Minnesota settled its lawsuit against e-cigarette maker Juul Labs and tobacco giant Altria for $60.5 million, Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday, saying the total is significantly higher per capita than any other state that sued Juul over youth vaping and marketing practices.

The state’s lawsuit was the first and still the only one of thousands of cases nationwide against the e-cigarette maker to reach trial. It settled just ahead of closing arguments last month, but the terms had to be kept confidential for 30 days until the formal papers were filed publicly with the court.

Ellison said Minnesota got the big settlement precisely because the state took Juul to trial. He said the sum exceeds what Juul made in Minnesota from 2015 to 2021.

‘We were the only state willing to take this battle to trial and hold the bad actors accountable. It sends a message that you cannot get away with this,’ Ellison said at a news conference with Gov. Tim Walz. ‘We will put you in front of a Minnesota jury and you can take your chances.’

Most of the other cases have settled, including dozens with other states and U.S. territories. The largest settlement came last month when it was announced that Juul Labs will pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia to settle lawsuits related to its marketing tactics. As part of that deal, Juul pledged not to market its products to anyone under the age of 35 and to limit the amount customers can purchase in retail stores and online.

Ellison said ahead of the state’s trial that he was seeking more than $100 million in damages. His spokesperson, John Stiles, told reporters Wednesday that if Minnesota had settled on the same terms as the six states and the District of Columbia, it would have gotten about $30 million, or as little as $15 million if it had accepted the terms most other states did.

Not only will Juul and Altria pay $60.5 million, Ellison said, they’ll pay more a third of it within 30 days and more than 60% within a year. The state will get about $43 million after litigation costs and attorney’s fees. Legislation is pending to dedicate the money to tobacco prevention.

In addition to the internal company documents Juul has disclosed in other settlements, Minnesota will also get documents specific to the state for a total of 10 million documents that researchers and journalists can pore through, Ellison said. ‘We’re going to have a lot of sunlight,’ he said. And unlike the other settlements, he said, Altria will disclose its internal documents on its involvement with Juul.

Walz agreed with Ellison and others at the news conference that Juul’s arrival undid much of the progress that the state had made since its landmark $7.1 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998, which provided money for anti-smoking programs.

‘We were within a decade or two of eliminating smoking almost in its entirety, and nicotine addiction amongst the young. That’s how close we got,’ the governor said. ‘And they’re smart. They pivoted to a new product. They marketed it in a very deceptive way. And we have a whole generation of kids (who) got hooked this way.’

The settlement specifically prohibits Juul from marketing to children and young adults in Minnesota, Ellison said, and requires the company to accurately disclose the nicotine content of its products.

One of the lead attorneys in the case, Tara Sutton, of the law firm Robins Kaplan, was a member of the firm’s team that took on Big Tobacco in the 1998 case on behalf of then-Attorney General Skip Humphrey.

‘We have won once again,’ Sutton said. ‘Once again the attorney general had the courage to take on the new generation of Big Tobacco, and its name was Juul and its benefactor was Altria.’

Juul declined to say anything about the details of the settlement and stood by a statement it issued when the agreement was announced.

‘We have now settled with 48 states and territories, providing over $1 billion to participating states to further combat underage use and develop cessation programs,’ the statement said. ‘This is in addition to our global resolution of the U.S. private litigation that covers more than 5,000 cases brought by approximately 10,000 plaintiffs.’

Attorneys for Minnesota argued during the case that Juul unlawfully targeted young people with vaping products to get a new generation addicted to nicotine. Juul attorneys countered that its purpose was to convert adult smokers of combustible cigarettes to a less-dangerous product — not to lure kids.

Minnesota, which won a landmark $7.1 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998, filed its lawsuit in 2019 and added Altria, which formerly owned a minority stake in Juul, as a co-defendant in 2020. Altria completed its divestiture in March and said it effectively lost its $12.8 billion investment.

Washington, D.C.-based Juul Labs launched in 2015 on the popularity of flavors like mango, mint, fruit medley and creme brulee. Teenagers fueled its rise, and some became addicted to Juul’s high-nicotine pods. Amid a backlash, the company dropped all U.S. advertising and discontinued most of its flavors in 2019, losing popularity with teens. Juul’s share of the now multibillion-dollar market has fallen to about 33% from a high of 75% in 2018.

