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The Division of Elections has cleared a ballot initiative seeking to enact an "Educational Bill of Rights" for Alaska students to begin the signature-gathering process.

The state reviewed the application, finding that its provisions dealing with everything from Pre-K to university tuition, meets the requirements for voter initiatives. It is the second initiative the state has cleared for signature gathering.

In a prepared statement, Alaska's 2016 Teacher of the Year Amy Jo Meiners said she was pleased to see the initiative approved.

"As a teacher, I am ecstatic that this important initiative is moving forward," she said. "All Alaska students deserve a quality and continuous public education system that invests in our next generation. This initiative does just that."

The initiative deals with education in Alaska broadly, touching everything from pre-K and K-12 to higher education. Specifically, it updates the roles of the Department of Education and the University of Alaska's Board of Regents to include what the initiative group calls the "Alaska Students' Educational Bill of Rights."

For the Department of Education, the legislation calls on it to do the following in regard to public education:

Incentivize voluntary pre-K programs so they're "as available, affordable and high-quality as possible" that are data-driven with the long-term outcomes of the students in mind.

That schools are empowered to recruit and retain teachers through competitive salaries and benefits.

One-on-one time between teachers and students is prioritized through smaller classrooms, caseloads and educator workload.

That curriculum is comprehensive with options for students to study "career and technical education; engineering; world languages; language arts; mathematics; physical education; science; social studies; technology; visual and performing arts."

That public schools work on "culturally sensitive curricula," including but not limited to promoting and teaching Alaska Native identity, language and culture.

The initiative also updates the roles of the UA Board of Regents:

Ensure that university education is "affordable and accessible to Alaskans of all economic means and provides a clear value when compared to universities in other jurisdictions."

Collaborate with the Department of Education and the Department of Labor to "ensure that Alaska's students are prepared for a productive career that meets the needs of Alaska's employers."

Encourage policies that bolster opportunities in both rural and urban Alaska.

Provide for the proper maintenance of university facilities.

The legislation stops short of specifically implementing any of the new duties, which could run afoul of the constitutional prohibition against initiatives that allocate state resources. Instead, the provisions of the initiative focus on the overarching policy goals for K-12 schools and for higher education.

The initiative group will have until the start of the 2020 legislative session on Jan. 21, 2020.

Why it matters

The initiative doesn't directly change education policy in Alaska but instead sets out a series of new expectations for the Department of Education and the University of Alaska Board of Regents. This gets around the limitations for what can be done through a voter initiative and also gives both groups flexibility in how they're implemented.

Though education didn't feature particularly prominently in the 2019 legislative session, expect it to be one of the hot topics this next session.

The 2020 legislative session will be the first time under Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy that education funding will be on the table. The 2018 Legislature put education funding out of reach of Dunleavy's cuts by forward funding it, but that won't be true for the 2020 session.

Dunleavy proposed deep cuts to Alaska's K-12 system before being stymied by the Legislature. He did deliver deep cuts to the University of Alaska.

There has been some talk from the Dunleavy administration about a new suite of legislative changes aimed at K-12, but it's yet to be seen how that would work with what are also expected to be deep cuts to the state's share of K-12 funding.

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State approves 'Educational Bill of Rights' initiative for signature gathering | The Midnight Sun

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The Division of Elections has cleared a ballot initiative seeking to enact an "Educational Bill of Rights" for Alaska students to begin the signature-gathering process. The state reviewed the application, finding that its provisions dealing with everything from Pre-K to university tuition, meets the requirements for voter initiatives.

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RUTLAND, Vt. - In the four years after the financial crisis struck, a great wave of federal stimulus money washed over Rutland County. It helped pay for bridges, roads, preschool programs, a community health center, buses and fire trucks, water mains and tanks, even a project to make sure fish could still swim down the river while a bridge was being rebuilt.

Just down Route 4, at the New York border, the landscape abruptly turns from spiffy to scruffy. Washington County, N.Y., which is home to about 60,000 people - just as Rutland is - saw only a quarter as much money.

"We didn't receive a lot," said Peter Aust, the president of the local chamber of commerce on the New York side. "We never saw any of the positive impact of the stimulus funds."

Vermont's 625,000 residents have two United States senators, and so do New York's 19 million. That means that a Vermonter has 30 times the voting power in the Senate of a New Yorker just over the state line - the biggest inequality between two adjacent states. The nation's largest gap, between Wyoming and California, is more than double that.

The difference in the fortunes of Rutland and Washington Counties reflects the growing disparity in their citizens' voting power, and it is not an anomaly. The Constitution has always given residents of states with small populations a lift, but the size and importance of the gap has grown markedly in recent decades, in ways the framers probably never anticipated. It affects the political dynamic of issues as varied as gun control, immigration and campaign finance.

In response, lawmakers, lawyers and watchdog groups have begun pushing for change. A lawsuit to curb the small-state advantage in the Senate's rules is moving through the courts. The Senate has already made modest changes to rules concerning the filibuster, which has particularly benefited senators from small states. And eight states and the District of Columbia have endorsed a proposal to reduce the chances that the small-state advantage in the Electoral College will allow a loser of the popular vote to win the presidency.

To be sure, some scholars and members of Congress view the small-state advantage as a vital part of the constitutional structure and say the growth of that advantage is no cause for worry. Others say it is an authentic but insoluble problem.

What is certain is that the power of the smaller states is large and growing. Political scientists call it a striking exception to the democratic principle of "one person, one vote." Indeed, they say, the Senate may be the least democratic legislative chamber in any developed nation.

Behind the growth of the advantage is an increase in population gap between large and small states, with large states adding many more people than small ones in the last half-century. There is a widening demographic split, too, with the larger states becoming more urban and liberal, and the smaller ones remaining rural and conservative, which lends a new significance to the disparity in their political power.

The threat of the filibuster in the Senate, which has become far more common than in past decades, plays a role, too. Research by two political scientists, Lauren C. Bell and L. Marvin Overby, has found that small-state senators, often in leadership positions, have amplified their power by using the filibuster more often than their large-state counterparts.

Beyond influencing government spending, these shifts generally benefit conservative causes and hurt liberal ones. When small states block or shape legislation backed by senators representing a majority of Americans, most of the senators on the winning side tend to be Republicans, because Republicans disproportionately live in small states and Democrats, especially African-Americans and Latinos, are more likely to live in large states like California, New York, Florida and Illinois. Among the nation's five smallest states, only Vermont tilts liberal, while Alaska, Wyoming and the Dakotas have each voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968.

Recent bills to overhaul the immigration system and increase disclosure of campaign spending have won the support of senators representing a majority of the population but have not yet passed. A sweeping climate bill, meant to raise the cost of carbon emissions, passed the House, where seats are allocated by population, but not the Senate.

Each of those bills is a major Democratic Party priority. Throughout his second term, President Obama is likely to be lining up with a majority of large-state Congress members on his biggest goals and against a majority of small-state lawmakers.

It is easiest to measure the small-state advantage in dollars. Over the past few years, as the federal government has spent hundreds of billions to respond to the financial crisis, it has done much more to assist the residents of small states than large ones. The top five per capita recipients of federal stimulus grants were states so small that they have only a single House member.

"From highway bills to homeland security," said Sarah A. Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University, "small states make out like bandits."

Here in Rutland, the federal government has spent $2,500 per person since early 2009, compared with $600 per person across the state border in Washington County.

As the money started arriving, Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent, took credit for having delivered a "hefty share of the national funding." Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, vowed to fight for her state's "fair share."

As a matter of constitutional design, small states have punched above their weight politically for as long as the United States has existed. The founding of the country depended in part on the Great Compromise, which created a legislative chamber - the Senate - in which every state had the same political voice, regardless of population. The advantage small states enjoy in the Senate is echoed in the Electoral College, where each state is allocated votes not only for its House members (reflecting the state's population) but also for its senators (a two-vote bonus).

No one expects the small-state advantage to disappear, given its constitutional roots. But its growing importance has caused some large-state policy makers and advocates for giving all citizens an equal voice in democracy to begin exploring ways to counteract it. Those pushing for change tend to be Democrats.

One plan, enacted into law by eight states and the District of Columbia, would effectively cancel the small states' Electoral College edge. The nine jurisdictions have pledged to allocate their 132 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote - if they can persuade states with 138 more votes to make the same commitment. (That would represent the bare majority of the 538 electoral votes needed for a presidential candidate to prevail.)

The states that have agreed to the arrangement range in size from Vermont to California, and they are dominated by Democrats. But support for changing the Electoral College cuts across party lines. In a recent Gallup Poll, 61 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of independents and 66 percent of Democrats said they favored abolishing the system and awarding the presidency to the winner of the popular vote.

In 2000, had electoral votes been allocated by population, without the two-vote bonuses, Al Gore would have prevailed over George W. Bush. Alexander Keyssar, a historian of democracy at Harvard, said he would not be surprised if another Republican candidate won the presidency while losing the popular vote in coming decades, given the structure of the Electoral College.

Critics of the outsize power of small states have also turned to the courts. In December, four House members and the advocacy group Common Cause filed an appeal in a lawsuit challenging the Senate's filibuster rule on the ground that it "upsets the balance in the Great Compromise" that created the Senate.

The filibuster "has significantly increased the underrepresentation of people living in the most populous states," the suit said. But for the rule, it said, the Dream Act, which would have given some immigrants who arrived illegally as children a path to legalization, and the Disclose Act, requiring greater reporting of political spending, would be law.

A federal judge in Washington dismissed the suit, saying he was "powerless to address" what he acknowledged was an "important and controversial issue." The judge instead sided with lawyers for the Senate, who said that the challengers lacked standing to sue and that the courts lacked power to rule on the internal workings of another branch of the government.

However these individual efforts fare, the basic disparity between large and small states is wired into the constitutional framework. Some scholars say that this is as it should be and that the advantages enjoyed by small states are necessary to prevent them from becoming a voiceless minority.

"Without it, wealth and power would tend to flow to the prosperous coasts and cities and away from less-populated rural areas," said Stephen Macedo, a political scientist at Princeton.

Gary L. Gregg II, a political scientist who holds the Mitch McConnell Chair in Leadership at the University of Louisville, similarly argued that urban areas already have enough power, as the home of most major government agencies, news media organizations, companies and universities. "A simple, direct democracy will centralize all power," he wrote recently, "in urban areas to the detriment of the rest of the nation."

Others say the country needs to make changes to preserve its democratic vitality. They have called for an overhaul of the Constitution, as far-fetched an idea as that may be.

"The Senate constitutes a threat to the vitality of the American political system in the 21st century," said Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas, "and it warrants a constitutional convention to rectify it."

Frances E. Lee, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, said the problem was as real as the solution elusive, adding that she and other scholars have tried without success to find a contemporary reason to exempt the Senate from the usual rules of granting citizens an equal voice in their government. "I can't think of any way to justify it based on democratic principles," Professor Lee said.

Fresno, Calif., is a city of a half-million people with a long list of problems, including 14 percent unemployment, the aftermath of a foreclosure crisis, homeless encampments that dot the sun-blasted landscape and worries about the safety of the surrounding county's drinking water.

A thousand miles away, a roughly comparable number of people inhabit the entire state of Wyoming. Like Fresno and its environs, Wyoming is rural, with an economy largely based on agriculture. It is also in much better shape than Fresno, with an unemployment rate around 5 percent.

Even so, Wyoming receives far more assistance from the federal government than Fresno does. The half-million residents of Wyoming also have much more sway over federal policy than the half-million residents of Fresno. The vote people in Fresno remember best was taken in 2007, when an immigration overhaul bill that included a guest worker program failed in the Senate. Both agricultural businesses and leaders of Fresno's large Hispanic population supported the bill, much as polls suggested a majority of Americans did.

But the immigration bill died in the Senate after a 53-46 vote rejecting a bid to move the bill forward to final passage. Wyoming's two senators were in the majority and California's two senators on the losing side.

Had the votes been allocated by population, the result would have been lopsided in the other direction, with 57 votes in favor and 43 against.

Even 57 votes would not have been enough to overcome a filibuster, which requires 60. In the last few years, 41 senators representing as little as a third of the nation's population have frequently blocked legislation, as the filibuster (or the threat of it) has become a routine part of Senate business.

Beyond the filibuster, senators from Wyoming and other small states regularly oppose and often thwart programs popular in states with vastly bigger populations. The 38 million people who live in the nation's 22 smallest states, including Wyoming, are represented by 44 senators. The 38 million residents of California are represented by two senators.

In one of every 10 especially consequential votes in the Senate over the two decades ending in 2010, as chosen by Congressional Quarterly, the winning side would have lost had voting been allocated by population. And in 24 of the 27 such votes, the majority of the senators on the winning side were Republicans.

David Mayhew, a political scientist at Yale, cautioned that the political benefit to Republicans is "quite small as well as quite stable," adding that it is important not to lose sight of small blue states like Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. But he acknowledged that small states of both political stripes receive disproportionate federal benefits. Professor Lee, an author of " Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation," argues that the partisan impact of the small-state advantage is larger. "There is a Republican tilt in the Senate," she said.

"The way Republicans are distributed across the nation is more efficient," she added, referring to the more even allocation of Republican voters, allowing them to form majorities in small-population states. Democrats are more tightly clustered, especially in large metropolitan areas.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Equal representation of the states in the Senate is a consequence of the Great Compromise, the 1787 deal that resolved a seemingly intractable dispute between the smaller states and a handful of large ones like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia. But the country was very different then. The population was about four million, and the maximum disparity in voting power between states was perhaps 11 to 1. It is now six times greater than that. Even scholars who criticize how voting power is allocated in the Senate agree that parts of its design play an important role in the constitutional structure. With its longer terms and fewer members, the Senate can, in theory, be more collegial, take the long view and be insulated from passing passions.

But those qualities do not depend on unequal representation among people who live in different states. The current allocation of power in the Senate, many legal scholars and political scientists say, does not protect minorities with distinctive characteristics, much less disadvantaged ones.

To the contrary, the disproportionate voting power of small states is a sort of happenstance that has on occasion left a stain on the nation's history.

Robert A. Dahl, the Yale political scientist, who is 97 and has been studying American government for more than 70 years, has argued that slavery survived thanks to the disproportionate influence of small-population Southern states. The House passed eight antislavery measures between 1800 and 1860; all died in the Senate. The civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, he added, was slowed by senators representing small-population states.

As the population of the United States has grown a hundredfold since the founding, to more than 310 million, the Supreme Court has swept away most instances of unequal representation beyond the Senate. In a series of seminal cases in the 1960s, the court forbade states to give small-population counties or districts a larger voice than ones with more people, in both state legislatures and the House.

"The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing - one person, one vote," Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the court in 1963, referring to the amendments that extended the franchise to blacks and women and required the popular election of the Senate.

The rulings revolutionized American politics - everywhere but in the Senate, which the Constitution protected from change and where the disparities in voting power have instead become more extreme.

In his memoirs, Chief Justice Earl Warren described the cases from the 1960s establishing the equality of each citizen's vote as the most important achievement of the court he led for 16 years. That made them more important in his view than Brown v. Board of Education, which ordered the desegregation of public schools, and Gideon v. Wainwright, which guaranteed lawyers for poor people accused of serious crimes.

"Legislators represent people, not trees or acres," Chief Justice Warren wrote for the court in 1964, rejecting the argument that state senators, like federal ones, could represent geographic areas with varying populations. "Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests."

Applying that principle to the Senate would be very hard. Even an ordinary constitutional amendment would not do the trick, as the framers of the Constitution went out of their way to require states to agree before their power is diminished. Article V of the Constitution sets out the procedure for amendments and requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or action by two-thirds of state legislatures to get things started. But the article makes an exception for the Senate. "No state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate," the article concludes.

The United States Senate is hardly the only legislature that does not stick strictly to the principle of equal representation. Political scientists use the term "malapportioned" to describe the phenomenon, and it is common around the world.

But the Senate is in contention for the least democratic legislative chamber. In some other countries with federal systems, in which states or provinces have independent political power, a malapportioned upper house may have only a weak or advisory role. In the United States, the Senate is at least equal in power to the House, and it possesses some distinctive responsibilities, like treaty ratification and the approval of presidential appointments. A recent appeals court decision severely limiting the president's power to make recess appointments, if it stands, will further increase the Senate's power.

Professor Dahl has calculated the difference between the local government unit with the most voting power and that with the least. The smallest ratio, 1.5, was in Austria, while in Belgium, Spain, India, Germany, Australia and Canada the ratio was never higher than 21 to 1.

In this country, the ratio between Wyoming's representation and California's is 66 to 1. By that measure, Professor Dahl found, only Brazil, Argentina and Russia had less democratic chambers. A separate analysis, by David Samuels and Richard Snyder, similarly found that geographically large countries with federal systems tend to overrepresent sparsely populated areas.

This pattern has policy consequences, notably ones concerning the environment. "Nations with malapportioned political systems have lower gasoline taxes (and lower pump prices) than nations with more equitable representation of urban constituencies," two political scientists, J. Lawrence Broz and Daniel Maliniak, wrote in a recent study. Such countries also took longer to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, if they ratified it at all. These differences were, they wrote, a consequence of the fact that "rural voters in industrialized countries rely more heavily on fossil fuels than urban voters."

