Courts & Law

Supreme Court denies appeal in Brewer v. Diaz (same-sex domestic partner benefits)

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
6a00d8341bf80c53ef01901df0a0f0970b-piThursday’s orders by the Supreme Court came in the final round of
actions it planned to take in the 2012-13 Term. Orders List (.pdf).

One day after issuing two historic
rulings on same-sex marriages, the Court denied review of two cases from
Arizona and Nevada that posed tests of state laws that treat gays and
lesbians less favorably than straight couples.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog explains:

The Arizona case (Brewer v. Diaz,
12-23) was a plea by state officials for permission to enforce a law
enacted by its legislature in 2009, taking away health benefits for
same-sex state employees who were not married but were legally “domestic
partners.” The law accomplished that result by defining “dependent”
for purposes of the benefits as “a spouse,” meaning a legally married
wife or husband.

Since a voter-approved amendment to the state constitution limits
marriage to “one man and one woman,” same-sex couples are not eligible
to marry in Arizona, so the redefinition of “spouse” to exclude domestic
partners shut out couples who were not eligible to marry.  The Ninth
Circuit Court barred enforcement of that law, and the state had
appealed, arguing that its law was actually neutral, and thus should
satisfy constitutional demands for legal equality.

The Ninth Circuit Court ruling stands, barring enforcement of the Arizona law.

Read more

Gov. Jan Brewer: Racial discrimination doesn’t ‘take place any longer’

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Tea-Publicans truly live in an alternate universe reality. Governor Jan Brewer actually asserted with a straight face that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in this state.

This is the woman who used the racially divisive SB 1070 to get elected to the governor’s office (SB 1070 was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional).

This is the state where crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio was just recently found by the federal court to have engaged in a policy of unlawful racial profiling (he is appealing).

This is the state where nativist anti-immigrant politicians like J.D. Hayworth, Russell Pearce, and Andrew Thomas are celebrated as heroes by conservatives in the GOP.

This is the state where Tom “banned for life by the SEC” Horne and John Huppenthal, and editor and columnist Doug MacEachern at The Arizona Republic, have engaged in unhinged demonization (criminalization) of Latino students in Tucson for ethnic studies programs at TUSD.

Jan Brewer is delusional.

RAW Story reports, Arizona governor: Racial discrimination doesn’t ‘take place any longer’:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) on Tuesday said the Voting Rights Act had “hampered” the state and was pleased to see a key provision of the civil rights law struck down.

* * *

When asked why Arizona shouldn’t be required to have its voting laws precleared, Brewer said racial discrimination was no longer a problem in the state.

Read more

Supreme Court Majority: Tilting the Playing Field To Their Own Side

by

Posted by Bob Lord

E.J. Dionne’s piece at Truthdig today, The Third Political Branch, captures the reality of this week’s Supreme Court rulings and the true agenda of the Supreme Court’s majority. Yes, the decisions in today’s cases striking down DOMA and California’s Proposition 8 were victories. They were victories over all the neanderthals who seek to deny fundamental rights to gay and lesbian couples. But make no mistake, they were not victories over the Court majority’s political and economic agenda. Dionne explains:

Liberals will still win occasional and sometimes partial victories, as they did Wednesday on same-sex marriage. But on issues directly related to political and economic influence, the court’s conservative majority is operating as a political faction, determined to shape a future in which progressives will find themselves at a disadvantage.

Can you think of a Supreme Court decision during Roberts’ term in which the majority has acted in the interests of economic justice? Has opposed corporate power? Remember, corporate America doesn’t have a dog in the fight over same sex marriage.

Dionne:

Read more

Justice Scalia tells a funny (I’m not laughing)

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In reading this morning’s opinions, I could not believe my eyes when i read this line from Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent (.pdf) in U.S. v. Windsor:

“This case is about power in several respects. It is about the power
of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to
pronounce the law. Today’s opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the
predictable consequence of diminishing the former. We have no power to
decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the
Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased
root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.””


6a00d8341bf80c53ef0147e1453cac970b-320wiSeriously? 24 hours earlier, Scalia did not hesitate to gut the singular most important piece of civil rights legislation in U.S. history, the capstone of the Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Scalia did not hesitate to stab “a dagger in the heart” of this “democratically adopted
legislation,” approved by the elected representatives of Americans who
are able to “govern themselves.”

Following 21 days of testimony at hearings and thousands of pages of
documentary evidence, Congress passed the 2006 Reauthorization by a vote of
98-0 in the Senate, and 390-33 in the House.  It did so based on
statutory findings that “without the continuation of [the Act’s]
protections, racial and language minority citizens will be deprived of
the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, or will have their
votes diluted, undermining the significant gains made by minorities in
the last 40 years.” Among other findings, Congress relied on the existence of so-called
“second generation” discriminatory practices in covered jurisdictions,
including at-large elections and racial gerrymandering, which have the
effect of diluting minority voting power. (h/t Brennan Center for Justice).

Read more

President Obama’s statement on same-sex marriage rulings

by

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

President Obama issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage today. Statement by the President on the Supreme Court Ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act:

I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of
Marriage Act.  This was discrimination enshrined in law.  It treated
loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class
of people.  The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country
is better off for it.  We are a people who declared that we are all
created equal – and the love we commit to one another must be equal as
well. 

This ruling is a victory for couples who have long fought for equal
treatment under the law; for children whose parents’ marriages will now
be recognized, rightly, as legitimate; for families that, at long last,
will get the respect and protection they deserve; and for friends and
supporters who have wanted nothing more than to see their loved ones
treated fairly and have worked hard to persuade their nation to change
for the better.