Monday, November 30, 2020
From Wikipedia: Ugly Laws
Ouch - this is rude.
I suppose this applies to our look at equal protection.
- Click here for the entry.
In the United Kingdom, in 1729 punishment was recommended for people with physical disabilities, whether they were born with disabilities or acquired later in life, who appeared in public.
The language of the unsightly beggar ordinances pertained to hiding the parts of the person that may appear disabled or diseased. This includes any movements that would indicate a disability or disease, like limping.[3]
The first American ordinance pertaining to preventing people with disabilities from appearing in public was one passed in 1867 in San Francisco, California. This ordinance had to do with the broader topic of begging. It is noted that people who were perhaps in need of money traveled to California to "strike it rich" during the California Gold Rush. When they did not find themselves wealthy, they remained in California. Letters and documents from the period just after the California Gold Rush note the large number of "insane" people wandering the streets. Helper (1948) even refers to the "insane" people as "pitible nuisance" and remarked that they were allowed in public with no one to care for them.
New Orleans, Louisiana had a similar law police were strictly enforcing in 1883. A New Orleans newspaper reported on the City adopting a tough stance on begging as other cities in the United States had.
Portland, Oregon enacted an ugly law in 1881.
The Chicago ordinance of 1881 read as follows:
Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, or an improper person to be allowed in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares, or public places in the city, shall not therein or thereon expose himself or herself to public view, under the penalty of a fine of $1 for each offense (Chicago City Code 1881)
The fine of $1 equates to more than $20 in 2018. In most cities, punishments for violating an ugly law ranged from incarceration to fines of up to $50 for each offense.
In May 1881, the unsightly beggar ordinance went into effect in Chicago, Illinois. It was created by Chicago alderman James Peevey. Peevey is quoted in the Chicago Tribune from May 19, 1881 saying of the ordinance, "Its object is to abolish all street obstructions." Ugly laws identified groups of people as disturbing the flow of public life and banned them from public spaces. Such people, deemed "unsightly" or "unseemly," were usually impoverished and often beggars. Thus ugly laws were methods by which lawmakers attempted to remove the poor from sight.
Friday, November 27, 2020
From the Texas Department of Banking: History of the Banking Industry in Texas and the Department
A look at how the Texas Constitution has been amended to allow for banking ot expand in the state.
- Click here for the article.
In 1865, the first national bank in Texas was organized in Galveston.
During the period 1869-1876, a number of state-chartered banks were created by special acts of the Legislature. Ten additional state banks were established under a general law passed in 1874. Only a few of these banks ever actually opened for business. From 1876 to 1900, banking in Texas was conducted by private banks, existing state banks, and national banks.
As of 1890, 148 private banks were operating in Texas.
As of 1900, 440 national banks existed in Texas.
From the Texas Tribune: Texas faces a looming $4.6 billion deficit, comptroller projects
For 2306, and a look at budgeting and the Comptrollers office.
- Click here for the article.
Those figures are a significant downward revision from Hegar’s last revenue estimate in October 2019, when the comptroller said the state would have over $121 billion to spend on its current budget and end the biennium with a surplus of nearly $2.9 billion. The state, Hegar said, will now have roughly $110 billion to work with for the current budget.
Hegar’s latest estimate, he stressed in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott and other state leaders, carries “an unprecedented amount of uncertainty” and could change drastically in the coming months, thanks to the pandemic and, to a lesser extent, a recent drop in oil prices.
“We have had to make assumptions about the economic impact of COVID-19, the duration and effects of which remain largely unknown,” Hegar wrote. “Our forecast assumes restrictions [on businesses and people] will be lifted before the end of this calendar year, but that economic activity will not return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of this biennium.”
From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: In a recession, turning to sin might save the Texas budget
The time might be right for casino gambling and marijuana.
- Click here for it.
It’s the easiest category to tax. In a state that loves to hate taxes, sin taxes are considered voluntary — just a cost of doing things that are considered unnecessary or frivolous, like smoking, drinking or gambling.
The in-person and online gaming companies are loading up.
They’re hardly alone. A dozen bills that would legalize or decriminalize marijuana for personal or medical use came in during the first week that legislation could be filed. Voters might get a chance to vote on something like this when all is said and done: “Proposing a constitutional amendment to authorize and regulate the possession, cultivation, and sale of cannabis.”
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Who is Antony Blinkin?
- Click here for his Wikipedia entry.
A look at his career - his revolving door:
1962: born
until 1971: Attended the Dalton School in New York City
?: attended Harvard University, where he worked on The Harvard Crimson
?: reported for The New Republic.
1988: graduated from Columbia Law School in 1988.
1988: worked with his father Donald in fundraisers for Michael Dukakis.
1988 - 1994: Practiced law in New Tork.
1994 - 2001: served on the United States National Security Council staff at the White House.
1994 - 1998: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning and NSC Senior Director for Speechwriting
1999 - 2001: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Canadian Affairs.
2002 - 2008: Appointed staff director for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and was also a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
2008: worked for the presidential campaign of Joe Biden, and was a member of the Obama-Biden presidential transition team.
2009 - 2013: Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President.
2014 - 2017: Deputy Secretary of State.
2017: co-founded WestExec Advisors
More on his private connections:
WestExec Advisors LLC is a consulting firm founded in 2017 by Antony Blinken, Michèle Flournoy, Sergio Aguirre, and Nitin Chadda, all former Obama adminstration officials. WestExec's clients have included Google's Jigsaw, Israeli artificial-intelligence company Windward, and "Fortune 100 types".
In an interview with The Intercept, Flournoy explained WestExec seeks to employ "people recently coming out of government" with "current knowledge, expertise, contacts, networks." The firm and its partners avoid becoming registered lobbyists or foreign agents so that they can (re)enter government service without delays. It does not disclose its clients, whose names are restricted from disclosure by non-disclosure agreements. The firm is named after West Executive Avenue, a street near the West Wing.
