Last week, Tea-Publicans in the Arizona House voted along party lines to refer HCR 2018 (.pdf) to the ballot in November which, if approved by the voters, would add a “sunset” provision to any citizens initiative or referendum which “authorizes or requires the expenditure of state money,” referring the matter back to the voters in another referendum every eight (8) years.
The Senate version of the bill, SCR 1003 (.pdf), is on the Committee of the Whole (COW) calendar today in the Senate.
The federal district court cases from Nevada, Utah, and Oklahoma have all been “fast tracked” for oral argument in the Court of Appeals in early April. The case from Virginia is “fast tracked” for oral argument in May.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has set oral arguments in Nevada’s same-sex marriage case, Sevcik v. Sandoval, for April 9 in San Francisco.
[UPDATE: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports “The Ninth Circuit has now cancelled the April 9 hearing date for the Nevada case. It will be rescheduled.”]
On Feb. 10, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced that she and Gov. Brian Sandoval would no longer be defending Nevada’s amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying on appeal in the 9th Circuit, based on the fact that they did not believe their appeal would succeed if the amendment had to withstand heightened scrutiny standard following the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in SmithKline Beecham v. Abbott.
The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage is the remaining party defending Nevada’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. There is an issue as to whether this organization even has standing, similar to the appeal of California’s Prop. 8 in Hollingsworth v. Perry.
State Senator Gail Griffin (R-Heber) from LD 14 is a major piece of work.
Earlier this year she floated the idea of stealing a big chunk of Pima County and handing it over to Santa Cruz County because some local teabaggers wanted to secede from Pima County. Also, Pima County objects to the proposed Rosemont Mine, which Griffin denied was a motivating factor, but no serious person believes her denial.
This week Griffin’s bills to thumb her nose at the federal “guvmint” and to challenge the protected endangered species status of Mexican gray wolves are coming up for a vote in the House. As Craig McDermott posted earlier today:
– SB1211, allowing the AZ Department of Agriculture and “livestock operators” to kill Mexican wolves, under certain circumstances, and imposing reporting requirements on the reintroduction of Mexican wolves into the wild in AZ (House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources, Monday, 2 p.m., HHR4)
– SB1212, appropriating $250K to the AZ Attorney General’s office to pay for litigation against the reintroduction of Mexican wolves into Arizona (House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources)
– SCR1006, a resolution using many words to state that the legislature doesn’t like Mexican wolves. What a surprise (House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources)
Last week Governor Jan Brewer, and Tea-Publicans in the Arizona legislature on a party-line vote, deprived the citizens of Arizona of their constitutional right to a citizens referendum to refer HB 2305, the GOP Voter Suppression Act, to the voters to decide the issue.
On Wednesday, Tea-Publicans in the Arizona House voted along party lines to refer HCR 2018 (.pdf) to the ballot in November which, if approved by the voters, would add a “sunset” provision to any citizens initiative or referendum which “authorizes or requires the expenditure of state money,” referring the matter back to the voters in another referendum every eight (8) years.
This bill is similar to the Senate version of the bill, SCR 1003 (.pdf), which has been approved by the Senate Elections Committee and Rules committee. The House bill will be substituted for the Senate version and voted upon by the Senate in short order.
Attorneys are not supposed to be judged by the crimes of their clients. In the United States, we believe that everyone accused of a crime, no matter how heinous, is entitled to a legal defense by competent legal counsel.
We believe in this so much that we made it the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the Bill of Rights.
A majority of the U.S. Senate failed this fundamental principle today. Seven Democratic senators shamed themselves and their oath to uphold the Constitution by joining with Tea-Publican senators, whom are incapable of being shamed, to defeat the nomination of Debo Adegbile as an assistant attorney general.