During the special session at the Georgia General Assembly, Georgia Democrats voted against property tax referendum legislation that Republicans introduced. If passed, this legislation would grant citizens in localities the opportunity to vote on slightly increasing the sales tax in exchange for a lower property tax. House Republican leaders have emphasized the need for a lower property tax, given the increasing costs and the need to support Georgians who are struggling to make ends meet. In a comment made to the Daily Signal, state Rep. Chas Cannon, R-Moultrie, stated that a slight increase in sales tax will best serve Georgians. “You can broaden the base of taxpayers and lower the rate for everybody,” he said. “We’re trying to make things easier and more affordable, and lowering property taxes by switching to a sales tax will let folks keep more of their money and spend it the way they want to spend it.” According to WABE, state Rep. David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, voiced his opposition to the property tax referendum, stating, “This would have been a new sales tax that would have applied to food, would apply to everyday purchases, and so you don’t create relief by creating a tax”. Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, said that property taxes have risen more than 50% in certain localities. In a statement made to the Daily Signal, he said, “As you look and talk to our constituents across the state, one of the biggest complaints is skyrocketing property taxes.” While Georgia representatives have noted the burden that property taxes have had on their constituents, this legislation, if enacted, would allow the state’s localities to implement a penny sales tax in exchange for a lower property tax. Blackmon listed multiple localities where the sales tax would generate millions to offset property taxes. In Gwinnett County alone, the penny tax would bring in $250 million. Additionally, if passed, the property tax referendums that are being developed would support localities across the state, including Fannin County and Lowndes County. In May, Gov. Brian Kemp approved Senate Bill 33, permitting local governments to increase the penny tax to compensate for a decrease in property tax through means of a homestead tax exemption. The penny tax is also referred to as the Local Homestead Option Sales Tax. It is possible that negotiations and debate for these referendums will continue indefinitely. Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, noted that the referendum, if passed, will give Georgians the opportunity to choose what best suits them and their needs.

The University of Minnesota forces students to adopt transgender ideology in the name of preventing “sexual harassment,” and students are suing, saying the policies violate their free speech rights under the First Amendment and prevent them from inviting speakers such as the detransitioner Chloe Cole. “We live in fear of being disciplined and having our future ruined if we even accidentally use a pronoun someone doesn’t like,” Jackson Barrick, a University of Minnesota student entering his senior year, told the Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organization, represents Barrick and fellow students in the lawsuit, with lawyers from the Southeastern Legal Foundation. “In the last two years, there have been nearly 20 complaints filed with the university that students violated these policies,” Barrick added. “These policies are there to silence students who believe that sex cannot be changed.” “This isn’t hypothetical,” the student added. “It has become our reality, and the reality of students all across Minnesota.” The University of Minnesota declined to comment on pending litigation. The University’s Policies The lawsuit, filed June 18, challenges four university policies: two on sexual harassment, one on gender identity and pronouns, and one on discrimination. It claims the sexual harassment policies apply Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to protect students on the basis of gender identity, thus requiring adherence to preferred pronouns on pain of facing a sexual harassment claim. The pronoun policy explicitly requires members of the university—students, faculty, staff, and even guests—to use a person’s preferred pronouns. The discrimination policy allegedly bars dissent on transgender ideology in the name of preventing discrimination. Many of these policies explicitly apply to “guests,” and allegedly would impose punishments on students for viewpoints expressed by speakers the students invite to campus, according to the lawsuit. Students at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University of Minnesota-Morris, the University of Minnesota-Rochester, and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities are members of Young America’s Foundation and would invite speakers to campus, including the detransitioner Chloe Cole. Cole, a woman, identified as a male and underwent a mastectomy at age 16 before rejecting her transgender identity. She now speaks publicly against transgender ideology. The students believe that sex and gender are intertwined, that sex is determined by biology and is immutable, that a man cannot become a woman and vice versa, and that a person’s sex—not gender identity—should determine how he or she uses sex-separated facilities. The lawsuit claims the university’s policies violate the students’ rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments by imposing unconstitutionally vague rules, by discriminating against the students’ viewpoints, and by compelling them to endorse messages with which they disagree. The students ask the court for a declaration that the policies violated the Constitution, an injunction preventing the university from implementing the policies, nominal damages of one dollar, attorney’s fees associated with the litigation, and any other relief the court deems proper. A Precedent Across the Country Kimberly Hermann, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, argued that a victory for the students would set an important precedent for colleges and universities across the country. “These so-called anti-harassment policies that equate a belief in common sense—in biological sex—with harassment exist at nearly every college,” Hermann told the Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “A win declaring the University of Minnesota’s policies unconstitutional could have huge precedential effects, not only in the courtroom but also serving as a warning to all schools—K-12 and college—that students and parents have had enough.” “They are no longer afraid to stand up and file lawsuits to stop radical gender ideology from being forced on them daily,” she declared. While a ruling in the students’ favor may send a powerful message to other schools, it would not be entirely unprecedented. “School policies that compel pronoun usage violating a person’s belief in biological sex violate the First Amendment,” Hermann stated. She cited the case of Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education, in which a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that an Ohio school district’s pronoun rules violated the First Amendment by compelling speech and engaging in viewpoint discrimination. While advocates for transgender ideology claim that using a person’s preferred pronouns is a baseline courtesy, the lawsuit notes that the challenged policies “require a person to speak contrary to his deeply held beliefs and dictates the viewpoint he may express.” The lawsuit claims that some students reported a member of the university because that person complained about being required to use the phrase “lactating individuals” rather than “mother.”