. . . WestExec's clients have included Google's Jigsaw, Israeli artificial-intelligence company Windward, and "Fortune 100 types"; according to Foreign Policy, the firm's clientele includes "the defense industry, private equity firms, and hedge funds". In an interview with The Intercept, Flournoy described WestExec's role as facilitating relationships between Silicon Valley firms and the Department of Defense and law enforcement; Flournoy and others compared WestExec to Kissinger Associates.
Blinken is also a partner of private equity firm Pine Island Capital Partners. According to the firm's website, Blinken worked on the D.C. partners team, which works "in tandem with the investment team to source deals, conduct analyses, win bids, close transactions, and directly advise" the firm's portfolio companies. Pine Island's chairman is John Thain, the final chairman of Merrill Lynch before its sale to Bank of America. Blinken recused himself from Pine Island Capital Partners in 2020 to serve as a senior foreign policy advisor with the Biden campaign.
Blinken is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In a 2016 speech at the CFR, Blinken advocated for internationalist and multilateralist policies
Sunday, November 22, 2020
An example of Disparate Impact?
Policy analysis would have to make sure.
From the Texas Tribune: The devastating toll of COVID-19 on El Paso illustrates the pandemic’s stark inequalities.
And now the coronavirus is devastating the city, its alarming spread a sign of the outbreak’s inequitable impact on Texans. In the nine months that the virus has been confirmed to be in the state, it has ravaged communities of color. Hispanic Texans make up about 40% of the state’s population and accounted for 55% of its known COVID-19 fatalities as of Nov. 13.
El Paso County has reported over 16,000 new cases in the last two weeks — thousands more than the numbers reported for the much larger counties home to Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth. Across the county, more than 900 residents have died of COVID since the pandemic began, placing El Paso far ahead of the state’s other major urban counties in deaths per 1,000 residents.
El Paso is far from the only predominantly Hispanic area that has been hit hard by the virus. Hidalgo and Cameron counties, both along the state’s southern border, have seen death tolls that rival larger and more urban parts of the state like Dallas and San Antonio.
Residents and community leaders say they’re shaken by the number of people who have fallen ill. They have pleaded for help but have been frustrated by the response so far.
“El Paso isn’t a rich city,” Jiminez said. “We aren’t Dallas, Austin, Houston or San Antonio. We’re like the redheaded stepchild of Texas.”
From TSHA: Raymondville Peonage Cases
The use of debt to limit freedom and mobility.
- Click here for the entry.
The Raymondville peonage cases, which were the first of their kind in Texas history, were tried in the Nueces County federal court in January 1927. Residents of Willacy County were arraigned for violation of federal statutes prohibiting peonage. Among the defendants were Sheriff Raymond Teller, Carl Brandt, Frank Brandt, Justice of the Peace Floyd Dodd, L. K. Stockwell, C. S. Stockwell, Roger F. Robinson, Deputy Sheriff William Hargrove, C. A. Johnson, and R. D. Riesdorph. Although the practice was illegal, peonage labor was used during the early twentieth century in some counties of South Texas, where it had become common to force laborers, usually Mexican or African Americans but also whites, to work off debts owed to farmers. During times of labor shortage the practice included charging individuals with vagrancy in order to force them into labor; "friendly farmers" paid off their fines and then had the prisoners work off the debt by picking cotton, often under armed guard. The government investigation found more than 400 such vagrancy cases filed in the Raymondville court.
From Wikipedia: Sharecropping
What came after slavery ...
- Click here for the entry.
The sharecropper purchased seed, tools, and fertilizer, as well as food and clothing, on credit from a local merchant, or sometimes from a plantation store. At harvest time, the cropper would harvest the whole crop and sell it to the merchant who had extended credit. Purchases and the landowner's share were deducted and the cropper kept the difference—or added to his debt.
Though the arrangement protected sharecroppers from the negative effects of a bad crop, many sharecroppers (both black and white) remained quite poor. Arrangements typically left a third of the crop to the sharecropper.
By the early 1930s, there were 5.5 million white tenants, sharecroppers, and mixed cropping/laborers in the United States; and 3 million blacks. In Tennessee, whites made up two thirds or more of the sharecroppers. In Mississippi, by 1900, 36% of all white farmers were tenants or sharecroppers, while 85% of black farmers were. In Georgia, fewer than 16,000 farms were operated by black owners in 1910, while, at the same time, African Americans managed 106,738 farms as tenants.
From Black Past: (1866) TEXAS BLACK CODES
Added to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure after the end of the Civil War to retain as much of slavery as possible.
- Click here for the link.
An Act to amend an Act entitled an Act to establish a Code of Criminal Procedure for the State of Texas, approved August 26th, 1866, and to repeal certain portions thereof.
. . . 3rd. Persons of color shall not testify, except where the prosecution is against a person who is a person of color ; or where the offence is charged to have been committed against the person or property of a person of color. . . .
SEC. 3. That this Act take effect and be in force fro and after its passage.
Approved October 26th, 1866.
CHAPTER LXXX.
An Act regulating Contracts for Labor.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That all persons desirous of engaging as laborers for a period of one year or less, may do so under the following regulations :
All contracts for labor for a longer period than one month shall be made in writing, and in the presence of a Justice of the peace, County Judge, County Clerk, Notary Public, or two disinterested witnesses, in whose presence the contract shall be read to the laborers, and, when assented to, shall be signed in triplicate b both parties, and shall then be considered binding, for the time therein prescribed.
SEC. 2. Every laborer shall have full and perfect liberty to choose his or her employer, but when once chosen, they shall be allowed to leave their place of employment, until the fulfillment of their contract, unless by consent of their employer, or on account of harsh treatment or breach of contract on the part of the employer, and if they do so leave without cause or permission, they shall forfeit all wages earned to the time of abandonment.
etc.....
