tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31221592191314268082024-02-08T00:24:43.409-05:00Progressive Liberty BlogReflections on Freedom, the Constitution and Life in AmericaMichael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-38074257336171426792010-12-30T22:15:00.000-05:002010-12-30T22:15:51.057-05:00New Book - Radicals in Their Own TimeI've added a video introduction to my forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press, <i>Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America</i> (January 2011) (see you.tube link at right). I discuss the book in greater detail at <a href="http://www.greatamericansblog.blogspot.com/">"Great Americans Blog.</a>"Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-43466435993964455582010-09-30T16:10:00.003-04:002010-09-30T16:16:16.340-04:00OpEd on McDonald v Chicago Case - June/July 2010<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> 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mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Here is the OpEd on the <span style="font-style: italic;">McDonald v. Chicago </span>Supreme Court decision that ran in various papers and news outlets around the country in late June and early July.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">McDonald is Cause for Celebration for All</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The <i style="">McDonald v. Chicago</i> Supreme Court decision that the Second Amendment is fully binding on state and local governments is cause for celebration - even among those deeply concerned about gun violence in the United States.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">First, nothing in the Court’s decision prevents state and local governments from continuing to impose meaningful regulations on the possession of firearms. The Supreme Court explained that the Second Amendment “<i style="">limits </i>(but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To emphasize the point that reasonable regulations will still be allowed, the Court quoted from the brief signed by 38 States supporting the Court’s ultimate decision, which said:<span style=""> </span>“State and local experimentation with reasonable firearms regulations will continue under the Second Amendment.”<span style=""> </span>And in this case the Supreme Court did not actually expressly reject the Chicago-area restrictions, but rather returned the case to the federal Court of Appeals in Chicago to determine if the regulations still pass muster. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is nothing unusual in the approach taken by the Supreme Court in this case.<span style=""> </span>Others of our most fundamental rights may be regulated, but <i style="">never </i>prohibited outright - such as the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech and the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.<span style=""> </span>These and <i style="">all</i> rights are subject to reasonable “time, place, and manner” governmental regulations.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Second, we bolster our claim on all of the rest of our constitutionally-protected rights – both enumerated <i style="">and </i>unenumerated (the right to privacy, for example) – when we adopt the sort of expansive view of liberty recognized in the decision.<span style=""> </span>A faithful reading of the Constitution simply does not allow us to pick and choose from among those constitutional rights with which we may agree or disagree – and those rights should be protected not only from infringement by the federal government, but also by state and local governments.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The one thing state and local governments may <i style="">not </i>do is enact regulations that prohibit a person’s right to keep a firearm for self-defense.<span style=""> </span>Otherwise, not much else should change.<span style=""> </span></p> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-59545227586260157302010-09-30T15:47:00.005-04:002010-09-30T16:21:02.969-04:00McDonald v. Chicago decisionQuite a hiatus for the summer - biggest blog-related news while I've been playing hooky was the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/29scotus.html">McDonald v. Chicago decision in late June</a>, where the Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Second Amendment applies to the States.<br /><br />Four of the majority justices reasoned that the clause is incorporated through the 14th amendment due process clause (the conventional argument); one, Justice Clarence Thomas reasoned it is incorporated through the 14th amendment privileges or immunities clause. Thomas's reasoning was the reasoning for which I argued in the<a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=mcdonald"> amicus briefs and law review articles </a>related to this issue. So, we wish we would have gotten a majority on the privileges or immunities argument, but at least <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1521.ZC1.html">Thomas agreed</a>.