The state of Nebraska allows U.S. citizens who have never lived in the state and who currently reside overseas to vote in its elections, prompting a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee. The RNC is joined in the lawsuit by two Nebraska voters, Jack Riggins and Pamela Dingman, who filed the complaint in Lancaster County District Court alleging the 2010 law allowing non-residents to vote is a violation of the state constitution. The law was passed to enact protections for service members and other Americans living abroad. Lawsuits such as this one could play out in state courts across the country. The RNC successfully challenged a similar law in North Carolina, and 38 states have some form of voting eligibility for citizens living abroad who never lived in the respective states. Article VI, Section 1, of the Nebraska Constitution specifies that those eligible to vote in the state must be U.S. citizens who are at least 18 and “have resided within the state and the county and voting precinct” in which they are casting a vote. The Nebraska law says, “A person who is the age of an elector and a citizen of the United States residing outside the United States, who has never resided in the United States, who has not registered to vote in any other state of the United States, and who has a parent registered to vote within this state shall be eligible to register to vote and vote in one county in which either one of his or her parents is a registered voter.” The 2010 state law was passed to implement the requirements of the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, which President Barack Obama signed the year prior to provide more voting protections for American citizens, including but not limited to members of the military. Three dozen states allow some form of voting eligibility for people born abroad who have never lived in the United States but have parents living in that particular state, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program. This includes a mix of red and blue states. Earlier this month, a North Carolina court ruled “never residents” are not eligible to vote in state elections, siding with the RNC, which was also a plaintiff in the case. The lawsuit names Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen, a Republican with oversight of state elections, as the defendant. A spokesman for Evnen’s office did not respond to inquiries from the Daily Signal by publication time. The RNC stressed that the lawsuit does not affect service members or overseas voters who previously lived in Nebraska and remain legally eligible to vote under state and federal law. “Nebraska’s Constitution is clear: voters must live in Nebraska,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement. “This law tries to get around that requirement by allowing people who have never lived in the state to vote. The RNC is fighting to stop it and ensure Nebraska elections are decided by Nebraska voters only.” However, Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb accused Republicans of seeking to disenfranchise eligible voters. “Nebraska Republicans are so afraid of voters—because of their radical, failed policies—that they’re now trying to deny Americans the right to vote,” Kleeb said. “Military families and Americans working overseas have children who are, per our Constitution, Americans too. This lawsuit says those young people wouldn’t be allowed to vote.”

The Center for Christian Virtue is celebrating last week’s decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allows an Ohio law on age verification and parental consent for those under 16 using social media to go into effect. Ohio’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, signed into law in 2023, was supposed to go into effect in January 2024, until NetChoice, an association of social media sites, challenged the law in court. The group claimed the law presented an unconstitutional restriction on free speech and was unconstitutionally vague. Although the law was blocked in the 2024 ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley, the federal appeals court last week in a 2-1 decision directed Marbley to vacate his ruling after ruling that “NetChoice has failed to establish that the Act is facially unconstitutional.” “[The parental consent requirement] constitutes a marginal burden that precisely targets the multi-faceted problem that Ohio has identified: Children’s unsupervised assent to terms and conditions for use of platforms that take advantage of and harm them,” Judge Eric Clay wrote in the opinion. The Center for Christian Virtue has been involved in the law since it was originally introduced. “This ruling is a major victory for Ohio parents and children,” Center for Christian Virtue President Aaron Baer told the Daily Signal. “CCV was proud to advocate for this law because parents—not Big Tech companies—should decide when their children are ready to use social media.” Baer’s statement also referenced the court’s reasoning, noting that the “court rightly recognized that protecting children online and empowering parents is not only constitutional, but necessary.” Clay wrote that parental consent “works here because the nature of the harm itself is that children’s unsupervised use of social media puts them at risk of the adverse effects of prolonged and unregulated exposure.” He also addressed NetChoice’s arguments, noting that “NetChoice has not shown that the Act’s parental-consent requirement violates its Members’ First Amendment rights, let alone that the Act violates the First Amendment on its face.” Earlier in the opinion, the court’s decision also made reference to Ohio’s concerns, including growing evidence that social media is linked to eating problems, poor mental health, and poor academic performance among youth. “The state further worries about the prevalent use of social media among child sexual predators to target minors, deficient data privacy for minor social media users, and exploitative contract terms that social media operators impose on them,” the opinion reads. The law had not been able to go into effect due to Marbley’s ruling. Baer said his only disappointment is that the delayed enactment means many kids failed to have protection. “The only disappointment is that this law was tied up in court for years while countless Ohio children were exposed to the harmful effects of social media without commonsense protections,” he said. We’re grateful this safeguard can finally take effect and help parents do what they do best: protect their kids.” NetChoice did not return the Daily Signal’s request for comment. However, Paul Taske, the director of their litigation center, previewed a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying, “We are currently reviewing our options on how best to move forward.”

