considered an “officer” of the United States.

Griswold contended that such a determination turned being president “into a ‘get out of jail free card’ for insurrection.”

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(NEW YORK) — Near the end of the third quarter of last week’s NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals, play was stopped because there was an object with flashing red and green lights hovering over the field.

That object was a drone, and it is illegal to fly over sporting events without prior permission, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which said it is investigating the incident.

While there are many benefits of drones, countering potentially malicious drones falls under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, according to Samantha Vinograd, who serves as DHS’ assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention.

“We are concerned by rapidly-evolving technology associated with drones, and that they can be used for a variety of malicious purposes,” Vinograd told ABC News in an interview.

She said the national airspace is “saturated” with drones and “a lot of malicious actors also recognize the benefits that drones can provide.”

“We have seen an explosion in drone activity in the national airspace just from a volume perspective, and that is because drones are really cheap to make and technology is really available and evolving rapidly,” she said.

The users of the drones are sometimes people who don’t realize they are flying in a restricted area, Vinograd said.

“Sometimes these drones are recreational users that lose control of their drones, [but] that doesn’t mean that they’re not at risk,” she said. “Other times, it could be malicious.”

The department wants to ensure “every community has the ability to detect and mitigate drone activity responsibly in line with the same safeguards that we’re already employing at the federal level,” she said, noting that DHS “can’t be everywhere. It’s just not possible.”

For the large-scale events, like the presidential inauguration and the Super Bowl, the department is on scene helping with drone mitigation.

But DHS’ concerns stretch beyond these large-scale events to considerations such as routine presidential protection, the southern border and airport security.

Vinograd said agents along the southern border have encountered and disrupted drones that were flying over with contraband or enabling human trafficking.

DHS’ drone countermeasures were extended until February by Congress, but Vinograd is asking Congress not only to reauthorize the countermeasures, but also expand them to include the ability for the Transportation Security Administration to mitigate drones.

At airports, the TSA has encountered 600 drones since 2018, underscoring the need for more robust security measures, according to Vinograd.

“TSA does not have the authority to proactively detect and mitigate drones,” she said. “There are countless drone incidents in and around major airports every year. We’ve had actual commercial flights disrupted because of drone activity. We had ground stops.”

Between January and July of this year, there were 302 drone incidents occurring near an airport and 146 near Core 30 airports, which are the largest airports in the country. In six of those cases, airplanes had to divert to avoid hitting the drone, Vinograd said.

If DHS doesn’t have its program reauthorized in February, it could be bad for the country’s national security, she said.

“Think about if DHS lost the ability for the most part to protect the president and vice president,” she said. “What if DHS lost the ability to mitigate drone activity at the southwest border when there are drones carrying fentanyl and our officers just had to watch them? What if DHS lost the ability to counter drone activity in and around the New York City Marathon? That’s a terrifying concept.”

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(DES MOINES, Iowa) — Influential Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, is expected to endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primary race, sources with knowledge told ABC News.

Vander Plaats’ support, which is set to be announced later on Tuesday, will come after DeSantis secured the backing of Iowa’s popular Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has said DeSantis is the only candidate who can beat former President Donald Trump in the primary despite still notably trailing Trump in the polls.

Another source familiar with the plans told ABC News that Vander Plaats met with the board of the Family Leader on Monday, ahead of his planned endorsement.

The DeSantis campaign has prioritized winning the Iowa caucus, scheduled for Jan. 15, as the governor has spent much of his time in the state and has visited 98 of the 99 counties there.

The governor entered the primary race with much fanfare, but state and national polling shows he has not managed to eat away at Trump’s enormous support with the Republican base.

While DeSantis and Trump are campaigning on similar policies, DeSantis has argued the party needs a new leader after a string of disappointments at the ballot box — as Trump faces mounting legal troubles, all of which he denies.

In Iowa, DeSantis has touted his ties to figures like Vander Plaats and Reynolds.

