Courts & Law

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel engages in judicial activism on ACA appeal

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While everyone’s attention in the Beltway media was focused on the Hobby Lobby case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, an equally important case regarding the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” was taking place about a mile away at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

ObamacareThe case is Halbig v. Sebelius, an appeal from the D.C. Circuit Court. The appeal turns on an alleged drafting error in the ACA and congressional intent. Appellants argument is based on a line in the ACA which provides that the insurance subsidies shall be available to individuals enrolled in insurance “through an Exchange established by the State, under section 1311,” which Appellants argue excludes individuals enrolled through the federally-assisted Exchanges.

The import of this is that GOP-controlled state legislatures which sought to sabotage the ACA by not setting up their own state-run Exchanges, could further sabotage the ACA by eliminating the insurance premium and tax credit subsidies to enrollees in the federally-assisted Exchanges (including Arizona) if the plaintiffs are successful with this specious argument.

Just 14 states and the District of Columbia are running their own exchanges in 2014, while the Department of Health and Human Services is operating 36 state exchanges.

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Tom ‘banned for life by the SEC’: vote suppressor-in-chief

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I posted on this topic earlier this year, Time for the restoration of ex-felon voting rights, when Rep. Martín J. Quezada (D-Phoenix) introduced HB 2132 (.pdf), a bill to restore the franchise to ex-felons, which never got a hearing.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has called  for the repeal of these Jim Crow era laws that disenfranchise millions of ex-felons from voting. Among his strongest allies is Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

It turns out that Arizona Attorney General Tom “banned for life by the SEC” Horne, who recently made the baseless claim that he believes there “has been what I consider to be a media cover-up of the extent to which voter fraud is a problem in Arizona,” is a big fan of Jim Crow voter disenfranchisement. Think Progress reports, Arizona Attorney General: If Those Convicted Of A Crime Can Vote, Politicians Will Campaign On Robbery:

Politicians who have imposed a raft of suppressive voter laws over the past few years have justified those laws under claims of voter fraud. But asked to provide evidence of alleged fraud, even those who have undertaken expensive investigations have come up with very little.

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During an interview on NewsMax with former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (R) was asked about [an Iowa] case, and moves to automatically restore the voting rights of those who have completed their sentences.

He warned, “I can just picture politicians appealing to the convicted felons’ vote by saying that they’ll legalize bank robbery or whatever. It doesn’t really make sense to permit convicted felons to vote.”

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SCOTUS appears ready to grant corporations rights superior to the liberty rights of individuals

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There have been some excellent editorial opinions on the Hobby Lobby case argued in the U.S. Supreme Court today.

The New York Times: Crying Wolf on Religious Liberty – The Supreme Court should reject the claim of religious infringement in the health care law’s contraception mandate.

The Washington Post: A ‘compelling’ interest – The government has reason to protect contraceptive coverage.

The Los Angeles Times: Hobby Lobby case: Defenders of religious freedom should be careful what they pray for – The Supreme Court should reject the argument of some for-profit firms that they be allowed to opt out of Obamacare’s mandate on contraception coverage.

corplogoflag-copyBut the five conservative activist Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, who live in the epistemic closure of the conservative media entertainment complex feedback loop, appear to be unmoved.

We are on the verge of a conservative activist court introducing a radical revolutionary change in American law: that fictional legal entities such as corporations, partnerships and associations enjoy superior “religious liberty” rights in the commercial sphere, and can impose the fictional entity’s religious beliefs  on its employees of other religious faiths, or no religious belief. The logical extension of this radical doctrine is that fictional legal entities may also discriminate against members of  the public in the commercial sphere based upon the entity’s religious beliefs.

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Arizona Courts disregard the Constitution, authorize the privatization of public education

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To paraphrase The Bard in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Arizona.”

DeathStarThe “Kochtopus” Death Star, the Goldwater Institute, has now achieved something it never could hope to achieve by taking a ballot measure to the people of Arizona to repeal two provisions of the Arizona Constitution prohibiting aid to private and parochial schools, and to approve a school voucher plan. In every state  in which a school voucher plan has appeared on the ballot and was put to a vote, the voters rejected it.

No, the evil bastards at the Goldwater Institute instead decided to bypass the voters and opted for a plan to convince just a majority of a panel of judges to accept their legal legerdemain (slight of hand) that by giving state money to taxpayers who then give the money to private and parochial schools, it’s not really giving state aid to private and parochial schools. (Wink, wink.)

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Federal Judge strikes down Michigan ban on same-sex marriage

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6a00d8341bf80c53ef01901df0a0f0970b-piThe U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has  struck down Michigan’s state ban on same-sex marriage. Federal Judge Overturns Michigan’s Ban On Same-Sex Marriage:

A federal judge has overturned Michigan’s constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage. In the decision, Judge Bernard Friedman, a Reagan appointee, argued that this is a case about people’s equal protection, lauding the couple that brought the case for the sacrifices they’ve made to raise their children:

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples. It is the Court’s fervent hope that these children will grow up “to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Today’s decision is a step in that direction, and affirms the enduring principle that regardless of whoever finds favor in the eyes of the most recent majority, the guarantee of equal protection must prevail.

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