In 2009, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill to address climate change, but only after months of horse-trading that granted concessions and money to rural states. That was an example, Mr. Broz and Mr. Maliniak said, of compensating rural residents for the burdens of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

But it was not enough. The bill died in the Senate.

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Smaller States Find Outsize Clout Growing in Senate

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RUTLAND, Vt. - In the four years after the financial crisis struck, a great wave of federal stimulus money washed over Rutland County. It helped pay for bridges, roads, preschool programs, a community health center, buses and fire trucks, water mains and tanks, even a project to make sure fish could still swim down the river while a bridge was being rebuilt.

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Lawyers for the Obama administration, arguing for their ability to kill an American citizen without trial in Yemen, contended that the protection of US citizenship was effectively removed by a key congressional act that blessed a global war against al-Qaida.

Known as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), the broad and controversial 2001 law played a major role in the legal decision to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, the former al-Qaida propagandist and US citizen, in 2011, according to a redacted memorandum made public on Monday.

"We believe that the AUMF's authority to use lethal force abroad also may apply in appropriate circumstances to a United States citizen who is part of the forces of an enemy authorization within the scope of the force authorization," reads the Justice Department memorandum, written for attorney general Eric Holder on 16 July 2010 and ostensibly intended strictly for Awlaki's case.

Among those circumstances: "Where high-level government officials have determined that a capture operation is infeasible and that the targeted person is part of a dangerous enemy force and is engaged in activities that pose a continued and imminent threat to US persons or interests."

The 2nd US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan released the memo on Monday in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times.

The AUMF is unbounded by geographic or time limitations, indicating the wide berth the Obama administration provides for understanding its powers for the potential targeting of US citizens. The administration's official policy is that the AUMF ought to be "ultimately repeal[ed]", as Obama said in May. The administration does not support immediate repeal, which already faces a difficult congressional road.

Barely over a year after the memo was issued, Awlaki was dead, following a US drone strike - the first such lethal strike known to have deliberately targeted an American citizen. Yet an earlier US assault on Awlaki, in December 2009, predated the memo.

While Obama administration officials have for years insisted that Awlaki was an operational leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which in 2009 and 2010 attempted unsuccessfully to detonate bombs inside the US, they have also fought lawsuits seeking to reveal their case against Awlaki.

But for the case against Awlaki, hinted at in a Justice Department "white paper" summarizing it that leaked last year, the administration leaned significantly on the broad leeway for counter-terrorism the AUMF established.

"Just as the AUMF authorizes the military detention of a US citizen captured abroad who is part of an armed force within the scope of the AUMF, it also authorizes the use of 'necessary and appropriate' lethal force against a US citizen who has joined such an armed force," reads the memo, written by former Justice Department lawyer David Barron, who also analyzed and rejected arguments that killing Awlaki would be tantamount to murder.

"It is true that here the target of the contemplated actions would be a US citizen," reads the memo.

"But we do not believe al-Aulaqi's citizenship provided a basis for concluding that section 1119 would fail to incorporate the established public authority justification for a killing in this case."

The release of the memo, as ordered Monday by a federal appeals court, ended a legal battle that has stretched for years, intended to prevent the administration from killing Awlaki or any other US citizen without trial. After losing an April appeal and confronting a challenge by Republican senator Rand Paul to deny Barron a federal judgeship, the Obama administration agreed not to fight the document's disclosure.

"The release of the legal memorandum follows the administration's decision last month not to appeal the court's decision. The material being released is consistent with the administration's previous statements on this issue," said Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon.

But its suppression challenge took various forms and arguments over the years, despite repeated official confirmations about the drone strikes, including from the president; despite the confirmed killing of four Americans, three of whom are claimed to have been killed accidentally, including Awlaki's 16-year-old son; and despite the 2013 leak of a memo summarizing the Justice Department's arguments about so-called "targeted killing" for Congress.

The redacted version of the memo released Monday does not reveal much of the factual basis for the government's claims that Awlaki represented an imminent threat to the United States.

In the disclosed portions, Barron's memo does not explicitly vouch for the government's case against Awlaki, referring instead to "the facts represented to us". It refers instead to Awlaki as a "leader" who was "continuously planning attacks" against the US, without providing an evidentiary basis for claims central to the extraordinary circumvention of normal due process procedures. Nor do the public sections explain why capturing Awlaki was not feasible, nor why the Justice Department believes it need not have provided Awlaki with judicial process.

The CIA, which along with the military's special operations forces sought authority for the strike, declined to comment. Barron was confirmed by the Senate to the federal bench on 22 May.

The Justice Department memo "confirms that the government's drone killing program is built on gross distortions of law", said Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights who challenged the Awlaki killing, who added that the "forced transparency comes years late".

Rejecting a government argument that the release of the memorandum would chill attorney-client communications, the court wrote on Monday: "If this contention were upheld, waiver of privileges protecting legal advice would never occur. ... We need not fear that OLC will lack for clients."

Several of the government's appeals for secrecy have been overtaken by the public record, the court found. Among them: the "identity of the country in which al-Awlaki was killed", which was reported as being Yemen on the day of the lethal strike; and the involvement of the CIA, which in addition to being an open secret for years was confirmed by former director Leon Panetta.

"We recognize that in some circumstances the very fact that legal analysis was given concerning a planned operation would risk disclosure of the likelihood of that operation, but that is not the situation here where drone strikes and targeted killings have been publicly acknowledged at the highest levels of the Government," the court explained.

The ACLU, which sought along with the New York Times to compel the release of the memo, vowed to fight the government's additional arguments for secrecy around other legal foundations of what it calls its "targeted killing" program.

"We will continue to press for the release of other documents relating to the targeted-killing program, including other legal memos and documents relating to civilian casualties," said deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer.

"The drone program has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, including countless innocent bystanders, but the American public knows scandalously little about who is being killed and why."

In May 2013, Obama raised his standards for launching drone attacks or other so-called "targeted" lethal military action against terrorist suspects. American drones struck last week in both Yemen and Pakistan, though no Americans are suspected of being killed.

US senator Ron Wyden praised the memo's release and called for more transparency on Monday. "For example, how much evidence does the president need to determine that a particular American is a legitimate target for military action? Or, can the president strike an American anywhere in the world? What does it mean to say that capturing an American must be 'infeasible'? And exactly what other limits and boundaries apply to this authority?" he said.

"I urge the executive branch to build on today's disclosure and start answering these additional questions."

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US cited controversial law in decision to kill American citizen by drone

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Lawyers for the Obama administration, arguing for their ability to kill an American citizen without trial in Yemen, contended that the protection of US citizenship was effectively removed by a key congressional act that blessed a global war against al-Qaida.

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Summary of S.J.Res. 23 (107th): Authorization for Use of Military Force - GovTrack.us

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Summary of S.J.Res. 23 (107th): Authorization for Use of Military Force

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Keith Gaddie has "hung up his spurs."

The election expert from the University of Oklahoma no longer helps state legislatures draw new district lines to maximize their partisan advantage.

He was still wearing those spurs in 2011 when he provided data that helped Wisconsin Republicans enact a legislative redistricting plan aimed at maximizing their power for the foreseeable future.

But now he has reversed course and filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the practice is undemocratic.

The high court hears arguments Tuesday testing whether extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The case from Wisconsin has the potential to radically reorder politics in America.

In the short run, if the court sides with Gaddie, Republicans would be the losers. In the last two decades, the GOP has greatly increased and entrenched its dominance in the state legislatures and Congress through the use of partisan redistricting. The GOP now has control of state legislatures in 32 states, covering 61 percent of the population, while Democrats control just 13 state legislatures, covering 28 percent of the population.
What is "gerrymandering"?
Partisan gerrymandering is a practice that goes back to the early years of the republic. It got its name in 1812 when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed into law a legislative map drawn to benefit his own party; it included a district so misshapen that it looked like a salamander, and the term gerrymander was born.

Since then, politicians from both parties have practiced, denounced and embraced it as a way to leverage their power. In 2004, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, refused to outlaw the practice. But the fifth and decisive vote was cast by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who left the door open to revisiting the issue if a manageable test could be found for evaluating how much is too much partisanship.
What this case is about
Now the issue is back in the case from Wisconsin, where Republicans in 2011 controlled both the legislature and the governorship in a redistricting year for the first time in decades, presenting them with a unique opportunity for consolidating their power.

Working in secret, they drew new district lines that would, for the remainder of the decade, solidify their control. A week after the plan was unveiled, the GOP majority enacted it into law.

The plan was amazingly on target. In the next election in 2012, Republicans, carried only a minority of the state vote - 48.6 percent - but, as the GOP map designers had privately predicted, Republicans still won close to two-thirds of the state assembly seats, a 60-39 seat majority.

The tools the map designers used were not new - packing large concentrations of Democratic voters into a district to give the opposition party far more voters than they needed to win. They then spread out the remaining Democrats into districts where they would be clearly outnumbered (a practice known as cracking).

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The marriage of high tech and new data analysis
A divided federal court found that while these techniques were not new, something else was - specifically, high-speed computer technology able to spit out thousands of alternative maps that meet the test of having equal numbers of residents and instantly matching each prospective map with new kinds of voter data to project outcomes well in advance of any election - all with breathtaking accuracy.

Gaddie emphasizes that he didn't draw any maps himself. What he did was create ways to run thousands of computer simulations, analyze the data and give it to those who actually were drawing the maps.

"They don't ask, 'Is this fair?' " Gaddie observes. "They just ask, 'What does this do?' "

Lawyers for the state say there are reasons for the Wisconsin district disparities that are not partisan.

"It is a political fact that Democratic voters tend to be relatively concentrated in urban areas and the Republicans are relatively dispersed in rural areas," said lawyer Paul Clement, who represents the GOP legislative leadership, none of whom wanted to be interviewed for this article.

Wisconsin Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin will defend the plan in the Supreme Court. He will tell the justices there is nothing salamander-like in his state's redistricting.

"It is undisputed," he contends, "that Wisconsin's map here complies with all traditional district criteria."

But the University of Michigan's Jowei Chen, an expert on geography and gerrymandering, has a different take. After running some 200 potential redistricting maps, he concluded that the state's demographic geography accounts for only one to three more seats for Republicans, whereas aggressively partisan gerrymandering yielded a 10 to 15 seat GOP advantage in the state legislature.

Moreover, Chen said, the heightened partisan advantage split more counties and municipalities than any of the sample, less partisan maps.
Is extreme partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional? Can the courts really tell when a plan is extreme?
The legal question before the Supreme Court is whether such partisanship in gerrymandering is so extreme that it is unconstitutional. Does it deny citizens the equal protection of the law; does it deny them their First Amendment right of free speech and association by making their votes less valuable? And ultimately is that something a court can accurately measure?

Lawyer Paul Smith, vice president of litigation and strategy at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, represents those challenging the GOP redistricting plan. He will tell the justices the time has come for the court to act.

"There are now tests that were employed here to allow the courts to figure out what are the really bad gerrymanders," he said, adding that Wisconsin's is among the four worst partisan-drawn districts in the country.

The tests vary from a mathematical formula for measuring when districts are drawn to over-concentrate the voters of one party but not the other. There is also a broader and more conventional test for evaluating the degree of partisan redistricting, which was used by the lower federal court that first ruled in this case: 1. Was there discriminatory intent in drawing the districts? 2. Does the plan have a durable effect - will it entrench the same majority for the decade? And 3. Is there a neutral explanation for the way the lines are drawn, like the state's geography?

"When you have those three conditions, there ought to be a remedy," Smith said, "because what you have then is a sham of a democracy."

Election experts, including Gaddie, have filed briefs saying the technology now exists to answer these questions. But there are others who are not so sure. Among them is Princeton University's Nolan McCarty, who did not file a brief.

"I'm not saying that the Supreme Court shouldn't establish a principle against partisan gerrymandering, but I think it's going to be very hard to adjudicate in specific cases," he said. "Whether we can tell with any statistical precision whether or not a particular plan deviates from fairness in an illegal way is something that I'm a bit skeptical about."
Even some Republicans say the Supreme Court should act
Still, looking at the 53 amici curiae briefs filed in the case, 32 of them against partisan redistricting, it is striking how many Republicans, including current and former U.S. senators, governors and state legislators, are urging the Supreme Court to act now to at least limit extreme partisan gerrymanders. They say these asymmetrical systems have grown so exponentially that they pose a threat to democracy.

Among those are two former GOP presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Sen. Bob Dole, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the former Assistant Republican leader of the U.S. Senate Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

Never one to mince words, Simpson says of partisan gerrymandering, "It poisons the system. ... It stinks!"

Less colorful, but equally firm is Republican Dale Schultz, who, for 32 years, served in the Wisconsin Legislature, rising briefly to the position of GOP leader. Schultz voted for the redistricting plan that is now before the Supreme Court, but he had second thoughts when he realized the enormous advantage it created for his party.

"The first big tipoff was after the [2012] election," he said, "when the Democrats had won a substantial victory in Wisconsin by, I think, 125,000 votes ... and lost a considerable number of seats in the legislature."

New tools to analyze voter behavior, "brought to bear with current technology amplifies what you can do in redistricting like we've never seen before," he added. "We've allowed technology and gerrymandering to sort of rob the people of their vote. ... Legislators are picking their constituents rather than constituents picking their legislators."
Watch what you wish for
Wisconsin Solicitor General Tseytlin, however, has a cautionary observation: "Not everything that one thinks is a bad idea is unconstitutional. We have a system where the courts have a certain bandwidth in which they can operate, and if there are no neutral principles that can be announced, it's better for the courts to stay their hand."

Supreme Court advocate Kannon Shanmugam agrees, voicing a further concern about the "inevitable politicization of the judiciary that's going to result" from "embroiling the courts in these quintessentially political disputes."

Some critics of court involvement point to an alternative solution adopted in some states: the creation of independent redistricting commissions to draw maps. At least seven states have adopted such commissions.

Most, however, were created by voter initiatives, over the objection of the state legislatures themselves, and only 11 states even allow such an initiative process according to the Campaign Legal Center.

A decision in the partisan gerrymandering case is expected later in the Supreme Court term.

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This Supreme Court Case Could Radically Reshape Politics

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Keith Gaddie has "hung up his spurs." The election expert from the University of Oklahoma no longer helps state legislatures draw new district lines to maximize their partisan advantage. He was still wearing those spurs in 2011 when he provided data that helped Wisconsin Republicans enact a legislative redistricting plan aimed at maximizing their power for the foreseeable future.

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As the Founding Fathers were drafting the U.S. Constitution, they were explicitly trying to avoid a repeat of the situation they had just fought a war to free themselves from - a ruler with unchecked power.

While they wrote a bare minimum about impeachment in the country's essential governing document, other writings from the time provide rich insights about their intentions.

In Federalist No. 69, Alexander Hamilton described impeachment essentially as a release valve from another "crisis of a national revolution." He and other Founders grappled with how best to execute such a check, and eventually they settled on the system we have today.

Even more than 230 years ago, they were eerily prescient in fearing how the impeachment process could play out: beset by partisanship and broken down by factions. Every impeachment proceeding so far - from Andrew Johnson to Bill Clinton and now President Trump - was split along those lines.
Why was impeachment so important to the Founders?
To understand the Founders' rationale for impeachment first requires an examination of their feelings about the presidency. Hamilton ( yes, that one) actually wanted a more robust chief executive, but he did realize there needed to be some check on their power. That's why he would argue in The Federalist Papers for why impeachment should be included in the Constitution.

According to preeminent Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, Hamilton was trying to protect the country from someone with demagogic tendencies. "From the outset, Hamilton feared an unholy trinity of traits in a future president - ambition, avarice and vanity," Chernow wrote last month in The Washington Post.

He points to one of Hamilton's writings in 1792 where the Treasury secretary warns about someone who might exhibit those inclinations, and Chernow argues that it sounds a lot like the current occupant of the Oval Office:

"When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour - known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty - when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity - to join in the cry of danger to liberty - to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion - to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day - It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'"

Setting the standards for impeachment
The first two impeachable offenses laid out in the Constitution are very specific. Treason is betraying the United States. Bribery is being swayed to do something or to act a certain way because you are being given a thing of value or asking someone else to.

The latter is one that Democrats in the House now appear to be finessing an argument for.

"Bribery, first of all, as the Founders understood bribery, it was not as we understand it in law today. It was much broader," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told NPR last week. "It connoted the breach of the public trust in a way where you're offering official acts for some personal or political reason, not in the nation's interest."

The more ambiguous term of "high crimes and misdemeanors" appears to give lawmakers more leeway - or ammunition. But as Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn told member station WGBH in a discussion about the Founders and impeachment last month, a "high crime" isn't some kind of really, really bad crime. It means a crime against the country.