<br /><br />One of the most disappointing parts of the case was that the four dissenters - Breyer, Stevens, Sotomayor and Ginsburg, people with whom I usually have more in common than not - did not go along with the persuasive history that the fourteenth amendment privileges or immunities clause was intended to apply the ENTIRE Bill of Rights to the States.<br /><br />I published an OpEd at the time of the decision, which ran in a good number of papers <leo_highlight style="border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(255, 255, 150); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; display: inline; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" id="leoHighlights_Underline_0" onclick="leoHighlightsHandleClick('leoHighlights_Underline_0')" onmouseover="leoHighlightsHandleMouseOver('leoHighlights_Underline_0')" onmouseout="leoHighlightsHandleMouseOut('leoHighlights_Underline_0')" leohighlights_keywords="nationwide" leohighlights_url_top="http%3A//shortcuts.thebrowserhighlighter.com/leonardo/plugin/highlights/3_2/tbh_highlightsTop.jsp?keywords%3Dnationwide%26domain%3Dwww.blogger.com" leohighlights_url_bottom="http%3A//shortcuts.thebrowserhighlighter.com/leonardo/plugin/highlights/3_2/tbh_highlightsBottom.jsp?keywords%3Dnationwide%26domain%3Dwww.blogger.com" leohighlights_underline="true">nationwide</leo_highlight>. I'll post that <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/2010/09/oped-on-mcdonald-v-chicago-case.html">here.<br /></a><br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><span id="leoHighlights_iframe_modal_span_container"><div id="leoHighlights_iframe_modal_div_container" style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden; display: none; width: 520px; height: 391px; z-index: 2147483647;" onmouseover="leoHighlightsHandleIFrameMouseOver();" onmouseout="leoHighlightsHandleIFrameMouseOut();"> <!-- Top iFrame --> <iframe id="leoHighlights_top_iframe" name="leoHighlights_top_iframe" title="leoHighlights_top_iframe" src="about:blank" vspace="0" 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</script> </span>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-48861540903307232172010-05-21T16:04:00.005-04:002010-05-21T16:17:30.122-04:00Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in AmericaComing out of my cave into the daylight again after finishing my book (<a href="http://works.bepress.com/michael_lawrence/15/">"Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America,</a>" Cambridge Univ. Press) and submitting it to the publisher week before last. Quite the relief.<br /><br />I'm pleased with how it came out - should be out in bound book form in December or January.<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-20973292134354083042010-03-21T09:04:00.004-04:002010-03-21T09:13:16.599-04:00Framers Believed in Virtuous (ie, Humane) GovernmentThe Tea Party movement is not completely cuckoo. In fact, its focus on the Constitution should be welcomed by all Americans.<br /><br />When tea partiers inquire closely into the Constitution’s original intent, they will find what they expect to find: it was created, first, to protect individual liberty from overzealous government. <br /><br />Yet they may be surprised when they learn that Franklin, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson and Madison – as bitterly contentious in politics as present-day politicians (if not more so) – all agreed on the one bedrock principle upon which any good government depended: VIRTUE – or, literally, “Public Spirit.”<br /><br />As Thomas Paine (<span style="font-style: italic;">Common Sense, The Rights of Man</span>, etc.) insisted: “Public good is not a term opposed to the good of individuals. On the contrary, it is the good of every individual collected. It is the good of all, because it is the good of every one.” Hence Paine advocated progressive taxation, aid to the unemployed, and free public education.<br /><br />Healthcare-for-all, anyone?<br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-80769580941543237282010-03-03T22:07:00.006-05:002010-03-22T13:32:22.803-04:00McDonald v. Chicago - Yesterday's Oral ArgumentJudging from yesterday's oral argument in<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"> McDonald v. Chicago (</span>the case <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=mcdonald">discussed here previously</a> involving whether either the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities Clause or Due Process Clause applies the Second Amendment to the States), it seems a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court will use the standard Due Process route to apply the right to bear arms to the States.<br /><br />Justice Antonin Scalia - who claims to be beholden to the text and history of the Constitution - belittled the arguments claiming that the text and history of the Constitution require consideration of the Privileges or Immunities clause. When Alan Gura, the attorney arguing the case, began his discussion of Privileges or Immunities, Scalia pointedly asked him whether arguing Privileges or immunities was "easier" than the due process argument. "[I]f the answer is no," he continued, "why are you asking us to overrule 150, 140 years of prior law?" Scalia also said that "What you argue is the darling of the professoriate"; and speculated that Gura is "bucking for a place on some law school faculty."