Courts & Law

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports that a Federal Panel of judges to hear Arizona redistricting case:

A three-judge panel will be appointed to hear the Arizona Legislature’s lawsuit challenging the state’s new congressional districts.

U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt granted a motion requesting the appointment. The motion was filed by lawyers for Republican legislative leaders who acted on behalf of the Legislature.

Rosenblatt will serve on the panel and the chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will appoint the other two members.

The lawsuit contends Arizona’s use of an appointed commission to draw congressional districts violates a constitutional provision that says state legislatures are to decide election procedures.

The redistricting commission disputes that, saying that Arizona’s system is legal because it was created by voters who themselves have the power to make laws.

The citizens of Arizona are a "super legislature" and legislative acts enacted by the citizens of Arizona take precedence over the acts of their elected representatives in the state legislature. Not the other way around.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

While I am waiting for SCOTUSblog to report what happened today at the Thursday Conference of the Justices, here is a preview from Cormack Early at SCOTUSblog, Thursday round-up : SCOTUSblog:

Campaign finance is also back in the news, with the Court scheduled to consider American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, the challenge to the Montana Supreme Court ruling upholding a statute that bans corporate spending in state elections, at its Conference today. Coverage comes from David G. Savage and Melanie Mason of the Los Angeles Times and Ariane de Vogue of ABC News.  Marcia Coyle of Law.com profiles Anthony Johnstone, the University of Montana law professor leading the effort to save the Montana law. Sarah Wheaton of the Caucus blog of The New York Times reports that David Axelrod, communications director for President Obama’s reelection campaign, floated the idea of a constitutional amendment to permit stronger regulation of campaign finance; more detailed proposals in the same vein come from Geoffrey R. Stone, writing in the Huffington Post, and Laurence H. Tribe, writing in Slate.

A constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United v. FEC is gaining public support. I propose that all candidates for state or federal office should be asked this question: "Would you sponsor and support a constitutional amendment to the United States Constitution / Arizona Constitution to declare that corporations are not people and that money is not speech to reverse Citizens United v. FEC?" If the candidate responds no, he or she should not be elected to office.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Tea-Publicans in the Arizona legislature on Wednesday voted to spend your taxpayer dollars to subsidize their purely partisan litigation to reverse the voter-enacted citizens initiative creating the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, a double middle-finger to the voters of Arizona. GOP legislators vote to spend tax dollars on redistricting lawsuit – East Valley Tribune: 

Republican lawmakers voted Wednesday to spend tax dollars to go to court to challenge the maps drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission.

The vote, on what is likely to be the next-to-the-last day of the legislative session, comes even though two other lawsuits already have been filed — and are being financed — by outside interests. But proponents said the Legislature itself needs to file its own lawsuit, or, at the very least, formally intervene in the others.

Democrats, who voted against the measure, chided the GOP majority for wasting money, especially coming just a day after they insisted there was not enough money in the budget for things like restoring a health care program for the children of the working poor.

Wet behind the ears recent law school graduate Rep. Ted Vogt, R-Tucson, said there is an even clearer legal issue.

He pointed out that the U.S. Constitution says that the times, places and manners of electing members of Congress “shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof.”

“What could be more intrinsic to the manner of holding elections than actually drawing up the maps in which those representatives will run?” Vogt said.

“The initiative took this power from the Legislature,” he continued. “I don’t think you can do that. This needs to be litigated.”

Perhaps his law degree should be revoked. Let's hear from someone who actually knows what he is talking about, Paul Bender, a constitutional law professor at Arizona State University. GOP lawmakers seek to overturn redistricting commission’s authority to create maps | Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required):

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Democratic Party issued this press release on the Tea-Publican budget to be voted on Today:

Statement on the Proposed Republican Budget Deal

Behind closed doors, career politicians have decided to betray our children

NEWS RELEASE
Apr. 30, 2012

PHOENIX, AZ–Luis Heredia, Executive Director of the Arizona Democratic Party, issued the following statement on the proposed Republican Budget Deal:

“Behind closed doors, Republican legislators and Gov. Jan Brewer have reached a budget deal that further erodes our commitment to Arizona's children. True to form, the Republicans have decided to pay off their cronies by giving millions of dollars to the private prison industry while once again refusing to fund KidsCare, failing to add funding for books in our classrooms, and continuing to turn away qualified, working families from child care assistance. To make matters worse, the Republicans have orchestrated this by stealing $50 million from settlement funds intended for foreclosed homeowners, and by taking $6 million from the judiciary in an act of Andrew Thomas-style retribution to punish our judges for having the audacity to uphold independent redistricting."

“This short-sighted budget is a perfect reflection of the Republican vision of government: better to reward your lobbyist buddies today than invest in the children who are Arizona's future. Arizona families of all parties should remember who matters under the Republican Majority when making their decisions in November.”

###

The Arizona Daily Star this morning has more on the fund sweeps from the mortgage-fraud fund, AZ plans to divert mortgage- fraud cash.

But the media has not reported on the fund sweeps from the judiciary in retribution for the Arizona Supreme Court decision against Governor Jan Brewer for her abuse of power in attempting to remove AIRC Chair Colleen Mathis, and for striking down the Legislature's previous attempts at fund sweeps, their public employee retirement system reforms, and other "agenda" measures like Paton's Law as unconstitutional. The courts have been a check on Tea-Publican tyranny.

I have received numerous e-mails from the legal community over the past 24 hours about the fund sweeps from the judiciary that are very similar to these e-mails below (I have modified paragraphs):

Late Friday afternoon, the Chief Justice conducted an emergency meeting of the presiding judges, superior court clerks, and court administrators. The meeting dealt with the Legislature's impending sweeping of $Six Million in funds for court automation.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court heard the final oral argument scheduled for this Term in Arizona v. United States. The Court will consider whether four key provisions of S.B. 1070, Arizona’s immigration law, are preempted by federal law.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who frequently portrays himself as an "original intent" constructionist of the U.S. Constitution, demonstrated this is a lie by taking a radical position unsupported by the language of the Constitution or precedents in his questioning of legal counsel today. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog.com recaps the oral argument from this morning. Argument recap: A choice between radical and reasonable?:

With Justice Antonin Scalia pushing the radical idea that the Constitution gives states clear authority to close their borders entirely to immigrants without a legal right to be in the U.S., seven other Justices on Wednesday went looking for a more reasonable way to judge states’ power in the immigration field. If the Court accepts the word of Arizona’s lawyer that the state is seeking only very limited authority, the state has a real chance to begin enforcing key parts of its controversial law — S.B. 1070 — at least until further legal tests unfold in lower courts.

In an oral argument that ran 20 minutes beyond the scheduled hour, the Justices focused tightly on the actual operation of the four specific provisions of the law at issue, and most of the Court seemed prepared to accept that Arizona police would act in measured ways as they arrest and detain individuals they think might be in the U.S. illegally. And most of them seemed somewhat skeptical that the federal government would have to change its own immigration priorities just because states were becoming more active.

At the end, though, the question remained how a final opinion might be written to enlarge states’ power to deal with some 12 million foreign nationals without basing that authority upon the Scalia view that states have a free hand under the Constitution to craft their own immigration policies. The other Justices who spoke up obviously did not want to turn states entirely loose in this field. So perhaps not all of the four clauses would survive.