Courts & Law

In the Arizona Legislature Today

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

After Monday's dog and pony show in the House Appropriations Committee, the action moves to the House floor today.

The Committee of the Whole (COW) calendar lists the following bills to be debated today:

Bill Number    Short
Title 

SB1057            AHCCCS; ambulance
services; rates

*SB1069           CPS; psychological assessments and services

                      (s/e:  abortion clinics;
regulations; inspections)

SB1337            schools; CPR training

SB1375            behavioral health services; dependent
children

*Pending Rules and Caucus

The Arizona Republic reports, Medicaid showdown today?:

The Arizona House could consider Medicaid expansion as early as today, less than 24 hours after Republicans in a key committee defeated Gov. Jan Brewer’s top legislative priority.

Leaders of a bipartisan coalition backing expansion of the health-care program for the poor met late Monday to plot their options for bringing the measure to a vote.

A floor debate today offers the group its first opportunity to attach it to another bill. But some supporters favored waiting until at least Wednesday to give House Speaker Andy Tobin, who opposes Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan, an opportunity to bring forward the budget bills rather than see the coalition go around him.

A House vote on the issue, which has driven a wedge through the state’s GOP, would clear the way for consideration of the rest of the fiscal 2014 budget and adjournment of the legislative session.

CAP ‘poison pill’ amendment approved by House Appropriations Committee

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanThe Arizona House Appropriations Committee began its hearing today with the eleventh hour "strike everything amendment" to SB 1069 for the benefit of the Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) to allow the
Arizona Department of Health Services to conduct unannounced
inspections of abortion clinics, in violation of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Tucson Women’s Clinic v. Eden (2004) which does not allow surprise inspections without an administrative warrant. The strike-everything amendment would also require AHCCCS to conduct financial audits of Medicaid providers to ensure that the money isn’t being co-mingled.

Sen. Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix) briefly testified in support of the amendment, citing convicted Dr. Kermit Gosnell as a reason for this untimely amendment, and a secretly recorded video by the anti-abortion organization Live Action, between a pregnant woman
and a doctor and counselor at the Family Planning Associates Medical Group at a Phoenix abortion clinic.

Bryan Howard, CEO of Planned Parenthood, testified against the "strike everything amendment" on the basis of language restricting Medicaid funds — it is unnecessary (unannounced inspections are already provided by law) and illegal under the 2004 9th Circuit decision. It is also unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment.

Howard cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court denial of cert from an Indiana case in which the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a law that prevents Medicaid recipients from being reimbursed for health services at Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics offer abortions.

A slow day at the U.S. Supreme Court

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: And the suspense continues to build . . . It was a slow day at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. The Court has scheduled an additional day for opinions on Thursday, something the Court is likely to repeat again next week as it clears its backlog of opinions. There were three … Read more

The state of Maricopa needs to end this litigation

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has a choice to make: Deny funding to crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio's appeal of a federal
judge’s ruling that his office engaged in racial profiling, or concede
that the supervisors condone his racial profiling. Sheriff Joe Arpaio appeal funding questioned:

[T]he Board of Supervisors refused to take a public stance on the issue last week, with
the majority of supervisors saying the issue is not so black-and-white,
and there are outstanding questions over legalities and logistics of the
appeals process.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued a ruling late last month that the
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office engaged in racial profiling against
Latinos. In his 142-page ruling on Melendres vs. Arpaio, Snow
outlined the constitutional violations sheriff’s deputies committed when
they targeted Latino drivers and detained them on the side of the road
longer than other drivers.

Arpaio’s attorney, Tim Casey, denied Snow’s findings and said he would appeal the ruling.

Casey said the sheriff should determine how the case moves forward as the elected official named in the lawsuit.

“It is my understanding that, because this case does not involve a
claim for money damages and only involves a claim for declaratory and
injunctive relief that relate to the operations of MCSO, that the
elected sheriff as policymaker for MCSO and its operations determines
whether to appeal,” Casey said.

The surveillance society that Americans chose to live in

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

So everyone is having a freak-out today over Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman’s big scoop in The Guardian on the secret court order compelling Verizon to turn over to the NSA basically all of its call record data (as do other communications networks).  NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily.

I don't know what everyone is so excited about. Congress overwhelmingly approved the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, and Americans terrified of terrorist attacks after 9-11 overwhelmingly approved surrendering their liberty for a false sense of security. Have you all forgotten that?

I fought the USA Patriot Act, and I have fought every extension of the Act — which the American people and Congress also overwhelmingly supported. You all got what you wanted. There is no surprise here. The government has been doing exactly what you asked for since 2001.

As the Senate Intelligence Committee co-chairs said today, ‘It’s Called Protecting America’: Senators Defend NSA On Phone Records:

The top two senators on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday
defended the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone
records after it was reported in The Guardian.

“It is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress,” Senate Intelligence
Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told reporters at an impromptu news
conference in the Capitol. “This is just meta data. There is no content
involved. In other words, no content of a communication. … The records
can only be accessed under heightened standards.”

“I read intelligence carefully. And I know that people are trying
to get to us,” Feinstein said. “This is the reason we keep TSA doing
what it’s doing. This the reason the FBI now has 10,000 people doing
intelligence on counter-terrorism. This is the reason for the national
counter-terrorism center that’s been set up in the time we’ve been
active.”

“And it’s to ferret this out before it happens,” she said. “It’s called protecting America.”