On June 22, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders that, taken together, amount to one of the most consequential technology-security decisions of the decade, and almost no one outside the cybersecurity profession noticed. Executive Order 14409, “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks,” and Executive Order 14411, “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation,” address the two halves of a single problem: We are racing to build a machine that will eventually break the encryption protecting nearly everything, while simultaneously racing to defend ourselves against it. Here is the threat in plain English: A powerful enough quantum computer will one day be able to crack the digital locks that currently protect our bank accounts, power grid, medical records, and military communications. These are the same locks we trust today precisely because no ordinary computer could ever pick them. That sentence should worry every American, and for a reason that is not obvious. The danger is not only in the future; it is already here. A cryptographically relevant quantum computer does not yet exist. But our adversaries are not waiting for one. They are executing a strategy security professionals call “harvest now, decrypt later.” They are quietly vacuuming up our encrypted data today and warehousing it, betting that within a decade they will own a machine capable of unlocking it. Beijing’s Volt Typhoon hackers have already burrowed into American communications, energy, and water systems, and Chinese operatives have penetrated our major telecom networks. The administration’s own order acknowledges bluntly that adversaries may already be collecting American data with exactly this intent. This is what makes the quantum problem fundamentally different from the Y2K scramble it is so often compared to. Y2K had a deadline we could meet by fixing systems before the clock struck midnight. The quantum threat has no such grace period. Once an adversary has copied our encrypted secrets, there is no taking them back. A diplomatic cable, a defense archive, or a citizen’s health record stolen today is already lost the moment a capable quantum computer comes online. For any information that must stay confidential for 10 or 20 years, the breach has, in effect, already happened. To the administration’s credit, EO 14409 sets hard, dated obligations. Federal civilian agencies must inventory their most valuable systems and migrate them to new, quantum-resistant encryption standards, developed and finalized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, by the end of 2030 for key establishment and 2031 for digital signatures. Every agency must name a migration lead. NIST must run a working pilot by 2027 to show the rest of government how it is done. And critically, federal contractors will be required to meet the same standards, impacting much of the private sector. The companion order, EO 14411, is the offense to 14409’s defense. It commits the nation to building a quantum computer powerful enough for real scientific work at a Department of Energy facility, directs the Pentagon to field next-generation quantum sensors by 2028, hardens our domestic quantum supply chains against foreign dependence, and tasks the FBI with protecting our quantum researchers and companies from espionage. This matters because the same regime that treats America as an enemy is pouring state resources into winning the quantum race outright. EO 14411 initiates a serious, whole-of-government posture, and it builds on the National Quantum Initiative the president first signed into law in 2018. But sound policy on paper is not the same as a secure homeland, and anyone serious about protecting this country should ask the harder question: Will this actually defend the critical infrastructure most Americans depend on? Here the picture is more sobering. The federal government can order its own agencies and its contractors to comply. It cannot simply command the privately owned utilities, water systems, pipelines, hospitals, and financial institutions that make up the overwhelming majority of our critical infrastructure—the very sectors China has been actively pre-positioning inside. For them, these orders offer assistance and encouragement, not a mandate. The gravitational pull is real, channeled through procurement rules and federal technical guidance, but the legal teeth largely stop at the government’s edge. And the deepest challenge is not legal but physical. The new encryption is ready; the math is settled. The problem is the vast installed base of industrial equipment that runs our grid and our water: controllers and sensors built to last 20 or 30 years, with limited computing power and rare maintenance windows. Much of this hardware cannot simply be updated with new software. It must be physically replaced. This capital-replacement cycle will take decades, meaning it does not naturally align with a 2030 federal deadline. If we are not honest about that mismatch now, we will discover it too late. The right response is neither alarmism nor complacency. These orders are a genuine and welcome step. The federal government has finally moved quantum security from aspiration to accountability, with names, dates, and owners attached. That deserves recognition. But Congress and the administration should now do three things. First, treat “harvest now, decrypt later” as an active campaign already underway, and prioritize migrating our longest-lived secrets first. Second, give critical-infrastructure operators a realistic path, clearing the regulatory and rate-recovery obstacles that keep aging equipment in service long past its security life, so that operators can fund replacement through the capital and rate structures that already exist rather than waiting on Washington. Third, insist that every dollar spent buys genuine crypto-agility, so that we are never again locked into a single standard that an adversary’s breakthrough can render obsolete overnight. The quantum era will arrive whether or not we are ready for it. Last week, the nation finally started the clock. The task now is to make sure we are not still standing at the starting line when it runs out.