Courts & Law

The GOP war on women to appease the crazy base

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanRemember when the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, proclaimed that Tea-Publicans were all about creating jobs? Yeah, still waiting.

When they are not wasting time on meaningless symbolic votes to repeal "ObamaCare" for the 39th time to give every member of their caucus a chance to vote against it, they are wasting their time on other meaningless symbolic votes to appease the crazy base, like this.

On Tuesday, House Republicans wasted the day approving the most restrictive
anti-abortion bill considered in Congress in the last decade, the unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban bill sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. U.S.
House passes bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of
pregnancy:

The House approved legislation Tuesday that would ban abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy, the most sweeping abortion restriction to pass any chamber of Congress in a decade. The vote was 228 to 196.

For those of you scoring this bill, six Republicans voted against it, and six Democrats voted for it — Henry Cuellar (D-TX 28), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL 3), Jim Matheson (D-UT 4), Mike McIntyre (D-NC 7), Collin Peterson (D-MN 7), and Nick Rahall (D-WV 3) — canceling each other out.

Under the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, abortions
can be performed until the point when an individual doctor determines a
fetus’s viability, which is generally defined as up to 24 weeks of
gestation. After that point, the government can prohibit the procedure
as long as it provides sufficient safeguards for the mother’s health and
well-being.

* * *

Tuesday’s vote marks the first time Congress has voted to redefine the point where a fetus becomes viable [in a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the real reason for doing this.]

Governor Brewer signs Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration into law

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In a signing ceremony this morning, Gov. Brewer signed into law Arizona’s Medicaid restoration program:

Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law today an expansion of Arizona’s
Medicaid program under the federal health-care overhaul, brought about
through a fierce five-month legislative battle.

Brewer, standing before a riser in a Capitol conference room that
held dozens of lawmakers, hospital officials and other supporters,
thanked the bipartisan coalition of legislators who voted for the bill.

“They displayed something we don’t see a lot in politics today, and
that is courage,” the governor said. “You put people before politics and
you stood firm in the face of personal attacks.”

* * *

“An opportunity like this doesn’t come very often,” the governor said at
today’s signing ceremony. “And I hope less in the future.”

After Brewer signed the legislation into law, she sent out this tweet along with the following picture.

Screenshot from 2013-06-17 14:00:15

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;

•
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.