The Founders, Koehn said, had an "imputed faith ... in the seriousness of purpose and commitment that the people that came after them in Congress would have" when it came to weighing impeachment. And that includes an understanding that even though something "might not be a prosecutable offense in a court of law, it can be discerned as something that is against the American nation." The intent of that wording was to provide a standard for both legislators and the public, as opposed to "whatever the political wind decides."
Searching for an impartial arbiter
As the National Constitution Center details, differing proposals at the Constitutional Convention dealt with impeachment in different ways - the Virginia Plan wanted impeachment to be handled by the federal judiciary, while the New Jersey Plan only had a removal process if a majority of state governors petitioned for it.

It was Hamilton's compromise, modeled after the British system of removing public officials, that was largely adopted. That led to the lower chamber acting as a grand jury in deciding an indictment and then the upper chamber acting as the trial jury.

There was some push to have the Supreme Court be the final arbiter in deciding an impeachment conviction. Hamilton stridently pushed back at that idea, arguing that only senators could be independent enough to thoroughly judge a president, instead of justices that may have been appointed by that same president under accusation.

"Where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent?" Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 65. "What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation, to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an individual accused, and the representatives of the people, his accusers."
But what if the Senate turned partisan?
That's exactly what has happened in every impeachment that went to a Senate trial and is very much happening now ahead of a potential impeachment.

While the Democrat-controlled House requires only a simple majority to impeach, the Senate requires a two-thirds majority to convict, or 67 votes. Republicans hold a 53-47 edge, and only a few GOP senators show any sign of being willing to cross over and vote to convict Trump, such as Utah Sen. Mitt Romney or Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Others, like Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, have said that while it's improper for an American president to court foreign assistance for a political campaign, it's not impeachable and ultimately voters should decide Trump's fate in the 2020 election.

There were reasons the Founders at first hoped that senators might be more independent-minded. It wasn't until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913 that senators were directly elected by the people.

Now, in a hyperpartisan environment, reelection could often be the motivating factor, with little incentive to cross sides. In today's Republican Party, going against Trump can mean signing your political death sentence.

Hamilton outlined those fears about how partisan the process would become in Federalist No. 65. Because impeachable violations are by definition political, as they're "done immediately to the society itself," Hamilton wrote that the charges:

"... will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.

In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt."

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Fractured Into Factions? What The Founders Feared About Impeachment

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast As the Founding Fathers were drafting the U.S. Constitution, they were explicitly trying to avoid a repeat of the situation they had just fought a war to free themselves from - a ruler with unchecked power.

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News Releases from Region 10
EPA STATEMENT Tim Hamlin, Director, EPA Region 10 Office of Air and Waste:
"EPA is proposing approval of the Fairbanks air quality plan, but our work with the State of Alaska and the Borough is far from done. The Borough faces an especially difficult challenge when its fine particulate levels spike during the many cold air inversions that occur each winter. The biggest contributor of fine particulates are the woodstoves and wood heaters many Borough residents use to heat their homes. The big challenge is that the need for heat is greatest when burning wood is most likely to be harmful to public health. Switching to cleaner sources of home heating, especially during weather inversions, can greatly reduce harmful particulate emissions. For those who must burn wood, using dry wood in professionally installed certified wood stoves and using techniques to burn it hotter reduces fine particle pollution and the amount of wood burned. EPA will continue to support local and state efforts to develop and implement actions that will achieve the standard and improve air quality for Borough residents."
PROPOSED ACTION

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken a necessary step to protect air quality in Fairbanks Alaska. EPA is proposing to approve the Fairbanks North Star Borough fine particulate or PM2.5 air quality plan submitted by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Alaska's air quality plan demonstrates that the Borough has been unable to attain the Clean Air Act PM2.5 air quality standard by the date required.

Alaska's air quality plan also identifies reasonable actions to move toward meeting the PM2.5 standard. The plan focuses on reducing emissions from residential heating sources - wood stoves and hydronic heaters - that contribute to high particulate pollution levels in the area.
BACKGROUND

Fairbanks was designated nonattainment for the 2006 24-hr PM2.5 air quality standard in December 2009. The state's Fairbanks air quality plan was due in December 2012. In January 2013, the DC Circuit Court remanded the Clean Air Act 2007 implementation rule for particulate matter. In response to this ruling, EPA revised the submission date for states to submit their moderate air quality plans to December 31, 2014.

The state's Fairbanks air quality plan included all of the required elements of an attainment plan which demonstrates that it was impracticable to attain the standard by the required deadline.

Alaska demonstrated that it implemented all reasonably available control technologies and measures available including the primary source of elevated fine particulates in the Borough, wood stoves and hydronic heaters.

In 2015 the Borough, and in 2016 the state, approved a mandatory curtailment program to restrict the use of woodstoves during periods of harmful levels of particulates in the air.

Under a curtailment program, the Borough and the state track weather conditions on a daily basis and provide restrictions on woodstove use to reduce emissions when conditions are bad for air quality and public health.

This year, Alaska and the Borough will continue to work with the local community to develop a more rigorous plan to reduce fine particle emissions in Fairbanks and North Pole and to achieve the standard.

The state has until December 31, 2017 to submit a Fairbanks serious air quality plan to the EPA.

EARTHJUSTICE filed a Complaint for Failure to Act on June 9, 2016 against the EPA. After public notice and comment the EPA committed to proposing action by January 19, 2017 and a final action by August 28, 2017 through a consent decree.

In a related action, EPA has proposed to reclassify the Borough from moderate to serious non-attainment, because the Borough did not meet the PM2.5 standard in 2015. The Borough has recorded the highest level of fine particulates in the nation.

Reclassification to serious will require that the state develop a serious air quality plan which will be more stringent than the moderate plan. In contrast with a moderate plan which requires implementation of all reasonably available emissions control technologies and measures, a serious plan will require implementation of the best available emissions control technologies and measures.

The state and the Borough are already working to develop a serious area plan.

Though EPA expects to reclassify the Borough from moderate to serious, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to act on the state's moderate area plan; EPA must take final action on the moderate plan by August 28, 2017.
PUBLIC COMMENT

EPA's proposed action will be published in the Federal Register and will include a 30-day public comment period from the date of publication.
HEALTH IMPACTS

Numerous scientific studies have linked exposure to fine particulates - approximately 1/30th the size of a human hair - with serious human health problems, including:

premature death in people with heart and lung disease

other serious events such as nonfatal heart attacks

increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits by those with respiratory ailments and cardiovascular disease.

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EPA Proposes Action on Fairbanks, Alaska Air Quality Plan | US EPA

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EPA STATEMENT Tim Hamlin, Director, EPA Region 10 Office of Air and Waste: "EPA is proposing approval of the Fairbanks air quality plan, but our work with the State of Alaska and the Borough is far from done. The Borough faces an especially difficult challenge when its fine particulate levels spike during the many cold air inversions that occur each winter.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday angrily criticized a federal judge's ruling that blocks new restrictions on asylum that he announced earlier this month, calling the court "not fair" and predicting he would win in the Supreme Court.

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He blasted the judge as an "Obama judge" and then once again lit into the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges who would consider an administration appeal of the district judge's order.

"The 9th Circuit is something we have to take a look at because it is not fair," Trump said. The appeals court, which has jurisdiction over a swath of California, has previously ruled against the Trump administration on a number of immigration policies.

"People should not be allowed to immediately run to this very friendly circuit and file their case -- and you people know better than anybody what is happening is a disgrace, in my opinion, it is a disgrace what happens with the 9th Circuit. We will win that case in the Supreme Court of the United States," Trump said.

The president's travel ban for majority-Muslim countries was blocked by judges in the 9th Circuit, but the Supreme Court later ruled the action was within the president's authority.

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump called the court a "disgrace" and said he intended to put in a "major complaint."

Ariana Drehsler/AFP/Getty Images

The federal judge's order on Monday blocking the U.S. government from enforcing a ban on asylum seekers at the U.S. border came after Trump's proclamation earlier this month that sought to bar asylum for immigrants who did not enter at designated ports of entry.

Northern California U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar ruled that the president's proclamation goes against the "expressed intent of Congress" and "irreconcilably conflicts" with the Immigration and Naturalization Act, a 1951 law that "deals with one of the oldest and most important themes in our Nation's history: welcoming homeless refugees to our shores." The law states that migrants crossing the border at any point can ask for asylum.

"Whatever the scope of the President's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden," Tigar wrote in the ruling. Tigar was appointed to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama in 2012.

As part of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, Congress "clearly commanded ... that any alien who arrives in the United States, irrespective of that alien's status, may apply for asylum -- 'whether or not at a designated port of arrival,'" Tigar wrote, citing the law.

The president's proclamation on Nov. 9 attempted to limit asylum to immigrants who crossed at designated ports of entry and deny asylum to those who entered at other locations along the 2,000-mile southern border.

Immigration advocacy groups filed suit against Trump immediately after he signed the proclamation.

"At this very moment, massive numbers of aliens are arriving at our southern border, threatening to incapacitate our already overwhelmed immigration system," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

"Yet now, a single district judge has issued a nationwide temporary restraining order preventing the executive branch from performing its Constitutional duty to enforce our borders and control entry into the United States. This decision will open the floodgates, inviting countless illegal aliens to pour into our country on the American taxpayer's dime," Sanders said.

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Trump blasts judge's ruling blocking asylum restrictions, predicts Supreme Court win

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday angrily criticized a federal judge's ruling that blocks new restrictions on asylum that he announced earlier this month, calling the court "not fair" and predicting he would win in the Supreme Court. Add Donald Trump as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Donald Trump news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

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Mr. Sturgeon sued the United States seeking a declaration that the federal agents did not have authority to ban his hovercraft, arguing the Nation River is state-owned and that Alaska does not ban hovercrafts. The Ninth Circuit, after finding the State of Alaska lacked standing, affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States. The Ninth Circuit's reasoning turned on its interpretation of section 103(c) of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), finding the statute did not bar the NPS from enforcing its nationwide ban on hovercrafts within, regardless of ownership.

Sturgeon and Alaska argued that title to navigable waters, including the Nation River, were clearly granted to Alaska at statehood and that ANILCA section 103(c) did not intend to convey ownership of navigable preserve waters. From that premise, Sturgeon argued section 103(c) prevented the NPS from regulating activities on private or state-owned lands and waters lying within the park boundaries set by ANILCA. The Ninth Circuit rejected this argument, holding that since the ban was not applied solely to public lands in Alaska, it could be enforced on both preserve public and nonpublic lands. However, in its briefing, the United States devoted a single paragraph to defending the Ninth Circuit's strained reasoning, a fact not lost on the Court. During oral arguments, Justices Alito and Sotomayor referred to the Ninth Circuit's holding as "wrong" stating "It's a ridiculous interpretation . . ."
The property interests in the U.S. preserve are "complicated"
Justice Roberts delivered the Court's unanimous decision, detailing Alaska's property history, from acquisition from Russia, to statehood, and on to the "Great Denali-McKinley Trespass" (analogous to the recent Bundy standoff in Oregon). Justice Roberts detailed the competing interests of the United States, Alaska, and Native and private stakeholders leading to the ANILCA "grand bargain," which created the Yukon-Charley Rivers Preserve together with numerous other Alaska national parks, refuges, and monuments. ANILCA set aside 105 million acres of land in conservation system units (CSUs), drawn to include 18 million acres of additional nonpublic land. The scale of land was immense, tripling land within U.S. parks, all placed under federal management. The complex interests involved led to difficult ownership and control issues, including whether the navigable waters within the preserve remained state land, and to what extent federal authority controls. While questioning counsel about the title interests raised, Justice Breyer noted "[i]t's too complicated."
Impact of an eight-member Court: Can the NPS regulate activity, even over nonpublic park areas?
Sturgeon v. Frost was notably Justice Scalia's final oral argument. He enthusiastically argued against the U.S. position stating "[i]f it's not within the unit, it's not within the basic authority of the Park Service to issue regulations, period..." and "you're telling us that the river, that the government holds title to the river. It doesn't. It has usufructuary rights in the river." Justice Scalia's statements show he was prepared to address the significant federalism issues presented, and perhaps find in Sturgeon's favor.

The NPS had already used the Ninth Circuit's broad ruling to impose additional regulations on nonfederal, nonpublic land within Alaska parks (regulating oil activities), upsetting the state, which argued "the hits are going to keep on coming unless this Court stops this interpretation . . . ." The Supreme Court's decision unambiguously rejected the Ninth Circuit's "implausible" holding, likely ceasing further NPS regulation on nonpublic ANILCA lands, but the Court did not take the additional steps Scalia hinted at taking. Instead, while questions of U.S. authority over navigable waters in federal parks were brought front and center, the Court refused to address any issues of nationwide importance, possibly as a strategic compromise by an eight-member Court lacking any majority. In rejecting the Ninth Circuit ruling, the Court stated "we do not decide whether the Nation River qualifies as 'public land' for purposes of ANILCA." Noting that the case touched "on vital issues of state sovereignty...and federal authority," the Court did not "decide whether the Park Service has authority...to regulate Sturgeon's activities on the Nation River, even if the river is not "public" land...[w]e leave those arguments to the lower courts . . ."

While the decision may initially appear a victory for Sturgeon and state's rights, the NPS has made clear that its nationwide regulations will continue to be enforced within federal ANILCA lands, recently "reminding" citizens that its ban remains in effect "until a court rules otherwise." Despite the Chief Justice's detailed rendition of how "Alaska is different," the federal government will continue to treat Alaska the same by grounding Mr. Sturgeon's hovercraft pursuant to its nationwide ban.

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Grounded: Supreme Court ducks federalism questions in Alaska hovercraft ban | Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources

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Mr. Sturgeon sued the United States seeking a declaration that the federal agents did not have authority to ban his hovercraft, arguing the Nation River is state-owned and that Alaska does not ban hovercrafts. The Ninth Circuit, after finding the State of Alaska lacked standing, affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States.

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Branches in tension

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"We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal."

Ross Franklin / AP

In a surprise reveal on Tuesday, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake announced that he will not seek reelection in 2018, becoming the second Republican in the upper chamber to forgo a campaign next year. Like Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, who made a similar announcement last month, Flake has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration. And like Corker, Flake seems poised to use his newfound freedom to warn of the threat he believes the president poses to his party and to the country. Here, a full transcript of the senator's remarks.
Mr. President, I rise today to address a matter that has been very much on my mind, at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than by our own values and our principles. Let me begin by noting a somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office. And there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.

Now is such a time.

It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our-all of our-complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.

In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order-that phrase being "the new normal." But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue-with the tone set at the top.

We must never regard as "normal" the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country-the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that it is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.

Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as "telling it like it is," when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.

And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength-because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.

It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, "Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you speak up?" What are we going to say?

Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes the normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.

Here, today, I stand to say that we would be better served-we would better serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the Constitution by adhering to our Article 1 "old normal"-Mr. Madison's doctrine of separation of powers. This genius innovation which affirms Madison's status as a true visionary and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51-held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract with each other, if necessary. "Ambition counteracts ambition," he wrote.

But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, we Republicans-would we Republicans-meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course we wouldn't, and we would be wrong if we did.

When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do-because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum-when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions and our liberty, we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.

Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people than I will caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.

If I have been critical, it is not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe it is my obligation to do so, and as a matter of duty of conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters-the notion that we should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.

A president-a Republican president-named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizen's relationship to the office:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole." He continued, "Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile." President Roosevelt continued. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by a President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing-until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.

In that way and over time, we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. I'm afraid that is where we now find ourselves.

When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes to look for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly or debased appetites in us.

Leadership lives by the American creed: E pluribus unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have been at our most principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.

These articles of civic faith have been central to the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they don't matter is simply not who we are.

Now, the efficacy of American leadership around the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from World War II we contributed about half of the world's economic activity. It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping those countries who have been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their place. We didn't do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of shattered countries and created international organizations and institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity around the world for more than 70 years.

Now, it seems that we, the architects of this visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.

The implications of this abandonment are profound. And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values. Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States Senators have to say about it?

The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.

I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent.

I decided that I will be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles.

To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019.

It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party-the party that has so long has defined itself by its belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment that we have given in or given up on the core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal-but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle. The impulse to scapegoat and belittle turns threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorifying in the things that divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.

This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because we have a heathy government, we must also have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that days comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.

I plan to spend the remaining 14 months of my senate term doing just that.

Mr. President, the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women-none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape the country that we have inherited. What is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career does not mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.

I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today. I will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are now no less so in ours:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely as they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Taylor Hosking is a former editorial fellow at The Atlantic.

Lena Felton is a former editorial fellow at The Atlantic.

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Full Transcript: Senator Jeff Flake Announces He Won't Seek Reelection

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"We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal." In a surprise reveal on Tuesday, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake announced that he will not seek reelection in 2018, becoming the second Republican in the upper chamber to forgo a campaign next year.

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"Today's decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system," he said before heading to the West Coast for a two-day trip. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who have made their lives here."

The decision was one of two determined by tie votes Thursday - the other concerned Indian tribal courts - and one of four so far this term. The court is scheduled to issue its final three decisions of the term, including one on a restrictive Texas abortion law, on Monday.