Friday, November 20, 2020
From NPR: Young Activist Pushes To Lower Voting Age To 16 As 'The Logical Next Step' For Gen Z
Activism and civil rights - two peas in a pod.
- Click here for the article.
Over the past few months, Gen Z activists have been a driving force in causes such as climate change, the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQ rights. A new poll from Power California shows that 18- to 29-year-old voters in the state put "stopping police brutality against Black Americans" as their most important political issue. That came out ahead of the need for coronavirus aid, even though more than one-third of those surveyed said they are struggling to pay rent or buy basic needs.
San Francisco narrowly voted down a proposal to lower the voting age for local elections.
- Click here for details.
For more info: Vote16USA.
From Texas Family Code: Sec. 263.008. FOSTER CHILDREN'S BILL OF RIGHTS
- Click here for it.
Or just read it here:
It is the policy of this state that each child in foster care be informed of the child's rights provided by state or federal law or policy that relate to:
(2) food, clothing, shelter, and education;
(3) medical, dental, vision, and mental health services, including the right of the child to consent to treatment;
(4) emergency behavioral intervention, including what methods are permitted, the conditions under which it may be used, and the precautions that must be taken when administering it;
(5) placement with the child's siblings and contact with members of the child's family;
(6) privacy and searches, including the use of storage space, mail, and the telephone;
(7) participation in school-related extracurricular or community activities;
(8) interaction with persons outside the foster care system, including teachers, church members, mentors, and friends;
(9) contact and communication with caseworkers, attorneys ad litem, guardians ad litem, and court-appointed special advocates;
(10) religious services and activities;
(11) confidentiality of the child's records;
(12) job skills, personal finances, and preparation for adulthood;
(13) participation in a court hearing that involves the child;
(14) participation in the development of service and treatment plans;
(15) if the child has a disability, the advocacy and protection of the rights of a person with that disability; and
(16) any other matter affecting the child's ability to receive care and treatment in the least restrictive environment that is most like a family setting, consistent with the best interests and needs of the child.
From the National Conference of State Legislators: TABLE OF CONTENTS Foster Children's Bill of Rights Foster Parent's Bill of Rights
Many states have them
- Click here for the article.
Foster Children's Bill of Rights have been enacted in 15 states and Puerto Rico and Foster Parent Bill of Rights have been enacted in 17 states. Also, during the 2014 legislative session, ten states introduced fifteen bills (six enacted) either seeking to enact a bill of rights or otherwise extending or defining the rights of foster children and parents including independent living services for older youth, educational consistency and enrollment, foster child input into evaluations of out-of-home care placements, and extracurricular activities.
New federal legislation, Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act of 2014 (H.R. 4980), now requires state child welfare agencies to:
Ensure that children in foster care age 14 or older participate in the development of, or revision to, his or her case plan which must describe the foster child’s rights.
From Equality Now: 5 Things You Should Know about Child Marriage and The Law In the United States
An area of increasing concern
- Click here for the article.
It’s Legal In the Vast Majority Of States
Exceptions Make It Easier For Children To Be Married
The consent of a parent or guardian is among the most common exceptions that allow children under 18 to be married, while judicial approval is often needed for a child under age 16 to be married. Exceptions like these are not as rare as you might think, and have seen children as young as 11 issued a marriage license.
How these exceptions are enforced not only varies depending on the state but, in several states, can also vary depending on a child’s gender, according to the Tahirih Justice Center. In Mississippi, judicial approval is required for boys under age 17, but only for girls under age 15.
Some states have lenient residency requirements, while others have no residency requirement for minors coming from out of state to be married. In one instance, a father from Idaho, where judicial approval is required for children 16 and younger, drove his pregnant 14 year-old daughter to Missouri so she could be married to her 24 year-old rapist. Because at the time Missouri required judicial consent for children 14 and younger and had no residency requirement, the marriage was able to take place.
Federal and State Law Allows For a “Marriage Exception” To Statutory Rape
Statutory rape occurs when one of the parties is below the age of consent. A minor cannot legally give their consent to sexual activity, and so that activity does not have to take place by force in order to be considered rape. Marriage is a valid defense against statutory rape with 12-15 year olds at the federal level, as well as within a majority of U.S. states. These laws vary by state, but all make it legal for an adult to have sex and sexual contact with a child who is below the age of consent in that state if they are married to that child at the time (or, in one state, Indiana, if an adult and a child have ever been married to each other). Several states also have specific exceptions for cases involving pregnancy, enabling a marriage between a pregnant child and her rapist, providing sexual predators with an incentive to force a child to marry them.
Civil Rights for Kids! (?)
Right?
- What are the Legal Rights of Children?
Although children grow and mature at different rates, there are some rights that every child is born with. For instance, children are entitled to a safe environment, good nutrition, healthcare, and education. Although parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit, if a child is not safe, the state will remove the children from their home. Parents are required to meet the child's basic needs.
Minors also have rights under the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, they have the right to equal protection, which means that every child is entitled to the same treatment at the hands of authority regardless of race, gender, disability, or religion. Children are also entitled to due process, which includes notice and a hearing, before any of their basic rights are taken away by the government.
Children with disabilities also have rights under the federal Disabilities Education Act. The Disabilities Education Act provides children in need of special education with special accommodations to ensure they receive the same education as their peers.
From the Texas Tribune: Many Texas families say remote learning isn’t working and they want it fixed
- Click here for the article.
Almost midway through the school year, it has become increasingly clear that virtual learning is failing a sizable number of Texas public school students whose parents decided to keep them home as COVID-19 grips the state.
The disturbing number of students posting failing grades while trying to learn in front of computer screens has also brought into sharper focus the failure of state education and political leaders to prepare for an academic year they knew would be like no other.
