Courts & Law

The coverage gap in ‘ObamaCare’ is due to red state sabotage

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The red states continue to vote against their own economic best interests because of "freedom!" to be ignorant and poor.

Non Sequitur

The New York Times breaks down the coverage gap in "ObamaCare" due to red state governors and legislatures sabotaging coverage for their poor citizens (with an assist from the Roberts Supreme Court on making participation in expanded Medicaid optional). Millions of Poor Are Left Uncovered by Health Law:

A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of
Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single
mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have
insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to
help, according to an analysis of census data by The New York Times.

Because they live in states largely controlled by Republicans that have
declined to participate in a vast expansion of Medicaid, the medical
insurance program for the poor, they are among the eight million
Americans who are impoverished, uninsured and ineligible for help. The
federal government will pay for the expansion through 2016 and no less
than 90 percent of costs in later years.

Those excluded will be stranded without insurance, stuck between people
with slightly higher incomes who will qualify for federal subsidies on
the new health exchanges that went live this week, and those who are
poor enough to qualify for Medicaid in its current form, which has
income ceilings as low as $11 a day in some states.

Demographics-map

Interactive map Where Poor and Uninsured Americans Live

The 26 states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion are
home to about half of the country’s population, but about 68 percent of
poor, uninsured blacks and single mothers. About 60 percent of the
country’s uninsured working poor are in those states. Among those
excluded are about 435,000 cashiers, 341,000 cooks and 253,000 nurses’
aides.

“The irony is that these states that are rejecting Medicaid expansion —
many of them Southern — are the very places where the concentration of
poverty and lack of health insurance are the most acute,” said Dr. H.
Jack Geiger, a founder of the community health center model. “It is
their populations that have the highest burden of illness and costs to
the entire health care system.”

The Sun Center for campaign finance disclosure / political corruption in Arizona

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A group of watchdog organizations rolled out a new multi-state effort
to share information and best practices on campaign finance legislation today, the first step in an effort to force organizations that spend
millions on political activity to disclose their donors. New multi-state group pushes campaign disclosure:

California's top campaign finance watchdog
announced Thursday a collaboration among multiple states to share
information on enforcing disclosure rules.

The 10-state effort,
which also includes New York City officials, was a goal of Ann Ravel,
the chair of California's Fair Political Practices Commission who is
soon leaving for a spot on the Federal Election Commission.

Ravel has repeatedly expressed her concern the federal government isn't doing enough to force disclosure of campaign donations, requiring states to step into the vacuum.

“For the first time, states
and cities are banding together to share innovative ideas, strategies
and legislation related to campaign finance,” she said in a statement
Thursday. 

The collaboration (http://fppc.ca.gov/SUNCenter/) is called States' Unified Network Center, or the SUN Center.

Prop. 8 ‘dream team’ joins lawsuit to overturn Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

VirginiaThe state of Virginia's tourism and travel slogan is "Virginia is for Lovers." Well, not quite for everyone.

The Prop. 8 "dream team" of Ted Olson and David Boies, who teamed up to overturn the gay-marriage ban
in California, have joined a lawsuit against Virginia’s prohibition against same-sex marriage. Lawyers want Virginia as same-sex marriage test case:

The American Foundation for Equal Rights — with its attention-getting
political odd couple of conservative Republican lawyer Theodore Olson
and liberal Democrat David Boies — will announce Monday it is joining a
lawsuit against what the lawyers called Virginia’s “draconian” laws
prohibiting same-sex marriages, the recognition of such marriages
performed where they are legal, and civil unions.

EqualIt is one of dozens of lawsuits filed across the nation by same-sex marriage activists who say they feel emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decisions in June that
overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that forbade
recognition of same-sex marriages and separately allowed such unions to
resume in California.

* * *

There are dozens of lawsuits filed in state and federal courts in 18
states, according to the Human Rights Campaign, and on Friday, a state judge in New Jersey ruled same-sex marriages must be allowed there. Gov. Chris Christie (R) is appealing.

But
the ultimate goal is the recognition of a constitutional right, such as
when the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s ban on interracial
marriages in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision.

Department of Justice aggressively pursues voting rights cases against GOP voter suppression

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post reports that GOP-led states are moving aggressively on voting rules:

Emboldened by the Supreme Court decision that struck down part of the
Voting Rights Act, a growing number of Republican-led states are moving
aggressively to tighten voting rules. Lawsuits by the Obama
administration and voting rights activists say those efforts
disproportionately affect minorities.

Last week, a three judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled 2-1 to allow the Department of Justice to intervene in the Texas redistricting lawsuit. The Court ruled (.pdf) that "after Shelby County, circumstances changed significantly, since §3(c) became an issue for the first
time."

"The parties recognize the importance of the §3(c) claims. Certain Plaintiffs “posit that this particular VRA claim will be critical in resolving the issues in this litigation.” Docket no. 788 at 2. Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ briefing on §3(c) illustrates the fact that issues concerning the proper construction and application of §3(c) are unsettled and highly disputed. And the parties recognize that “there is limited judicial guidance available on the application of Section 3(c).” Docket no. 788 at 9. The United States has a direct interest in the construction and application of §3(c) that was not present until after the Shelby County ruling. Therefore, the interest that the United States seeks to protect is not the same interest that was present from the inception of the litigation."

Today, the Department of Justice sued the state of North Carolina in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina over "the worst voter suppression law" in the nation. Read the complaint Here (,pdf).

New Jersey court rules in favor of marriage equality

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

EqualA New Jersey state court judge ruled on Friday that same-sex couples have a
constitutional right to marry under the state constitution, ordering
marriage equality will take effect on October 21, 2013 — assuming the
decision is not stayed on appeal. New Jersey Judge: Same-Sex Couples Have The Right To Marry:

The decision is expected to be appealed, first to an intermediate court, and then to the state Supreme Court.

* * *

The decision
does not overturn the civil unions law, but asserts that same-sex
couples must also have the right to marriage, including all the federal
benefits now associated with it post-Defense of Marriage Act:

The ineligibility of same-sex couples for federal
benefits is currently harming same-sex couples in New Jersey in a wide
range of contexts: civil union partners who are federal
employees living in New Jersey are ineligible for marital rights with
regard to the federal pension system, all civil union partners who are
employees working for businesses to which the Family and Medical Leave
Act applies may not rely on its statutory protections for spouses, and
civil union couples may not access the federal tax benefits that married
couples enjoy.

And if the trend of federal agencies deeming civil union partners
ineligible for benefits continues, plaintiffs will suffer even more,
while their opposite-sex New Jersey counterparts continue to receive
federal marital benefits for no reason other than the label placed upon
their relationships by the State. This unequal treatment
requires that New Jersey extend civil marriage to same-sex couples to
satisfy the equal protection guarantees of the New Jersey Constitution
as interpreted by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Lewis. Same-sex couples must be allowed to marry in order to obtain equal protection of the law under the New Jersey Constitution.