Justin's Political Corner

Supreme Court Arizona Inter Tribal Council

The Supreme Court on Monday overturned an Arizona law that required proof of citizenship to register to vote, declaring that state efforts of the sort are trumped by a federal statute commonly known as the “motor voter” law.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 required states to accept a voter registration form that lets people register to vote with basic identification when renewing their driver’s license or applying for social services. The registration form requires prospective voters to attest that they are U.S. citizens but doesn’t require them to provide proof of citizenship. The Court concluded that Arizona may not require such additional information.

The 7-2 decision in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council was written by Justice Antonin Scalia. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the majority.

“We hold that [federal law] precludes Arizona from requiring a Federal Form applicant to submit information beyond hat required by the form itself,” Scalia wrote for the court.

Progressive legal advocates had warned that the Arizona law would place undue burdens on minority groups. They hailed the decision as a victory for voting rights.

Voters scored a huge victory today,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “We applaud the Supreme Court for confirming Congress’s power to protect the right to vote in federal elections.”

Arizona’s Proposition 200 was adopted by the voters in 2004. Copycat laws in three other states — Alabama, Georgia and Kansas — may also be in trouble. The three states supported Arizona’s argument that the NVRA form is insufficient to guard against voter fraud.

“Today’s decision means that these laws are preempted by the National Voter Registration Act,” said David Gans, the civil rights director of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal law group. He noted that Alabama’s brief argued that its voter law and laws in other states were “verbatim replicas” of the Arizona statute.

h/t: Sahil Kapur at TPMDC

Civil rights organizations and legal ethics experts filed a judicial misconduct complaint on Tuesday against a senior federal judge, alleging that she made inappropriate statements against minority groups and people with mental disabilities, the New York Times reported.

According to the San Antonio Express-News, the complaint alleged that Judge Edith H. Jones, of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said in a speech in February at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that African-Americans and Hispanics are “predisposed to crime” and that defendants facing capital punishment who claim “mental retardation” disgust her.

Jones was a potential Supreme Court nominee during the Bush Administration. Until October, she was the chief judge on the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The current chief judge on that circuit, Carl E. Stewart — the first African-American to fill that post — will decide whether to dismiss the complaint, speak privately with Jones or order an investigation into the allegations.

H/T: TPM

BREAKING: #JodiArias guilty of 1st-degree murder. Faces the death penalty or life sentence with parole after 25 years.#AriasTrial #Arias

— Justin Gibson (@JGibsonDem) May 8, 2013

Rush Limbaugh claimed that the government only arrested suspect Paul Kevin Curtis for allegedly sending ricin-tainted letters to government officials because he was a white southerner. But the letters were signed with Curtis’ initials and catch phrase.  

Curtis, who is from Mississippi, was arrested last week for allegedly mailing letters containing the poison ricin to President Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Lee County, Mississippi Justice Court judge Sadie Holland. Though his case is still pending, Curtis was released from federal custody on bond after investigators failed to find evidence of ricin in Curtis’ possession.

Limbaugh interpreted his release as evidence that authorities merely arrested Curtis because they wanted the ricin suspect to be a white southerner. He told listeners, “You know the ricin letters that were sent? The drive-bys so desperately wanted the culprit to be a hayseed, hick southerner, so they went out and found this poor guy from Mississippi and they accused him of it,” and concluded, “They really wanted the ricin guy to be a white southern guy and not a dark-skinned something-or-other.”

According to the criminal complaint against Curtis, as ABC News reported, each ricin letter was signed “This is KC and I approve this message,” a phrase Curtis frequently used in internet postings and other letters.   

Limbaugh’s theory is just another example in his long history of race-baiting. 

From the 04.23.2013 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show:

See Also: http://mediamattersforamerica.tumblr.com/

h/t: MMFA

The upcoming debate over confirmation of U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan to the country’s second highest court is seen by Democrats as a pivotal moment in the interconnected debates over gridlock of judicial nominations and Senate filibuster rules.

