PUBLIC MARKS with tags state & politics

These should be easy days for Republican Gov. Mark Sanford who's far ahead of his Democratic challenger in cash and ads in the final week before Election Day. Despite leading the GOP ticket that's dominated state politics for a decade, Sanford's penny-pinching political style and libertarian leanings have peeved party regulars. He often says he's running his campaign like he's one vote short of securing his second term.

South Dakota moved closer to imposing some of the strictest limits on abortion in the nation as the state Senate approved legislation that would ban the procedure except when the woman's life is in danger. ()()Could this bill lead to the test case that will be used to overturn Roe v. Wade?

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in the landmark case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.” His words were a ringing affirmation of the freedoms of conscience and expression that are central to American liberty.