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Supreme Court grapples with governor’s 400-year veto, calling it ‘crazy’
Headline Topics |
2024/10/12 11:40
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Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Wednesday that Gov. Tony Evers’ creative use of his expansive veto power in an attempt to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years appeared to be “extreme” and “crazy” but questioned whether and how it should be reined in.
“It does feel like the sky is the limit, the stratosphere is the limit,” Justice Jill Karofsky said during oral arguments, referring to the governor’s veto powers. “Perhaps today we are at the fork in the road ... I think we’re trying to think should we, today in 2024, start to look at this differently.”
The case, supported by the Republican-controlled Legislature, is the latest flashpoint in a decades-long fight over just how broad Wisconsin’s governor’s partial veto powers should be. The issue has crossed party lines, with Republicans and Democrats pushing for more limitations on the governor’s veto over the years.
In this case, Evers made the veto in question in 2023. His partial veto increased how much revenue K-12 public schools can raise per student by $325 a year until 2425. Evers took language that originally applied the $325 increase for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years and instead vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425, more than four centuries from now.
“The veto here approaches the absurd and exceeds any reasonable understanding of legislative or voter intent in adopting the partial veto or subsequent limits,” attorneys for legal scholar Richard Briffault, of Columbia Law School, said in a filing with the court ahead of arguments.
That argument was cited throughout the oral arguments by justices and Scott Rosenow, attorney for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Litigation Center, which handles lawsuits for the state’s largest business lobbying group and brought the case.
The court should strike down Evers’ partial veto and declare that the state constitution forbids the governor from striking digits to create a new year or to remove language to create a longer duration than the one approved by the Legislature, Rosenow argued.
Finding otherwise would give governors unlimited power to alter numbers in a budget bill, Rosenow argued.
Justices appeared to agree that limits were needed, but they grappled with where to draw the line.
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Supreme Court will hear a challenge to ghost-gun regulation
Industry News |
2024/10/10 11:42
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The Supreme Court will hear a challenge Tuesday to a Biden administration regulation on ghost guns, the difficult-to-trace weapons with an exponentially increased link to crime in recent years.
The rule is focused on gun kits that are sold online and can be assembled into a functioning weapon in less than 30 minutes. The finished weapons don’t have serial numbers, making them nearly impossible to trace.
The regulation came after the number of ghost guns seized by police around the country soared, going from fewer than 4,000 recovered by law enforcement in 2018 to nearly 20,000 in 2021, according to Justice Department data.
Finalized after an executive action from President Joe Biden, the rule requires companies to treat the kits like other firearms by adding serial numbers, running background checks and verifying that buyers are 21 or older. The number of ghost guns has since flattened out or declined in several major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Baltimore, according to court documents.
But manufacturers and gun-rights groups challenged the rule in court, arguing it’s long been legal to sell gun parts to hobbyists and that most people who commit crimes use traditional guns.
They say the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives overstepped its authority. “Congress is the body that gets to decide how to address any risks that might arise from a particular product,” a group of more than two dozen GOP-leaning states supporting the challengers wrote in court documents.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas agreed, striking down the rule in 2023. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld his decision.
The administration, on the other hand, argues the law allows the government to regulate weapons that “may readily be converted” to shoot. The 5th Circuit’s decision would allow anyone to “buy a kit online and assemble a fully functional gun in minutes — no background check, records, or serial number required. The result would be a flood of untraceable ghost guns into our nation’s communities,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote.
The Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration last year, allowing the regulation to go into effect by a 5-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court’s three liberal members to form the majority.
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Court declines Biden’s appeal in Texas emergency abortion case
Blog Updates |
2024/10/06 11:42
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A court order that says hospitals cannot federally be required to provide pregnancy terminations when they violate a Texas abortion ban will stay for now, the Supreme Court said Monday.
The decision is another setback for opponents of Texas’ abortion ban, which for two years has withstood multiple legal challenges, including from women who had serious pregnancy complications and have been turned away by doctors.
