Civil & Human Rights

Tea-Publican House to discrimination: ‘I can’t quit you!’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You will recall back in November the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly by 64 to 32 to approve the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

No good deed goes unpunished in the Tea-Publican controlled House, run by the "Worst. Speaker. Ever." Think Progress reports, Speaker Boehner: ‘No Way’ Employment Non-Discrimination Act Will Pass This Year:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) apparently told the 113-member LGBT Equality Caucus that there is “no way” the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) would pass this year. According to Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), who spoke with the Washington Blade, Boehner “said it wasn’t going to happen in this session.” The meeting took place sometime last week.

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Boehner has previously claimed that the LGBT employment protections are “unnecessary.” In the meantime, it remains legal in 29 states to fire people for their sexual orientation and and in 33 states to fire people for their gender identity.

GOP’s War on Women: Tea-Publican House passes the ‘Rape Audit Bill’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Just hours before a joint session of Congress for President Obama's State of the Union Address last night, the Tea-Publican House voted on one of its top legislative priorities for this year: HR 7, which they misleadingly label the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” (the Hyde Amendment has banned federal funds for abortions since 1976), and that opponents call the "Rape Audit Bill," for justifiable reason.

As I explained in a post earlier this year, House Republicans Are Pushing A Bill That Would Force The IRS To Audit Rape Victims:

TalibanIn addition to preventing low-income women from using their Medicaid coverage to access abortion, the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act,” or HR 7, could also have dramatic implications for the tax code and the private insurance market. One of its most controversial provisions could actually require the Internal Revenue Service to conduct audits of rape victims.

Why? Because HR 7 eliminates medical-expense deductions for abortion care, essentially raising taxes on the women who opt to have an abortion. Like many abortion restrictions, this provision includes an exemption for victims of rape and incest, as well as women who encounter life-threatening complications from their pregnancies. But in order to enforce those exceptions, the IRS would have to verify that the women who are claiming a medical-expense deduction for an abortion fall into one of those three categories, to ensure they’re not committing tax fraud.

Essentially, that would empower the government agency to have the final say over what “counts” as a sexual assault or a life-threatening situation. And that, in turn, would force victims to prove their case.

“Imagine having to recount a sexual assault — a horrifyingly painful, personal experience — to a tax collector,” NARAL Pro-Choice America says in an action alert to its members to encourage them to mobilize against HR 7. “An anti-choice bill in Congress would do just that. It could force sexual assault survivors who access abortion care to prove the assault occurred.”

The House vote was 227 to 188, mainly along party lines. Final Vote. Six Democrats voted yes, only one Republican voted no, and another voted present. There were 15 members of Congress not voting.

Nevada’s defense of same-sex marriage ban crumbles in Sevcik v. Sandoval

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

EqualA Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last week in the case of SmithKline Beechum Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories, holding that prospective jurors may not be excluded from a jury because of their sexual orientation, has undermined the state of Nevada's defense of its same-sex marriage ban in the case of Sevcik v. Sandoval, 9th Circuit Docket No. 12-17668.

(Arizona is in the Ninth Circuit, and SmithKline Beechum Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories is controlling precedent in the same-sex marriage lawsuit recently filed in Arizona.)

Jess Wegman explains in Nevada’s Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage ‘No Longer Tenable’:

On Jan. 21, Nevada’s Attorney General, Catherine Cortez Masto, filed a brief strongly defending the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, which is being challenged in federal court by a group of same-sex couples.

Three days later, she did an about-face.

The brief’s arguments, she said in a statement, were “likely no longer tenable” in light of a ruling issued by the federal appeals court in San Francisco on the same day the brief had been filed.

The statement reads:

Las Vegas, NV – Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto released the following statement regarding Nevada’s same-sex marriage case:

“A potentially significant case was decided by the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday of this week, the same day that a brief was filed on behalf of the State in Nevada’s same-sex marriage case. The Ninth Circuit’s new decision, entitled SmithKline Beechum Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories, appears to impact the equal protection and due process arguments made on behalf of the State. After careful review of the SmithKline decision these arguments are likely no longer tenable in the Ninth Circuit.

This office will conduct further review over the weekend in order to evaluate the State’s argument in light of SmithKline. We will be discussing this with the Governor’s Office next week.”

Bipartisan group of Arizona legislators support passage of the Equal Rights Amendment

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last July, I did a post about the 90th Anniversary of the Equal Rights Amendment:

You would never know it today by the religious zealots who have hijacked the GOP, but not that long ago the Republican Party had a very active Republican Women for Choice organization, and women for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which included First Lady Betty Ford. The ERA came up short of passage in 1982, under the deadline established by Congress.

BettyFord

First Ladies Rosalynn Carter and Betty Ford at a rally for ERA, 11/19/1977.

People have forgotten what was at stake in the fight over the ERA. Justice Antonin Scalia has a long history of expressing skepticism toward the Constitution’s shield against laws that discriminate against women. He he has repeatedly claimed that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” does not prevent gender discrimination:

“Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws.”

Justice Scalia is correct. The 14th Amendment was intended to eliminate the vestiges of slavery and racial discrimination in America (freed slaves and Chinese immigrants in California were the focus of the congressional debate). Equal rights for women was not debated by Congress.

This week in the Arizona GOP’s war on democracy

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This has been some week in the Arizona GOP's war on democracy, hasn't it?

On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman "Fast Eddie" Farnsworth's (R-Gilbert) bill, HB 2196 (.pdf), to repeal the GOP Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305, and to deny the citizens of Arizona their constitutional right to vote on a citizens referred referendum, was pulled after angry citizens and the media showed up at the hearing. More than 100,000 Arizonans signed the petitions for a "citizens veto" of the GOP Voter Suppression Act, exercising their constitutional right under the Arizona Constitution to vote to veto the legislature's anti-democratic measure. No matter.

The Arizona GOP's plan is to repeal HB 2305, and to pass the separate provisions for voter suppression in the bill as separate bills to make another citizens referendum virtually impossible, and to get their way by "skullduggery," as Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts called it. Are legislators plotting end run around voters in election-law referendum?" "Fast Eddie" promises to bring his bill back up for a hearing, possibly as early as this week.

On Friday, the Arizona GOP was in U.S. District Court arguing to a three judge panel of federal judges that you, the voters of Arizona, by enacting a citizens referred initiative to create the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC), Prop. 106 (2000), violated their federal constitutional right to gerrymander congressional districts in favor of GOP candidates. (Where are the Neo-Confederate "states' rights" federal "guvmint" haters now?) As I explained, their legal argument is entirely without merit. Arizona Legislature v. the AIRC court hearing this Friday. This is one of those frivolous "junk lawsuits" you hear about.