He appeared with Vander Plaats over the weekend, participating in a Family Leader Forum, which Vander Plaats moderated. DeSantis also had the Iowa governor attend several campaign events with him in different parts of the state, including Reynolds going to his campaign office opening in Des Moines.

Supporters of DeSantis see the recent endorsements from Vander Plaats and Reynolds as a result of the governor putting time and energy into Iowa and trying to connect with as many voters in the state as possible.

“Gov. DeSantis has done the work in Iowa, unlike Trump, and it’s showing,” Dan Eberhart, a donor and supporter of his campaign, told ABC News.

Vander Plaats’ endorsement has proven critical in Iowa — though not influential elsewhere. He supported candidates who went on to win the caucus in past elections, like Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Ted Cruz in 2016.

All three, though, did not go on to win the Republican nomination for president.

Asked by reporters in New Hampshire on Tuesday if he had secured Vander Plaats’ endorsement, DeSantis played it cool, not saying he has Vander Plaats’ support but emphasizing their strong relationship.

“I think that Bob has been somebody that’s been very vocal about [how] Donald Trump is not going to be the way forward, not going to be able to get the job done,” DeSantis said.

“So we’re hopeful that we’re able to secure that endorsement, and if that does happen, to have so many members of the Iowa Legislature, to have the governor, then to have Bob and his network, that’s going to be a pretty powerful machine,” he said, “and we’re going to turn all that on — or they’ll turn it on — and we’re going to go there and do that.”

A spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign declined to comment for this story.

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(RICHMOND, Va.) — After winning full control of the state’s General Assembly two weeks ago, Virginia Democrats are wasting no time exercising their power. On Monday, the party introduced four bills including legislation to create a constitutional amendment that would codify abortion access in the state.

“Virginia voters sent a message on Nov. 7 that they want Virginia to remain an open and welcoming state that honors individual freedom, privacy and economic opportunity for all of its residents,” said Scott Surovell, the majority leader for the Virginia Senate.

The bills also include proposals to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by Jan. 1, 2026, ban assault-style firearms and create a constitutional amendment that will repeal felon voter disqualification and codify an automatic restoration of rights.

Proposed constitutional amendments do not require a governor’s signature. For a resolution to create a constitution amendment, it has to pass both legislative chambers in two sessions over at least two years before going to a vote of the public.

The push to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution comes after abortion became one of the top issues in the election, with both parties campaigning heavily on when it should be available.

Republican candidates backed Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s stance on the issue — a “limit” on the procedure banning it after 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother — and Democrats leaned in on the issue, too, running multiple ads and breaking fundraising records as they argued the GOP could pursue major restrictions if they won the Legislature.

Virginia is currently the southern-most state that hasn’t widely banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to abortion last year. Right now, abortion is banned in Virginia after 26 weeks.

After Democrats narrowly won both chambers of the General Assembly on Nov. 7, delivering a blow to Youngkin’s agenda, the governor said at a presser that he still believed there was a place for both parties to come together on the issue of abortion.

“I think one of my aspirations was to find a place to come together on one of the most difficult topics,” he said two weeks ago. “I do believe there is a place we can come together … common ground.”

But Monday’s push by Democrats shows the party is following in the footsteps of similar efforts in other states, including Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio, to have the public directly support abortion rights by voting on amendments and ballot measures.

“Throughout the campaign cycle we told Virginians that a Democratic Majority meant that abortion access would be protected in the Commonwealth,” Charniele Herring, the majority leader for the House of Delegates, said in a news release.

Virginia Republicans were quick to criticize the abortion legislation, accusing the Democrats of changing their stance on the issue.

“Democrats are rapidly reneging on a core commitment they made during the campaign to maintain the current abortion law in Virginia,” Youngkin’s PAC, Spirit of Virginia, said in a statement.

“We can’t even pretend to be shocked that the VA Dems lied to you,” echoed Shane Harris, the communications director for the Republican Party of Virginia.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal appellate panel narrowly ruled on Monday that a key provision in the Voting Rights Act (VRA) does not allow people outside the federal government to sue over alleged electoral discrimination based on race.

