2nd Annual Summer Soltice Ride

2nd Annual Summer Solstice Ride Thursday, June 21st at 6:00pm Group ride gathers at Technicians for Sustainability, 612 N 7th Avenue “It’s the longest day of the year, so let’s celebrate the midway point of summer! Join Living Streets Alliance and our business member Technicians For Sustainability on a casual, friendly bike ride along mostly car-free … Read more

Senate Republicans are complicit in Trump’s evil

The New York Times headline reads, Leading Republicans Join Democrats in Pushing Trump to Halt Family Separations.

The online Washington Post headline reads, Growing number of Republicans urge Trump to change policy on separating families.

Talk is cheap.  “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke.

ChildImmigrant
They look so innocent. They’re not innocent.” – Donald Trump

Steve Benen reports, So far, no Republicans endorse the Dems’ ‘Keep Families Together Act’:

The official line from the Trump White House is that critics of the administration’s practice of separating children from their parents at the border should simply change the law. The argument is indefensibly wrong: Donald Trump chose to implement a policy that separates these families, and he can change course at any time.

But Democrats have more or less accepted the challenge anyway, and have proposed specific legislation to prevent the Republican president from keeping his current policy in place. Vox.com highlighted the Senate Dems’ effort to pass the “Keep Families Together Act,” which was introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

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SCOTUS punts on two gerrymandering cases

The U.S. Supreme Court began the day with 19 argued cases yet to be decided. This included two of the most highly anticipated cases of this term involving political gerrymandering, Gil v. Whitford (Wisconsin) and Benisek v. Lamone (Maryland).

Today the U.S. Supreme Court disappointed everyone by punting on these two cases. It was an anticlimactic end to these gerrymandering cases, which are likely to return in the future with additional cases moving through the appellate courts pipeline.

In Gil v. Whitford (.pdf) Chief Justice Roberts held that “The plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate Article III standing.”

The right to vote is “individual and personal in nature,” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 561, and “voters who allege facts showing disad- vantage to themselves as individuals have standing to sue” to remedy that disadvantage, Baker, 369 U. S., at 206. The plaintiffs here al- leged that they suffered such injury from partisan gerrymandering, which works through the “cracking” and “packing” of voters. To the extent that the plaintiffs’ alleged harm is the dilution of their votes, that injury is district specific. An individual voter in Wisconsin is placed in a single district. He votes for a single representative. The boundaries of the district, and the composition of its voters, deter- mine whether and to what extent a particular voter is packed or cracked. A plaintiff who complains of gerrymandering, but who does not live in a gerrymandered district, “assert[s] only a generalized grievance against governmental conduct of which he or she does not approve.” United States v. Hays, 515 U. S. 737, 745.

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