<br /><br />Scalia brays loudly about the importance of original intent; yet when serious original intent arguments come before him that would be contrary to his narrow, cramped view of individual liberty, he is unwilling to listen. What a hypocrite. <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden"> <div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden"> <div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><input id="jsProxy" onclick="jsCall();" type="hidden"> <div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-87677136618783046252010-02-28T21:27:00.004-05:002010-02-28T23:52:36.452-05:00Olympics IdealismWhat a pleasure watching the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics over the last couple weeks. It's easy to be cynical these days about many things - even about the commercialism and politics surrounding the Olympics - but to see young men and women and spectators from all over the world coming together to participate in sport with such unadorned pleasure and fellowship.... well, it gives one hope for a better world. <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-18745038921282262442010-02-10T20:37:00.001-05:002010-02-10T20:39:28.069-05:00Another Response to Citizens United: Remove Supreme Court Appellate Jurisdiction<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Much has been written <em></em> about the Supreme Court's <i style="">Citizens United </i>opinion overruling a century of precedents and statutes designed to curb corporate campaign spending.<span style=""> </span>Many have offered suggestions on ways to counter the decision's effects; but another possibility - one of the oldest on the books - is also available:<span style=""> </span>Congress could constitutionally remove campaign finance issues from the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction.<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />Every first-year constitutional law student learns that under the Constitution's Article III, section 2 "Exceptions Clause," Congress has complete authority to limit the sorts of cases the Court may hear on appeal:<span style=""> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><span style=""> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">"</span><i style=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">"<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />As the Court stated in <i style="">Ex Parte McCardle</i> in 1869: <span style=""> </span>"We are not at liberty to inquire into the motives of the legislature. We can only examine into its power under the Constitution; and the power to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court is given by express words."<span style=""> </span>Similarly, in 1882 it observed, "[A]ctual [appellate] jurisdiction is confined within such limits as Congress sees fit to describe."<span style=""> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />Over one hundred bills have been introduced in Congress to limit the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction over various topics just since the 1940s.<span style=""> </span>As recently as 2005, for example, the House passed bills precluding judicial review of the Defense of Marriage Act and of the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance (neither bill passed in the Senate).</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />Some may object that Congress's use of the Exceptions Clause threatens judicial independence.<span style=""> </span>This is a valid concern.<span style=""> </span>But when the Supreme Court itself indiscriminately infringes on policy decisions appropriately left to the elected branches, Congress is justified in <i style="">removing </i>some of the Court's independence.<span style=""> </span>That is the very purpose of the Exceptions Clause, after all - it was placed in the Constitution for a reason.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />Some may say, moreover, that removing the Court's appellate jurisdiction in campaign finance cases is an instance of trying to close the door after the horse is already out of the barn.<span style=""> </span>True enough - <i style="">Citizens United </i>is on the books.<span style=""> </span>But removing the Court's appellate jurisdiction in future campaign finance cases will prevent the Court from interfering with Congress's future efforts to restore its century-long effort to curb the negative effects of massive infusions of corporate cash into political campaigns. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><br />In short, Congress has the constitutional authority to limit the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction in campaign finance cases.