Mr. Obama said the court's immigration ruling was a stark reminder of the consequences of Republicans' refusal to consider Judge Merrick B. Garland, the president's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

"If you keep on blocking judges from getting on the bench, then courts can't issue decisions," Mr. Obama said. "And what that means is then you are going to have the status quo frozen, and we are not able to make progress on some very important issues."

The case, United States v. Texas, No. 15-674, concerned a 2014 executive action by the president to allow as many as five million unauthorized immigrants who were the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program that would spare them from deportation and provide them with work permits. The program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.

Mr. Obama has said he took the action after years of frustration with Republicans in Congress who had repeatedly refused to support bipartisan Senate legislation to update immigration laws. A coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, promptly challenged the plan, accusing the president of ignoring administrative procedures for changing rules and of abusing the power of his office by circumventing Congress.

"Today's decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: One person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law," Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement after the ruling. "This is a major setback to President Obama's attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law."

The court did not disclose how the justices had voted, but they were almost certainly split along ideological lines. Administration officials had hoped that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would join the court's four-member liberal wing to save the program.

The case hinged in part on whether Texas had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave it standing to sue. Texas said it had standing because it would be costly for the state to give driver's licenses to immigrants affected by the federal policy.

Chief Justice Roberts is often skeptical of expansive standing arguments. But it seemed plain when the case was argued in April that he was satisfied that Texas had standing, paving the way for a deadlock.

Mr. Obama said the White House did not believe the terse ruling from the court had any effect on the president's authority to act unilaterally. But he said the practical effect would be to freeze his efforts on behalf of immigrants until after the November election.

He also predicted that lawmakers would eventually act to overhaul the nation's immigration system.

"Congress is not going to be able to ignore America forever," he said. "It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when. We get these spasms of politics around immigration and fear-mongering, and then our traditions and our history and our better impulses kick in."

White House officials had repeatedly argued that presidents in both parties had used similar executive authority in applying the nation's immigration laws. And they said Congress had granted federal law enforcement wide discretion over how those laws should be carried out.

But the court's ruling may mean that the next president will again need to seek a congressional compromise to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. And it left immigration activists deeply disappointed.

"This is personal," Rocio Saenz, the executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said in a statement. "We will remain at the front lines, committed to defending the immigration initiatives and paving the path to lasting immigration reform."

The lower court rulings in the case were provisional, and the litigation will now continue and may again reach the Supreme Court when it is back at full strength. In the meantime, it seems unlikely that the program will be revived.

In February 2015, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, Tex., entered a preliminary injunction shutting down the program while the legal case proceeded. The government appealed, and a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans affirmed the injunction.

In their Supreme Court briefs, the states acknowledged that the president had wide authority over immigration matters, telling the justices that "the executive does have enforcement discretion to forbear from removing aliens on an individual basis." Their quarrel, they said, was with what they called a blanket grant of "lawful presence" to millions of immigrants, entitling them to various benefits.

In response, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the justices that this "lawful presence" was merely what had always followed from the executive branch's decision not to deport someone for a given period of time.

"Deferred action does not provide these individuals with any lawful status under the immigration laws," he said. "But it provides some measure of dignity and decent treatment."

"It recognizes the damage that would be wreaked by tearing apart families," Mr. Verrilli added, "and it allows individuals to leave the shadow economy and work on the books to provide for their families, thereby reducing exploitation and distortion in our labor markets."

The states said they had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave them standing to sue.

Judge Jerry E. Smith, writing for the majority in the appeals court, focused on an injury said to have been suffered by Texas, which he said would have to spend millions of dollars to provide driver's licenses to immigrants as a consequence of the federal program.

Mr. Verrilli told the justices that Texas' injury was self-inflicted, a product of its decision to offer driver's licenses for less than they cost to produce and to tie eligibility for them to federal standards.

Texas responded that being required to change its laws was itself the sort of harm that conferred standing. "Such a forced change in Texas law would impair Texas' sovereign interest in 'the power to create and enforce a legal code,'" the state's lawyers wrote in a brief.

Judge Hanen grounded his injunction on the Obama administration's failure to give notice and seek public comments on its new program. He found that notice and comment were required because the program gave blanket relief to entire categories of people, notwithstanding the administration's assertion that it required case-by-case determinations about who was eligible for the program.

The appeals court affirmed that ruling and added a broader one. The program, it said, also exceeded Mr. Obama's statutory authority.

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Supreme Court Tie Blocks Obama Immigration Plan

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"Today's decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system," he said before heading to the West Coast for a two-day trip. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who have made their lives here."

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Every year Congress strives to agree on a budget that lays out the blueprint for a year of government spending. The budget can also pave the way for the use of a powerful tool called budget reconciliation.

Through this tool, Republicans could cut spending from many entitlement programs and reform the nation's tax system. But there's also a thicket of rules surrounding the use of reconciliation, so it's not easy.

What about health care and tax reform?

Yes, Congress could take another shot at repealing Obamacare through reconciliation, as well as doing a big overhaul of the tax system. The Sept. 30 deadline that stopped health care repeal no longer would apply because it would be a new budget year. Republicans' main problem likely would be their own internal divisions over how to go about repeal.

How does this work?

The budget that Congress agrees on would include instructions on reconciliation. Those instructions would say Congress needs to make changes in spending and revenue, and how much. Committees in the House and Senate then debate and vote on how to do that, by a set date. That is the point at which specific programs might be targeted for spending cuts, or various taxes altered.

The Budget Committee in each chamber then picks up those proposals, bundles them together if they came from multiple committees, and votes. That's followed by votes in the full House and Senate. A conference committee would settle any differences between the two chambers, and one more set of votes would be taken in each chamber. The final product is then sent to the president's desk.

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Every year Congress strives to agree on a budget that lays out the blueprint for a year of government spending. The budget can also pave the way for the use of a powerful tool called budget reconciliation. Through this tool, Republicans could cut spending from many entitlement programs and reform the nation's tax system.

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Lower court

United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Facts of the case

In 1984, Congress enacted legislation ordering the Secretary of Transportation to withhold five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not adopt a 21-year-old minimum drinking age. South Dakota, a state that permitted persons 19 years of age to purchase alcohol, challenged the law.

Question

Did Congress exceed its spending powers, or violate the Twenty-first Amendment, by passing legislation conditioning the award of federal highway funds on the states' adoption of a uniform minimum drinking age?

Conclusion

No. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that Congress, acting indirectly to encourage uniformity in states' drinking ages, was within constitutional bounds. The Court found that the legislation was in pursuit of "the general welfare," and that the means chosen to do so were reasonable. The Court also held that the Twenty-first Amendment's limitations on spending power were not prohibitions on congressional attempts to achieve federal objectives indirectly. The five percent loss of highway funds was not unduly coercive.

Cite this page

"South Dakota v. Dole." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1986/86-260. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

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United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit In 1984, Congress enacted legislation ordering the Secretary of Transportation to withhold five percent of federal highway funds from states that did not adopt a 21-year-old minimum drinking age. South Dakota, a state that permitted persons 19 years of age to purchase alcohol, challenged the law.

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"Today's decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system," he said before heading to the West Coast for a two-day trip. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who have made their lives here."

The decision was one of two determined by tie votes Thursday - the other concerned Indian tribal courts - and one of four so far this term. The court is scheduled to issue its final three decisions of the term, including one on a restrictive Texas abortion law, on Monday.

Mr. Obama said the court's immigration ruling was a stark reminder of the consequences of Republicans' refusal to consider Judge Merrick B. Garland, the president's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

"If you keep on blocking judges from getting on the bench, then courts can't issue decisions," Mr. Obama said. "And what that means is then you are going to have the status quo frozen, and we are not able to make progress on some very important issues."

The case, United States v. Texas, No. 15-674, concerned a 2014 executive action by the president to allow as many as five million unauthorized immigrants who were the parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents to apply for a program that would spare them from deportation and provide them with work permits. The program was called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA.

Mr. Obama has said he took the action after years of frustration with Republicans in Congress who had repeatedly refused to support bipartisan Senate legislation to update immigration laws. A coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, promptly challenged the plan, accusing the president of ignoring administrative procedures for changing rules and of abusing the power of his office by circumventing Congress.

"Today's decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: One person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law," Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement after the ruling. "This is a major setback to President Obama's attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law."

The court did not disclose how the justices had voted, but they were almost certainly split along ideological lines. Administration officials had hoped that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would join the court's four-member liberal wing to save the program.

The case hinged in part on whether Texas had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave it standing to sue. Texas said it had standing because it would be costly for the state to give driver's licenses to immigrants affected by the federal policy.

Chief Justice Roberts is often skeptical of expansive standing arguments. But it seemed plain when the case was argued in April that he was satisfied that Texas had standing, paving the way for a deadlock.

Mr. Obama said the White House did not believe the terse ruling from the court had any effect on the president's authority to act unilaterally. But he said the practical effect would be to freeze his efforts on behalf of immigrants until after the November election.

He also predicted that lawmakers would eventually act to overhaul the nation's immigration system.

"Congress is not going to be able to ignore America forever," he said. "It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when. We get these spasms of politics around immigration and fear-mongering, and then our traditions and our history and our better impulses kick in."

White House officials had repeatedly argued that presidents in both parties had used similar executive authority in applying the nation's immigration laws. And they said Congress had granted federal law enforcement wide discretion over how those laws should be carried out.

But the court's ruling may mean that the next president will again need to seek a congressional compromise to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. And it left immigration activists deeply disappointed.

"This is personal," Rocio Saenz, the executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said in a statement. "We will remain at the front lines, committed to defending the immigration initiatives and paving the path to lasting immigration reform."

The lower court rulings in the case were provisional, and the litigation will now continue and may again reach the Supreme Court when it is back at full strength. In the meantime, it seems unlikely that the program will be revived.

In February 2015, Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, Tex., entered a preliminary injunction shutting down the program while the legal case proceeded. The government appealed, and a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans affirmed the injunction.

In their Supreme Court briefs, the states acknowledged that the president had wide authority over immigration matters, telling the justices that "the executive does have enforcement discretion to forbear from removing aliens on an individual basis." Their quarrel, they said, was with what they called a blanket grant of "lawful presence" to millions of immigrants, entitling them to various benefits.

In response, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the justices that this "lawful presence" was merely what had always followed from the executive branch's decision not to deport someone for a given period of time.

"Deferred action does not provide these individuals with any lawful status under the immigration laws," he said. "But it provides some measure of dignity and decent treatment."

"It recognizes the damage that would be wreaked by tearing apart families," Mr. Verrilli added, "and it allows individuals to leave the shadow economy and work on the books to provide for their families, thereby reducing exploitation and distortion in our labor markets."

The states said they had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave them standing to sue.

Judge Jerry E. Smith, writing for the majority in the appeals court, focused on an injury said to have been suffered by Texas, which he said would have to spend millions of dollars to provide driver's licenses to immigrants as a consequence of the federal program.

Mr. Verrilli told the justices that Texas' injury was self-inflicted, a product of its decision to offer driver's licenses for less than they cost to produce and to tie eligibility for them to federal standards.

Texas responded that being required to change its laws was itself the sort of harm that conferred standing. "Such a forced change in Texas law would impair Texas' sovereign interest in 'the power to create and enforce a legal code,'" the state's lawyers wrote in a brief.

Judge Hanen grounded his injunction on the Obama administration's failure to give notice and seek public comments on its new program. He found that notice and comment were required because the program gave blanket relief to entire categories of people, notwithstanding the administration's assertion that it required case-by-case determinations about who was eligible for the program.

The appeals court affirmed that ruling and added a broader one. The program, it said, also exceeded Mr. Obama's statutory authority.

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Supreme Court Tie Blocks Obama Immigration Plan

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"Today's decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring a rationality to our immigration system," he said before heading to the West Coast for a two-day trip. "It is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who have made their lives here."

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A case in which the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriage.

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Protests turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, as white supremacists clashed with counter-demonstrators, and a car ploughed into the crowd of anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters. Here is what we know.

What happened and when?

A "Unite the Right" rally was planned for Saturday, August 12 to protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate icon General Robert E Lee.

Described as one of the largest white supremacist events in recent US history, it was organised by Jason Kessler, a former journalist and a member of the Proud Boys, an ultra-nationalist group.

The day before, on Friday, marchers descended on the University of Virginia carrying torches and yelling slogans "white lives matter" and "blood and soil".

Protesters gathered again on Saturday, and clashed with counter-demonstrators.

At 11:28am (15:35 GMT) a local state of emergency was declared by the City of Charlottesville and the County of Albemarle.

At 1:42pm (17:42 GMT) a speeding car rammed into anti-racist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring at least 19 others.

The speeding car fled the scene but was soon located and stopped by police.

James Alex Fields Jr of Ohio has been charged with second-degree murder and other counts following the incident.

A police helicopter also crashed while en route to the rally on Saturday, killing two state troopers.

Where did it happen?

This took place in Charlottesville, a university town of 46,000 people, in the state of Virginia in the United States.

Charlottesville has become a focal point of the resurgent white supremacist movement after officials there voted to take down a statue of the Confederate General Robert E Lee.

Who was behind it?

The driver of the car, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr was arrested shortly after the incident and was charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and one count of hit-and-run.

In connection with the events at Charlottesville today, police made three additional arrests.

Troy Dunigan, 21, was charged with disorderly conduct.

J acob L Smith, 21, was charged with misdemeanour assault and battery.

James M O'Brien, 41, was charged with carrying a concealed gun.

WATCH: White supremacists emboldened by Trump
How many casualties?

Thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer died in hospital after being hit in the car ramming.

Lieutenant Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Bates, who were on board the crashed helicopter, died.

Thirty-five people were injured at the rally, 19 confirmed by the hospital in Charlottesville.

Is Charlottesville now safe? What is the latest on the ground?

Police intervened after clashes broke out and dispersed the crowd, and Governor McAuliffe declared a state of emergency.

The governor's office also urged all members of the community to stay home on Saturday evening.

What are people saying?

On August 12, US President Donald Trump condemned the clashes "on many sides" in Charlottesville in a Twitter post:

We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2017

Two days later, after public outcry, he specifically condemned white supremacy.

But on Tuesday, he seemed to backtrack, insisting that there was "blame on both sides" including by anti-fascist protesters.

His comments have drawn widespread criticism from many on all sides of the political spectrum.

The remarks were also welcomed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who tweeted: "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth."

Senator Bernie Sanders condemned the clashes and said, "it was a reprehensible display of racism and hatred".

The white nationalist demonstration in #Charlottesville is a reprehensible display of racism and hatred that has no place in our society.
- Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 12, 2017

Senator Cory Gardner labelled them as "domestic terrorism":

Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism. https://t.co/PaPNiPPAoW
- Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) August 12, 2017

And former US President Barack Obama wrote:

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm
- Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

What happened next?

A local state of emergency was declared

The FBI launched its own investigation into the incident.

A fundraising campaign for the family of the woman killed in a car-ramming attack in Charlottesville raised tens of thousands of dollars.

A "Moment of Unity" was held in Charlottesville, giving citizens a chance to offer prayers and support to the victims.

Judge Robert Downer said during a bail hearing on Monday, August 14, that he would appoint a lawyer for James Alex Fields Jr.

The next scheduled court hearing is on August 25, though Fields' attorney could request a bond hearing before then.

A rally against racism took place in North Carolina, and a Confederate statue was toppled.

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Charlottesville attack: What, where and who?

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Protests turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, as white supremacists clashed with counter-demonstrators, and a car ploughed into the crowd of anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters. Here is what we know. A "Unite the Right" rally was planned for Saturday, August 12 to protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate icon General Robert E Lee.

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The Supreme Court does have the final voice in determining constitutional questions; no person, not even the president of the United States, is completely above the law; and the president cannot use executive privilege as an excuse to withhold evidence that is "demonstrably relevant in a criminal trial."

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This article addresses the question of funding, services AND revenue-- make sure to use the links outside of the article

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Jeb Bush is again in damage-control mode, this time over an offhand remark he made about Planned Parenthood. He said at an event hosted by the Southern Baptist Convention that Planned Parenthood should be defunded, and he highlighted that he did so as governor of Florida.

He then added as an aside, "I'm not sure we need half-a-billion dollars for women's health issues" - a statement Hillary Clinton and other Democrats pounced on, portraying it as a gaffe that reveals that Bush doesn't care about women's health. He has since said he "misspoke."

But Bush's comments raise questions about just how much money Planned Parenthood actually gets, what the group does with it, and whether defunding it would actually save taxpayers money.

Planned Parenthood does receive a half-billion dollars a year from the government. But that's just one data point - here's what you need to know about where that money comes from and where it goes.
How much does the government pay to Planned Parenthood?
Bush is right that Planned Parenthood receives $500 million a year in government funding - or, to be more exact, $528 million last year, according to Planned Parenthood's latest annual report.

That totals more than 40 percent of Planned Parenthood's total $1.3 billion in revenue for the year, which suggests that the organization would be in some heavy financial trouble without that public funding.
What programs are funding that money?
Those public funds come from two programs: Medicaid, the health care program targeted at lower-income Americans, and Title X, a federal family planning program that likewise primarily serves lower-income Americans. The overwhelming majority of federal funding to Planned Parenthood comes from Medicaid - 75 percent, according to a Planned Parenthood spokesman.

