Tag: US Supreme Court | Hamilton.jerry

May 6, 2014

Prayers Remain Part of US Tradition, Says Supreme Court

A thin majority of the US Supreme Court decided late yesterday that traditional prayers at the beginning of town council and similar legislative sessions may continue. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-usa-court-prayer-idUSBREA440FO20140505

In Greece, New York, two residents attending a legislative session felt “uncomfortable” when an opening prayer mentioned Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. So in 2008 they sued to make their legislators stop that sectarian practice, arguing that the US Constitution only permits nonsectarian prayers or moments of silent reflection. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/supreme-court-ruling-prayer-town-council-meeting-article-1.1779924

In disagreeing with those two residents, five of the six Roman Catholic justices on the US Supreme Court overruled three Jewish justices and one Roman Catholic justice to let the legislators keep praying, so long as no prayer tries to intimidate, coerce or convert anyone. The court’s basic logic arose from American history in which prayers have been offered since the beginning of the nation. To rule that only nonsectarian prayers should be permitted would make the legislatures and courts the supervisors and censors of religious speech, said Justice Kennedy, the swing vote on the Court and author of its majority opinion. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/nyregion/supreme-court-allows-prayers-at-town-meetings.html?_r=0

To analysts at HamiltonFinanceServices.com, the decision while welcomed by many conservatives nationwide, sounds almost out of character for the high court. This observation implies that more decisions in the future might whittle away and eventually change the court’s acceptance of historic tradition as the logic for what the Constitution permits. Yet, for a few decades at least, prayers at local town council meetings will keep coming, and those opposed to sectarian prayers in public meetings will simply be required to ignore what they cannot change. What do you think?

April 22, 2014

US Supreme Court Lets Michigan Voters Abolish Racial Preferences

Today the US Supreme Court ruled against a federal judge by agreeing that the majority of voters in Michigan should decide whether they need affirmative action. Those voters strongly agreed that all decisions of state institutions should apply equal rights to everyone, meaning that no racial preferences should be permitted. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20140422-709228.html

To the analysts at HamiltonFinanceServices.com, the ruling is overdue. States should have been deciding from the beginning what they need to apply laws equally to every member of society within their borders out of recognition that each state faces unique sets of challenges. What do you think?

Those who oppose the Michigan majority of voters insist that the best and brightest members of minority groups cannot compete against the majority without racial preferences. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/us-usa-court-race-idUSBREA3L0Y820140422

Here at HFS we rhetorically pose the question, Why can’t the best and brightest compete? Of course they can, if they’re truly the best and brightest of a society. What racial preference leads to is more racial division, the very opposite of what America considers the ideal worth fighting wars about. That the HFS view, at least.

April 2, 2014

US Supreme Court Increases Campaign Finance Levels as Part of Free Speech

Free Speech Includes Big Political Money, Say Supremes

The US Supreme Court decided today that free speech includes the freedom to contribute larger amounts of money than allowed by existing campaign finance laws. The aggregate amount permitted under past law reached $123,200 per two years, the length of the federal political cycle. With today’s change to that law, the aggregate amount has climbed to $5,900,000. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/02/us-usa-court-election-idUSBREA3116V20140402

How does the “aggregate amount” calculation work, exactly? Current campaign finance laws limit the amount an individual may pay for an single candidate (or that candidate’s election committee) to $2,600 in the current two-year election cycle, 2013 – 2014. In the same period, an individual may contribute no more than $32,400 to a national political party. Under today’s ruling by the Supremes, a “joint fundraising committee” controlled by an elected incumbent or a party official, may accept the aggregate amount of $5.9 M for the current cycle, with that amount inching upwards in future cycles. Such a joint fundraising committee, through either the incumbent or official, may distribute that cash to an array of candidates or their committees locally and statewide. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/527 and http://www.elections.il.gov/campaigndisclosure/faq.aspx and http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml

The change in fundraising laws means that the 2012 big contributors, of whom there were 541, will likely put much more money into politics in exchange for much more influence over politicians, say HFS analysts. Of course, most people have less than a hundred dollars to contribute to political causes, if they play political fundraising games at all. Donated time tends to be the currency of choice for the majority of individuals with political passion. So the law impacts only the very rich, who already have lifestyles and connections most Americans do not understand in the least. And those very wealthy people understand the rest of us even less well. How this cultural divide might unfold in politics remains uncertain because many wealthy contributors cancel out one another in the larger picture, leaving the key influences, good ideas for our times, still in the driver’s seat of American politics. That’s what HFS analysts say, but what do you think?