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The University of California’s board of regents will vote Thursday on allowing illegal immigrants to be employed across the campus system after activists had pushed for such a move — despite criticism that it would be illegal under federal law.

The university’s board is scheduled to vote on a policy on ‘equitable student employment opportunities.’

‘In response to a recent advocacy campaign, the University has assessed whether it would be appropriate to adopt a policy that would authorize the employment of student employees regardless of immigration status,’ an official summary says. ‘This assessment has included a review of legal theories that might be asserted in support of a new equitable access to employment policy.’

The New York Times reported in October about how a coalition of ‘undocumented student leaders’ and other legal scholars were proposing that the state begin employing students at the 10 campuses across the system.

The proposal would appear to be in violation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. But the Times reported that a ‘new legal analysis’ drafted at UCLA argues that the law does not apply to states.

A UC spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the board will consider the policy to ‘ensure that all students at the University of California, regardless of immigration status, have equal access to educational enrichment activities, including student employment.’

‘The proposed action is consistent with the University’s belief that work enhances the educational experience and expands opportunity. We believe it is our responsibility, as a public institution, to serve and support all students, as allowable by law,’ the spokesperson said.

The move would be yet another step in the liberal state normalizing those who are in the country illegally, and eliminating distinctions between them and legal immigrants and U.S. citizens. The state already offers driver’s licenses, as well as in-state college tuition and some state-funded health care. 

The move is likely to be highly controversial, particularly among Republicans who have opposed the mainstreaming of illegal immigration, particularly given the ongoing crisis at the southern border.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., this week wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom expressing his opposition to the plan, and raising his objections to the legal claims being made by the activists.

‘In keeping with the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized federal law preempts state or local immigration actions,’ he wrote. ‘The Court has repeatedly made clear that IRCA leaves no room for states to adopt their own immigration employment measures, nor can they conflict with the federal law’s objectives and purposes.’

He also noted prohibitions on illegal immigrant students receiving grants under the Federal Work-Study program, which could mean that the system would have to forgo future federal assistance.

He accused the university and the state of trying to ‘pick and choose which federal laws to follow and which to declare null and void,’ 

‘Rather than devote scarce time and resources to this — particularly during an historic and worsening state budget crisis — University leadership should focus on better ways to reduce administrative overhead, rebuild core studies, reinstate a healthy atmosphere of free speech on campus and regain the public trust in what was once the hallmark of our nation’s finest systems of higher education.’

A Massachusetts government agency has recommended that the governor and legislature pass a child abuse law to target parents who deny their LGBTQ children gender transition-related health care.

The Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth, which advises state agencies on policies and programs for LGBTQ kids, submitted its ‘Report & Recommendations’ on child welfare for fiscal 2024, asking that Democrat Gov. Maura Healey and the Democrat-majority legislature ‘improve Massachusetts child abuse laws to explicitly include the withholding of gender-affirming care for LGBTQ youth.’

The commission, citing the World Health Organization, says ‘gender-affirming care’ includes psychological and medical interventions that ‘affirm a patient’s gender identity and expression.’

‘[T]he Commission recommends that the state examine the possibility of codifying gender-affirming child welfare protections in state law to better support youth and families,’ the report says.

The commission also wants the state government to consider creating a ‘maltreatment code system’ for LGBTQ youth within the state Department of Children and Families ‘to better support social workers in tracking and addressing critical cases and incidents.’

The commission and the governor’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s inquiries.

The report was first pointed out on Twitter by Substack writer Wesley Yang.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Democratic lawmakers announced a resolution Wednesday asking the federal government to pay potentially trillions of dollars in reparations to descendants of slaves and people of African descent, but not all members of Congress are on board.

‘I think that is just the woke ideology peeking and rearing its ugly head,’ Rep. Kat Cammack, a Republican, said of the push for federal reparations. ‘In this country, you can do anything, be anything, and this culture of victimhood, it has absolutely gotten out of control.’

The resolution, which Rep. Cori Bush said she would introduce Wednesday, calls for $14 trillion to close the ‘Black and white wealth gap’ that she argues stems from racist governmental policies.