Not all of the public funds Planned Parenthood receives are federal spending, however. While Title X is a federal program, Medicaid operates using federal and state funds. States receive a 90 percent federal reimbursement on Medicaid family planning spending, for example. So when Washington politicians talk about "defunding" Planned Parenthood, they generally mean cutting off federal money. States could continue to spend as they please.
How does Planned Parenthood actually use those government dollars?
Abortion is driving the defund-Planned-Parenthood discussion in the wake of undercover videos from the anti-abortion-rights Center for Medical Progress. The group says its videos show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue and have sparked a political firestorm. Planned Parenthood, for its part, says it does not sell fetal tissue and claims these transactions were donations.

However, abortions are actually not a big part of what Planned Parenthood says it does - 3 percent of the services it provided last year were abortion-related, according to the organization's annual report. (For a sense of the scope of that, abortions accounted for about 328,000 of the group's nearly 10.6 million services provided last year.)

However, this 3 percent statistic has many critics, who point out, for example, that it doesn't explain how much of Planned Parenthood's revenue comes from abortion. Others note that the figure counts services provided, not patients served - and some patients receive more than one service from the organization. That means more than 3 percent of patients receive abortions ( Politifact this week estimated the figure at around 12 percent, for example).

The overwhelming majority of Planned Parenthood's services involve screening for and treating sexually transmitted diseases and infections, as well as providing contraception.
Who goes to Planned Parenthood?
Title X and Medicaid are programs that target low- to middle-income Americans, and many of Planned Parenthood's patients are likewise lower-income. As of 2012, 79 percent of people receiving services from Planned Parenthood lived at 150 percent of the federal poverty level or lower (that comes out to around $18,500 for a single adult), according to a March Government Accountability Office report.
What does the law say on funding abortions?
Title X does not allow federal funds to be used for abortions. Medicaid, however, does allow government money to be spent on them - in very restricted cases.

The 1977 Hyde Amendment dictated that federal Medicaid funds could only be used to fund abortions in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. However, some states have expanded cases in which they will provide funds. Currently, 17 states allow funds to be used for "medically necessary" abortions. In those cases that these states count as medically necessary but that are not permitted by the federal guidelines, states cover the cost alone.
What would it mean to "defund" Planned Parenthood and would it save taxpayers money?

Efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of public dollars go back decades, as Kaiser Health News' Julie Rovner wrote recently. The most recent attempt, known as S. 1881, would have stripped Planned Parenthood of federal funding and made it "available to other eligible entities to provide women's health care services." Senate Democrats, however, successfully blocked that bill this week.

Defunding the group might cut some spending and accomplish one Republican anti-abortion goal, but it could also backfire, as Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall wrote this week in a letter addressing S. 1881.

Though the CBO didn't do a full, formal analysis of the bill, Hall pointed out that while the bill could cut government spending, it could also increase it. While displacing Title X funding from Planned Parenthood to other clinics, the bill could have cut Medicaid spending as some beneficiaries might fail or decide not to seek out family planning services at other clinics. But on the other hand, it could have led to more spending (not to mention more unplanned pregnancies):

"CBO also expects that some of the services that would not be used if S. 1881 was enacted would include those that help women avert pregnancies and deliveries. Reduced use of such services would be expected to lead to additional births, increasing federal spending, primarily for Medicaid. In addition, some of those children would themselves qualify for Medicaid and possibly for other federal programs."

To be clear, the CBO didn't come to a firm conclusion on whether more or less spending is more likely.

However, it's important to remember that these bills could only cut federal funds. States could still spend money to help Medicaid consumers, for example, use Planned Parenthood services.

Of course, without federal reimbursement, it could make those services much more expensive for those states. Abortion-rights advocates also argue that redirecting funding to other clinics could limit lower-income Americans' access to family planning services, as other clinics may not have the capacity to handle the new customers, for example.

Updated Aug. 5, 10:20 p.m. This article was updated with additional information about Planned Parenthood's statistics on the number of abortions it provides.

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Fact Check: How Does Planned Parenthood Spend That Government Money?

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Jeb Bush is again in damage-control mode, this time over an offhand remark he made about Planned Parenthood. He said at an event hosted by the Southern Baptist Convention that Planned Parenthood should be defunded, and he highlighted that he did so as governor of Florida.

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The Supreme Court, which has never struck down an election map as a political gerrymander, will hear arguments on Oct. 3 in a case challenging the voting districts for Wisconsin's Republican-controlled State Assembly. Credit... Jared Soares for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Breaking ranks with many of their fellow Republicans, a group of prominent politicians filed briefs on Tuesday urging the Supreme Court to rule that extreme political gerrymandering - the drawing of voting districts to give lopsided advantages to the party in power - violates the Constitution.

The briefs were signed by Republicans including Senator John McCain of Arizona; Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio; Bob Dole, the former Republican Senate leader from Kansas and the party's 1996 presidential nominee; the former senators John C. Danforth of Missouri, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming; and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former governor of California.

"Partisan gerrymandering has become a tool for powerful interests to distort the democratic process," reads a brief filed by Mr. McCain and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case, Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, on Oct. 3.

The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican State Leadership Committee all filed briefs on the other side. They urged the Supreme Court to reject a challenge to State Assembly districts in Wisconsin that, by some measures, gave Republicans outsize political power unjustified by the overall vote.

Charles Fried, a Harvard law professor who served as United States solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan, and who is among the lawyers representing Republican politicians urging the Supreme Court to reject extreme political gerrymanders, said it was important to take the long view and to act on principle.

"It's not a partisan issue," he said. "We are working for our republic, and not for Republicans."

Partisan gerrymandering is almost as old as the nation, and both parties have used it. But in recent years, as Republicans captured state legislatures around the country, they have been the primary beneficiaries. Aided by sophisticated software, they have drawn oddly shaped voting districts to favor their party's candidates.

In the 1980s, when Democrats had more political power in state legislatures, they were enthusiastic proponents of partisan gerrymandering, Mr. Simpson, the former Wyoming senator, said.

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Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, right, signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to rule that the voting districts violate the Constitution. Credit... Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

"The Democrats laid the groundwork and set the template, and then Republicans figured they better get cracking, too," he said.

The two parties' legal arguments have flipped as their power shifted, Professor Fried said.

"The same arguments, exactly, were made on the other side when Democrats were doing this to Republicans," he said. "This is a prime example that people don't mean anything that they say, that all arguments are opportunistic."

These days, both parties are using their power more aggressively than ever, according to a brief filed by 65 current and former state legislators, 26 of them Republicans.

"In recent years, the two major political parties, leveraging the technologies of the modern age, have intentionally and systematically excluded each other from state legislatures like never before," the brief said. "Democrats rigged the maps in Illinois, Maryland and Rhode Island, while Republicans did so in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina."

The Supreme Court, which has never struck down an election map as a political gerrymander, will consider a case challenging the voting districts for Wisconsin's State Assembly drawn after Republicans gained complete control of the state government for the first time in more than 40 years.

Republican lawmakers drew maps that helped their party convert very close statewide vote totals into lopsided legislative majorities. In 2012, Republicans won 48.6 percent of the statewide vote for Assembly candidates but captured 60 of the Assembly's 99 seats.

The phenomenon is commonplace, Mr. Schwarzenegger said.

"It's a rigged system," he said. "You have situations where you get 50 percent of the vote but only 35 percent of the seats. That is corrupt. That is incorrect. It's unfair to the people."

The plaintiffs challenging Wisconsin's map are represented by the Campaign Legal Center. Its president, Trevor Potter, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said he was "pleased, but not surprised, to see many of America's most accomplished Republican leaders urging the Supreme Court to rein in excessive partisan gerrymandering."

"They know that elected officials' legitimacy comes from being freely chosen by voters, not through seizing power from voters to keep themselves in control," added Mr. Potter, who was appointed to the commission in 1991 by President George Bush.

The challengers say they have identified a mathematical formula to help identify unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. In a brief urging the Supreme Court to sustain Wisconsin's maps, the Republican National Committee wrote that the formula was "a tool that advances the partisan interests of the Democratic Party."

In California and a few other states, independent commissions draw election districts, rather than politicians. That bolsters public confidence, Mr. Schwarzenegger said.

"You see a direct correlation," he said. "In California, for instance, we did the redistricting reform and the legislators have over 50 percent approval rating, and in Washington they have a 16 percent approval rating."

Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, joined a brief filed by current and former members of the House of Representatives urging the Supreme Court to reject the Wisconsin maps. He said partisan gerrymandering had contributed to toxic polarization in the House of Representatives.

"You have 435 districts in the nation, and there's probably only 20 or so that are legitimate swing districts," he said. "For the 415 safe seats, their main election is in the primary, not the general. When the main election is in the primary, you legislate accordingly. The result has been a growing cavernous divide, which has created a Hatfield v. McCoy environment in the legislature, and it's hurting the American people."

A brief on the other side from the Republican State Leadership Committee, which represents elected state officials, disputed that analysis, saying there was polarization even when candidates were elected statewide.

"Politics in the United States are polarized and have been for decades for a variety of reasons, and it is highly unlikely that partisan redistricting contributes to this polarization," the brief said. "If it did, one would expect the U.S. Senate to be less polarized than the House of Representatives, and that is manifestly not the case."

The brief from current and former House members noted that Mr. Reagan had referred to gerrymandering in 1987 as "a national scandal" and called for "an end to the anti-democratic and un-American practice of gerrymandering congressional districts."

Mr. Simpson said it was time for the Supreme Court to heed that call.

"This case is long overdue," he said. "Quite literally, gerrymandering is killing our system. Most Americans think politicians are corrupt, and when they're rigging maps to pick their own constituents, they're giving them reason to believe it."

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Prominent Republicans Urge Supreme Court to End Gerrymandering (Published 2017)

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WASHINGTON - Breaking ranks with many of their fellow Republicans, a group of prominent politicians filed briefs on Tuesday urging the Supreme Court to rule that extreme political gerrymandering - the drawing of voting districts to give lopsided advantages to the party in power - violates the Constitution.

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emoluments clause...

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On Wednesday morning, a federal judge in Manhattan will hear preliminary arguments in a case that claims President Trump is violating the Constitution's ban on accepting foreign payments, or emoluments.

Here is what is at stake: The Founding Fathers wrote a clause into the Constitution saying U.S. officials cannot accept "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title" from foreign governments without the consent of Congress. Trump's critics say that by refusing to sell off his global businesses, the president is failing to uphold the Constitution.

But before that issue can be debated, the court first has to decide whether the plaintiffs even have standing to bring their Emoluments Clause case. And that first step is what is happening in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

"This is a pretty big deal," said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the watchdog group CREW - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

CREW filed the suit just three days after Trump took the oath of office in January. It has taken until now to get to these opening arguments on the issue of legal standing to bring suit.

Bookbinder says it's an important event.

"It's the first time that a court is going to be hearing arguments about the Emoluments Clause, what an emolument is, what the president actually is prohibited from doing under the Constitution," Bookbinder said.

CREW's co-plaintiffs include the owner of several hotels and restaurants in New York City, an association of restaurants and restaurant workers and an events booker in D.C.

They say they've lost business to Trump establishments - not because of fair competition, but because many foreign officials take their business to Trump properties to curry favor with the president. That is a claim that Trump's Justice Department argues against.

Even in its preliminary stages, the case could have impact. If the plaintiffs win on the standing question, Bookbinder said, "the next phase of the case would be discovery."

In that phase, the plaintiffs would want the Trump Organization to turn over documents, such as "business records for the Trump companies and other relevant documents, potentially including tax returns, that'll tell us what foreign government payments and what state government payments the president's companies may be receiving, in violation of the Constitution," he said.

After standing, the next flashpoint is the definition of "emolument." CREW asserts a broad definition and cites dictionaries in use at the time the Constitution was drafted.

DOJ uses a narrower definition - just as Trump's lawyer, Sheri Dillon, did in January. She told reporters then, "No one would have thought that when the Constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument. Instead, it would have been thought of as a value-for-value exchange; not a gift, not a title, and not an emolument."

These questions seem to be wide open. When it comes to emoluments, there aren't a lot of legal precedents.

"I definitely have the view that no one has standing to bring an Emoluments Clause challenge," said Saikrishna Prakash, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Virginia Law School. He said emoluments are for Congress to consider.

He said of the CREW lawsuit, "I think it's become a vehicle for some people's frustrations with the president's continuing to have active businesses while serving as president."

Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub said that if the case fails, it would set a "terrible precedent."

Taub, who helped to organize a campaign last winter for disclosure of Trump's tax returns, said, "We cannot have a representative democracy if the president takes office with the purpose of personal gain and essentially influence-peddling."

More immediately, failure would be a bad omen for two other emolument suits. One was filed by Democrats in Congress, the other by the attorneys general in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Those cases are still working their way through the courts.

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The Court Challenge Begins: Is Trump Taking Unconstitutional Emoluments?

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On Wednesday morning, a federal judge in Manhattan will hear preliminary arguments in a case that claims President Trump is violating the Constitution's ban on accepting foreign payments, or emoluments. Here is what is at stake: The Founding Fathers wrote a clause into the Constitution saying U.S.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee's Tuesday hearing with top representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google delved into details regarding how much the companies knew about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election on their platforms -- and what they are trying to do to prevent it from happening in the future.

Colin Stretch, Facebook's general counsel; Sean Edgett, Twitter's acting general counsel; and Richard Salgado, director of law enforcement and information security for Google, answered many questions from committee members and also prompted new questions.

Twitter and Facebook have suspended hundreds of accounts believed to be connected with Russian election-focused activity intended to influence public opinion. On Wednesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee will hold its own hearing on social media influence in the 2016 election.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee are all probing various aspects of Russian meddling in the 2016 election cycle.

Here are the five top takeaways from Tuesday's testimony.

1. Fake accounts attempted to delegitimize Trump's election win

Representatives from Facebook and Twitter said the fake accounts that were eventually taken down tried to delegitimize Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.

Stretch claimed -- and Edgett agreed -- that the accounts pivoted after the election, shifting their focus from pushing divisive, hot-button issues to questioning Mr. Trump's presidency. A source at Facebook told CBS News, as CBS News' Graham Kates has reported, that Stretch was referring to the 470 accounts the company previously acknowledged had purchased ads before the election. The accounts were believed to be linked to a Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency. Facebook later removed them.

That development could interest Republicans in pursuing the issue more vigorously.

2. Facebook has 150 staffers devoted to probing terror threats

The social media giant, Stretch revealed, has 150 people devoted to identifying and handling suspected terror-related activity. The company has "thousands" devoted to examining content, and 150 people whose specific job focuses on vetting content for terrorist-related chatter, he said.

3. Concern about other actors

The witnesses were asked whether they believe governments other than Russia operated or are operating fake accounts to influence U.S. elections or policy. Asked whether they believed China, North Korea or any other government wielded such social media weapons, they said they did not believe so.

But Stretch said Facebook is concerned about foreign actors beyond Russia.

"We worry about nation-state actors really from around the globe," Stretch said.

4. Russia's influence on 2016 election outcome difficult to determine

Sen. Mazie Keiko Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked the witnesses if they could say whether or not Russian propaganda and influence had an impact on the election's outcome.

"Senator, we're not well positioned to judge why any one person or an entire electorate voted as it did," Stretch said.

The social media companies emphasized that the number of fake accounts -- though a serious concern -- were few compared to their overall users. But in the end, their influence is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify.

5. Senators aren't satisfied

If there was anything that emerged clearly from Tuesday's hearing, it was how dissatisfied the committee members are with the social media companies' response to foreign influence in U.S. politics.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, voiced serious concerns about censoring conservative political views in the process of censoring or deactivating social media accounts.

Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-Louisiana, said the power of the social media companies to view Americans' activity "scares me."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said she found it "frightening" how easy it was for Russians to launch election interference attempts.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, asked why it has taken Facebook so long to come forward and lay out the scope of the problem.

"Why has it taken Facebook 11 months to come forward and help us understand the scope of this problem?" he demanded.

In other words, members still have some unanswered questions and unaddressed concerns about how the tech giants are managing this problem.

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5 things to know about the Senate social media hearing

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The Senate Judiciary Committee's Tuesday hearing with top representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google delved into details regarding how much the companies knew about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election on their platforms -- and what they are trying to do to prevent it from happening in the future.

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Our weekly roundup of education news and happenings may make you uncomfortable, but please don't ban our inconvenient truths.
A Mississippi district bans To Kill A Mockingbird New Mexico restores science education standards
The classic 1960 novel was pulled from a junior high reading list, according to the Biloxi Sun Herald, because some were made "uncomfortable" by the use of the n-word. The decision was roundly criticized. The book was temporarily banned last year from schools in Accomack County, Virginia.
Black graduates, especially, struggle to repay student loans
The state of New Mexico announced that it would restore classroom references to evolution, human-caused climate change and the 4.6-billion-year age of the Earth. The information, all part of mainstream scientific consensus, had been stripped from the state's draft science education standards released last month. They were restored after a public outcry.