March 24, 2014

Religious Freedom verses Right to Birth Control Put to Test Tomorrow in US Supreme Court

Tomorrow for 90 minutes, the US Supreme Court will hear cases that question whether business owners may, based on their religious beliefs, opt out of Obama-care provisions that require employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control such as the day after pill and sterilization services. To some, it will be one of this year’s biggest legal events in the US. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/24/us-usa-court-contraception-idUSBREA2N1HZ20140324

All seats in the small marble venue have been reserved for lawyers that represent dozens of businesses in support of the two small businesses at the heart of the case. One of the businesses is a family owned conglomerate consisting of Christian bookstores plus several franchises of Hobby Lobby Inc. an arts and crafts retailer. The family owners all claim evangelical Christian beliefs. The other case combined with the first was brought to court by a Pennsylvania family made up of a couple and their three sons, all of whom profess to be Mennonites, and who own Conestoga Wood Specialties, a wood crafts shop and supplier. http://vitaminw.co/news/supreme-court-hears-cases-on-mandatory-birth-control-coverage

The business owners argue that providing the legally mandated morning after pill is tantamount to abortion and that sterilization also violates their religious faiths. Other cases related to this issue also have been placed on hold pending the outcome of tomorrow’s case, which will likely produce a decision by June this year. http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2014/01/02/315899.htm

HFS analysts note that impact on business owners may not be as significant as the impact on Obama-care, as more cases arise to chip away at the comprehensive health care law. For example, on the same day arguments will be heard about the birth control case, another potentially more far-reaching case about federal subsidies will also be heard. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/24/the-contraception-case-is-big-but-another-challenge-could-really-hurt-obamacare/

With so many important US Supreme Court decisions pending with impact on Obama-care, uncertainty over the health care law increases, with myriad economic impacts. What do you think?

March 8, 2014

NSA Wiretaps: On or Off?

ACLU Appeals Court Approval of NSA Blanket Wiretaps

Yesterday afternoon, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Manhattan, New York, filed an appeal to overrule a US federal judge’s December 2013 decision that approves of the US National Security Agency (NSA) plan to archive copies of all telephone records of large telephone companies. http://news.yahoo.com/aclu-asks-appeals-court-undo-phone-data-ruling-192626948.html The NSA program has operated for over ten years within the US, according to documents released recently by Edward Snowden. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

According to analysts at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com (HFS), another US federal judge in Washington DC, Richard Leon, ruled in early 2014 that the NSA program unconstitutionally violates the ban against unreasonable search and seizure. Judge Leon stayed his decision so that the US government could file an appeal. https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2013cv0851-48

Today HFS analysts predict this question and possibly both of the federal appeals will end up in the US Supreme Court, as impacts of the Edward Snowden leaks continue to unfold across the globe. Those analysts opine that for good or ill, Snowden has changed the course of history.

What do you think?

February 28, 2014

School May Silence Free Political Speech of Students At School, Says Court

Imminent Violence Justifies Halting Political Speech on School Campus?