Over the last month, The Texas Tribune has interviewed more than 30 educators, students, parents and experts across the state about their experiences with remote learning. Parents and students describe a system in which kids are failing, not necessarily because they don’t understand the material, but because the process of teaching them is so broken that it’s difficult to succeed.
Teachers say they are scrambling to retool education, creating new videos and online lessons from scratch and struggling with new demands and limited time. They blame state leaders for squandering valuable months over the summer by delaying key decisions, frequently reversing course and sending conflicting messages to educators on the ground.
Thursday, November 19, 2020
From Oyez: Tuan Anh Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service
A look at intermediate scrutiny.
- Click here for the article.
In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court held that Section 1409(a) comports with the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. "For a gender-based classification to withstand equal protection scrutiny, it must be established 'at least that the [challenged] classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives,'" wrote Justice Kennedy. Although the law imposes different requirements on unmarried fathers and unmarried mothers, it does so on the basis of the difference between their relationships to the potential citizen at the time of birth and is justified by two important governmental interests.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
From Wikipedia: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
- Click here for the entry.
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is a lawsuit concerning affirmative action in student admissions. The lawsuit was filed by the organization Students for Fair Admissions and other plaintiffs, in the U.S. federal district court in Massachusetts in 2014, against Harvard University, claiming that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants in its undergraduate admissions process.
. . . Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed a lawsuit in federal district court against Harvard University on November 17, 2014, representing a group of anonymous Asian-American plaintiffs rejected from Harvard. SFFA was founded by Edward Blum, who also founded the Project on Fair Representation, with a goal to end racial classifications in education, voting procedures, legislative redistricting, and employment. Blum participated in cases such as Bush v. Vera, Shelby County v. Holder, and Fisher v. University of Texas. The SFFA case is the first high-profile case on behalf of plaintiffs who were not white, and who had academic credentials that were "much harder to criticize." The lawyers of SFFA stated that the lawsuit is focused on the issue of discrimination against Asian-American applicants, instead of trying to challenge affirmative action in general.
Certain Asian American advocacy groups filed amicus briefs in support of SFFA, believing that they or their children are discriminated against in college admission processes. Other Asian American advocacy groups filed amicus briefs in support of Harvard.
From The Washington Post: Federal judge rules Harvard does not discriminate against Asian Americans in admissions
- Click here for the article.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian Americans in undergraduate admissions, handing the school a victory in a lawsuit that marks one of the latest chapters in the affirmative action debate.
The judge also found that Harvard “narrowly tailored” its use of race in admissions to achieve the benefits of a diverse class.
“The use of race benefits certain racial and ethnic groups that would otherwise be underrepresented at Harvard and is therefore neither an illegitimate use of race or reflective of racial prejudice,” Burroughs wrote.
Harvard could improve its process, through implicit bias training and other steps, the judge added. “That being said, the Court will not dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better,” she wrote.
The plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, a group that said it represents the interests of rejected Asian American applicants, vowed an appeal of a case that could reach the Supreme Court.
From Wikipedia: Worcester v. Georgia
The case which established the status of native tribes under the US Constitution
- Click here for the entry.
The opinion is most famous for its dicta, which laid out the relationship between tribes and the state and federal governments. It is considered to have built the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.
. . . Chief Justice John Marshall laid out in this opinion that the relationship between the Indian Nations and the United States is that of nations. He reasoned that the United States, in the character of the federal government, inherited the rights of Great Britain as they were held by that nation. Those rights, he stated, include the sole right to deal with the Indian nations in North America, to the exclusion of any other European power. This did not include the rights of possession to their land or political dominion over their laws. He acknowledged that the exercise of conquest and purchase can give political dominion, but those are in the hands of the federal government, and individual states had no authority in American Indian affairs. Georgia's statute was therefore invalid.
Marshall's language in Worcester may have been motivated by his regret that his earlier opinions in Fletcher v. Peck and Johnson v. M'Intosh had been used as a justification for Georgia's actions. Joseph Story considered it similarly, writing in a letter to his wife dated March 4, 1832: "Thanks be to God, the Court can wash their hands clean of the iniquity of oppressing the Indians and disregarding their rights."
Title 42 of the United States Code
- Click here for it.
From Wikipedia: The Americans with Disabilities Act
- Click here for the entry.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA (42 U.S.C. § 12101) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal, and later sexual orientation. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.
What is a reasonable accommodation?
- Click here for a description (its in your syllabus):
"any modification or adjustment to a job or the work environment that will enable a qualified applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions. Reasonable accommodation also includes adjustments to assure that a qualified individual with a disability has rights and privileges in employment equal to those of employees without disabilities."
- Click here for a timeline of disability rights in the US.
From the Justice Department: A Guide to Disability Rights Laws
The table of contents includes language from a variety of laws
- Click here for the article.
Here's the list provided:
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Telecommunications Act
- Fair Housing Act
- Air Carrier Access Act
- Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act
- National Voter Registration Act
- Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act
- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
- Rehabilitation Act
- Architectural Barriers Act
From the Texas Municipal League: City-Related Bills Filed
At least so far.
- Click here for the file.
From Harris County: Notice of a special meeting
To get an idea of what the county is up to.
- Click here for it.
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
From the Texas Association of Counties: County Legislative Issues
- Click here for the link.
From Texas Society of Professional Surveyors: HISTORY OF THE TEXAS PUBLIC DOMAIN
For you Texas history junkies.
- Click here for it.
From Clarence Thomas: KIM DAVIS v. DAVID ERMOLD, ET AL. ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
When rights and liberties collide.
- Click here for the opinion.
Kim Davis, a former county clerk in the Commonwealth
of Kentucky, was responsible for authorizing marriage licenses. Davis is also a devout Christian. When she began
her tenure as clerk, Davis’ sincerely held religious beliefs—
that marriage exists between one man and one woman—
corresponded with the definition of marriage under Kentucky law. See Ky. Rev. Stat. §402.005 (1998); Ky. Const.