<span style=""> </span>While use of the Exceptions Clause should not be undertaken lightly - judicial review is vitally important for checking majority excesses - when the Supreme Court so egregiously oversteps its bounds as it did in <em>Citizens United,</em> Congress's exercise of its Exceptions clause power is entirely appropriate.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span> <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-18005470089018150222010-01-29T09:51:00.005-05:002010-01-29T10:02:31.392-05:00McDonald v. Chicago - Essay in Cardozo Law Review de novo Online JournalThe Cardozo Law Review <span style="font-style: italic;">de novo</span> online journal just published my essay entitled "The Potentially Expansive Reach of <span style="font-style: italic;">McDonald v. Chicago</span>: Enabling the Privileges or Immunities Clause," in a feature it entitles "Firearms, Inc." The essay may be seen <a href="http://www.cardozolawreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=135:lawrence2010139&catid=20:firearmsinc&Itemid=20">here</a>.<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span></span>The essay briefly reviews the sad history of how the Supreme Court buried the Privileges or Immunities clause in 1873, just five years after its birth; then offers a possible doctrinal approach were the Court to move forward in finally giving proper effect to the Privileges or Immunities clause.<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-2710022497660114142010-01-23T14:47:00.007-05:002010-01-23T22:46:45.174-05:00Health Care; Corporate Speech CaseI'm on deadline trying to finish a book, but just a few thoughts about the Massachusetts election and the Supreme Court corporate speech case:<br /><br />-<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Congressional Democrats' incompetence</span>. After last year's election the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, WITH a filibuster-proof 60% majority in the Senate; and yet, they were unable to get their s**t together enough to pass a healthcare bill. And now that they've lost their 60%, they're folding up like a cheap tent - failing to recognize they were elected to make meaningful change. In the face of the criticism from obstructionist Republicans, they cave. If Democrats couldn't get it done under these conditions, they'll never get it done - and they'll deserve to be swept out of office in the next elections.<br /><br />On this topic see also Paul Krugman in the Times in "Do the Right Thing":<br /><br />"A message to House Democrats: This is your moment of truth. You can do the right thing and pass the Senate health care bill. Or you can look for an easy way out, make excuses and fail the test of history.... Ladies and gentlemen, the nation is waiting. Stop whining, and do what needs to be done."<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Corporate Speech Case</span>: Thursday's <span style="font-style: italic;">Citizens United</span> opinion by the Supreme Court entirely distorts the First Amendment by extending broad free speech principles to corporations. NOTHING in the Constitution extends constitutional rights to corporations. Over 100 years ago the Court (erroneously) extended the definition of the word "person" in the 5th and 14th amendment Due Process clauses to apply to corporations; and, ever since, we've had many anomalous court decisions as a result. The<span style="font-style: italic;"> Citizens United </span>case is the logical endpoint of that doctrine - and now corporations, with their disproportionate money-making capabilities, will be able to spend without limit in political campaigns.<br /><br />Think about it - we all know how powerful any message sent through the broadcast media can be. Ordinary individuals simply do not have the resources to compete in this forum, so the result of corporations (which naturally favor - surprise! - conservative Republican viewpoints) having no limits on campaign spending will be to create an unlevel, skewed playing field.<br /><br />It's disingenuous for the Court to say that meaningful limits on speech violate the First Amendment. Even assuming the ludicrous that a corporation is a “person” in the fullest constitutional sense, all of any person’s constitutional rights are subject to reasonable limits so long as the limits are narrowly tailored and serve a compelling governmental purpose – a cardinal principle the Court chooses to ignore in <span style="font-style: italic;">Citizens United.</span><br /><br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-90161611833826535282010-01-18T19:40:00.005-05:002010-01-18T20:49:39.753-05:00Same-Sex Marriage Case in CaliforniaIn "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17dowd.html">An Odd Couple Defends Couples That Some (Oddly) Find Odd</a>" in yesterday's <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times, </span>Maureen Dowd describes the intriguing lawyer-team of Ted Olsen and David Boies (former adversaries in the 2000 <span style="font-style: italic;">Bush v. Gore</span> case), who are now arguing together against the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 in the U.S. District Court in California.