Texas, Ohio, and Florida are just the latest states with headscratching state legislature initiatives

[View this email in your browser]( [Open Ars Technica in your browser]( Across the US, it's state legislative season in many areas. The whole thing is a lot to keep track of. And thanks to the way many of these law making bodies are set up, well, sometimes a lot of questionable decisions occur. (If you haven't played [Mapmaker](, the Catan-esque game that will hammer home the concept of Gerrymandering, this really is the season for a little district drawing.) Ars doesn't follow every single state's flood of bills and eventual laws blow-by-blow, but often what happens at the state level rises to our attention through its sheer ridiculousness audacity. In Texas alone, we've been tracking bills designed to [weaken science education in schools]( for at least a dozen years. (That state is in no way an outlier, unfortunately—[Virginia, South Dakota](, [New Mexico](, and most recently [Arkansas]( have all done similar work.) [Oklahoma]( once considered the rights of property owners to shoot down drones. [Maryland]( almost unintentionally outlawed vulnerability reporting. And last year, [Arizona]( famously wanted to take the Google and Apple app stores down a bed. The 2021 legislative sessions across the country haven't yet wrapped, but there's been plenty of proposals worth keeping an eye on. So for this week's Orbital Transmission, we're highlighting a few of the most head scratching developments to happen at the state level this spring. Some of the Internet's favorite places to dunk on may be involved this time, but as history has shown us, no state is immune to a few bad ideas gaining enough momentum to hit the House floor. Even the privacy advocates in [California]( once looked on in horror as a law to require killswitches on every phone successfully made it to the governor's desk. —[Nathan Mattise]( Dealmaster's Deal of the Week Dealmaster's Deal of the Week Sony PlayStation Plus 12-month subscription for $45 at Amazon (normally $60) While not the lowest price we've ever tracked, this $15 discount is a rare opportunity to save on Sony's PlayStation Plus service, which is required to play online with many PS5 and PS4 games. Also at [Target](. [$45 at Amazon]( Orbital Transmission 06.02.2021 Orbital Transmission 06.02.2021 [(image) ]( Florida wanted to ban social media companies banning politicians—now the state's being sued [Read Full Story »]( Florida wanted to ban social media companies banning politicians—now the state's being sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed [the now infamous bill into law on May 24](. It would give Floridians the right to sue Big Tech companies over content-moderation decisions and prohibit the companies from "deplatforming" political candidates and journalistic enterprises. Florida's law would do this through fines of up to $250,000 per day on social media companies that ban candidates for elected office. But less than two weeks after DeSantis went forward with it all, Big Tech struck back—trade groups representing Facebook, Twitter, and other major websites have sued Florida, saying the law violates the First Amendment. And the suit asks for injunctions, meaning it's possible Florida's ban will never officially go into effect. [Read Full Story »]( [(image) ]( The more we learn about Texas' power grid failures, the worse it all seems [Read Full Story »]( The more we learn about Texas' power grid failures, the worse it all seems On May 21, we learned Texas governor Greg Abbott knowingly tried to blame green energy for his state's failures during a historic February 2021 winter storm. Abbott’s office knew of looming natural gas shortages on February 10, days before a deep freeze plunged much of the state into blackouts, according to [documents obtained by E&E News and reviewed by Ars]( Yet after the blackouts began, Abbott appeared on Fox News to falsely assert that wind turbines were the driving force behind the outages..And as bad as the situation on the ground was and continues to be for many, it could've been even worse due to more Texas failures—the state's’ days-long power outages almost stretched into weeks or months thanks to a string of failures at “black start” generators. More than half of the state’s 28 black start generators, which are crucial for bringing a collapsed grid back to life, experienced outages themselves, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal [Read Full Story »]( [(image) ]( As it tried to encourage more COVID vaccinations, Ohio also tried to ditch all vaccine requirements [Read Full Story »]( As it tried to encourage more COVID vaccinations, Ohio also tried to ditch all vaccine requirements Ohio had been struggling to get its unvaccinated population to voluntarily sign up for COVID-19 vaccines this spring, so Governor Mike DeWine and the state legislative leaders had an idea: $$$. They announced the Buckeye State’s lottery, in which residents ages 18 and up who receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine can enter to win a $1 million cash prize in one of five weekly drawings. Week-to-week vaccination numbers [rose more than 50% shortly after](. Sadly, state leadership could not leave vaccine well enough alone. Within days of the lottery program beginning, conservatives in the state legislature pushed to have the lottery halted immediately. Then they continued their push of House Bill 248, introduced last month by Rep. Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), which would allow anyone to decline any vaccine with a simple verbal declaration based on “reasons of conscience.” [Read Full Story »]( [(image) ]( These cash back cards might break the Internet [Read Full Story »]( These cash back cards might break the Internet These no annual fee cash back credit cards feature $200 bonus offers, up to 3% cash back, and 0% interest for 15 months. What's not to love? #Sponsored [Read Full Story »]( [(image) Condé Nast Spotlight | The breaking news and top stories everyone is talking about. All in one place. The most popular stories from Vogue, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, Architectural Digest and more. 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