§233A (2004). Within weeks of this Court granting certiorari in Obergefell, Davis began lobbying for amendments to
Kentucky law that would protect the free exercise rights of
those who had religious objections to same-sex marriage.
But those efforts were cut short by this Court’s decision in
Obergefell.
As a result of this Court’s alteration of the Constitution,
Davis found herself faced with a choice between her religious beliefs and her job. When she chose to follow her
faith, and without any statutory protection of her religious
beliefs, she was sued almost immediately for violating the
constitutional rights of same-sex couples.
Davis may have been one of the first victims of this
Court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last. Due to Obergefell, those
with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage
will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society
without running afoul of Obergefell and its effect on other
antidiscrimination laws. It would be one thing if recognition for same-sex marriage had been debated and adopted
through the democratic process, with the people deciding
not to provide statutory protections for religious liberty under state law.* But it is quite another when the Court forces that choice upon society through its creation of atextual constitutional rights and its ungenerous interpretation
of the Free Exercise Clause, leaving those with religious objections in the lurch.
To Thomas Jefferson, Esq., President of the United States of America.
Sir,
Among the many million in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office; we embrace the first opportunity which we have enjoyed in our collective capacity, since your inauguration, to express our great satisfaction, in your appointment to the chief magistracy in the United States: And though our mode of expression may be less courtly and pompous than what many others clothe their addresses with, we beg you, sir, to believe that none are more sincere.
Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty‐‐that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals‐‐that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions‐‐that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men‐‐should reproach their order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ.
Sir, we are sensible that the president of the United States is not the national legislator, and also sensible that the national government cannot destroy the laws of each state; but our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved president, which have had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams of the sun, will shine and prevail through all these states and all the world, till hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the earth. Sir, when we reflect on your past services, and see a glow of philanthropy and good will shining forth in a course of more than thirty years we have reason to believe that Americaʹs God has raised you up to fill the chair of state out of that goodwill which he bears to the millions which you preside over. May God strengthen you for your arduous task which providence and the voice of the people have called you to sustain and support you enjoy administration against all the predetermined opposition of those who wish to raise to wealth and importance on the poverty and subjection of the people.
And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to his heavenly kingdom through Jesus Christ our Glorious Mediator.
Signed in behalf of the association, Nehemiah Dodge
Ephraim Robbins
Stephen S. Nelson
_________________________
Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association
To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802
From Roll Call: House Democrats’ leadership races reflect coming generational change
Political generations in Congress.
- Click here for the story.
With Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Luján running for the open Senate seat in New Mexico, three lawmakers — Tony Cárdenas of California, David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts — are vying to replace him as the fourth-ranking House Democrat.
The top three leaders who have led the caucus for nearly two decades, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 80, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, 81, and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, 80, are expected to stay in those positions, according to several Democratic lawmakers and aides CQ Roll Call spoke with for this report.
The team forming below them represents the generational change many rank-and-file Democrats have long sought. All of the candidates running were first elected to the House in the past decade.
Pelosi has promised she wouldn’t serve as speaker beyond 2022, so whoever becomes assistant speaker is likely a potential candidate to replace her. Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, 50, first elected in 2012, is seeking reelection to the No. 5 leadership post unchallenged and is another potential speaker hopeful.
From Roll Call: 5 things to watch in House Democrats’ leadership elections
The 117th Congress takes shape.
- Click here for the story.
House Democrats this week will elect most of their leadership team for the 117th Congress, making choices in contested races that will determine the ideological, racial and gender balance of caucus decision-makers.
This week’s elections include three contested races: assistant speaker, caucus vice chair and caucus leadership representative, a position reserved for members who’ve served five terms or less.
Monday, November 16, 2020
From The Hill: Questions swirl at Pentagon after wave of departures
How might the military respond to recent presidential actions?
- Click here for the article.
Is it a coup, a push to withdraw from Afghanistan or just some petty score settling?
The shakeup has led Trump’s critics to sound the alarm, with Democratic lawmakers and others fearful of what the Pentagon’s new leadership will try to push through in Trump’s remaining two months in office.
But others say the Pentagon’s vast bureaucracy and the military chain-of-command make any radical changes in less than 70 days difficult.
“All this speculation about, ‘Is Trump going to do something with the Insurrection Act, is he going to invade some country?’ No,” said Mark Cancian, a former defense official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While “it’s not impossible that he would try some precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Cancian said, the military “could slow roll him” on anything he directs.
In a speech on Veterans Day, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Staff Gen. Mark Milley touted the apolitical nature of the military. It’s a message he’s delivered frequently in recent months, but one that received renewed attention amid the upheaval.
“We are unique among militaries,” Milley said at a ceremony marking the opening of the National Museum of the United States Army. “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or religion. We take an oath to the Constitution.
From Wikipedia: Freedom Suits
Quite enterprise before the Dred Scott case.
- Click here for the article.
Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by enslaved people against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or territory.
While some cases were tried during the colonial period, the majority of petitions for freedom were heard during the antebellum period in the border or the Southern United States. After the American Revolution, most northern states abolished slavery and were considered "free." The United States Congress prohibited slavery in some newly established territories, and some new states were admitted to the union as free states. The rise in travel and migration of masters with slaves between free and slave states resulted in conditions that gave rise to slaves suing for freedom. Many free states had residency limits for masters who brought slaves into their territory; after that time, the slave would be considered free. Some slaves sued for wrongful enslavement after being held in a free state.
Other grounds for suit were that the person was freeborn and illegally held in slavery, or that the person was illegally held because of being descended from a freeborn woman in the maternal line. The principle of partus sequitur ventrem, first incorporated into English colonial slavery law by a 1662 statute in Virginia, established that children's status was that of the mother. It was adopted into law by other English colonies, and the states of the United States.