<br /><br />“'Ted Olson and David Boies, so what are they up to?'” Dowd reports Olson mock querying, "summarizing the confusion and conspiracy theories that their union inspired.<br /><br />"As the sun set on the Bay Bridge behind him and the curtain dropped on the first week of the dramatic trial to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, Olson reviewed the case: 'We’re going to explain why allowing same-sex couples to have that same right that the rest of us have is not going to hurt heterosexual marriages. It has no point at all except some people don’t want to recognize gays and lesbians as normal, as human beings.'<br /><br />"Boies, wearing a flag pin on his lapel, said that the state of California is engaged in 'gay bashing.' He spoke intensely about the gay and lesbian plaintiffs, who offered poignant testimony about their loving relationships and about wanting to be liked and accepted: 'These people are people you would want your child to grow up and marry. You can be a child molester and get married. You can be a wife beater and get married. You can be a child-support scofflaw and get married. The importance of that emotional relationship is so vital to the pursuit of happiness that even prison felons, who aren’t really procreating, have a right to get married.'<br /><br />"Noting the rabid effort being made to restrict marriage to only those who can protect its sanctity, a chuckling Olson reeled off some names: 'Tiger Woods, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Kobe Bryant, Bill Clinton.' ...<br /><br />"'I think there’s something the matter with you if you don’t care enough to feel the suffering that they’ve been through and if you’re not emotionally upset about the fact that we’re doing an immense amount of harm to people,' he said. 'We’re not treating them like Americans. We’re not treating them like citizens.'<br /><br />"Boies said the problem was generational, and they have to try the case before judges their own age who might find it hard to move beyond old prejudices. ....<br /><br />"'I’ve got a grandson who’s a senior in college, and he can’t imagine fighting over this issue,' Boies said. 'It’s like explaining to my daughter that there was a time when women didn’t have the right to vote and couldn’t own property.'"<br /><br />Indeed. Today we look back on state laws that forbade inter-racial marriage with a degree of disbelief. But it was just forty years ago that the Supreme Court in <span style="font-style: italic;">Loving v. Virginia </span>struck down the laws of 16 states that did just that. Forty or fifty years from now, we will look back on today's discrimination against same-sex marriage with similar disbelief.<br /><br />Dowd continues: "The anti-gay-marriage proponents whipped up a moral frenzy in 2008, suggesting conjugal parity would harm children, summon the devil, tear down churches and melt civilization. But Olson argued in his opening statement that the discrimination gays experience 'weakens our moral fiber in this country.'<br /><br />"While Charles Cooper, the lawyer on the anti-gay-marriage side, cited President Obama’s declaration that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, Olson noted that Obama’s parents could not have married in Virginia before he was born.<br /><br />"I asked the lawyers if they were disappointed that the president who had once raised such hope in the gay community now seemed behind the curve.<br /><br />“'Damned right,' Boies snapped. 'I hope my Democratic president will catch up to my conservative Republican co-counsel.'<br /><br />"Olson added: 'I’m not talking about Obama, but that’s what’s so bad about politicians. They say, ‘I must hasten to follow them, for I am their leader.’<br /><br />"Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes. But what he doesn’t realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it’s done, you can’t remember what all the fuss was about."<br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-89350591098351641002010-01-02T15:08:00.008-05:002010-01-02T15:39:59.470-05:00Terrific WaPo Farewell Column by Ellen GoodmanAfter 46 years as a journalist (34 years of them writing OpEds for the Washington Post Writers Group), columnist Ellen Goodman is retiring; and she writes a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/31/AR2009123101743.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions">terrific farewell column</a> in yesterday's Washington Post.<br /><br />Pondering what will be her response to the inevitable "what will you do now?" queries, she considers "coopt[ing] Susan Stamberg's one-word answer when she left her anchor post at NPR: 'Less.'" She is "more tempted to say, simply, 'We'll see.' After 46 years of deadlines," she concludes, "it is time to take in some oxygen, to breathe and consider."<br /><br />Ms. Goodman recalls a column from three decades earlier, when she had written of another's retirement:<br /><br />"'There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives.'<br /><br />"'It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on rather than out.'<br /><br />"It was an odd experience to hear, let alone heed, my younger self.