It left Texas as the only state where the Biden administration is unable to enforce its interpretation of a federal law in an effort to ensure women still have access to emergency abortions when their health or life is at risk.
The justices did not detail their reasoning for keeping in place a lower court order, and there were no publicly noted dissents. Texas had asked the justices to leave the order in place while the Biden administration had asked the justices to throw it out.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the decision “a major victory.”
The Biden administration argues that a federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, requires emergency rooms to provide abortions if a pregnant patient’s health or life is at serious risk, even in states where the procedure is banned. The law only applies to emergency rooms that receive Medicare funding, which most hospitals do.
The Supreme Court decision comes weeks before a presidential election in which Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has put abortion at the center of her campaign, attacking Republican challenger Donald Trump for appointing judges to the high court who overturned nationwide abortion rights in 2022.
“I will never stop fighting for a woman’s right to emergency medical care — and to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade so that women in every state have access to the care they need,” Harris said on social media Monday evening.
Texas’ abortion ban has also been a centerpiece of Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred ’s challenge against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cuz for his seat. At a campaign event over the weekend in Fort Worth, Texas, hundreds of Allred’s supporters broke out in raucous applause when he vowed to protect a woman’s right to an abortion. “When I’m in the Senate, we’re going to restore Roe v. Wade,” Allred said.
At a separate event the same day, in a nearby suburb, Cruz outlined a litany of criticisms against Allred, but didn’t bring up the abortion law.
Katie Glenn Daniel, the state policy director of SBA Pro-Life America, applauded the Supreme Court decision and pointed to data showing Texas doctors have been able to provide an average of about five abortions per month to save a patient’s life or health.
Still, complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion. Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.
In asking the Supreme Court to toss out the lower court decision, the administration pointed to a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues. At the time the Idaho case began, the state had an exception for the life, but not the health, of a woman.
Texas said its case is different, however, because the law provides some exceptions if a pregnant patient’s health is at risk.
Texas pointed to a state Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. Doctors, though, have said the Texas law is dangerously vague, and a medical board has refused to list all the conditions that qualify for an exception. '
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Karen Read seeks to delay wrongful death suit until after murder trial
Legal Business |
2024/10/02 11:43
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Karen Read is seeking to delay a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of her Boston police officer boyfriend until her criminal trial in connection with his death is done.
Karen Read sits in court
The lawsuit filed last month blames the death of John O’Keefe on Read, and also on what it describes as negligence by bars that continued to serve drinks to her despite signs she was drunk. It says the first bar served her seven alcoholic drinks in about 90 minutes the night of Jan. 28, 2022, and that Read carried the last drink into the second bar, where she was served a shot and a mixed alcoholic drink within an hour.
Read’s attorneys on Wednesday filed a motion to delay a trial on the lawsuit until after her criminal trial. Read is accused of ramming into John O’Keefe with her SUV and leaving him for dead in a January 2022 snowstorm. Her two-month trial ended in July when a judge declared a mistrial, and a second trial is scheduled for Jan. 27.
“A stay is appropriate here, where proceeding with this civil action at the same time as the criminal action will adversely affect Ms. Read’s Fifth Amendment rights and her ability to vigorously defend herself from criminal prosecution,” her lawyers wrote in the motion, adding that her requested stay is “minimal and not prejudicial” since the wrongful death lawsuit is not expected to be finished until at least August 2027.
But an attorney for O’Keefe’s brother, Paul, and other relatives who filed the lawsuit oppose any delays and suggested the reliance on the Fifth Amendment ignored the fact she has has spoken publicly about her case several times to the media and will be subject of at least one upcoming documentary.
The lawsuit filed in Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts by Paul O’Keefe on behalf of his family and his brother’s estate names Read, the Waterfall Bar & Grill and C.F. McCarthy’s as defendants. It asks for a jury trial.
Read has pleaded not guilty and awaits a Jan. 27 retrial on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Her two-month criminal trial ended in July when the judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they were deadlocked. The judge dismissed arguments that jurors later said they had unanimously agreed Read wasn’t guilty on the charges of murder and leaving the scene.