‘Black people in our country cannot wait any longer for our government to begin addressing each and every one of the extraordinary bits of harm — all of the harm — it has caused since the founding, that it continues to perpetuate each and every day all across our communities all across this country,’ Bush said at a press conference Wednesday alongside fellow Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Jamaal Bowman and Rashida Tlaib.

But Bush wouldn’t say where funding for reparations would come from.

‘We’re still having those kinds of conversations,’ the Missouri congresswoman told Fox News after the press conference.

‘ABSURD’: GOP LAWMAKERS SLAM FEDERAL REPARATIONS PROPOSAL:

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said ‘the notion of reparations are so absurd, they don’t even merit a response.’ Rep. Gary Palmer worried about the financial impacts.

‘We’re at a situation right now where the country is dealing with a serious debt issue and to add to that would be problematic for the whole country, for our economy,’ the Alabama Republican said. ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’ 

Opinion polling suggests reparations are unpopular with Americans. Only three in 10 U.S. adults said descendants of slaves should be repaid, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey. However, 77% of Black Americans supported reparations in the same survey.

‘The federal government backed slavery, right?’ Bowman, who represents New York’s 16th district, said. ‘So the federal government needs to hold itself accountable for that. And then policies that have continued throughout American history have continued to inflict harm on Black Americans.’

Bowman praised California for being ‘the real leader’ in the reparations debate after the state’s Reparations Task Force recommended cash payments, which could reach as high as $1.2 million per recipient.

‘Even their own governor — Governor Newsom — has said that he doesn’t support this because he recognizes that it will break the bank,’ Cammack said, adding that slavery was never legal in California.

To hear more from lawmakers, click here.

Minnesota lawmakers have passed a bill that would provide more protection for warehouse workers who have to meet productivity quotas, a move aimed at helping employees at companies like Amazon.

The protections were included in a broader omnibus bill passed 34-33 on Tuesday evening by the Minnesota Senate. The House passed the bill 70-61.

Under the bill, employers are required to provide each warehouse worker with a written description of any quotas, including details about how their work is measured and any action that might result in case they fail to meet quotas.

The bill prohibits companies from firing or taking any adverse actions against an employee for failing to meet a quota that has not been disclosed to them. It also says companies can’t implement productivity quotas that prevent workers from taking breaks, and allows the state to open an investigation if a company has an injury rate 30% or higher compared to its peers.

The bill mirrors similar laws passed in recent years in New York and California that attempt to regulate how Amazon surveys workers in its vast number of warehouses. Injuries at Amazon facilities have typically been higher compared to its peers in the industry. Critics and labor safety experts often blame the company’s fast-paced warehouses for that problem.

Amazon said in a recent report it recorded a 6.7% rate of injuries and illnesses per 200,000 working hours across its U.S. operations last year. That’s a dip from 7.6% in 2021, but slightly higher than 6.5% in 2020. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said the company was trying to improve warehouse safety.

Amazon has said it doesn’t have fixed quotas, but has ‘performance expectations’ for workers based on how their peers perform at particular sites.

‘While we agree with the goals of this bill, this legislation is based on a misunderstanding of our business performance metrics,’ Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said in a prepared statement. Vogel said the company assesses performance ‘based on safe and achievable expectations and take into account time and tenure, peer performance, and adherence to safe work practices.’

The Minnesota bill allows current or former employees to bring a civil suit against companies who violated the new rules. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz is expected to sign the bill.

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FIRST ON FOX: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political team threw some subtle shade at former President Donald Trump on Wednesday following the rising Republican star and likely presidential candidate receiving the endorsement of 99 lawmakers in the Florida state legislature.

‘Ron DeSantis’ support among Republicans in the Florida legislature is almost universal because these lawmakers have partnered with the governor to pass the most robust conservative agenda in the history of the state, putting Florida at the top of the rankings on every key metric,’ a top DeSantis political operation official told Fox News Digital.

The official’s use of the phrase ‘almost universal’ was a clear reference to Trump’s statement in April that his ‘support is almost universal in Florida’ after he received endorsements from nearly half of Florida’s Republican congressional delegation.