<br /><br />"'The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well,' I wrote back then. 'It's hard to recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along -- quite gracefully.'"<br /><br />So what are Ms. Goodman's final concluding words in this final concluding column?<br /><br />"[My younger self] knew then what I know much more intimately now," she observes. "So, with her blessing, I will let myself go. And go for it."<br /><br />Well-done, Ellen Goodman, and godspeed.<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-52245655865705171772009-12-30T23:14:00.004-05:002009-12-30T23:30:30.835-05:00"Radicals In Their Own TIme" - Introduction & Selected ExcerptsI've just posted <a href="http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=michael_lawrence">here</a> the Introduction and excerpts from three chapters in my forthcoming book (Cambridge University Press), "Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America," on my Berkeley Press Selected Works page (<a href="http://works.bepress.com/michael_lawrence/" target="_blank">http://works.bepress.com/michael_lawrence/</a>).<br /><br />Here are the first few paragraphs from the Introduction:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In teaching history, there should be extensive discussions of personalities who</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.</span><br />-Albert Einstein, 1953<br /><br />America in the twenty-first century exists in a perpetual Dickensian sort-of “best<br />of times, worst of times” state when it comes to putting into practice the sacred principles<br />of liberty and equal justice. On one hand, the once-unthinkable occurred in November<br />2008 when the nation – a land that had permitted and promoted human slavery for more<br />than half of its four hundred year history - elected an African-American man president.<br />The symbolic importance alone of placing Barack Obama at the pinnacle of power in the<br />United States, given its sordid past practices, cannot be understated. Yet, on the very<br />same day, a majority of voters in the most populous state in the union, California, voted<br />to deny thousands of their fellow citizens, gay Americans, the equal right to marry. The<br />California experience is only one of numerous legislative-judicial struggles beginning to<br />play out on the issue of gay marriage in other states around the nation.<br /><br />Taking the long view, if history is any guide (and it is), there is little doubt the<br />discriminatory laws against gay marriage will eventually end up on history’s scrapheap.<br />The current battles will soon go the way of those of some fifty years ago involving<br />interracial marriage, during which one Virginia trial court, in upholding the state’s antimiscegenation statute, reasoned: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference<br />with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he<br />separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” Most Americans<br />today would view such language with a mixture of shock and disbelief - but it was not<br />long ago that legislative majorities in sixteen states gave official voice to such ignorant<br />biases.<br /><br />Fifty years from now, the current arguments against gay marriage will seem<br />similarly archaic. As the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. limned, “the arc of the moral<br />universe is long; but it bends toward justice.” For all its faults, the United States<br />Constitution has, over time, provided a one-way ratchet toward greater, not lesser, liberty<br />and equal justice – every constitutional amendment but one (the eighteenth, itself<br />repealed by the twenty-first just fifteen years later), for example, has, if anything,<br />expanded Americans’ freedoms.<br /><br />America’s story is remarkable: a Nation, sprouting from the seeds of<br />Enlightenment principles where “tolerance was a moral virtue, even a duty; no longer<br />merely the prerogative of calculating monarchs, but a fundamental element of the ‘rights<br />of man.’” For the first time in history a people - coming together toward the common<br />goal of liberty and equal justice, and clearly cognizant of human nature’s split personality<br />between good (freedom) and evil (tyranny and oppression) - created a government<br />explicitly designed to resolve the tension in favor of freedom.