Courts & Law

Update on Arizona proof-of-citizenship voter registration case

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Last month there was an Appeal filed in the Arizona proof-of-citizenship voter registration case to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals: Voting rights groups filed an appeal on Friday from the order of a judge of the U.S. District Court for Kansas,  ordering federal election officials to help Kansas and Arizona enforce state laws requiring … Read more

Will Tommy Boy get spanked by the Court on Monday?

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The Administrative Law Judge who presided over the illegal coordination campaign finance trial of Tom “banned for Life by the SEC” Horne and  Kathleen Winn is due to announce her decision on Monday. Will Tommy Boy get spanked by the Court?

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Judge’s ruling in AG Tom Horne case due this week:

TomHorneAn administrative law judge is expected to issue a ruling early next week on whether there’s enough evidence to conclude Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne illegally coordinated campaign spending with an aide running an independent group during his 2010 campaign.

Yavapai County prosecutors say they showed during a civil hearing in February that Horne and aide Kathleen Winn broke campaign-finance law by working together on outside ads targeting Horne’s Democratic opponent in the weeks before the November 2010 election won by the Republican attorney general. They want Horne to repay $400,000 to donors and up to three times that amount in civil fines.

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Judge Tammy Eigenheer of the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings oversaw three days of testimony in February. Attorneys had expected her ruling Thursday, but she has now set the deadline for Monday.

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Is the Civil Rights Act on the Roberts Court hit list?

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Last year, the “Felonious Five” conservative activist justices of the Roberts Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most important pieces of landmark legislation in U.S. history.

John Blake at CNN takes a deep dive into the question, Has the Roberts court placed landmark 1964 civil rights law on a hit list? (excerpts, paragraphs reordered):

The act was first introduced by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 amid bloody civil rights campaigns in places such as Birmingham, Alabama. After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson marshaled the sympathy generated by Kennedy’s death and the suffering of civil rights protesters to pass the bill after a bruising, yearlong legislative battle.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called the law “the child of a storm, the product of the most turbulent motion the nation has ever known in peacetime.”

The law, though, didn’t just help blacks. It explicitly banned discrimination against women, religious minorities, Latinos and even whites. It also served as a model for other anti-discrimination measures passed by Congress: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

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Tea-Publicans in the Arizona Legislature cower before Cathi Herrod again

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6a00d8341bf80c53ef01910386dd8c970c-320wiCathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), and its legal arm ally the Alliance Defending Freedom, have once again convinced Tea-Publicans in the Arizona legislature to enact yet another unconstitutional and unlawful abortion regulation permitting unannounced warrantless inspections of abortion clinics for purposes of harassment and intimidation of abortion service providers and their patients. Arizona lawmakers OK plan for unannounced abortion clinic inspections:

[S]tate senators gave final approval to  HB 2284 Wednesday to allowing unannounced warrantless inspection of abortion clinics.

The 17-13 party-line voice vote came after extensive debate about not just whether the law is needed, but whether it is really designed to harass abortion providers and their patients.

The House previously approved the measure on a near party-line vote of 34-22-4, with Democratic Rep. Lydia Hernandez (LD 29) voting with the Tea-Publicans, and Republican Kate Brophy McGee (LD 28) voting no with the Democrats. The “mythical moderate Republicans,” including Rep. Ethan Orr (R-Tucson), voted for this unconstitutional CAP bill.

Once again, the state of Arizona will be pissing away your tax dollars to defend yet another unconstitutional and unlawful measure on behalf of the extremist agenda of the CAP.

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There’s something happening here . . .

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The 1960’s rock classic “For What it’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield still rings true today:

“There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear . . .”

Whoever thought we would see a conservative icon making the conservative case for same-sex marriage in an ad for Freedom to Marry? Freedom to Marry launches national TV ad featuring Republican Sen. Alan Simpson:

Pride-Flag-Thumbnail-Friday-3x2-256x171[J]ust days before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals kicks off a wave of hearings and rulings on the freedom to marry at the appellate level, Freedom to Marry released a national television ad featuring former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming. In the 30-second spot, Simpson, a Republican, makes the conservative case for marriage for same-sex couples and cites his own decades-long marriage to his wife.

In the ad, Sen. Simpson says, “I’m a Republican, and the party’s basic core is government out of your life and the right to be left alone. Whether you’re gay or lesbian or straight, if you love someone, and you want to marry them – marry them … Live and let live. It is very simple.

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