The US Federal Court of Appeals ruled today that students wearing shirts showing the American flag were properly silenced when high school officials perceived imminent safety risks and demanded that the students leave or turn the shirts inside out to cover the flag. http://patdollard.com/2014/02/9th-u-s-circuit-court-of-appeals-rules-california-school-can-ban-u-s-flag-shirts-during-phony-holiday-cinco-de-mayo/

The setting: Cinco de Mayo celebrations in southern San Francisco, at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hills where hundreds celebrated their Latino heritage. The silenced students: Members of the student body wearing t-shirts that displayed the US flag. The questioned conduct: School officials demanded that the flag wearing students either leave the event or reverse their t-shirts to cover the US flag. The justification offered: Violent histories of gang confrontations in the community arising from pro- and anti-Latino groups led school officials to believe that students wearing US flag shirts to the Latino celebration would cause immediate violent protests and confrontations. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/02/27/11-17858.pdf

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/28/us-usa-court-tshirts-california-idUSBREA1R06R20140228

William Becker, attorney for the students who were silenced, vows to appeal to the US Supreme court, asserting that the right to free political speech was sacrificed in the face of speculations about violence that should have been controllable by law enforcement and school authorities at the gathering. http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25240543/american-flag-removal-order-justified-u-s-court

Analysts at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com say the Supreme Court appeal won’t likely make it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

Nonetheless, the right to free political speech has been upheld by that court in unlikely appeals before. In the Cohen case, for example, a man convicted of wearing a t-shirt with the words “F___ the draft” (see footnote for the blank spot appearing after the letter ‘F’) to a 1971 protest, when the draft rose to high levels of violent controversy, had his conviction over-tuned by the US Supreme Court precisely because political speech deserves exceptional protection under the US Constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_v._California

The difference in today’s case: Four of the five boys elected to go home when threatened with arrest by school officials, and the fifth boy reversed his t-shirt to remain at the celebration. No one was arrested for wearing the shirts. If instead they had remained and been arrested for wearing the provocative t-shirts, the US Supreme Court might be compelled to hear the appeal, based on the Cohen case. Even then, since school officials appear to have special authority on campus, they still could have been justified.

If you were deciding, should the appeal of the boys be heard by the US Supreme Court? Under what circumstances should political speech be silenced in the US? Should school officials have greater powers over free speech on campus than law enforcement has in the community?

Footnote: The original term used on the t-shirt of Leonard Cohen was the acronym commonly formed from the word posted on early American stockades for persons convicted of adultery, as they then defined adultery. Those words were: For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. You can probably figure out the acronym on your own. I deleted the acronymic expression at the request of Vivaldi censors who declined to publish this post unless the historically accurate term was either deleted or obfuscated. Hence, I have offered this obfuscatory footnote.

February 24, 2014

Greenhouse Gas Rules Challenged In US Supreme Court Today

Greenhouse Gas Regs Challenged Today in US Supreme Court

The US Supreme Court extended from the normal 60 minutes hearing time to 90 minutes to permit all the parties to argue today about whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overstepped when expanding the Clean Air Act to apply to greenhouse gases. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/us-usa-court-climate-idUSBREA1N06Q20140224

A US Federal Appeals Court for the DC Circuit approved in June 2012 of the new EPA regulations that require every new facility to obtain environmental construction permits if the planned facility would emit any pollutants whatsoever. The EPA calls its program the Prevention of Serious Deterioration (PSD) regulations. http://www.epa.gov/NSR/psd.html

Since establishment of the PSD program, 335 facilities have applied for new construction permits, certifying that the facilities use the best known technology available for limiting pollutants covered in the regulations. One utility company and 16 states will argue in support of the PSD rules, while manufacturing groups oppose them. Although nuances for arguments on each side vary, the gist of regulation supporters is that momentum for stricter controls must be continued to address rising environmental degradation issues. Opponents argue the EPA has no authority without Congressional action to expand federal laws that directly impose economic burdens on businesses seeking to build new facilities.

Analysts at http://HamiltonFinanceServices.com expect no real change in EPA programs regardless of how the court rules on Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-1146. http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v3/12-1146_pet_state.authcheckdam.pdf

A ruling will be announced by the end of June 2014. However, a defeat for the Obama administration on this centerpiece administrative law could undermine political momentum and add to a growing list of failed Obama programs.

Hamilton.jerry