<br /><br />That is the myth, anyway. But all is not well in the land of milk and honey; for<br />America’s constitutional structure has failed to thwart government’s moves to the darker<br />side: its shameful history of slavery and apartheid; its past oppression of women; its<br />systematic subjugation of Native Americans in violation of sacred treaty promises; its<br />pervasive discrimination against immigrants and homosexuals; and, among other currentday<br />repressions, its curtailments of civil liberties and inexcusable use of torture in the ill-considered “war on terror.” Consider also American geopolitics of the last hundred years: World War I Censorship (Congress’s and President Wilson’s 1917-1918 Espionage and Alien Acts imposing egregious punishments on political speech); World War II Nativism (the President’s authorizing the military to force 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, from their homes and to quarantine them in internment camps for nearly three years; Cold War McCarthyism (powerful committees of both the United States Senate and House of Representatives conducting modern-day witch-hunts of thousands of American citizens accused of having communist sympathies); and Millennial Cheneyism (the executive branch aggressively<br />exceeding long-accepted constitutional limits on its power - even while operating in a<br />system that separates powers in order to provide checks and balances on each co-equal<br />branch).<br /><br />In each case, prejudice, greed, and political expediency took hold before being<br />beaten back – for the time being. It is a constant struggle. As much as America has<br />accomplished in advancing humankind’s perpetual quest for greater Freedom, it has<br />never completely lived up to its own promise, for whatever reason – whether because of<br />bitter class wars (Howard Zinn), its economically-motivated Constitution (Charles<br />Beard), or some combination of these or other factors.<br /><br />Which viewpoint more accurately describes the true America - the mythic<br />common-interest pursuit-of-equal-liberty view; the grittier class-warfare explanation; or<br />the more cynical economic-interest rationale? The reality is that there are elements of<br />accuracy in each. And it is useful to keep them all in mind: Lest we become swept-up in<br />misty patriotic myth, we should recall America’s ignoble history of injustices and<br />intolerance; or, conversely, lest we lose hope, we should remember that the myth and<br />partial reality of America as beacon of freedom has for centuries truly inspired millions<br />around the world. In the end, the goals represented in the positive myth are worth<br />fighting for, both idealistically and practically, for they advance our individual and<br />collective humanity – and offer a model of ambition, idealism and hope for future<br />generations.<br />...<br /><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-87378061276612535922009-12-25T16:15:00.004-05:002009-12-25T16:41:19.572-05:00Senate Passes Health Care Insurance Reform - ReflectionsPaul Krugman's column in today's New York Times, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1">Tidings of Comfort</a>," offers a cogent evaluation of the Senate's momentous passage yesterday of Health Insurance Reform. Commenting that the legislation "will make America a much better country," Krugman divides its critics into three categories:<br /><br />"First, there’s the crazy right, the tea party and death panel people — a lunatic fringe that is no longer a fringe but has moved into the heart of the Republican Party. In the past, there was a general understanding, a sort of implicit clause in the rules of American politics, that major parties would at least pretend to distance themselves from irrational extremists. But those rules are no longer operative. No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.<br /><br />"A second strand of opposition comes from what I think of as the Bah Humbug caucus: fiscal scolds who routinely issue sententious warnings about rising debt. By rights, this caucus should find much to like in the Senate health bill, which the Congressional Budget Office says would reduce the deficit, and which — in the judgment of leading health economists — does far more to control costs than anyone has attempted in the past.<br /><br />"But, with few exceptions, the fiscal scolds have had nothing good to say about the bill. And in the process they have revealed that their alleged concern about deficits is, well, humbug. As Slate’s Daniel Gross says, what really motivates them is 'the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is receiving social insurance.'<br /><br />"Finally, there has been opposition from some progressives who are unhappy with the bill’s limitations. Some would settle for nothing less than a full, Medicare-type, single-payer system. Others had their hearts set on the creation of a public option to compete with private insurers. And there are complaints that the subsidies are inadequate, that many families will still have trouble paying for medical care.<br /><br />"Unlike the tea partiers and the humbuggers, disappointed progressives have valid complaints. But those complaints don’t add up to a reason to reject the bill. Yes, it’s a hackneyed phrase, but politics is the art of the possible.<br /><br />"The truth is that there isn’t a Congressional majority in favor of anything like single-payer. There is a narrow majority in favor of a plan with a moderately strong public option. The House has passed such a plan. But given the way the Senate rules work, it takes 60 votes to do almost anything. And that fact, combined with total Republican opposition, has placed sharp limits on what can be enacted.