After the bar-hopping, Read — a former adjunct professor at Bentley College — dropped off O’Keefe, a 16-year member of the Boston police, outside the Canton home of another police officer. His body was found in the front yard. An autopsy found O’Keefe died of hypothermia and blunt force trauma.
Read’s lawyers argued that O’Keefe was killed inside the home and that those involved chose to frame her because she was a “convenient outsider.”
The lawsuit says Read and O’Keefe had been arguing and that she knew she had hit him with her SUV before returning to his home. It alleges that she woke up his 14-year-old niece several hours later saying that something had happened to O’Keefe and that he might have been hit by her or a snow plow. |
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New rules regarding election certification in Georgia to get test in court
Lawyer News |
2024/09/30 07:41
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Two controversial new rules passed by Georgia’s State Election Board concerning the certification of vote tallies are set to face their first test in court this week.
The Republican majority on the State Election Board — made up of three members praised by former President Donald Trump praised by name at a recent rally — voted to approve the rules last month. Democrats filed a legal challenge and argue the rules could be used “to upend the statutorily required process for certifying election results in Georgia.”
A bench trial, meaning there is a judge but no jury, is set to begin Tuesday before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney.
One of the rules provides a definition of certification that includes requiring county officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying results, but it does not specify what that means. The other includes language allowing county election officials “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.”
A series of recent appointments means Trump-endorsed Republicans have had a 3-2 majority on the State Election Board since May. That majority has passed several new rules over the past two months that have caused worry among Democrats and others who believe Trump and his allies may use them to cause confusion and cast doubt on the results if he loses this crucial swing state to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election.
Another rule the board passed more recently requires that poll workers count the number of paper ballots — not votes — by hand on election night after voting ends. A separate lawsuit filed by a group headed by a former Republican lawmaker initially challenged the two certification rules but was amended last week to also challenge the ballot counting rule and some others that the board passed.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and an association of county election officials had cautioned the state board against passing new rules so close to the election. They argued it could cause confusion among poll workers and voters and undermine public trust in the voting process.
The challenge to the certification rules filed by Democratic groups and others asks the judge to confirm that election superintendents — a multi-person election board in most counties — have a duty to certify an election by the deadline provided in the law and have no discretion to withhold or delay certification. They ask that it should be declared invalid if the judge believes either of the rules allows such discretion.
Lawyers for the State Election Board argue the Democrats are asking the judge to “declare what is already enshrined in Georgia law,” that county certification is mandatory and must occur by 5 p.m. the Monday after the election, or the next day if Monday is a holiday, as it is this year. They also argue the challenge is barred by the principle of sovereign immunity and seeks relief that isn’t appropriate under the law.
The challenge was filed by the state and national Democratic parties, as well as county election board members from counties in metro Atlanta, most chosen by the local Democratic Party, as well voters who support Democrats and two Democratic state lawmakers running for reelection. It was filed against the State Election Board, and the state and national Republican parties joined the fight on the board’s side.
The Democrats concede in their challenge that the two rules “could be read not to conflict with Georgia statutes” but they argue “that is not what the drafters of those rules intended.”
“According to their drafters, these rules rest on the assumption that certification of election results by a county board is discretionary and subject to free-ranging inquiry that may delay certification or render it wholly optional,” they wrote in a court filing.
They also note that numerous county election officials around the state have already sought to block or delay certification in recent elections and “the new rules hand those officials new tools to do so again in November.”
State lawyers argue that since the argument against the rules is based on the alleged intent of the people who presented them or the way some officials could interpret them, rather than on the text of the rules themselves, the challenge should be thrown out. |
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North Carolina appeals court blocks use of UNC's digital ID for voting
Industry News |
2024/09/27 07:39
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A North Carolina appeals court on Friday blocked students and employees at the state's flagship public university from providing a digital identification produced by the school when voting to comply with a new photo ID mandate.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the intermediate-level Court of Appeals reverses at least temporarily last month's decision by the State Board of Elections that the mobile ID generated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill met security and photo requirements in the law and could be used.
