10,281 votes. On December 30, a day before he was leaving office, McCrory appointed Williams, one of his closest advisors, to the State Oil and Gas Council, a regulatory body that had been inactive since the governor won a legal battle with the legislature over appointments a year earlier. Missouri During the appointment confirmation of Williams, referencing the North Carolina coal ash water contamination issues, Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh stated," After Flint, Michigan, I just want to make sure things like that don’t happen in my state," referring to Flint's problems with lead in its water supply. "Is it not your job to enforce your own rules?," she asked. Judges have sided with plaintiffs who were denied public health information by Williams about Missouri's disease incidence and prevalence, its medical marijuana program suppliers, and testing of a substance feared to be harmful to which police officers responding to demonstrations propelled by the Shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith were exposed. The fluid turned out to be apple cider vinegar. In 2019, Williams was said to have deliberately instituted traumatizing impediments to women seeking to terminate pregnancies, including requiring that clinics do pelvic exams of dubious necessity, days before conducting abortions. On June 28, 2019, Planned Parenthood of St. Louis was granted a stay in the non-renewal of its license to perform abortions by the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission until the AHC holds another hearing on the matter in August. Planned Parenthood had sued the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, its director, Williams and Governor Mike Parson in May 2019, seeking injunctive relief with its license set to expire. It claimed Missouri had illegally refused to renew the St. Louis clinic’s abortion license until officials completed an investigation into an unspecified patient complaint. On May 24, Parson signed a bill which banned abortions after the seventh week of pregnancy, which contained no exceptions for pregnancies which involved rape or incest. Besides the eight-week limitation, it also imposed a prison term of up to 15 years for doctors who violate the ban. The bill, set to become law on August 28, 2019, additionally included an outright ban on abortions, though contingent only if Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Missouri's abortion restrictions mandate a 72-hour waiting period after a scheduled abortion may be performed, in addition to imposing the impending eight-week ban. In sworn testimony, Williams admitted that he was