The typical African-American who took out student loans in 2003-2004 owed even more money, not less, after a dozen years. Nearly half of all African-American borrowers ultimately defaulted on their loans, compared with just 29 percent of all students. The defaulters included 75 percent of African-Americans who left for-profit colleges.

Those are the stark results of an analysis of new federal student loan data from the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

They found that even when black students earn a bachelor's degree, on average they make no progress at all paying down their loans for more than a decade. Loan balances can balloon in this way because of missed payments, penalties or times when payments are suspended because of economic hardship.
17 states and D.C. sue Betsy DeVos over for-profit college rules
Ben Miller of the Center for American Progress added that the latest numbers may be even worse than the period covered by this data.

In a suit filed Tuesday, a group of Democratic attorneys general are challenging the education secretary's decision to suspend the "gainful employment" rule.
As we've reported:
Previously in July, a similar group filed suit over the secretary's rollback of the "borrower defense to repayment" rule. Both rules were aimed at predatory or fraudulent for-profit colleges.

The "gainful employment" rule sanctions individual programs at colleges and universities based on how many students are able to pay back their loans.

The "borrower defense to repayment" rule smooths the way for students to get their loans forgiven if their college is found to engage in fraudulent behavior, a situation that has befallen tens of thousands of students at Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, among others, in the last few years.

New Education Department appointee is a foe of federal regulations
Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement: "This is just the latest in a string of frivolous lawsuits filed by Democratic attorneys general who are only seeking to score quick political points."
Florida declares a state of emergency over campus appearance by white nationalist
Politico reports that Hans Bader, who until last week worked at a libertarian think tank, will join the department's Office of General Counsel. He previously served in the department's Office of Civil Rights in the George W. Bush administration. He is on record as a critic of the stepped-up enforcement of civil rights by Obama's education department, particularly its actions on campus sexual assault. DeVos has thrown out these Obama-era guidelines and the department is now writing new ones.

Richard Spencer, who was a headliner at the alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., that turned deadly, rented a hall for a speech at the University of Florida this week, rather than being invited by a campus-affiliated group. Extra security for Thursday's appearance was estimated to cost the university more than a half-million dollars. Gov. Rick Scott declared a countywide state of emergency in order to coordinate a security plan. Hecklers shouted Spencer down; at least three people were arrested in connection with the protests.
Newark schools have improved, says Harvard study
Spencer has similar upcoming appearances at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University. These visits have raised debate and led to legal wrangling over hate speech vs. free speech at public and private universities.
Library fines erased for New York City children
A new analysis says reading scores have risen for fourth- through eighth-graders. Most of the improvement, said researchers, came from closing low-performing schools. The city's schools have been scrutinized nationwide since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million in 2010.

Another bright spot this week: A philanthropic foundation has contributed $2.25 million to erase the public library fines of children under 18 in all five boroughs of New York City. An estimated 1 in 5 children's library cards had been blocked because of overdue books. Now they can check out titles such as To Kill A Mockingbird - in audiobook, ebook or hardcover formats.

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DeVos Is Sued By 17 States; Richard Spencer And Colleges; Race and Student Loans

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Our weekly roundup of education news and happenings may make you uncomfortable, but please don't ban our inconvenient truths. A Mississippi district bans To Kill A Mockingbird New Mexico restores science education standards The classic 1960 novel was pulled from a junior high reading list, according to the Biloxi Sun Herald, because some were made "uncomfortable" by the use of the n-word.

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Central Los Angeles. Credit... Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times

A peculiar confluence of history, legal precedent and defiance has set the stage for a regulatory mutiny in California that would reverberate throughout the country.

Central Los Angeles. Credit... Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times

SACRAMENTO - The Trump administration may appear to control climate policy in Washington, but the nation's most dynamic environmental regulator is here in California.

Mary D. Nichols, California's electric-car-driving, hoodie-wearing, 72-year-old air quality regulator, is pressing ahead with a far-reaching agenda of environmental and climate actions. She says she will not let the Trump administration stand in her way.

As chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, Ms. Nichols is the de facto enforcer of the single biggest step the United States has taken to combat the effects of climate change: standards adopted under the Obama administration that mandate a deep cut in emissions from the 190 million passenger cars on America's roads. Together, those vehicles regularly emit more earth-warming gases than the country's power plants.

At the request of the major automakers, the Environmental Protection Agency officially opened a review of those standards last month. The move was seen as the prelude to a loosening of those targets, which require manufacturers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and light trucks by 2025.

But a peculiar confluence of history, legal precedent and regulatory defiance has given California unique authority to write its own air pollution rules. And because 12 other states now follow California's standards, the state finds itself in an extraordinary position to stage a regulatory mutiny of sorts - with much of the country's car market in tow.

"We're standing firm. We're prepared to sue. We're prepared to do what we need to do," Ms. Nichols said in a recent interview. "We aren't going anywhere."

At stake in the dispute between officials in Sacramento, the state capital, and Washington is a measure that the Obama administration estimated would eliminate as much as six billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and save consumers more than $1 trillion at the pump over the lifetime of the cars affected.

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Mary D. Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board. Credit... Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times

For now, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the E.P.A., has said that he will not seek to revoke the federal waiver that allows California to set auto emissions standards - an action that would likely propel the issue to court. Automakers, similarly, have not publicly asked for such a move.

Still, the auto industry has hardly conceded defeat, several industry officials said. The car companies are urging California to negotiate a loosening of the current standards.

"We all have a common stake in working together," said Mitch Bainwol, president and chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents 12 major automakers in the United States. Automakers, he said, want "the certainty of achievable targets."

To understand why California has long blazed the trail for the rest of the country in air quality, gaze down from the hills above Turnbull Canyon at the Los Angeles haze.

Ringed by mountains that act as a pollution trap for the fumes from the valley's cars and factories, the Los Angeles-Long Beach area consistently ranks among the nation's worst areas for ozone and particle pollution.

But California's smog was once much worse.

For much of the 20th century, swaths of Southern California were hit with smog outbreaks that turned the skies so dark that locals once mistook a particularly intense episode for a solar eclipse. Crops wilted; school events were canceled; Hollywood studios shut down their outdoor shoots.

The state moved quickly to regulate the obvious sources, like factory smoke stacks, steel mills and coal power plants. Yet the acrid smog persisted.

"You couldn't see the mountains around L.A. on smoggy days," said John R. Balmes, a physician, air pollution expert and a member of CARB's board, who has lived in the region for almost four decades. "People's eyes would burn. They'd have headaches. They'd have problems breathing."

Two views of a smoggy Los Angeles from 1951. Credit... Bob Landry/Time & Life Pictures, via Getty Images

It took Arie J. Haagen-Smit, a Dutch biochemist at the California Institute of Technology, to link the smog to auto emissions. An avid gardener, he become alarmed in the late 1940s by the discolored leaves and flowers in his garden. He soon tracked down the culprit: the largely invisible exhaust from motor vehicles or factories was reacting with sunlight, forming ozone, or smog.

Major automakers disputed the chemist's findings. But a determined Dr. Haagen-Smit pressed his case, recreating smog in flasks to release at public hearings - proving, beyond a doubt, that cars were the source. That fervor elevated him to a job as the first chairman of the state's air resources board, set up by then Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967.

When Congress established the E.P.A. in 1970 and passed the Clean Air Act later that year, California was granted a waiver to follow air pollution rules it had already established.

In facing off with the auto industry, Ms. Nichols has harnessed a similar passion.

At a March meeting of the CARB board - where she and her fellow board members resolved to push ahead with stricter emissions rules for cars and trucks, with or without the federal government - she stared down the auto industry representatives present.

No matter that Ms. Nichols, a former environmental lawyer and Wall Street Journal reporter who is known to keep a grueling schedule shuttling between CARB's Sacramento headquarters and her Los Angeles home, was nursing a cold and "could barely croak."

"What were you thinking when you threw yourselves upon the mercy of the Trump administration to try to solve your problems?" she scolded. "Let's take action today, and let's move on."

Ms. Nichols is on her second tour as chairwoman of the air resources board; the current California governor, Jerry Brown, appointed her in 1979, during his first stint in office. She was again tapped to head the board in 2007, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked her to return.

A clean-car evangelist, she is often seen driving around Los Angeles, where she lives, in her zero-emissions Honda Fit in "electric violet blue." (She recently leased a second vehicle, a Toyota Mirai, a zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cell car, also in blue.)

The Air Resources Board's Arie Jan Haagen-Smit Laboratory in El Monte, Calif. The lab tests emissions from thousands of cars, motorcycles and other vehicles each year. Credit... Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times

She initially lauded automakers for supporting an effort, started by President Obama in 2009, to harmonize a mishmash of greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy standards set by the E.P.A., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and CARB. Having taken almost $80 billion in bailout money, General Motors and Chrysler, especially, were in no position to resist.

Still, the automakers soon balked at the ambitious pace of fuel efficiency improvements under the program, which requires automakers to progressively raise the fuel economy of their cars to an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, nearly double the average in 2012. That comes to about 36 miles per gallon in real-world driving.

That aggressive target would compel automakers to speed the development of hybrid and electric cars, and to improve the fuel efficiency of their conventional fleets. Automakers also argued that meeting that target would be prohibitively costly, forcing them to raise car prices or to make more battery-powered vehicles than Americans want to buy.

In a compromise, the automakers agreed to the program, provided that the standards for the later years - 2022-25 - would be subject to a midterm review.

That review was in full swing when Mr. Trump won the presidency in late 2016. Just a day after his electoral victory, the Auto Alliance reached out to the president-elect, urging him to rework the standards, calling them a "substantial challenge" for the auto industry.

In a similarly swift maneuver, the Obama administration cut short the review and finalized the rules, calling them "feasible, practical and appropriate," just before leaving office.

The automakers doubled down. In a Feb. 21 letter, the auto industry alliance implored Mr. Pruitt, the E.P.A. head, to overturn President Obama's 11th-hour decision. The standards, the alliance argued, "threaten to depress an industry that can ill afford spiraling regulatory costs."

The E.P.A. has reversed President Obama's decision. Last month, the agency officially called for comments on standards for model years 2021-25, widening the review's scope. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which focuses mostly on auto safety, not emissions, is expected to lead the review.

"We're going to work on the CAFE standards so you can make cars in America again," Mr. Trump said in a speech in Detroit this year, referring to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which were first put in place in 1975.

For a meaningful reprieve, however, automakers need Ms. Nichols on board. If CARB does not sign onto the reopened review, the automakers face the prospect of separate rules for California and its follower states - a coalition that covers more than 130 million residents and more than a third of the vehicle market in the United States.

Ms. Nichols is not budging. At the first public hearing on the reopened midterm review last week, CARB's emissions compliance chief, Annette Hebert, threatened to abandon the review if the E.P.A. took steps to weaken the emissions standards.

Should the agency try to curtail California's ability to set its own rules - by challenging its Clean Air Act waiver, for example - the fight will more than likely end in court, said Kevin Poloncarz, a San Francisco lawyer focusing on air and climate change law.

"Pulling that waiver would be like declaring an all-out war on California," he said.

Even in California, some critics challenge the expansive powers of a board of unelected officials with the authority to set environmental policy. All but two of the board's 14 voting members are appointed by the governor, and today include a doctor, an almond farmer and a paint company executive.

Over the years, CARB has expanded its reach, regulating products as diverse as lawn mowers and bulldozers, air fresheners, paint thinners and even hair and bug spray. It has sent inspectors to Tokyo and Stuttgart, Germany, to monitor the testing of cars manufactured overseas. And it oversees a system of air-quality management districts across California that issue and enforce their own local regulations.

Over the years, CARB has expanded its reach, regulating products as diverse as lawn mowers and bulldozers, air fresheners, paint thinners and even hair and bug spray. Credit... Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times

The agency is insulated even from state budgetary and legislative pressures. Its $956 million budget comes from user fees, like permits paid by polluters or the fees paid by car owners for smog certification, instead of from the state's general fund.

Accusations of overreach exploded in 2015, when Mr. Brown made a push to require a 50 percent reduction in petroleum use in motor vehicles by 2030, with CARB managing the reduction. Republicans and even some Democrats balked at the plan, and an oil industry campaign warned that the law would vastly expand CARB's authority and could even lead to gas rationing.

The governor eventually abandoned his push. He also signed legislation allowing the state Senate and Assembly to appoint one member each to the CARB board, enhancing lawmakers' control over the agency.

"What worries me is that they have unrestrained power," said Mike Morrell, a Republican state senator who is one of CARB's toughest critics. "They think they're the masters of the universe."

CARB's Arie Jan Haagen-Smit Laboratory in El Monte, Calif., is a reminder of the resources at the agency's command.

At the lab, 120 technicians measure emissions on new engines before they can be used in cars sold in California. They also pull cars from the road to make sure older models stay compliant. A failed test can delay certification, or in the case of an older model, an expensive recall.

Engineers at the lab helped expose Volkswagen's diesel emissions cheating, a scandal that affected about 600,000 cars in the United States. The lab is now strengthening its testing, and will move to a new state-of-the-art new facility in Riverside by 2020.

Even as CARB remains steadfast, however, Ms. Nichols is eager to persuade automakers that they ultimately stand to benefit from stricter fuel economy rules.

This year, Britain and France proposed to end the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. Volvo recently said that the models it introduces starting in 2019 will be either hybrids or powered solely by batteries.

Without an aggressive shift toward zero- and low-emissions cars, the American auto industry risks becoming a global laggard, Ms. Nichols said. It is no time, she said, to be meddling with standards already in place.

"We want to start conversations about post-2025," Ms. Nichols said. "That's what we're getting ready for."

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U.S. Climate Change Policy: Made in California (Published 2017)

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A peculiar confluence of history, legal precedent and defiance has set the stage for a regulatory mutiny in California that would reverberate throughout the country. Central Los Angeles. Credit... Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times SACRAMENTO - The Trump administration may appear to control climate policy in Washington, but the nation's most dynamic environmental regulator is here in California.

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The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war?

Stephan Schmitz

Arizona also made sure cities couldn't ban the gifts in Happy Meals (cities elsewhere had talked about outlawing them, on the theory that they lure kids to McDonald's), and when some of its cities cracked down on puppy mills, it barred local regulation of pet breeders, too. Cities in Oklahoma can't regulate e-cigarettes. Mississippi decreed that towns can't ban sugary drinks, and the beverage industry is expected to press other states to follow suit.

From Our March 2017 Issue

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Most of these laws enforce conservative policy preferences. That's partly because Republicans enjoy unprecedented control in state capitals-they hold 33 governorships and majorities in 32 state legislatures. The trend also reflects a broader shift: Americans are in the midst of what's been called "the Big Sort," as they flock together with people who share similar socioeconomic profiles and politics. In general, that means rural areas are becoming more conservative, and cities more liberal. Even the reddest states contain liberal cities: Half of the U.S. metro areas with the biggest recent population gains are in the South, and they are Democratic. Texas alone is home to four such cities; Clinton carried each of them. Increasingly, the most important political and cultural divisions are not between red and blue states but between red states and the blue cities within.

Nowhere has this tension been more dramatic than in North Carolina. The state made headlines last March when its GOP-dominated general assembly abruptly overturned a Charlotte ordinance banning discrimination against LGBT people (and stating, among other things, that transgender people could use the bathroom of their choice). Legislators didn't just reverse Charlotte's ordinance, though; the state law, HB2, also barred every city in the state from passing nondiscrimination regulations, and banned local minimum-wage laws, too.

North Carolina's legislature wasn't new to preemption-previously, it had banned sanctuary cities, prohibited towns from destroying guns confiscated by the police, and blocked local fracking regulations. It had restructured the Greensboro city council so as to dilute Democratic clout. In Wake County, home to Raleigh, it had redrawn the districts for both the school board and county commission, shifting power from urban to suburban voters. The state had seized Asheville's airport and tried to seize its water system too. Lawmakers had also passed a bill wresting control of Charlotte's airport from the city and handing it to a new commission.

HB2 was different, though-it set off a fierce nationwide backlash, including a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit and boycotts by businesses, sports leagues, and musicians. Since corporate expansions, conventions, and concerts tend to take place in cities, North Carolina's cities have suffered the most. Within two months of HB2's passage, Charlotte's Chamber of Commerce estimated that the city had lost nearly $285 million and 1,300 jobs-and that was before the NBA yanked its 2017 All-Star Game from the city. Asheville, a bohemian tourist magnet in the Blue Ridge Mountains, lost millions from canceled conferences alone.

For Asheville residents, the series of preemption bills felt like bullying. "People are furious. They're confused," Esther Manheimer, Asheville's mayor, told me as her city battled to retain control of its water system. "We're a very desirable city to live in. We're on all the top-10 lists. How would anyone have an issue with the way Asheville is running its city, or the things that the people of Asheville value?"

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The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war? Arizona also made sure cities couldn't ban the gifts in Happy Meals (cities elsewhere had talked about outlawing them, on the theory that they lure kids to McDonald's), and when some of its cities cracked down on puppy mills, it barred local regulation of pet breeders, too.