The 99 Florida legislators endorsing DeSantis, who has not yet announced a run for president, is a commanding portion of the state’s 113 Republican lawmakers, of which Trump has only been endorsed by one.

DeSantis, however, has the support of only one Republican member of Congress from Florida: Rep. Laurel Lee.

The Trump campaign responded to the endorsements by accusing DeSantis of using his veto power as governor to force them to back his potential White House run.

‘It’s no surprise that Ron DeSantis and his political cronies have continued to terrorize the Florida legislature with the threat of his veto pen if they don’t acquiesce to his demand to endorse his candidacy,’ campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung said in a statement. 

‘There are some brave legislators who have stood up to DeSantis’ Swamp-like behavior and resisted his intimidation tactics in order to do what is right for Florida and the country. Those who he can’t control — including almost the entirety of the Florida federal congressional delegation — have endorsed President Trump because he’s the only candidate who can beat Joe Biden and take back the White House,’ he added.

Trump is the overwhelming front-runner in the 2024 race for the Republican nomination, according to polls, with DeSantis coming in a distant second. When the governor’s expected campaign launch comes, he will join a growing field that includes former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, conservative talk show host Larry Elder and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Border Patrol agents encountered 16 people who are on the FBI’s terror watch list attempting to enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border between ports of entry in April, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.

CBP stats show that 16 people — more than all four years of fiscal years 17, 18, 19 and 20 combined — were stopped by Border Patrol agents in the month of April.

It means there have so far been 98 encounters at the southern and northern borders between ports of entry in FY 23 so far. That’s the same as all of FY 22. There were 16 in FY21, 3 in FY 20 and FY19, 6 in FY18 and two in FY12.

The numbers at the ports of entry themselves are much bigger, with 295 in FY23 so far, compared to 380 last fiscal year.

The watch list, officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) is the government’s database that ‘contains sensitive information on terrorist identities.’

‘The TSDS originated as the consolidated terrorist watchlist to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals,’ CBP says.

While the number of those encountered is a small percentage of the enormous number of migrants the U.S. encounters each year, the increase in watch list encounters has raised concerns, particularly from Republicans, about the number who are getting past overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.

‘Those 16 individuals are only the ones we know about. Imagine how many have crossed Biden’s open border undetected,’ the Republican House Homeland Security Committee account tweeted.

Fox News reported this week that Border Patrol encountered an Afghan national on the watch list crossing illegally into California.

The migrant crossed the border with a group near Otay Mesa, California, the sources said. Border Patrol agents took the migrants to a processing station, where a fingerprint scan determined the Afghan was a match on the Terrorist Screening Database. The FBI was then notified, confirmed the results, and began an investigation.

The new numbers released on Wednesday also showed there were over 211,401 migrant encounters by CBP in April, down 11% from the 235,785 seen in April 2022 and up 10% from the 191,956 seen in March 2023.

That came before the end of the Title 42 public health order on May 11. The border saw a surge in the days leading up to that order’s expiration to over 10,000 a day, but officials say numbers have decreased by more than 50% since then.

Chicago’s most prominent newspaper called out the Windy City’s newly sworn-in left-wing mayor for doing the bidding of unions and signing ‘radical’ executive orders just hours into the job, calling one in particular a ‘disaster’ for the fiscal stability of Chicago.

‘As Mayor Brandon Johnson was celebrating ‘the soul of Chicago’ in his inaugural speech, his office was churning out a batch of deeply radical executive orders that signal trouble ahead for anyone worried about tax increases or concerned with the fiscal stability of America’s third largest city,’ the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board wrote Wednesday, two days after Johnson was inaugurated. ‘The one that most immediately caught our attention was Johnson’s executive order creating a new deputy mayor for labor relations.’

The Tribune outlined what ‘any reasonable adult, be they Democrat or Republican,’ would expect a deputy mayor for labor relations to do in a big city: balance the demands and expectations of a unionized workforce with the ‘need to hold the line on costs.’

In the public sector, however, there’s less incentive to hold the line on costs because spending money to gain popularity is more of an appeal than within private companies.

