Insurance, taxes, and snow

Tea Party Shadows Health Care Ruling: “It is difficult to imagine,” Judge Vinson, of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., wrote in a central passage of his 78-page opinion, “that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.” Supporters of the health care act — which Judge Vinson invalidated after ruling it was unconstitutional to require citizens to buy health insurance — saw in the language a deliberate nod to the Tea Party movement. Government can mandate that all drivers must have insurance in order to drive; how is that so very different?

The Return of the Cranky Mayor: After a short, uncharacteristic stretch of empathy and contrition from New York City’s chief executive following the Blizzard Brouhaha, the moody mayor re-emerged on Wednesday morning, ready to sass. The setting was the Blue Room at City Hall, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was asked why municipal employees were being penalized for not showing up to work during a snowstorm last week — even though the city instructed most of them to stay home. Sympathetic he was not. I hadn't noticed that the Mayor had stopped being cranky.

The Paradox of Corporate Taxes: Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent.

Narco-state?

I have never liked this salute. No.


Despite being a federal fugitive, accused of laundering millions of dollars for one of Mexico’s most ruthless drug cartels, Julio César Godoy says he simply walked into the national legislature here unnoticed in September, right past the cordon of federal police officers watching the building. He then raised his right arm, swore allegiance to the Mexican Constitution and, 15 months after disappearing from public view, finally claimed the congressional seat he won last year. It was too late for prosecutors to do much about it. Mr. Godoy’s newly conferred status came with a special perk: immunity from prosecution.

Now, a political saga that underscores the persistent fears of political infiltration by drug cartels and the many frustrations of rooting it out continues to swirl around him. Mexico’s attorney general has been incensed at Mr. Godoy’s ability to hide in plain sight, while others debate intriguing details in local news reports, like accounts that Mr. Godoy had actually been spirited into the building’s basement garage in another lawmaker’s car.

What about those standing around him?

Judging

In a thoughtful article appearing in the August 19, 2010 issue of the New York Review of Books, Ronald Dworkin writes about Elena Kagan and the hearing of her confirmation as the newest Justice to the United States Supreme Court.

As a law professor back in 1995 she wrote of such hearings as taking "on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public." Dworkin writes that her own hearings became just that, as she avoided answering any question with much specificity or substance. Since the Bork confirmation hearing in 1987 when said nominee was skewered, nominees have hewed to the same script: avoid controversy, answer generally, flatter opposing Senators, smile a lot, and play it safe.

Justices Roberts and Alito played that same game: smile, say little. After climbing toi the bench, they joined Justices Scalia and Thomas as a solid right-wing bloc, often getting Justice Kennedy's vote and deciding 5-4 to pursue a conservative agenda.

It is crucial to the role Supreme Court justices play in our constitutional system that they be free and able to reject popular opinion—to overrule the wishes of the majority in order to protect individual rights.

The Court is supposed to rule based on constitutional interpretation, not on individual philosophy. But what is proper constitutional interpretation?


the right-wing phalanx of the Court has used its power to overrule the will of the majority in what strikes many of us as an indefensible and dangerous way: not to protect a vulnerable minority from majority indifference or hatred but to protect conservative interests and privilege from progressive legislation.

Dworkin's politics and worldview are quite clear; I happen to agree with his judgment.

Richard Posner, himself a conservative judge, recently wrote that four of the five most conservative justices since 1937 are together on the Court now: Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito. Many lawyers believe it would have been better had Roberts and Alito been forced to disclose their real substantive intentions in their hearings because they would not have been confirmed if they had.

Richard Posner is a judge, and a prolific author.


Posner said of Roberts: “The tension between what he said at his confirmation hearing and what he is doing as a Justice is a blow to Roberts’s reputation for candor and further debasement of the already debased currency of the testimony of nominees at judicial confirmation hearings.”

 That tension is, in fact, that he lied at his hearings, not admitting he went in with the agenda he has pursued as a Justice and as Chief Justice. It has been an agenda of overturning precedent conservatives disagree with, an activist agenda, indeed.

Pressed to address precedent, Kagan spoke of using pragmatism and not overarching philosophical view.

Her answer was almost identical to what Roberts and Alito said about precedent and once they were confirmed they joined the other conservative justices in an overruling spree unparalleled in Court history.


Justice Roberts, overruling a recent decision, said that that decision “actually impedes the stable and orderly adjudication of future cases.” He cited the fact that the conservative justices who dissented in the earlier case had continued to declare their opposition to it. If that is enough to justify overruling, no important precedent would be safe.

Pragmatism? or pursuit of an agenda?

