Civil & Human Rights

Tea-Publicans against democracy threaten comprehensive immigration reform

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Posted  by AzBlueMeanie:

The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, the "Worst. Speaker. Ever.," is signaling to the Tea Party terrorists holding him hostage that he will not allow the immigration reform bill to come to a vote in the House unless "a majority of the majority," i.e., the infamous Hastert Rule, is met.

Why do Tea-Publicans hate democracy? The Hastert Rule is a GOP Caucus rule that operates much like the hated cloture rule (filibuster) in the Senate, which allows a tyranny of a minority to thwart the will of the majority in that chamber. It is undemocratic and an abuse of process. Boehner: No immigration bill without most of GOP support:

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) privately reiterated to
colleagues Tuesday that the House will not vote on an immigration reform
package that doesn’t have the support of a majority of Republicans.

The comments came as some of the most conservative GOP lawmakers and well-financed outside conservative groups are seeking to change internal House GOP rules that would block legislation from the House floor that does not have “majority-of-the-majority” support.

Tucson civil unions ordinance on the agenda tonight

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: On the Consent Agenda of the Tucson City Council Agenda for Tuesday, June 18, at 5:30 p.m. is the proposed city ordinance for civil unions, following in the footsteps of the City of Bisbee last month. TUCSON CODE: AMENDING (CHAPTER 17) RELATING TO DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS AND CIVIL UNIONS a. Report from City … Read more

Federal voter registration form preempts Arizona’s Prop. 200 proof of citizenship requirement

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The U.S. Surpeme Court issued five opinions this morning, but one opinion comes from Arizona, the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. challenge to Arizona's Prop. 200 (2004) requirement of proof of citizenship. The federal voter registration form only requires the voter to attest to citizenship status.

In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. that Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement is preempted by the federal law requiring that states use the federal voter registration form. Justices Thomas and Alito both filed dissenting opinions.

Here is a copy of the opinion.
Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.

Disgraced recalled Senator Russell Pearce and Governor Jan Brewer (who was Secretary of State at the time) are going to have a cow today over the Court's opinion.

I will have more when I have time to read through the 51 page opinion.

UPDATE: Today's win for the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. will be short-lived, because Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion lays out the administrative path for Arizona to follow to have the proof of citizenship requirements of Prop. 200 included in the federal voter registration form, and possible future litigation.

Here are highlights from Justice Scalia's majority opinion:

SCOTUS Watch: Two weeks, 19 opinions

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

And the suspense builds . . .

According to the stats kept by
Scotusblog.com, the U.S. Supreme Court has heard 75 merit cases this
term, and issued opinions in 56 of those cases.

This leaves 19 opinions to be announced over the next two weeks
before the end of June. Mondays are orders and opinions days, and the court has added Thursday opinion days. Unless the court adds an additional opinion day, this leaves four opinion days.

There are several cases I am following for decisions that could be issued on any of these four opinion days. One never knows, the U.S. Supreme Court does not announce opinions in advance, and the court does not leak to the media.

There are two voting rights cases. The first is Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.,
(12-71), which involves the question whether the National Voter
Registration Act preempts Arizona's Prop. 200 (2004) that requires
persons who are registering to vote to show proof of citizenship to
register to vote. The federal law requires only an attestation of
citizenship, subject to prosecution for false attestation. This is a
federal preemption issue.

The "big one" that everyone is waiting for is Shelby County v. Holder, (12-96), which involves the question whether Congress’ decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of
the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority.

Veto the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Howard Fischer from Capitol Media Services has a decent explanation of the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305, passed by the Tea-Publican controlled Arizona legislature before sine die. GOP OKs series of changes in election law:

Kill-bill-vol-1Republicans used the final hours of their just-ended legislative session
to push through a series of changes in election laws that could give
them advantages in future elections.

* * *

Among the additions:

• Making it a crime for volunteer
political workers and organizations to collect early ballots from voters
and take them to polling places;

• Increasing the number of signatures that minor-party legislative and congressional candidates need to get on the ballot;

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Imposing higher legal standards on voter-sponsored initiatives, making
it easier to throw them off the ballot if they do not strictly comply
with each and every provision of the law;

• Adding some procedural requirements to recall laws.

Let's unpack some of these changes. If you are a member of the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party, or the new Americans Elect Party, you now have a big problem qualifying your candidates for the ballot.

Current law sets the number of signatures a candidate needs to qualify for the ballot based upon the number of registered voters in the candidate's political party. For example, in a Democratic voter registration advantage district, a Democrat may need 385 minimum number of signatures to qualify, a Republican may need only 165 minimum number of signatures to qualify, and minor political parties have a ridiculously low number of minimum signatures to qualify.