Srinivasan, President Obama’s nominee to fill the seat vacated in 2005 by now-Chief Justice John Roberts on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, where Republicans intend to quiz him on his judicial temperament and views on the Constitution.

“We haven’t had a new person on that court since 2006 or [200]7. Some say it’s a court more important than the Supreme Court of the United States. [Republicans have] blocked … new people coming on that court,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters Tuesday. “We’re going to have this young man — we hope that that can be done very quickly.”

Republicans recently forced Obama to withdraw his prior nominee to the powerful court, Caitlin Halligan, by filibustering her confirmation back in 2011 and again last month. The White House and Democratic leaders view Srinivasan, who has broad support among legal stars across the ideological spectrum, as a test case for whether the GOP will permit any nominee to be confirmed or whether they’d rather maintain the court’s notoriously high vacancy rate in order to preserve its conservative lean.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pushed back on the accusations of GOP obstinacy, arguing that Republicans “have treated the president’s judicial nominees very, very fairly by any objective standard.”

“We just today confirmed the 10th judicial nomination of President Obama’s second term,” he told reporters Tuesday at his weekly briefing. “At this point in President Bush’s second term, he got zero judges. None. With regard to vacancies, about 75 percent of the vacancies that we have in the judiciary don’t even have nominees.”

All of those nominees were confirmed to courts less influential than the D.C. Circuit, where four of 11 active seats are vacant.

Reid has been ratcheting up the threats to weaken the filibuster with 51 votes mid-session if Republicans don’t ease up. If they filibuster Srinivasan — and they’ve offered no hints so far — Reid will face growing pressure to revisit the rules.

h/t: TPM DC

Some social conservatives are ready to disown Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts if he votes in favor of same-sex marriage.

The conservatives were angered by Roberts’s surprise backing of President Obama’s healthcare law last year, and they don’t want to see a similar surprise in the two marriage cases the court considered this week.

“I certainly think his credentials were tarnished with the ObamaCare decision,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “Does he care about his standing with conservatives? I don’t know.”

Gary Bauer, president of American Values and a former president of the Family Research Council, said Roberts shouldn’t be considered a conservative if he sides with the proponents of same-sex marriage after casting the deciding vote on healthcare.

If Roberts breaks with conservatives “on another major issue … then I think the whole understanding of the current makeup of the Supreme Court would be in question,” Bauer said.

He said the court would have to be seen as having a liberal majority, at least on hot-button political and social issues.

Conservatives don’t necessarily think Roberts owes them a debt because of healthcare, but they’re still not convinced the ruling was a one-off event, Bauer said.

Roberts did not indicate during oral arguments this week that he’s leaning toward supporting same-sex marriage in either case. But he also didn’t look likely to support the healthcare law when those arguments wrapped up last year.

If conservatives are ready to ditch Roberts, they are already finished with Ted Olson, the attorney who argued against California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage this week.

Olson — a conservative legal superstar — argued marriage equality for gays is a conservative position and said the Constitutional ensures a right for same-sex couples to marry.

Perkins and Bauer both reject those ideas.

“Any Republican that argues, from a Republican standpoint, this is the proper conservative or Republican position is smoking medical marijuana or something,” Bauer said.

If Olson truly believes same-sex marriage is a constitutional imperative, Bauer said that “raises serious questions about whether he is the conservative litigator people think he was.”

Perkins has also soured on Olson, who represented George W. Bush in the case that decided the 2000 presidential election and went on to be the Bush administration’s top litigator.

“Well, he was,” Perkins said when a reporter described Olson as a conservative litigator.

The Proposition 8 fight was one of two gay marriage cases heard by the High Court this week. The second case challenged the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents same-sex couples from getting some federal benefits granted to married couples.

Olson might have burned his bridges with social conservatives, but he isn’t alone before the Supreme Court.

he libertarian Cato Institute filed a brief urging the court to back marriage equality, and there is a significant libertarian argument against the Defense of Marriage Act — the federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which had historically been up to the states to decide.