The Republican National Committee and state Republican Party sued to overturn the decision by the Democratic-majority board earlier this month, saying the law allows only physical ID cards to be approved. Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory last week denied a temporary restraining order to halt its use. The Republicans appealed.
Friday's order didn't include the names of the three judges who considered the Republicans' requests and who unanimously ordered the elections board not to accept the mobile UNC One Card for casting a ballot this fall. The court releases the judges' names later. Eleven of the court's 15 judges are registered Republicans.
The order also didn't give the legal reasoning to grant the GOP's requests, although it mentioned a board memo that otherwise prohibits other images of physical IDs — like those copied or photographed — from qualifying.
In court briefs, lawyers for the RNC and N.C. GOP said refusing to block the ID's use temporarily would upend the status quo for the November election — in which otherwise only physical cards are accepted — and could result in ineligible voters casting ballots through manipulating the electronic card.
North Carolina GOP spokesperson Matt Mercer said Friday's decision "will ensure election integrity and adherence to state law."
The Democratic National Committee and a UNC student group who joined the case said the board rightly determined that the digital ID met the requirements set in state law. The DNC attorneys wrote that preventing its use could confuse or even disenfranchise up to 40,000 people who work or attend the school so close to the election.
North Carolina is considered a presidential battleground state where statewide races are often close.
Friday's ruling could be appealed to the state Supreme Court. A lawyer for the DNC referred questions to a spokesperson for Kamala Harris' campaign who didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A state board spokesperson also didn't immediately respond to a similar request.
Voters can still show photo IDs from several broad categories, including their driver's license, passport and military IDs. The board also has approved over 130 types of traditional student and employee IDs.
The mobile UNC One Card marked the first such ID posted from someone's smartphone that the board has approved. Only the mobile ID credentials on Apple phones qualified.
The mobile UNC One Card is now the default ID card issued on campus, although students and permanent employees can still obtain a physical card instead for a small fee. The school said recently it would create physical cards at no charge for those who received a digital ID but want the physical card for voting.
The Republican-dominated North Carolina legislature enacted a voter ID law in late 2018, but legal challenges prevented the mandate's implementation until municipal elections in 2023. Infrequent voters will meet the qualifications for the first time this fall. Voters who lack an ID can fill out an exception form.
Early in-person voting begins Oct. 17, and absentee ballots are now being distributed to those requesting them. Absentee voters also must provide a copy of an ID or fill out the exception form.
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A court in Argentina orders the arrest of Venezuela’s president
Industry News |
2024/09/24 06:31
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A federal court in Argentina on Monday ordered the “immediate” arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello for alleged crimes against humanity committed against dissidents.
The court order came in response to an appeal by Argentine prosecutor Carlos Stornelli after a previous ruling dismissed the complaint against both Venezuelan leaders.
Federal court members Pablo Bertuzzi, Leopoldo Bruglia and Mariano Llorens ordered that “the arrest warrants for Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello be executed immediately, and that their international arrest should be ordered via Interpol for the purposes of extradition to the Argentine Republic,” according to the resolution.
The order comes hours after Venezuela’s Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Argentina’s President Javier Milei amid a controversy between the two countries over the detention in Argentine territory — and delivery to the United States — of a cargo plane that Washington says was sold by a sanctioned Iranian airline to a Venezuelan state-owned company.
The tit-for-tat heightens the tensions between Venezuela and Argentina that have been brewing since far-right Milei assumed power in December and that has led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations.
The case against Maduro and his right-hand man was brought before the Argentine courts by the Argentine Forum for Democracy in the Region, FADER, in early 2023, taking into account Argentina’s jurisprudence on human rights and the principle of universal jurisdiction that allows action to be taken against crimes against humanity, even if they have been committed outside its borders.
According to the plaintiffs, a systematic plan of repression, forced disappearance of persons, torture, homicides and persecution against dissidents has been in place in Venezuela since 2014. |
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