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Alaska tribes and state sign historic document on tribal child welfare

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The agreement formalized Thursday in Anchorage on the opening day of the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention allows expanded tribal authority.

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast

There is a political crackup happening in America.

There remain two major political parties in this country, but there are stark fissures within each. There seem to be roughly at least four stripes of politics today - the pragmatic left (think: Obama-Clinton, the left-of-center establishment Democrats), the pragmatic right (the Bush-McCain-Bob Corker Republican), the populist right (Trump's America) and the populist left (Bernie Sanders liberals).

But a new political typology out Tuesday from the Pew Research Center, based on surveys of more than 5,000 adults conducted over the summer, goes even deeper. It finds eight distinct categories of political ideology (nine if you include "bystanders," those not engaged with politics).

They are as follows, from most conservative to most liberal (in part based on how many of them crossover between the two major parties. It also mostly tracks with their approval or Trump):

1. Core Conservatives - 13 percent of the general public

2. Country First Conservatives - 6 percent

3. Market Skeptic Republicans - 12 percent

4. New Era Enterprisers - 11 percent

5. Devout and Diverse - 9 percent

6. Disaffected Democrats - 14 percent

7. Opportunity Democrats - 12 percent

8. Solid Liberals - 16 percent

(You can take their quiz and see what you are here.)

While the Solid Liberals and Core Conservatives make up less than a third of the total population, they make up almost half of the most politically engaged. Because of that, they have an outsize influence in U.S. politics.

They are also, predictably, the most interested in the 2018 election. There's a stark drop off in interest in the midterms among any other group, and that points to yet again a midterm election where the most activist dominate and there's a drop in turnout from a presidential year.

Meanwhile, Pew also identified a sizable portion of the American population that are essentially political "bystanders." They're not engaged with politics, not registered to vote, young and majority-minority. And there's a lot of them - 8 percent of the population, or roughly 20 million people.

Overall, Pew sums up its findings, in a new 150-page report, this way:

"Nearly a year after Donald Trump was elected president, the Republican coalition is deeply divided on such major issues as immigration, America's role in the world and the fundamental fairness of the U.S. economic system.

"The Democratic coalition is largely united in staunch opposition to President Trump. Yet, while Trump's election has triggered a wave of political activism within the party's sizable liberal bloc, the liberals' sky-high political energy is not nearly as evident among other segments in the Democratic base. And Democrats also are internally divided over U.S. global involvement, as well as some religious and social issues."

Here's how the eight groups break down:

Republican leaners - four groups

1. Core Conservatives
13 percent of the country, 31 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of politically engaged Republicans
They are, as Pew describes:

Male dominated and financially comfortable

In favor of smaller government and lower corporate tax rates

Of the belief that the U.S. economic system is fair - four-fifths don't believe the government can afford to do more for needy Americans and that blacks who can't get ahead are responsible for their own condition

Believers in U.S. involvement in the global economy. You might call them "globalists."

Not very socially conservative - a majority don't think immigrants are a burden and just over a third believes homosexuality should be discouraged by society.

And yet this group approves strongly of Trump. Fully 93 percent approve of the president's job performance, the highest of any group. It's even more than the Country First category, and you'll see why that might be surprising in the next section.

This could simply be the product of Core Conservatives being more politically engaged generally - and more likely to wear the "GOP" T-shirt.

2. Country First
6 percent of the country, 14 percent of Republicans, 14 percent of politically engaged Republicans
They are:

Older and less educated than other Republican-leaning voters

Unhappy with the direction of the country

Nationalist - they believe the country is too open to immigrants and that Americans risk "losing our identity as a nation" because of it

Protectionist - they don't like the U.S. involved around the world and they think immigrants are a burden

Not of the belief that the government should do more to help the needy (70 percent) and they believe that blacks who can't get ahead are responsible for their own condition (76 percent)

Socially conservative - they believe that homosexuality should be discouraged by society (70 percent)

Populist - they're less likely than most other Republicans to believe the U.S. economic system is fair to most Americans

3. Market Skeptic Republicans
12 percent of the country, 22 percent of Republicans, but only 17 percent of the most politically engaged
They are:

Populist - they believe banks and financial institutions have a negative effect on the direction of the country; 94 percent believe the economic system favors the powerful. That is much closer to Solid Liberals than Core Conservatives. And they do not believe that U.S. economy is fair to most - just 5 percent think so. This is a major distinction between them and the other GOP-leaning groups

In favor of raising taxes on corporations and small businesses - the only GOP-leaning group to feel that way

Of the belief that government can't afford to do more to help needy Americans. A strong majority (58 percent) says so, but they are the least likely Republican leaning group to feel that way.

Of the belief that blacks who can't get ahead are responsible for their own condition.

Fairly socially liberal - just 31 percent believe homosexuality should be discouraged by society

Somewhat protectionist, though less than Country First Republicans - they are split on U.S. involvement around the globe

4. New Era Enterprisers
11 percent of the country, 17 percent of Republicans, 16 percent of the most engaged Republicans
They are:

Youngest of the Republican-leaning categories, with an average age of 47

Optimistic about the country - they are the most likely group to believe the next generation will be better off

Pro-business and trade (they're globalists, too), of the belief that the economy is generally fair to most Americans (75 percent say so)

Of the belief that being involved around the globe is good for markets

Socially liberal - believing immigrants are not a burden and that homosexuality should not be discouraged by society

Somewhat more diverse - two-thirds are white, but that's the lowest of all other GOP-leaning groups

Democratic leaners - four groups

5. Devout and Diverse
9 percent of the country, 11 percent of Democrats, just 6 percent of the most politically engaged
They are:

Majority-minority, struggling financially, older and the least educated of the Democratic-leaning categories. Just 15 percent have college degrees

Very religious. Nearly two-thirds believe it is necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values

Politically mixed. A quarter are Republicans. It's the category with the most crossover.

The strongest Democratic-leaning group to believe the U.S. should pay more attention at home than to problems overseas

Largely pro-business and don't believe government regulation is necessary to protect the public's interest

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the most pro-Trump Democratic group (though 60 percent still disapprove of him), but...

Of the belief that government should provide safety nets like everyone having health care and that the country needs to still make changes to advance racial equality

6. Disaffected Democrats
14 percent of the country, 23 percent of Democrats, 11 percent of the most politically engaged
The label doesn't have to do with their disaffection with the Democratic Party. They actually regard the Democratic Party very favorably. But rather they're disaffected with government (most of them say government is "wasteful and inefficient"); politics generally (most believe voting does not give them a say in how government runs); and the direction of the country.

They're also:

Majority-minority, lower educated, financially stressed - and fairly young (with an average age of 44)

Anti-Trump, pro-social safety net and believe the U.S. needs to continue making changes to affect racial equality.

Split, however, on whether hard work can help you get ahead

Not of the belief government regulation is necessary to protect the public interest

Of the belief that the U.S. should pay more attention to problems at home.

7. Opportunity Democrats
12 percent of the country, 20 percent of Democrats, 13 percent of the most politically engaged
They are:

Majority white and working-to-middle-class, and only a third have college degrees

Largely liberal when it comes to the role of government, strongly in disapproval of Trump and two-thirds believe the country needs to do more to give blacks equal rights to whites (though that's the lowest of the four Democratic-leaning groups), but...

Very much in disagreement with other Democratic-leaning groups about the ability to make it in the U.S. through hard work. They believe strongly that you can. But they are not protectionist. They believe in global engagement.

8. Solid Liberals
16 percent of the country, 33 percent of Democrats, 25 percent of the most politically engaged
They are:

Largely white, well-educated and comfortable financially

Young (average age of only 44)

Unified, almost unanimously in their disapproval of Trump (99 percent disapprove). And they are activist about it - half say they have contributed to a candidate or campaign in the past year. For context, just a third of Core Conservatives say the same. Four-in-10 Solid Liberals say they've participated in a protest against Trump's policies.

Unified in their belief that government has the responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care and have a strong sense of racial justice. There is near-unanimous agreement among this group that the country needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites

Of the belief that hard work and determination are no guarantee of success in the United States. Nearly three-quarters of this group says so, and this is an area where they largely differ from the other three Democratic groups as well as the Republican-leaning categories.

Strongly of the belief that it's necessary to regulate businesses to protect the public interest, another area where they differ with half of the Democratic-leaning categories and all of the Republican-leaning ones

Very much globalists. Very few, just one-in-10, believe the U.S. should pay less attention overseas and focus more on problems at home. That is a major difference with two of the Democratic-leaning categories and three of the Republican-leaning ones

Largely nonreligious. Just 9 percent believe it's necessary to believe in God to be moral and have good values

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2-Party System? Americans Might Be Ready For 8

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subscribe to The NPR Politics Podcast podcast There is a political crackup happening in America. There remain two major political parties in this country, but there are stark fissures within each.

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The plaintiff in the other free-speech case, Packingham v. North Carolina, was far less sympathetic. When he was a 21-year-old college student in 2002, Lester Packingham pled guilty to a sexual crime involving a 13-year-old girl. North Carolina law automatically required him to register in the state's sex-offender database. Six years later, the state passed a law making it a felony for registered sex offenders to access a "commercial social-networking site." The statute defined what falls under that definition with incredible breadth: Alito wrote in his concurring opinion that accessing Amazon, Walmart, and WebMD could violate the law.

In Packingham's case, the accessed website was closer to what the law's drafters seemed to have in mind. After winning a traffic-court dispute in 2010, he posted a celebratory remark on Facebook. "Man God is Good!" Packingham wrote. "How about I got so much favor they dismissed the ticket before court even started? No fine, no court cost, no nothing spent. . . . . .Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS!" A police officer saw the statement and arrested him for it; Packingham's lawyers say more than 1,000 other registrants have been charged and tried under the same provision.

The eight justices who heard his case-Neil Gorsuch didn't join the Court in time to participate in Packingham or Tam -unanimously ruled in his favor and struck down the North Carolina statute in question. But they sharply differed in their style and approach to the underlying issues. Kennedy, for example, adopted the contemplative, nebulous tone he typically reserves for landmark decisions on abortion or LGBT rights.

"While we now may be coming to the realization that the cyber age is a revolution of historic proportions, we cannot appreciate yet its full dimensions and vast potential to alter how we think, express ourselves, and define who we want to be," he wrote for the Court. "The forces and directions of the internet are so new, so protean, and so far reaching that courts must be conscious that what they say today might be obsolete tomorrow."

From Kennedy's perspective, this meant the Court should exercise "extreme caution" before limiting the First Amendment's application to the internet, even when the restrictions target one of society's most universally loathed groups. "It is unsettling to suggest that only a limited set of websites can be used even by persons who have completed their sentences," he explained. "Even convicted criminals-and in some instances especially convicted criminals-might receive legitimate benefits from these means for access to the world of ideas, in particular if they seek to reform and to pursue lawful and rewarding lives."

Kennedy's opinion drew some criticism from Alito, who concurred with the overall result but wrote separately because of his dissatisfaction with Kennedy's "undisciplined dicta," the formal term for the extraneous parts of a judge's opinion that don't directly affect the case itself. "The Court is unable to resist musings that seem to equate the entirety of the internet with public streets and parks," Alito wrote, metonymously referring to Kennedy and his majority opinion's sweeping language. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas joined him.

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The Supreme Court Offers a Warning on Free Speech

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The plaintiff in the other free-speech case, Packingham v. North Carolina, was far less sympathetic. When he was a 21-year-old college student in 2002, Lester Packingham pled guilty to a sexual crime involving a 13-year-old girl. North Carolina law automatically required him to register in the state's sex-offender database.

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Children and young people are often the ones brave enough to challenge the constitutional status quo. In Supreme Court cases like Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, students' fearlessness pushed the issue of free speech in public schools into the national spotlight. So it was that on June 14, 1943, another such child won a landmark victory for student speech.

The case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, was decided in the shadow of a dispute from three years earlier. Both cases involved members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, a religion that calls them to not pledge to any symbol or object. The sect's U.S. leader, Joseph Rutherford, required that followers renounce the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag, which sources say came from the contemporaneous annihilation of dissident Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany for similar offenses against the Nazi flag.

In the earlier 1940 case of Minersville School District v. Gobitis, children Lillian and William Gobitas (the Court spelled their name incorrectly) were expelled from a Pennsylvania public school for not participating in the Pledge. When brought to the court, Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote the majority opinion. He concluded that freedom of religion and speech, along with the right to due process, do not apply to the promotion of "political responsibilities." Specifically, he wrote, "The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities."

Frankfurter went on:

[T]he question remains whether school children, like the Gobitis children, must be excused from conduct required of all the other children in the promotion of national cohesion. We are dealing with an interest inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values. National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression of opinion through distribution of handbills.

After the 8-1 Minersville decision, in which Justice Harlan Fiske Stone was the sole dissenter, states had the authority to force children to participate in the Pledge. The Court maintained for only three years that "national cohesion" was of higher interest than one's personal beliefs.

In West Virginia v. Barnette, the Court's Minersville decision was overruled. Justice Robert Jackson wrote the 6-3 majority opinion, with Frankfurter now in dissent.

Jackson emphasizes that free expression overrides the goal of national unity. A compulsory flag pledge goes against the fundamental values of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression and thought from government intrusion in all but the most extreme cases. He concludes his opinion with a stirring reflection on the dangers of forced "unity" and the importance of individual liberty:

The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure, but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. ... [F]reedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

Joined by Justices Owen Roberts and Stanley Reed in dissent, but writing alone, Frankfurter holds fast to a strong notion of judicial restraint:

As a member of this Court, I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard. ... In the light of all the circumstances, including the history of this question in this Court, it would require more daring than I possess to deny that reasonable legislators could have taken the action which is before us for review.

NFL player Colin Kaepernick brought these two perspectives into think-piece spotlight in 2016, when he kneeled during a performance of the National Anthem. Surely, many Americans watching that situation were sympathetic to Frankfurter, believing that "the promotion of good citizenship" is a legitimate goal that should not be undermined. Yet others may have channeled Jackson in arguing that Americans should be free to refuse any kind of pledge to people or things that they may not fully agree with.

Seventy-four years after West Virginia v. Barnette, patriotism and free speech still collide now and then. Such debates remind us that individual expression can be criticized and yet still protected by the First Amendment.
Symone Mazzotta is an intern at the National Constitution Center. She is also a recent graduate of Fairfield University. Recent Historical Stories on Constitution Daily How much do you know about the American flag? The Miranda warning is born 51 years ago today On this day, Congress approved the 14th Amendment

Filed Under: Education, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Supreme Court

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West Virginia v. Barnette: The freedom to not pledge allegiance

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Children and young people are often the ones brave enough to challenge the constitutional status quo. In Supreme Court cases like Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier , students' fearlessness pushed the issue of free speech in public schools into the national spotlight.

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Among the most controversial of all Supreme Court decisions happened in 1989, when a divided Court allowed flag burning as protected free speech. So how did the Court choose to make an unpopular decision about an American institution?

Anthony Kennedy

The battle in the courts over people burning the American flag, or doing other offensive acts to the flag, dates back to 1907. In the prior decade, states started passing laws than banned flag desecration, which not only included laws protecting the flag from physical abuse, but also from commercial abuse.

The Court said in the 1907 case of Halter v. Nebraska that two businessmen couldn't sell beer that had flag labels on the bottles, upholding a state law.

Then a 1931 case set the first precedent for the use of a flag in an act of symbolic speech under the First Amendment, when the Court struck down a California law that banned the flying of a red flag to protest against the government.

In 1968, Congress approved the Federal Flag Desecration Law after a Vietnam War protest. The law made it illegal to "knowingly" cast "contempt" upon "any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon it."

The Court moved toward its historic 1989 decision about flag burning in 1974, when it said in Spence v. Washington that a person couldn't be convicted for using tape to put a peace sign on an American flag. The decision made it clear that a majority of the Court saw the act as protected expression under the First Amendment.

During the decade, states narrowed the focus on their flag desecration laws, but they still prohibited flag burning and other acts of mutilation.

The issue was then settled, at least in the Supreme Court, in the controversial Texas v. Johnson decision.

In protest of President Ronald Reagan's administrative policies, Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag outside the City Hall building in Dallas, Texas, in 1984. Many onlookers said the scene was deeply offensive, a sentiment that represented the popular majority's view on the matter.

Texas arrested Johnson and convicted him of breaking a Texas state law that prohibited desecration of the flag of the United States. Johnson was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine.

Johnson appealed his conviction, claiming First Amendment protection, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stated that Johnson's speech was symbolic and ruled in his favor.

The Supreme Court took the case, and in a very unusual majority, the Court voted 5-4 in favor of Johnson. Johnson's actions, the majority argued, were symbolic speech political in nature and could be expressed even at the affront of those who disagreed with him.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing a regular concurrence, spelled out his reasoning succinctly.

"The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result," Kennedy said. "And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases.

"Though symbols often are what we ourselves make of them, the flag is constant in expressing beliefs Americans share, beliefs in law and peace and that freedom which sustains the human spirit. The case here today forces recognition of the costs to which those beliefs commit us. It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt," he said.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in his dissent said that, "the flag is not simply another 'idea' or 'point of view' competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas."