In Saint Louis, Missouri records of nearly 300 petition cases have been found that were filed between 1807 and 1860, and in Washington, D.C. nearly 500 petition cases were filed in the same period. A large portion of cases, as much as one-third, either never went to trial or were settled out of court. In the early nineteenth century in St. Louis and in Washington, D.C., nearly half of the attorneys at the bar may have acted as counsel for slave petitions.
Sunday, November 15, 2020
From Wikipedia: Harris County
Might as well right?
- Click here for the entry.
From its history:
In 1824, the land empresario, Stephen F. Austin convened at the house of William Scott for the purpose of conveying titles for Mexican headrights. He was joined by the land commissioner, Baron von Bastrop, and Austin's secretary, Samuel May Williams. About thirty families gained legal titles to land in what would later be known as Harris County. A few immigrants settled on Buffalo Bayou in these early years, including Moses Callahan, Ezekial Thomas, and the Vince brothers.
Nicolas Clopper arrived in the Galveston Bay area from Ohio in the 1820s. He attempted to develop Buffalo Bayou as a trading conduit for the Brazos River valley. He acquired land at Morgan's Point in 1826. John Richardson Harris (1790–1829), for whom the county was later named, arrived in 1824. Harris had moved his family to Sainte Genevieve, Missouri Territory, where they had been residing until the early 1820s.
Harris was granted a league of land (about 4,428 acres) at Buffalo Bayou. He platted the town of Harrisburg in 1826, while he established a trading post and a grist mill there. He ran boats transporting goods between New Orleans and Harrisburg until his death in the fall of 1829.
The First Congress of the Republic of Texas established Harrisburg County on December 22, 1836. The original county boundaries included Galveston Island, but were redrawn to its current configuration in May 1838.
From the Texas Tribune: Judge rules acting Homeland Security secretary appointment unlawful, which could have implications for DACA
- Click here for it.
A federal judge in New York has ruled that acting Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf lacked the authority to limit the work permits of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children because his appointment to the top position in the department did not appear to be lawful.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis — one of the first judges to block President Trump from phasing out the work permits the government issues via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA — said in an unusual Saturday ruling that the “plain text” of the department’s order of succession showed that Wolf’s ascension to acting secretary did not follow established law and was part of several hastily crafted administration moves designed to get people into the top DHS position outside of standard procedures.
As a result, Garaufis said, Wolf’s memo in July limiting the validity of the DACA permits from two years to one year “was not an exercise of legal authority.”
Garaufis’s ruling adds to the complex legal battles surrounding the Obama-era DACA program, which was designed to give those who arrived into the United States as minors a way to stay in the country. More than 640,000 immigrants known as “dreamers” currently rely on the program to live and work in the United States.
The Pro-Slavery Movement
Before abolition picked up steam, proponents of slavery sought to advance support.
- Wikipedia: Slavery as a positive good in the United States.
- John Calhoun's Speech: Slavery a Positive Good.
- Wikipedia: Nullifier Party.
- Wikipedia: Nullification.
Friday, November 13, 2020
The House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress
Congress gets modified from time to time, including - possibly - now.
- Click here for the committee.
- Their final report.
- From the CRS: House Select Committee on theModernization of Congress:Structure and Procedures.
- From Roll Call: ‘Fix Congress Committee’ launches framework for earmark revival.
From CNN: 2020 Exit Polls
Something's changed between 22016 and 2020, some didn't ... much.
- Click here for the article.
From the Texas Tribune: Analysis: Texans in many border counties voted for Donald Trump — and then for Democrats
Split ticket voting among Latinos in Texas.
- Click here for the article.
All but one of the Republicans running statewide campaigns in Texas this year beat their opponents by 8 to 11 percentage points. The one? President Donald Trump, who beat Joe Biden by 5.8 percentage points.
Statewide, Texas Republicans outperformed the leader of their ticket.
In several places along the Texas border, the opposite happened. Much has been written about Trump’s strong performance in the persistently blue counties on the Texas-Mexico border. His border supporters were numerous and enthusiastic. The New York Times sent reporters to Zapata County, which flipped from its customary spot on the Democratic side of the aisle to a seat on the Republican side. The Wall Street Journal went to Starr, where Trump improved dramatically on historical Republican results.
But it’s not like those blue counties switched sides altogether. Voters there supported Trump — in most cases that meant he still lost, but by less than in his first race in 2016 — but then many of them went back to voting more or less like they usually do.
Start with Zapata County. Chrysta Castañeda, a Democrat running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, beat Republican Jim Wright in Zapata by 531 votes. (Wright won statewide, by almost 10 percentage points.) At the same time, Trump was beating Biden in Zapata County by 212 votes.
Castañeda wasn’t the odd duck on that county’s ballots. Trump was. While he was winning, the same Republican candidates who outperformed him statewide were often losing. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn landed 363 votes behind MJ Hegar. Nathan Hecht, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, lost to Democrat Amy Clark Meachum in Zapata by 512 votes. The chief got 53% of the statewide vote, but in Zapata County, he only got 41%.
It’s both interesting and not that consequential. Only 3,279 people voted in Zapata County. Many of the border counties are rural, and a change in a relatively small number of votes can produce outsized percentage shifts.
Even so, this election marked a significant and unusual change of direction. If Trump had performed like the rest o
If the Republican ticket, the border votes wouldn’t be a topic of conversation. And in some ways, the numbers point to a result that’s more complicated than a county moving from one party to the other.
Several of these counties only did it for the president.
Thursday, November 12, 2020
From Wikipedia: List of American Indian Wars
Before the United States could engage world affairs, it had to control the land that would become the 50 states. This took a little time.
- Click here for the entry.
From Wikipedia: Great White Fleet
Theodore Roosevelt introduces the world the U.S. Navy.
- Click here for the entry.
