Courts & Law

SCOTUS Watch: Final Week

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

GavelThe U.S. Supreme Court has saved its most controversial cases for the last week of the 2012 term. Monday is orders and opinions day, and an additional opinions (and possibly orders) day is likely to be announced on Monday. The Court has eleven merit decisions to announce this week — it is unlikely that all eleven will be announced on Monday.

Kedar Bhatia at SCOTUSblog.com has a summary of the eleven merit decisions of the 2012 term to be announced this week. Merits cases remaining for October Term 2012. Here are the cases to watch:

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin 11-345 – Affirmative Action in college admissions.

Vance v. Ball State University 11-556 – Supervisor liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District 11-1447 – Land use takings claim.

Shelby County v. Holder 12-96 – Voting Rights Act Section 5 preclearance constitutional challenge.

Governor Brewer signs the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The era of bipartisan good will over the passage of the Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion plan did not even last a full week. Today Governor Brewer demonstrated her partisan hackitude by signing the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Brewer signs election overhaul bill:

Gov. Jan Brewer signed a far-reaching
elections bill that will help weed inactive voters from the Permanent
Early Voter List, prohibit political organizations from collecting early
ballots en masse and impose stricter legal standards on citizen
initiatives.

* * *

Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said
HB2305 remedies a lot of problems that Brewer faced during her six years
as secretary of state.

“It is a critical election reform measure that will help ensure that
the vote counting doesn’t drag on for weeks and weeks after every
election,” Benson said. “In many cases these have been long-running
problems in the state of Arizona.”

But opponents of the legislation, including legislative Democrats and
Latino activists, allege that the bill is intended to suppress
Democratic and minority votes. Early ballot collection and PEVL sign-ups
have been a staple of Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts for years.

The bill makes it Class 1 misdemeanor for campaigns or political
organizations to collect voters’ early ballots. Voters can still
designate someone to return their ballots to election officials if they
want, but political organizations can no longer collect large numbers of
ballots as they have in the past.

The real IRS Scandal: Legal challenge to 1959 IRS regulation re: 501(c)(4) tax exempt status

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It looks as if MSNBC host of the The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell, tax analyst David Cay Johnston (and I) finally have the attention of someone in Congress about The real IRS scandal: the ease with which political organizations have been abusing the 501(c)(4) tax exempt status.

Paul Blumenthal writes at the Huffington Post, Chris Van Hollen: IRS Rules To Be Challenged In Court:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he and two campaign
finance watchdog groups would sue the IRS, challenging regulations that
allow nonprofit groups to be involved in politics if they're "primarily"
devoted to a social welfare purpose.

Van Hollen said he and watchdog groups Campaign Legal Center and
Democracy 21 would sue to clarify an IRS regulation that he said was at
odds with the law, which requires certain groups to "exclusively" engage
in social welfare to earn nonprofit status. The IRS regulation
permitting groups “primarily” engaged in social welfare allows the
organizations to participate in an undefined amount of political
activity, said the congressman, a leading advocate of campaign finance
reform and ranking member of the House Budget Committee.

The 1959 IRS regulation has become an issue since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door for nonprofit groups organized under section 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) of the tax code to raise and spend corporate and union money on elections without disclosing donors. The scandal involving the agency's singling out conservative groups applying for nonprofit status has increased attention to the regulation, especially among Democratic lawmakers.

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