"I cannot agree that the First Amendment invalidates the Act of Congress, and the laws of 48 of the 50 States, which make criminal the public burning of the flag," he said.

In reaction to the Johnson decision, which only applied to the state of Texas, Congress passed an anti-flag burning law called the Flag Protection Act of 1989.

But in 1990, the Court struck down that law as unconstitutional.

"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable," said Justice William Brennan.

The case remains controversial to the present day, and Congress has, as recently as 2006, attempted to amend the Constitution to prohibit flag desecration, with the effort failing by one vote in the Senate.

Recent Historical Stories on Constitution Daily

10 facts about President George H.W. Bush for his 91st birthday

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Filed Under: First Amendment, Supreme Court

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Inside the Supreme Court's flag burning decision

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Among the most controversial of all Supreme Court decisions has its 25th anniversary this month, when a divided Court in June 1989 allowed flag burning as protected free speech. So how did the Court choose to make an unpopular decision about an American institution?

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Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States

Full case name
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Incorporated v. United States, et al.

Citations

379 U.S. 241 (more)

Prior

Judgment for defendant, 231 F. Supp. 393 ( N.D. Ga. 1964); probable jurisdiction noted, 379 U.S. 803 (1964).

Subsequent

None

Congress did not unconstitutionally exceed its powers under the Commerce Clause by enacting Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations. Northern District of Georgia affirmed.

Chief Justice

Earl Warren

Associate Justices

Hugo Black · William O. Douglas
Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II
William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart
Byron White · Arthur Goldberg

Majority

Clark, joined by Warren, Douglas, Harlan, Brennan, Stewart, White, Goldberg

Concurrence

Black

Concurrence

Douglas

Concurrence

Goldberg

U.S. Const. art. I
Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the Commerce Clause gave the U.S. Congress power to force private businesses to abide by Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin in public accommodations.

This important case represented an immediate challenge to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark piece of civil rights legislation which represented the first comprehensive act by Congress on civil rights and race relations since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In the 100 years preceding 1964, African Americans in the United States had been subjected to racial segregation, a system of racial separation which, while in name providing for " separate but equal" treatment of both white and African Americans, in fact provided inferior accommodation, services, and treatment for African Americans.

During the mid-20th century, partly as a result of cases such as Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932); Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950); McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950); NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958); Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960); and, most notably, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), public opinion began to turn against segregation. Despite the outcomes of these cases, segregation remained in full effect into the 1960s in parts of the southern United States, where the Heart of Atlanta Motel was located.

Petitioner's argument

The Heart of Atlanta Motel was a large, 216-room motel that opened on September 5, 1956 in Atlanta, Georgia. In direct violation of the terms of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned racial discrimination in public places, largely based on Congress's control of interstate commerce, the motel refused to rent rooms to African-American patrons. The owner, Moreton Rolleston, filed suit in federal court, arguing that the requirements of the Act exceeded the authority the Commerce Clause granted to Congress over interstate commerce. Rolleston specifically argued against Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation. Hotels and motels are included as types of public accommodation in the Act, and so are restaurants that serve food substantially to those who participate in interstate travel. In further arguing against the validity of the Act's basis on the Commerce Clause, he stated that people themselves are not commerce; rather, people engage in commerce. Therefore, a hotel or motel does not necessarily engage in interstate commerce because the profit comes from persons rather than goods. Rolleston also asserted that racial discrimination by an individual is not prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment or the Constitution, claiming that discrimination is a private wrong that individuals are allowed to commit.

In addition, Rolleston maintained that it violated his Fifth Amendment rights to choose customers and operate his business as he wished and resulted in unjust deprivation of his property without due process of law and just compensation. Finally, he contended that Congress had placed him in a position of involuntary servitude by forcing him to rent available rooms to African Americans, thereby violating his Thirteenth Amendment rights. Rolleston noted that in 1944 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for the United States held that even if acts committed in involuntary servitude are compensated, it still violates the Thirteenth Amendment.

Rolleston maintained throughout his argument that the Constitution should be interpreted as it was at the time of its creation and as the Framers originally intended it. He concluded his opening argument by stating that the Supreme Court did not need to exist if the Commerce Clause allowed for Congress to enact any regulations it pleases.

Respondent's argument

In response, Archibald Cox, the Solicitor General for the United States, countered that the restrictions requiring adequate accommodation for African Americans were unquestionably related to interstate travel and that Congress, under the Constitution's Commerce Clause, certainly had the power to address such a matter in law. Cox stated that racial discrimination in inns and restaurants "constitute[s] a source of burden or obstruction to interstate commerce." He brought up multiple examples in which protests over racial discrimination, some in regards to public accommodations and some with broader scopes, intensely affected the economy of certain areas. One of the prime examples was Birmingham, Alabama in the spring of 1963, during which department and downtown store sales dropped dramatically in the area and the amount of business failure rivaled the rates of the Great Depression. Cox also mentioned that areas that do not practice equal opportunity are often overlooked by companies that seek commercial and industrial expansion due to the possibility of demonstrations. He used Little Rock, Arkansas to exemplify this point, as business expansion fell by over 50 million dollars in the two years it experienced high racial tensions.

Cox also highlighted how discrimination by hotels and motels hinders interstate travel by limiting the availability of accommodations for travelers. He described the impediment discrimination imposes with a hypothetical road trip:

On a motor trip between Washington D.C. and Miami, Florida, the average distance that was found between accommodations of reasonable quality open to Negroes was 141 miles. And when we think of the frequency by such we go by other hotels and motels open to everyone, the significance of a three or four-hour drive between the hope of accommodation is very significant indeed. - Archibald Cox

He further argued that the Fifth Amendment does not forbid reasonable regulation of interstate commerce and that such incidental damage did not constitute the "taking" of property without just compensation or due process of law. He emphasized that the courts have consistently sustained cases that strengthen anti-discrimination measures. Lastly, he asserted that the Thirteenth Amendment applies primarily to slavery and the removal of widespread disabilities associated with it and so it undoubtedly would not place issues of racial discrimination in public accommodations beyond the reach of federal and state law:

But surely it would turn the world quite upside down for anyone to seriously suggest that the Thirteenth Amendment was intended to prohibit either Congress or the state governments from guaranteeing Negroes equality of treatment in places of public accommodation. - Archibald Cox

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in favor of the United States and issued a permanent injunction requiring the Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. to refrain from using racial discrimination when providing services or goods to guests or the general public on its premises. The case was combined with the case of the future Governor of Georgia Lester Maddox, regarding his Pickrick restaurant and his refusal to serve African Americans.

The opinion of the court, announced on December 14, 1964, was delivered by Justice Tom C. Clark, with concurring opinions by Justice Arthur Goldberg, Justice Hugo Black, and Justice William O. Douglas.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that Congress acted well within its authority under the Commerce Clause in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thereby upholding the act's Title II in question. While it might have been possible for Congress to pursue other methods for abolishing racial discrimination, the way in which Congress did so, according to the Court, was perfectly valid. It found no merit in the arguments pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment, finding it difficult to conceive that such an amendment might be applicable in restraining civil rights legislation. Having observed that 75% of the Heart of Atlanta Motel's clientele came from out-of-state and that it was strategically located near Interstates 75 and 85 as well as two major Georgia highways, the Court found that the business clearly affected interstate commerce. Accordingly, it upheld the permanent injunction issued by the district court and required the Heart of Atlanta Motel to receive business from the clientele of all ethnicities.

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States has been cited in at least 690 other case decisions since its ruling, including multiple other Supreme Court cases. A notable example includes the 1997 case Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, in which a summer camp in Maine that mainly serviced out-of-state residents fought against a state tax exemption statute that favored organizations that serviced state residents. The courts compared out-of-state campers staying at a summer camp to out-of-state residents occupying a hotel, deeming the camp a participant in interstate commerce. Another example is the 1966 case United States v. Guest, in which the courts ruled, due to the conspiratorial murder of Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn while he was traveling home, that forcefully depriving someone's right to travel is unconstitutional.

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Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States - Wikipedia

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Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States Full case name Heart of Atlanta Motel, Incorporated v. United States, et al. Citations 379 U.S. 241 (more ) Prior Judgment for defendant, 231 F. Supp. 393 ( N.D. Ga. 1964); probable jurisdiction noted, 379 U.S. 803 (1964).

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A case in which the Court ruled that the invocation of prayer at a legislative session does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court in California on Monday let part of President Donald Trump's latest travel ban go into effect, ruling that the government can bar entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries if they have no family connections to the United States.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially granted a Trump administration request to block a lower court decision that had put the new ban on hold. The ruling affects people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Chad. It does not affect people from the two other countries listed in Trump's ban, North Korea and Venezuela.

Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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U.S. court allows part of Trump travel ban to go into effect

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A U.S. appeals court in California on Monday let part of President Donald Trump's latest travel ban go into effect, ruling that the government can bar entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries if they have no family connections to the United States.

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Hate Speech is protected speech

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From today's opinion by Justice Samuel Alito (for four justices) in Matal v. Tam, the "Slants" case:

[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend ... strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express "the thought that we hate."

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote separately, also for four justices, but on this point the opinions agreed:

A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an "egregious form of content discrimination," which is "presumptively unconstitutional." ... A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government's benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

And the justices made clear that speech that some view as racially offensive is protected not just against outright prohibition but also against lesser restrictions. In Matal, the government refused to register "The Slants" as a band's trademark, on the ground that the name might be seen as demeaning to Asian Americans. The government wasn't trying to forbid the band from using the mark; it was just denying it certain protections that trademarks get against unauthorized use by third parties. But even in this sort of program, the court held, viewpoint discrimination - including against allegedly racially offensive viewpoints - is unconstitutional. And this no-viewpoint-discrimination principle has long been seen as applying to exclusion of speakers from universities, denial of tax exemptions to nonprofits, and much more.

(Justice Neil Gorsuch wasn't on the court when the case was argued, so only eight justices participated.)

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Opinion | Supreme Court unanimously reaffirms: There is no 'hate speech' exception to the First Amendment

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From today's opinion by Justice Samuel Alito (for four justices) in Matal v. Tam , the "Slants" case: [The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend ... strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.

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privacy

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Griswold v. Connecticut , 381 U.S. 479 (1965), is a landmark case in the United States in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution, through the Bill of Rights, implies a fundamental right to privacy.

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A case in which the Court found that Arizona's state immigration provisions conflicted in part with federal immigration laws.

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A case in which the Court found that Arizona's state immigration provisions conflicted in part with federal immigration laws.

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A case in which the Court held that Congress could not require state agencies to perform federal duties under the Necessary and Proper Clause.

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GARCIA v. SAN ANTONIO METRO. TRANSIT AUTH.

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GARCIA v. SAN ANTONIO METRO. TRANSIT AUTH.

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Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Authority

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A case in which the Court ruled that Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to extend the Fair Labor Standards Act to state and local governments.

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A case in which the Court decided that the Controlled Substance Act did not ban the use of controlled substances in physician-assisted suicide, nor does the Attorney General have the power to determine what is a violation of the Act.

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The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war?

Stephan Schmitz

Arizona also made sure cities couldn't ban the gifts in Happy Meals (cities elsewhere had talked about outlawing them, on the theory that they lure kids to McDonald's), and when some of its cities cracked down on puppy mills, it barred local regulation of pet breeders, too. Cities in Oklahoma can't regulate e-cigarettes. Mississippi decreed that towns can't ban sugary drinks, and the beverage industry is expected to press other states to follow suit.

From Our March 2017 Issue

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Most of these laws enforce conservative policy preferences. That's partly because Republicans enjoy unprecedented control in state capitals-they hold 33 governorships and majorities in 32 state legislatures. The trend also reflects a broader shift: Americans are in the midst of what's been called "the Big Sort," as they flock together with people who share similar socioeconomic profiles and politics. In general, that means rural areas are becoming more conservative, and cities more liberal. Even the reddest states contain liberal cities: Half of the U.S. metro areas with the biggest recent population gains are in the South, and they are Democratic. Texas alone is home to four such cities; Clinton carried each of them. Increasingly, the most important political and cultural divisions are not between red and blue states but between red states and the blue cities within.

Nowhere has this tension been more dramatic than in North Carolina. The state made headlines last March when its GOP-dominated general assembly abruptly overturned a Charlotte ordinance banning discrimination against LGBT people (and stating, among other things, that transgender people could use the bathroom of their choice). Legislators didn't just reverse Charlotte's ordinance, though; the state law, HB2, also barred every city in the state from passing nondiscrimination regulations, and banned local minimum-wage laws, too.

North Carolina's legislature wasn't new to preemption-previously, it had banned sanctuary cities, prohibited towns from destroying guns confiscated by the police, and blocked local fracking regulations. It had restructured the Greensboro city council so as to dilute Democratic clout. In Wake County, home to Raleigh, it had redrawn the districts for both the school board and county commission, shifting power from urban to suburban voters. The state had seized Asheville's airport and tried to seize its water system too. Lawmakers had also passed a bill wresting control of Charlotte's airport from the city and handing it to a new commission.

HB2 was different, though-it set off a fierce nationwide backlash, including a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit and boycotts by businesses, sports leagues, and musicians. Since corporate expansions, conventions, and concerts tend to take place in cities, North Carolina's cities have suffered the most. Within two months of HB2's passage, Charlotte's Chamber of Commerce estimated that the city had lost nearly $285 million and 1,300 jobs-and that was before the NBA yanked its 2017 All-Star Game from the city. Asheville, a bohemian tourist magnet in the Blue Ridge Mountains, lost millions from canceled conferences alone.

For Asheville residents, the series of preemption bills felt like bullying. "People are furious. They're confused," Esther Manheimer, Asheville's mayor, told me as her city battled to retain control of its water system. "We're a very desirable city to live in. We're on all the top-10 lists. How would anyone have an issue with the way Asheville is running its city, or the things that the people of Asheville value?"

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The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war? Arizona also made sure cities couldn't ban the gifts in Happy Meals (cities elsewhere had talked about outlawing them, on the theory that they lure kids to McDonald's), and when some of its cities cracked down on puppy mills, it barred local regulation of pet breeders, too.

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President Trump is facing a lawsuit for blocking people from his Twitter account.

This week some First Amendment advocates joined the suit - and they are making a novel argument about the right to communicate with the president in the digital age.

One of the plaintiffs in the suit is Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at University of Maryland. Just like President Trump, Cohen likes to tweet. He saw an opportunity to express himself to the president by tweeting to the account @realDonaldTrump.

"I noticed right away that his Twitter feed was a place that people congregated and exchanged views," he says. "So that was the place to go to express myself."

Cohen has a verified account on Twitter - that's when you have a following and they confirm you are who you say you are. That means his tweets got to the top of the president's feed. Cohen set up an alert so that he could know when President Trump tweeted.

"If I replied right away, I could get lucky and have a lot of people read my tweets," he says.

But then, one day the president blocked him. Cohen was surprised. He says he wasn't trolling the president.

"I was basically civil," he says. "I didn't use a lot of profanity. I didn't harass people individually. I mostly made graphical memes with slogans on them like 'corrupt,' 'incompetent,' and 'authoritarian.'"

Cohen says once he was blocked, his tweets about the president reached fewer people. So he believes the blocking is censoring his ability to criticize the government.

Cohen is now one of the plaintiffs in a ground-breaking lawsuit brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Katie Fallow, a senior attorney at the institute, says the suit is based on long standing First Amendment principles, "where if the government opens up a space or hosts a kind of public forum where they allow the public to speak, they can't exclude someone from that forum based on their views."

The Twitter account @realDonaldTrump is the president's personal account. It was created before he became president. But Fallow says the president has used it to make official announcements.

"Like the replacement for the FBI director after he fired James Comey, and the transgender ban" as well as a lot of other policy announcements, says Fallow.

But it isn't just that President Trump uses the account to make official announcements. He also uses it to interact with the public.

Josh Geltzer, the founding executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center, says it's like a virtual town hall.

The institute filed a brief in support of the blocked Twitter users. He says you can exclude people from a town hall for lack of space, but not for their opinions. He points to a recent case in Virginia where a federal court found the country could not block an individual from an official county Facebook page.

Geltzer says the case was similar to this one. He says the county was trying to "shut out voices that weren't obscene or bullying, but voices that simply expressed criticism or unwanted viewpoints."

No one from the Justice Department was available in time to speak to NPR. However in its brief, the government argues that this is the president's private Twitter account. He's using it just like everyone else. Twitter is private platform with its own rules. The president has a right to block people.

All this makes for a novel case in the digital age. If the court finds against the president, it could certainly have implications on how government officials chose to use social media in the future.

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First Amendment Advocates Charge Trump Can't Block Critics On Twitter

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President Trump is facing a lawsuit for blocking people from his Twitter account. This week some First Amendment advocates joined the suit - and they are making a novel argument about the right to communicate with the president in the digital age.

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A case in which the Court ruled that the commerce clause of the Controlled Substances Act gives Congress authority to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana, despite state law to the contrary.