I recently testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. Obama has repeated suspended provisions of the health care law and made unilateral changes that were previously rejected by Congress. He has also moved hundreds of millions from one part of the Act to other parts without congressional approval. Now, his administration is reportedly changing key provisions of the ACA to potentially make billions of dollars available to the insurance industry in a move that was never debated, let alone approved, by the legislative branch. Ironically, I just ran another column this month listing such incidents of executive over-reach that ideally would have included this potentially huge commitment under Obama’s claimed discretionary authority.
Category: Constitutional Law
We have yet another example of the perversity of justice under Sharia law. The latest case comes out of Iran where university students have filed a criminal complaint against famed actress Leila Hatami, who recently starred in the Oscar-winning film, A Separation. Some Iranians were outraged when Hatami accepted a customary peck on the cheek from Gilles Jacob, the President of Cannes Festival, as she arrived at Cannes Film Festival to serve as a member of the prestigious jury. Not only is such a sign of affection a crime in the Islamic Republic but (gasp) Hatami was wearing a head scarf that did not entirely cover her hair from being seen by men. She is now subject to jail and flogging under article 638 of Islamic Criminal Justice. The Sharia law calls for 50 lashes.
For months, the Obama Administration has been dealing with the growing revolt among the states over federal marijuana laws. Twenty states and the District of Columbia legalized medical marijuana use over the opposition of the federal government and medical use. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have legalized the sale and possession of marijuana. It is a classic conflict between states and the federal government under federalism. Some of us view the states as asserting a classic police power in an area that was left to the states under our federalism principles. Now the Obama Administration has said that it will withhold water from state-licensed pot growers in Washington state and Colorado. The decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is particularly problematic given the fact that the federal government has stepped in to take effective control of the water resources in these states and now appears to be using that control to try to coerce states to change their laws to satisfy the federal government.
Momentum continues to grow across the country as another federal judge, this time in Pennsylvania, struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage. The decision of U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III brings the number to 19 states where such marriages are now legal. Such court-ordered changes do not necessarily reflect as significant change in public opinion though a recent polls shows a record 55 percent in support of this basic right. Twelve district courts have now struck down such laws. The case is Whitewood v. Wolf, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68937 (May 20, 2014) (M.D. Penn.).
Continue reading “19: Pennsylvania Federal Judge Strikes Down Ban On Same-Sex Marriage”
After his 2-1 reversal of his conviction for money laundering, Tom DeLay is back raising money for a new campaign: the Josiah Project which seeks to reintroduce faith and morality into politics. In one interview with Matthew Hagee, the son of controversial paster John Hagee, DeLay lamented the lack of morality in Washington and “the Hammer” added a celestial framer to the usual list of Madison, Mason, and others.
Below is my column this week in American Legion Magazine which juxtaposed my view of the Obama presidency with the opposing view of William Howell, the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago. Notably, a ranking member of the Administration this week wrote that more executive actions are being planned by the White House. These opposing articles capture the two very different perspectives of the evolving use of executive power in our tripartite system.
Continue reading “A Question of Power: The Imperial Presidency”
For many years, I have questioned the constitutionality of criminalizing swearing (here and here and here and here). As many know on this blog, I do not like profanity and we delete such comments on this site. However, we are a private site. The issue changes dramatically when people are arrested for foul language and subject to penal sanctions. It is part of the criminalization of America where pet peeves of politicians are ramped up to criminal offenses to make a point. The latest such move is found in Brighton, Michigan (shown here on Main Street) where police will be charging people with disorderly conduct for swearing. They just will not say what will constitute criminally foul language.
Continue reading “Michigan City Moves To Criminalize Swearing”
This afternoon, United States District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan will hold a hearing in the Chang litigation over the mass arrests during the World Bank/IMF protests. The hearing was called to specifically explore the possible sanctions to be imposed against the District of Columbia and the status of the Special Master’s investigation and litigation. Since I am co-lead counsel with my colleague Daniel Schwartz of Bryan Cave, I have been circumspect in any public comments in the case. However, to reduce calls to my office, we have been posting the relevant information and filings for hearings in the case. The hearing will be held at 11:30am in courtroom 24A on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
Thanks to the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden, we now know how far our government went to hide the warrantless surveillance by the NSA. “If you blinked this week, you might have missed the news: two Senators accused the Justice Department of lying about NSA warrantless surveillance to the US supreme court last year, and those falsehoods all but ensured that mass spying on Americans would continue. But hardly anyone seems to care – least of all those who lied and who should have already come forward with the truth. Continue reading “Did The Justice Department Lie to the Supreme Court…And Get Away With It?”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A twenty seven year old Christian woman, who is presently eight months pregnant, has been sentenced to death by hanging for apostasy and adultery. Having been born to a Muslim father, the Sudanese government contends that Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, was Muslim and that she later converted to Christianity before marrying her South Sudanese husband, a Christian. Sudanese law considers marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims to be invalid. Under Sudan’s interpretation of sharia, a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man and any such relationship is regarded as adulterous. Thus, her pregnancy is considered to be resulting from an adulterous relationship, punishable by one hundred lashings.
Judge Abbas Mohammed Al-Khalifa sentenced Meriam to death and declared:
“We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged,” The judge addressed her by her father’s Muslim name, Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah.
Ms Ishag reacted without emotion when the judge delivered the verdict at a court in the Khartoum district of Haj Yousef. Earlier in the hearing, an Islamic religious leader spoke with her in the caged dock for about 30 minutes. Then she calmly told the judge:
“I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy.”
Amnesty International said Ms Ishag was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother’s religion, because her Muslim father was absent.
We have a long list of cases where police have arrested citizens for filming them in public despite repeated court rulings that this is a protected practice. I previously discussed this issue in a column. Massachusetts’s police and prosecutors have been particularly aggressive to pursuing citizens. That record has continued this week with Karen Dziewit, 24, of Chicopee who has been charged with unlawful wiretapping after she recorded her arrest.
We recently discussed the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Schuette v. BAMN that states, like Michigan, can prohibit any use of race in admissions in a “color-blind” state entrance system for colleges and universities. Now, a leading school in one of the states with such a color-blind rule is being accused of violating state law by one of its professors. Tim Groseclose, a political science professor at UCLA, has posted data that he was able to obtain from the school that he argues is proof of “cheating” by school officials who refuse to comply with the state law. The question is whether this will be the basis for a post-Schuette challenge in states like California.
Saudi Arabia has given the world a new example of Sharia abuse. Sharia law continues to be used to target homosexuals, religious dissidents, women, and reporters. The latest sentence was handed down against Raif Badawi, who started the “Free Saudi Liberals” website. He has now been sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes.
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia Sentences Blogger To 10 Years In Prison and 1000 Lashes”
Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I was going to write this last weekend on the actual 44th anniversary of a very sad event. For some reason, I had a hard time focusing on what I wanted to say, in light of the many emotions that were going through my head. I don’t want the anniversary to go by without writing about the personal significance that day in May had on my life, and I believe on the lives of many in my generation. The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo, included above from Wikipedia, is one that I have never forgotten. Nor should anyone forget it. Continue reading “May 4th, 1970, The Day My Generation Lost Its Innocence”
The legal profession this week lost one of our best and bravest. Pretending to be potential clients in a matrimonial case, two people entered the law firm of Rashid Rehman Khan and shot him to death. Rashid Rehman, a coordinator for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), had faced death threats for years after he courageously represented a university professor accused of blasphemy. Unable to kill the accused, Islamic extremists appear to have now killed the lawyer. Rehman never flinched in his commitment to the rule of law and to this country.