Abortion rights continue to be denounced by Scalia and Thomas and continue to be hated by many millions of Americans. Does that make Roe v. Wade “unworkable”? Many of the Court’s recent abortion decisions—in overruling a recent decision in order to permit a ban on “partial-birth” abortion, for instance—might well be thought to “erode” Roe‘s “doctrinal foundations.” Does that make Roe itself ripe for overruling? (Much of the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence might be preparing for the day it does that.)

Who can doubt that overturning Roe v. Wade is a priority for the right wing?

You're okay, you're not

In light of the Arizona law allowing police to ask for identification of of those they might suspect as not being citizens, this item seems curious:

ARIZONA: Speed Cameras Get Hook


Arizona is ending a ground-breaking and contentious program that put speed cameras along Phoenix-area freeways and in vans deployed across the state. The program has been the target of an initiative measure proposed for the November ballot. Gov. Jan Brewer disclosed her intention to end the program in January. That was followed by a nonrenewal letter sent this week to the private company that runs the program.


—Associated Press

Immigration law boosts Arizona governor

Arizona has passed a bill authorizing police officers to stop any person the officer suspects of being an undocumented immigrant. It is causing quite an uproar. Univision news leads off its news telecasts with the story, and examines it thoroughly; Anglo news gets to it some time during the half hour. It's startling how different of a priority it is for the separate constituencies; well, not startling, truly, but it is a stark contrast.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's call to raise taxes threatened her political future, say political analysts, but her decision to crack down on illegal immigration could save it. Facing a yawning budget gap and anemic political support, Gov. Brewer stands to get a boost from her signing last week of an immigration enforcement bill ahead of this summer's Republican gubernatorial primary.

Watching a news program a couple of nights ago, or so, I saw Gover Norquist make this point. Norquist is an anti-tax actuivist, and is also on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association and the American Conservative Union. Not my type of guy, but he does make an interesting point abou the Governor. As for the rest of the Arizonans supporting this crazy scheme, I can only wonder if they truly believe that this law will work. There is a lot of anger, on both sides. Authorizing police to act as immigration agents is a dubious enterprise.

Concern about spiraling violence related to drug and human smuggling has escalated to public outrage after the death of a rancher near the U.S.-Mexico border. Polls showed Arizona voters overwhelmingly in favor of the measure, which makes illegal immigration a state crime.

The escalating violence inside of Mexico has spilled over the border on occassion. Who was responsible for that death is still an open question.

Even critics of the law said the governor's support made political sense. "Not signing it would have been political suicide," said Linda Brown, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network, a civil-rights group. At a news conference Friday, the governor said, "We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels." She blamed the federal government for ignoring Arizona's border-related troubles.

The federal government has not dealt with the border issues properly because it is such a polarizing issue. But ignoring it does not work.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has signaled his desire to push federal legislation this year to overhaul the immigration system, including a provision paving the way to legalize millions of undocumented workers That measure is popular with Hispanic voters, who make up 15% of the electorate in Mr. Reid's home state of Nevada, where he is embroiled in a difficult re-election bid. Hispanics make up growing shares of the vote in other states with big races this year, including Colorado and Florida.

Senator Reid needs votes.


Mr. Obama, who last week called senators to build support for the federal bill, appears to welcome the debate. But the federal bill's prospects are unclear. A similar measure failed in 2007 amid opposition from conservatives, who criticized the legalization as unfair amnesty. The chief sponsor of that measure, Arizona Sen. John McCain, facing a primary challenge from the right, came out this year in support of the state measure signed by Ms. Brewer and hasn't played a role in the Senate negotiations.

Classic McCain: flip, flop.

LIberal?

Gary Wills reviewing David Remnick's The Bridge, discusses Barack Obama: Later, when he taught at the University of Chicago Law School, he won the respect of conservative professors there, including Richard Posner — “especially,” as Posner tells Remnick, “after one of my clerks, who had worked with him at The Harvard Law Review, told me that he wasn’t even all that liberal.”

llustration by Joon Mo Kang;
photograph by Pete Souza
Barack Obama in 2004.

Wisconsin National Day of Prayer Is Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional Thursday, saying the government cannot call for religious action.
Congress established the day in 1952 and in 1988 set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison-based group of atheists and agnostics, filed a lawsuit against the federal government in 2008, arguing the day violated the separation of church and state.
President Barack Obama's administration has countered that the statute simply acknowledges the role of religion in the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb said her order didn't block any prayer day until after appeals in the case are exhausted. White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said that the ruling therefore didn't prevent Mr. Obama from issuing a Day of Prayer proclamation in May and that the president will do so.

—Associated Press