The conservative divide over same-sex marriage grew wider when Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) announced his support for marriage equality.

Some GOP strategists said this week that the marriage debate will eventually disappear, because young Republicans don’t oppose same-sex marriage and don’t see why it’s an issue.

The social conservatives who dominate early Republican primaries, though, aren’t about to change their minds
.

The question, he said, is whether Roberts will be able to narrow the scope of a ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, even if he is in the minority.

Could Dumbya-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts tick off conservatives (especially the SoCons) even further over DOMA and Prop 8? Remember that Roberts is NOWHERE close to being a “liberal ‘activist judge,’” as he is seen as generally right/corporatist-leaning. Also, many of the wingnuts are already mad at him for preserving PPACA.

H/T: Sam Baker at The Hill

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday morning on California’s Proposition 8 — a case that could settle the national debate over marriage equality once and for all.

Or it could throw it back to the political realm for a series of lengthy battles across the dozens of states that have yet to permit same-sex couples to marry.

The case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, is about whether California’s ban on gay marriage, adopted by voters in 2008, violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. The lawsuit was brought by Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier, who in May 2009 were denied a marriage license because they were a same-sex couple. Represented by über-lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies, they want the justices to recognize a constitutional right to marry. If a majority of the Court agrees, it would wipe out all state bans on gay marriage.

Alternatively the justices could reach a narrow ruling that strikes down just Prop 8 on the particulars and perhaps some other state bans on marriage equality — while leaving other bans intact. One possible route for the court would be to say states may not take away same-sex marriage rights after they have granted them, as California did prior to the passage of Prop 8.

The defenders of Prop 8 — ProtectMarriage.com, which spearheaded the original ballot initiative — argue that marriage should be left to states. If the justices agree, Prop 8 (and other gay marriage bans) would be upheld and proponents of gay marriage would face a state-by-state battle to overturn existing bans.

The outcome is difficult to predict. Even though the national political tide is turning rapidly in favor of equality, and although swing Justice Anthony Kennedy has a gay rights streak, some court watchers doubt that the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930s would leap ahead of most states on the issue and enshrine a right to marry. On the other hand, some lower court decisions point to a victory for same sex couples in California, if not other states as well. (The Obama administration recently championed a constitutional right for gays to marry.)

Alternatively, the justices could determine that the case lacks standing because California has refused to defend the law, and send it back to the lower courts to try again. This is less likely given that the Court agreed to take up two major gay marriage cases back to back.

The Tuesday oral arguments on Prop 8 will be followed Wednesday by arguments on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that prohibits federal recognition of gay marriage and denies benefits to legally married same sex couples.

H/T: TPM

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday and Wednesday in two cases about same-sex marriage. While the rulings will probably not come until the end of the term in June, the justices’ questions could offer hints about which way they are leaning.

Hollingsworth v. Perry, No. 12-144

California’s Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

The court will hear arguments on Tuesday on whether Proposition 8, a California voter initiative that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, violates the federal Constitution.

Federal Benefits for Same-Sex Couples

Wednesday’s arguments will be about whether a part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that defines marriage to be “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” in determining federal benefits violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Full NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/us/roes-shadow-as-supreme-court-hears-same-sex-marriage-cases.html?gwh=63AD5DDAB6027C0A1970D77DF72EF0E9

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal judge has struck down a Missouri health insurance law because it conflicts with a federal mandate for insurers to cover birth control at no additional cost to women.

U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig cited a provision in the U.S. Constitution declaring that federal laws take precedence over contradictory state laws.

Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature overrode the veto of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon last September to enact a law that appeared to be the first in the nation to directly rebut the Obama administration’s contraception policy. The Missouri law required insurers to issue policies without contraception coverage if individuals or employers objected because of religious or moral beliefs.

h/t: Huffington Post