Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the first-ever decision by the Court to uphold a total ban on a specific abortion procedure -- prompting the dissenters to argue that the Court was walking away from the defense of abortion rights that it had made since the original Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 recognized a constitutional right to end pregnancy medically. Roe v. Wade was not overturned by the new ruling, as some filings before the Court had urged.
The Court said that it was upholding the law as written -- that is, its facial language. It said that the lawsuits challenging the law faciallly should not have been allowed in court "in the first instance." The proper way to make a challenge, if an abortion ban is claimed to harm a woman's right to abortion, is through an as-applied claim, Kennedy wrote. His opinion said that courts could consider such claims "in discrete and well-defined instances" where "a condition has or is likely to occur in which the procedure prohibited by the Act must be used."
I think the court may be trying to remove abortion from federal politics.
Jurisprudence currently allows for something quite similar to European abortion policies: early trimester abortions are allowed, late trimester abortions are often banned, but there are exceptions in the case of the health of the mother. In spite of this, there are no bans on any type of abortion presently. This is because the abortion issue is more of a political football than something legislatures are truely interested in.
The current wedge has been the health of the mother. Conservatives argue for abortion bans which do not include such an exception. They know that liberals won't accept such a rule, and that the courts won't accept such a rule, and this creates strife which helps them motivate people to get to the polls.
Ironically, the court has handed conservatives exactly what they don't need, which is a victory. They banned something, and the ban stuck. But the majority states that the ban will not continue to stick if challengers provide actual circumstances in which a mother's life is threatened. This is a dangerous move, as it may actually involve a death. However, it changes the legislative playing field. Abortion bans are going to have a heath exception regardless of whether its written into the law. This means that conservatives can pass late trimester abortion bans, and in fact that liberals can sign on to them, without being concerned about the health issue.
Thomas and Scalia go further, stating that they also think this ban may fall to a commerce clause challenge.
The result is that the abortion issue gets removed from the federal political sphere. Federal Republican candidates cannot argue that you need to vote for them in order to ban abortions, because they don't have that power, and because the justices on the court don't need to be replaced in order for that to happen.... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]
Bush's long history of tilting Justice - Los Angeles Times
Topic: Politics and Law
1:42 pm EDT, Apr 1, 2007
I personally was ordered to change performance evaluations of several attorneys under my supervision. I was told to include critical comments about those whose recommendations ran counter to the political will of the administration and to improve evaluations of those who were politically favored.
This afternoon I was happily geeking away when I heard a knock at the door. I went to answer and was presented with a local sheriff and two FBI agents holding a lovely search warrant (scans coming when I can get down to Kinko's in the morning).
Fence firm hired illegals - The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
Topic: Politics and Law
3:06 pm EDT, Mar 30, 2007
The head of a California company hired by the U.S. government to help build a fence along the Southwest border to curb the flow of illegal aliens into the United States has been sentenced on charges of hiring illegals for the job.
I spent 5 minutes trying to come up with something to say about this. All I can muster is that I didn't enjoy watching it, but I couldn't pull myself away.
A push to legalize the Sunday sale of alcohol topped a list of bills that likely died in the Georgia Legislature on Monday.
The bills including a proposed hate crimes law, plans for Confederate History Month and Gov. Sonny Perdue's effort to clarify that church groups may receive state money were not among the ones that made it onto the Senate calendar for Tuesday.
WSB's Capitol Reporter Sandra Parrish reports Tuesday is the so-called Crossover Day in the Legislature. That's the 30th day of the 40-day session and the last on which a bill may pass in one chamber to be considered by the other.
While I'm not happy that they aren't fixing Georgia's silly Sunday alcohol ordinance, there are a number of problematic bills that have been discussed on MemeStreams in the past few months which are apparently dead as of tommorow, for this year at least. If you expressed concern about one of those bills, you impacted this result.
The Volokh Conspiracy - George Will on Rent-Seeking:
Topic: Politics and Law
10:58 am EDT, Mar 23, 2007
In New Mexico, anyone can work as an interior designer. But it is a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison, to list yourself on the Internet or in the Yellow Pages as, or to otherwise call yourself, an "interior designer" without being certified as such. Those who favor this censoring of truthful commercial speech are a private group that controls, using an exam administered by a private national organization, access to that title.
Who benefits? Creating artificial scarcity of services raises the prices of those entitled to perform the services.
This discussion and the linked editorial should resonate with people who are concerned about HB 504.
I'm pleased to pass on the news that C-SPAN has announced "two major initiatives designed to greatly expand citizen access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings, and White House events."
The first congressional hearing under this new policy is up live on the Internet Archive.
There has been real progress on this front in the past few weeks, mostly due to the efforts and advocacy of Carl Malamud. I'm glad that CSPAN has seen the light.
I'm happy to announce that the expungement order was signed effective 1 Feb 2007. That is, as of this date, if someone asks me "have you ever been convicted of a crime?", my fully legal answer to any and all concerned is a resounding, "no".
Randal Schwartz has had his record expunged. I'm happy to hear that he is now able to put this injustice behind him.