‘In the case of the city’s new mayor, this danger is compounded because everyone knows that Johnson was hand-picked by the Chicago Teachers Union, with the help of other public sector unions, and their superb ground game got out the Johnson vote and put their man in City Hall,’ according to the Tribune. ‘Even Johnson’s most fervent supporters should hope that the new mayor will make some effort to stress his independence from his union paymasters … His first responsibility is to Chicagoans who are trusting him to be a steward of the hard-earned money they pay in taxes and deliver them functional services.’

Johnson, a longtime union organizer and activist, was supported by a progressive coalition, including the Chicago Teachers Union. During his campaign, he acknowledged that his ambitious proposals for investments in Chicago’s social programs would require tax increases. Among Johnson’s most controversial tax proposals is head tax on large companies of $1 to $4 per employee and a jet fuel tax.

As part of his agenda, Johnson, a Democrat, seems to be adopting a clear pro-labor position through some of the new positions he’s creating.

The job description for the deputy mayor for labor relations, as released Monday, is being ‘responsible for working with all city agencies and departments to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of Chicago; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights, including working with relevant authorities to help enforce workers’ statutory rights.’

According to the Tribune, such a job is a ‘gift-wrapped present’ for the Chicago Teachers Union, ‘which probably had a big hand in its composition.’ The editorial board added that the executive order says nothing about an obligation to protect taxpayers, homeowners or businesses.

‘It basically says: Do what unionized workers want, find more ways to give them more of what they want, and your annual review will be just dandy,’ the Tribune argued. ‘In fact, if you take that job description at face value, any deputy mayor pushing back on any union demand whatsoever would, in fact, be contravening what their boss says is the requirement of the job.’

In other words, the city’s biggest paper wrote, Johnson’s job description for his new deputy is a ‘disaster and it needs to be immediately rewritten so as to reflect the dual responsibilities of the job, which is to navigate and mediate between legitimate union demands and the ability of the city to meet them without casting citizens from their homes or sending off Chicago businesses to Florida.’

The Tribune then called on Johnson to recognize that unions can ask for ‘unreasonable things’ of their employers and be willing to respond, ‘No, Chicago cannot afford that much.’

Johnson has said as mayor he will fund more social workers instead of police officers, let illegal immigrants vote in school board elections, make Chicago a sanctuary for transgender people and ensure women can have easy access to abortions in the city.

On his first day of office, beyond the new deputy mayor for labor relations, Johnson also created new deputy mayor positions for community safety and for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights. During his inaugural address, Johnson said Chicago has ‘enough room’ for migrants who are surging across the country’s southern border ‘whether you are seeking asylum or you are looking for a fully funded neighborhood.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s team for comment for this story.

As more Southern states pass new restrictions on abortion, Virginia is poised to become an outlier in the region for its relatively permissive laws, setting up the state as a destination for women seeking abortions and raising questions about providers’ capacity to meet demand.

South Carolina is among the last bastions in the region for those seeking legal abortions, but that status could end soon. Access would be almost entirely banned after about six weeks of pregnancy — often before women know they’re pregnant — under a bill expected to come up for a vote in the House on Wednesday. The state Senate, which previously rejected a proposal to nearly outlaw abortions, could give final passage next week.

And most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will be banned in North Carolina beginning July 1 after the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature successfully overrode the Democratic governor’s veto late Tuesday.

Abortion is banned or severely restricted in much of the South, including bans throughout pregnancy in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In Georgia, it’s allowed only in the first six weeks. Farther west, women often travel to Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico or Colorado.

‘It would be just devastating for abortion access in the South,’ Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, said of the proposed six-week ban in South Carolina, the 12-week ban in North Carolina, and a six-week ban in Florida that will take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld by the state Supreme Court.

But North Carolina Rep. Sarah Stevens, a Republican, said she sees the 12-week ban and other restrictions in North Carolina’s new law as ‘safeguards,’ not obstacles to abortion.

‘We seek to balance protecting unborn babies while ensuring the safety of mothers,’ she said Tuesday.

Stricter bans across the South would heighten Virginia’s role as an access point and create a ‘ripple effect’ as people travel from out of state to seek care, Lockhart said.

‘Despite abortion providers’ efforts to increase available appointments and expand access for patients through telemedicine, the dramatic influx in out-of-state patients will lead to longer wait times for people in those access states,’ Lockhart said.