The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the group of United States Navy battleships which completed a journey around the globe from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909 by order of United States President Theodore Roosevelt. Its mission was to make friendly courtesy visits to numerous countries while displaying new U.S. naval power to the world.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
From Harvard Business Review: How John F. Kennedy Changed Decision Making for Us All
- Click here for the article.
Eighteen months earlier, he’d made arguably the worst decision he ever made, to support an ill-conceived covert operation to unseat Fidel Castro, known today as the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Yale psychologist Irving Janis used the debacle to coin the term “groupthink,” which refers to a psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, who took part in that decision process, later wrote that “our meetings were taking place in a curious atmosphere of assumed consensus, [and] not one spoke against it.”
And yet, as I write in more detail in Collaboration, after the Bay of Pigs Kennedy brilliantly retooled his group decision-making process. He ordered a review (keep in mind that not even the military was doing formal after-action reviews at the time) and subsequently instituted four changes to how his top team would make critical decisions:
- Each participant should function as a “skeptical generalist,” focusing on the problem as a whole rather than approaching it from his or her department’s standpoint.
- To stimulate freewheeling discussions, the group should use informal settings, with no formal agenda and protocol, so as to avoid the status-laden meetings in the White House.
- The team should be broken into sub-groups that would work on alternatives and then reconvene.
- The team should sometimes meet without Kennedy present, so as to avoid people simply following his views.
The whole idea was to solicit diverse viewpoints, stimulate debate, explore options, probe assumptions, and let the best plan win on its merits.
Then, on the morning of October 15, 1962, President Kennedy and his team learn that the Soviets are placing nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba—missiles that a few minutes after being fired would kill eighty million Americans.
That very morning, top military brass insist on an immediate and massive military strike to take out the missiles. But this time, instead of debating only the one plan, they follow the new approach, which calls for exploring options. So someone suggests an alternative—a naval blockade to force the Soviets to remove the missiles.
As the new process unfolds, Kennedy instructs his brother to lead a thorough deliberation of the two alternatives. The group of more than a dozen men meets in an unassuming office at the Sate Department and shuttles secretly back and forth to the White House (hence the ride with ten men stuffed into the car that evening). Frank discussions ensue. “There was no rank, and in fact we did not even have a chairman…the conversations were completely uninhibited,” Robert Kennedy would later recall.
As time passes, they deploy another new approach: they divide into sub-groups, with one developing a position paper arguing for the military strike, the other for the blockade. They then swap papers, dissecting and criticizing one another. In this way, the groups are able to probe decisions and surface pros and cons. Two days later, the group presents the fully developed alternatives to President Kennedy, who chooses to pursue the blockade. The blockade is successful, and prevents a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union.
From the Texas Tribune: Texas GOP Chair says party will not "support or accept" Republican Rep. Dade Phelan as next House speaker
The new state party chair inserts himself in legislative politics. Which they generally don't do.
- Click here for the story.
In an email to supporters, West took issue with the fact that Democrats had backed Phelan even though Republicans retained a majority in the 150-member lower chamber after Election Day.
Phelan said last week he had support from a "supermajority of the Republican caucus" and a "broad coalition of support" from Democrats. That support, should it hold until January when the Legislature convenes, would mean Phelan has more than enough votes needed to become the next speaker when House members elect a leader as one of the chamber's first orders of business.
. . . Phelan filed paperwork to run for speaker after a group of GOP members gathered and picked the lawmaker as their preferred candidate. Phelan announced he had the support needed to win the race days later at a news conference at the Texas Capitol and hours after Republicans easily fended off a well-funded challenge from Democrats to flip control of the House. A group of Republicans did not immediately sign onto Phelan's list of supporters, though that seemed to change by the next day when state Rep. Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria, said she was dropping out of the race and backing Phelan.
The House GOP Caucus is still slated to meet in December, per its bylaws, to select a speaker candidate within the group and then vote as a bloc on the floor, though there is no enforcement mechanism. Phelan is expected to be the group's preferred candidate.
West also argued that Phelan would appoint Democrats to chair House committees "who will undermine [and] kill our legislative priorities, as happened in the 87th Texas legislative session." Bonnen, who is retiring after a political scandal last summer, received criticism from other Republicans for tapping Democrats to chair high-profile committees, such as the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee.
Who is Mark Esper?
He's the recently fired Secretary of Defense.
And he's another example of the revolving door.
- Click here for his Wikipedia entry.
Mark Thomas Esper is a U.S. politician and businessman who served as the 27th United States secretary of defense from July 2019 to November 2020. He was a defense contractor lobbyist before joining the Donald Trump administration.
In 2017, he joined the Trump administration as the 23rd United States secretary of the Army. Esper assumed the office of acting Secretary of Defense in 2019 and was confirmed as 27th secretary of defense by the United States Senate with a vote of 90–8 shortly afterwards.
Timeline:
1986: Graduated West Point - infantry officer during Gulf War
1995: Master's Degree from Harvard
1996 - 1998: Chief of Staff at Heritage Foundation
1998 - 2002: Staffer in Senate committees on Foreign Relations and Government Affairs
2002 - 2004: W Bush Administration Deputy Assistant of Defense for negotiations policy
2004 - 2006: Senate: director for security affairs under Bill Frist
2006 - 2007: Executive Vice President at Aerospace Industries Association
2007 - 2008: National Policy Director for Senator Fred Thomson's presidential campaign
2008 - 2010: Executive Vice President for Global Intellectual Property Center
2010 - 2017: Vice President of Government Relations at Raytheon
2019 - 2020: Secretary of Defense
The dude gets around
What is the General Services Administration?
They've been in the news since the president has refused to let them cooperate with the Biden transition.
- Click here for the Wikipedia entry.
GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers and has an annual operating budget of roughly $20.9 billion. GSA oversees $66 billion of procurement annually. It contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. federal property, divided chiefly among 8,700 owned and leased buildings and a 215,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets managed by GSA are the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. – the largest U.S. federal building after the Pentagon – and the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center (which had previously been the Battle Creek Sanitarium run by John Harvey Kellogg).
GSA's business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and the Public Buildings Service (PBS), as well as several Staff Offices including the Office of Government-wide Policy, the Office of Small Business Utilization, and the Office of Mission Assurance. As part of FAS, GSA's Technology Transformation Services (TTS) helps federal agencies improve delivery of information and services to the public. Key initiatives include the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, 18F (includes login.gov and cloud.gov), FedRAMP, the USAGov platform (USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov), Data.gov, and Challenge.gov, the U.S. Web Design System, and I.T. Modernization Centers of Excellence.
Here's a look at the career of its current chief, Emily W. Murphy.
Note the focus on small business:
After graduating from Smith College, Murphy moved to Washington, D.C., where she began her career at the Republican National Committee. She worked for the RNC from October 1995 to January 1997, where she served as Assistant to the Director of Administration. She then worked as a staff member for Jim Talent while he served as Chair of the House Committee on Small Business from January 1997 to July 1998, before leaving to pursue a law degree.
Murphy previously served as counsel at the United States House Committee on Armed Services, where she specialized in acquisition policy and reform. She has also held roles at the Small Business Administration and at the GSA, where she served as the agency's first Chief Acquisition Officer. Murphy served under three chairmen of the United States House Committee on Small Business. Her private sector experience includes five years in executive positions at a technology startup company engaged in federal contracting and three years as a government contracts attorney with two D.C. law firms.
From Roll Call: McConnell, Schumer to remain Senate leaders
- Click here for the article.
Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York were reelected Tuesday to lead their parties in the Senate during the next Congress.
The leadership elections, which occurred behind closed doors Tuesday morning, were held even though it’s still unclear which party will hold the Senate majority.
Races called in last week’s election have the chamber currently deadlocked at 48-48, and control could depend on a double runoff in Georgia for seats held by GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Republican incumbents Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina are leading in the two other uncalled races.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
What is a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit?
Its mentioned in the story below.
- The Wikipedia entry:
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC - often pronounced "lie-tech", Housing Credit) is a dollar-for-dollar tax credit in the United States for affordable housing investments. It was created under the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) and gives incentives for the utilization of private equity in the development of affordable housing aimed at low-income Americans. LIHTC accounts for the majority (approximately 90%) of all affordable rental housing created in the United States today.[1] As the maximum rent that can be charged is based upon the Area Median Income ("AMI"), LIHTC housing remains unaffordable to many low-income (<30% AMI) renters. The credits are also commonly called Section 42 credits in reference to the applicable section of the Internal Revenue Code. The tax credits are more attractive than tax deductions as the credits provide a dollar-for-dollar reduction in a taxpayer's federal income tax, whereas a tax deduction only provides a reduction in taxable income. The "passive loss rules" and similar tax changes made by TRA86 greatly reduced the value of tax credits and deductions to individual taxpayers. Less than 10% of current credit expenditures are claimed by individual investors.
From the Texas Tribune: A controversial rule limiting housing options for homeless Texans with criminal records was softened, but it still worries advocates
- Click here for the article.
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs is slightly backing off a controversial plan that would make it harder for homeless Texans with particular criminal histories to live in tax-subsidized housing units meant to help them secure permanent homes. At a meeting Thursday, agency officials said they would drop a proposal blocking people with convictions for nonviolent felonies and class A misdemeanors from living in new developments financed with what are called Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.
But the agency still plans to ban prospective tenants who have committed some violent felonies and some drug-related offenses for three to seven years after their convictions. That remaining planned prohibition has some homeless organizations saying the proposed rule will still make it hard to get homeless people into "supportive housing" developments.
Supportive housing projects are funded through Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, which give developers tax benefits in exchange for building homes that are leased at below-market rates. Once they're built, developers and local providers coordinate to connect tenants that were previously homeless with support services like mental health or substance use programs. Either the developer or external agencies provide these services in order to help tenants get back on their feet.
From the Texas Tribune: What to expect as Texas heads to the U.S. Supreme Court in bid to overturn the Affordable Care Act
Let's think about this in terms of health policy.
- Click here for the article.
Texas, leading a coalition of Republican states, heads to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday morning to argue that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and should be struck down in its entirety.
What’s at stake?
Health insurance and popular benefits for millions of Americans, including some 1 million in Texas who have subsidized health insurance plans under the law. The sprawling health law touches nearly every facet of the American health care system — from popular protections for individuals with preexisting conditions to no-cost benefits for certain health services to allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance through age 26. Experts say it’s almost impossible to imagine the chaos that would come from ending the law without a replacement, particularly during the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Texas already has the nation’s highest uninsured rate.
Gov. Greg Abbott said years ago that if the Affordable Care Act were to fall, Texas would be ready with a replacement, but no plan has materialized. It would be difficult for the state to cover the gaps without congressional action, given its limited regulatory authority over the insurance market.
What are the legal arguments?
Texas argues that the entire fate of the act turns on one key provision, the individual mandate. Once a penalty you had to pay for not purchasing insurance, the mandate was set to $0 by Congress in a 2017 tax cut. Texas argues that since the mandate is $0, it cannot be interpreted as a tax, and thus must fall as unconstitutional.
The state’s legal team goes a step further than that — and here’s where it loses some legal scholars. Texas claims that if the individual mandate must fall as unconstitutional, the entirety of the sprawling health law has to go with it. That question of “severability” is at the core of the case.
A number of legal scholars don’t buy that, and a conservative federal appellate court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said much the same when it heard the case a few years ago. In its December 2019 ruling, the court said the individual mandate was unconstitutional, but that it needed to hear more arguments about why the rest of the law had to fall with it.