The 2-1 opinion, if it stands, would sharply limit the ability for private citizens to challenge state voting laws under the VRA’s Section 2, which states that any measure that “results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the U.S. to vote an account of race or color” is illegal.

“Did Congress give private plaintiffs the ability to sue under [Section] 2 of the Voting Rights Act? Text and structure reveal that the answer is no, so we affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss,” Judge David Stras, of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote in the ruling, which upholds a previous decision in a 2022 redistricting case in Arkansas.

“The who-gets-to-sue question is the centerpiece of today’s case,” Stras, who was named to the bench by former President Donald Trump, wrote. “The Voting Rights Act lists only one plaintiff who can enforce [Section] 2: the Attorney General … We must decide whether naming one excludes others.”

He added: “When those details are missing, it is not our place to fill in the gaps, except when ‘text and structure’ require it.”

The ruling is likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court during a presidential election year.

Chief Judge Lavensky Smith wrote in a dissent that “rights so foundational to self-government and citizenship should not depend solely on the discretion or availability of the government’s agents for protection. Resolution of whether [Section] 2 affords private plaintiffs the ability to challenge state action is best left to the Supreme Court in the first instance.”

For decades, individual voters and civil rights groups have brought successful challenges under Section 2, including last term at the high court, in a case about whether Alabama’s congressional map was drawn to dilute the voting power of Black people. The justices sided with the plaintiffs.

Smith, in his dissent, noted that precedent and that the nation’s highest court has never explicitly cast doubt on the standing of non-government plaintiffs.

Still, heated debate took place when the Supreme Court heard the Alabama case, with several of the conservative-leaning judges showing openness to imposing new limits on the VRA.

The court’s conservative majority has already sharply curtailed the act in a series of recent decisions to bring its enforcement in line with their interpretation of the law.

But, surprising some court observers, the court has also continued to uphold and enforce some parts of the VRA, as with the Alabama decision.

In a statement after the Monday ruling, Sophia Lin Lakin, who directs the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, called it “a travesty for democracy. “

“For generations, private individuals have brought cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to protect their right to vote. No court had denied them the ability to bring their claims in federal court — with the sole exception of the district court, and now the Eighth Circuit,” Lakin said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The life of former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 96, will be celebrated next week with memorial events and a funeral service in her home state of Georgia.

The public will be able to pay their respects when the family motorcade carries her remains to Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, her alma mater, on Monday, Nov. 27, The Carter Center shared in a schedule of events. Past and present members of Carter’s Secret Service detail will accompany the motorcade.

Wreaths will be laid at the university before the motorcade continues to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, where the former first lady will lie in repose for several hours.

On Tuesday, Nov. 28, there will be a tribute service for Carter at Glenn Memorial Church at Emory University in Atlanta.

Her funeral service will be held the following day, Wednesday, Nov. 29, at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. Former President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at the church for decades and into his 90s.

“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Jimmy Carter said in a statement on Sunday announcing her death. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Married to Jimmy Carter for more than 77 years — the longest union of any presidential couple in U.S. history — Rosalynn Carter was a pillar of support through his time in the Navy, the governorship and the White House.

But she built a legacy of her own as a mental health advocate and through her humanitarian work, including with The Carter Center, which she and her husband founded after leaving the White House.

The Carter Center praised her as “a passionate champion of mental health, caregiving, and women’s rights.”

Already, tributes have poured in for the former first lady in an online condolence book set up by The Carter Center for the public.

One individual shared that since becoming a caregiver for their mother they were “moved by the First Lady’s own life supporting caregivers from a very early age, in her own family of origin, and then the families she supported through the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers.”

Another wrote that they, as the son of a mother with mental illness, were “forever grateful” for her work destigmatizing mental illness.

Rosalynn Carter is survived by her husband, their four children, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

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