Virginia currently allows abortions in the first and second trimesters. An abortion is allowed in the third trimester only if three doctors certify the mother’s mental or physical health is at serious risk.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, pushed for a 15-week ban during this year’s legislative session, but that was defeated by the narrow Democratic majority in the state Senate.

Victoria Cobb, president of the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia, said Wednesday that the state’s laws became out of step with its neighbors’ during years of ‘liberal influence.’

Virginians ‘are going to have to work to protect our Commonwealth from being exploited by the abortion industry,’ Cobb said.

The costs of travel for women who need to go outside their home states for abortions can quickly add up, said Ashlyn Preaux, who helps run an abortion fund in South Carolina.

Abortion remains legal through 22 weeks in South Carolina, and the state had already seen an increasing number of out-of-state patients before Florida and North Carolina enacted new restrictions.

Provisional state health department data show South Carolina reported nearly 1,000 abortions in each of the first three months this year, after totaling just over 200 in the one full month that a previous six-week ban took effect last year. Nearly half of the patients reportedly came from other states.

Preaux fears the region’s new barriers will increase the burden on South Carolina abortion providers already working to match the need. The state has just three clinics, which she stressed are already limited by regulations that largely block them from providing abortions beyond the first trimester.

Until Tuesday, North Carolina had been considered a safe space, said Dr. Erica Pettigrew, a family medicine doctor in Hillsborough. But now, ‘North Carolinians will be health care refugees to other states,’ she said, also criticizing provisions of the law for potentially creating more paperwork, along with additional medical and licensing requirements.

In Nebraska, conservatives in the legislature got just enough votes Tuesday to fold a proposed 12-week abortion ban into a bill that would ban gender-affirming health for minors. The plan won the votes it needed in Nebraska’s one-chamber, officially nonpartisan legislature to end debate and set up other votes to advance it. It must now survive a final round, which could happen as soon as Thursday, to pass.

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Mark Gietzen, a prominent Kansas pro-life activist who forced a recount in the state’s abortion referendum last year, was killed when his single-engine Cessna crashed in northern Nebraska. He was 69.Gietzen was the only person aboard the aircraft, whose flight log said it crashed ‘in unknown circumstances.’Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, a fellow pro-life activist, described Gietzen as ‘irreplaceable,’ and ‘the hardest-working guy I know in the pro-life movement.’

Mark Gietzen, a longtime conservative Republican and anti-abortion activist in Kansas who forced a recount of the state’s decisive vote affirming abortion rights last year has died in a plane crash. He was 69.

The Kansas Republican Party said in a Facebook post that Gietzen, of Wichita, died Tuesday evening in Nebraska.

He was flying a single-engine Cessna 172 Skyhawk when it crashed in a field near O’Neill, Nebraska, about 190 miles northwest of Omaha, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s crash log. Gietzen was the only person on board and the log said the plane crashed ‘in unknown circumstances.’

Jim Howell, a county commissioner in Sedgwick County, Kansas, which includes Wichita, told The Wichita Eagle that Gietzen had flown to Nebraska to visit his mother.

Gietzen grew up in the Bismarck, North Dakota, area and served in the U.S. Marines before coming to Kansas in the late 1970s to work for aircraft manufacturer Boeing Corp. He became chair of Sedgwick County GOP after ‘Summer of Mercy’ anti-abortion protests in Wichita in 1991 and recruited anti-abortion activists into the party.

A fellow anti-abortion activist, Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, described Gietzen as ‘irreplaceable.’

Newman told The Eagle: ‘He was the hardest-working guy I know in the pro-life movement.’

In August 2022, voters statewide rejected Republicans’ proposed amendment to the state constitution to declare that it doesn’t protect abortion rights, which would have allowed the GOP-controlled Legislature to ban abortion.

When a handful of anti-abortion activists demanded a hand recount of ballots in nine counties that accounted for more than half the vote, Gietzen used credit cards to cover most of the $120,000 cost so that it could proceed.

The recount confirmed the results of the election, and Gietzen then filed a lawsuit seeking a statewide hand recount, but a judge dismissed it.

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