<br /><br />"If progressives want more, they’ll have to make changing those Senate rules a priority. They’ll also have to work long term on electing a more progressive Congress. But, meanwhile, the bill the Senate has just passed, with a few tweaks — I’d especially like to move the start date up from 2014, if that’s at all possible — is more or less what the Democratic leadership can get.<br /><br />"And for all its flaws and limitations, it’s a great achievement. It will provide real, concrete help to tens of millions of Americans and greater security to everyone. And it establishes the principle — even if it falls somewhat short in practice — that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.<br /><br />"Many people deserve credit for this moment. What really made it possible was the remarkable emergence of universal health care as a core principle during the Democratic primaries of 2007-2008 — an emergence that, in turn, owed a lot to progressive activism. (For what it’s worth, the reform that’s being passed is closer to Hillary Clinton’s plan than to President Obama’s). This made health reform a must-win for the next president. And it’s actually happening.<br /><br />"So progressives shouldn’t stop complaining, but they should congratulate themselves on what is, in the end, a big win for them — and for America." <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden"><div id="refHTML"></div>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-21282550446518466882009-12-15T18:29:00.004-05:002009-12-15T21:02:49.039-05:00McDonald v. Chicago - Law Professors' Amicus BriefA few weeks ago, after the submission of the Petitioners' Brief in the <span style="font-style: italic;">McDonald v. Chicago </span>case in the U.S. Supreme Court (on which I <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=McDonald+petitioner%27s+brief">posted previously</a>), a group of eight law professors - including Professors Richard Aynes (Akron), Jack Balkin (Yale), Randy Barnett (Georgetown), Steven Calabresi (Northwestern), Michael Curtis (Wake Forest), William Van Alstyne (William & Mary), Adam Winkler (UCLA) and I - submitted an amicus brief on the case through the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC).<br /><br />The brief is available<a href="http://www.chicagoguncase.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/08-1521-tsac-constitutional-accountability-center.pdf"> here</a>.Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-72199138950211113302009-12-10T09:22:00.006-05:002009-12-10T10:19:43.935-05:00Obama Approach to Governing; Afghanistan PolicyDavid Ignatius's Washington Post column today, "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120903311.html?wpisrc=newsletter">More Than an Orator-in-Chief,"</a> provides an intriguing take on President Obama's approach to governing.<br /><br />Ignatius reports that at a Dec. 1 luncheon for columnists in the White House library, Obama said:<br /><br />"'If I were basing my decisions on polls, then the banking system might have collapsed, and we probably wouldn't have GM or Chrysler, and it's not clear that the economy would be growing right now.'" "Some presidents have an almost compulsive need to be popular (think Bill Clinton)," Ignatius continues. "This one is less needy, which is an advantage for him and the country."<br /><br />Regarding the president's planned surge in Afghanistan, Ignatius comments, "there were the two juicy nuggets that stuck in my mind, which hint of a broader and more creative approach to governing and diplomacy. They suggest the strategic thinking in the back of our professorial president's mind....<br /><br />[First, Obama said:] 'Part of the goal of my presidency is to take the threat of terrorism seriously but expand our notions of security so that it includes improving our science and technology, making sure our schools work, getting serious about clean energy, fixing our health-care system, stabilizing our deficit and our debt.' This may sound like boilerplate, Ignatius suggests, "but it's actually a pretty good manifesto for governing."<br /><br />"Making responsible policy decisions isn't easy, and in the case of bailing out bankers or sending more troops to Afghanistan, it will leave nearly everyone unhappy. But Obama seems newly comfortable making enemies if he thinks he's doing the right thing."<br /><br />The second insight involves the role of the Taliban. Responding to Ignatius's question about whether he would back reconciliation with the Taliban, Obama said: "'We are supportive of the Afghan government's efforts to reintegrate those elements of the Taliban that . . . have abandoned violence and are willing to engage in the political process.'<br /><br />"Obama sent more signals that night at West Point: He dropped the language from his March 27 speech on Afghanistan insisting the Taliban's core 'must be defeated' and promised only to 'reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government.' He also pledged to 'support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban' who are ready to make peace.<br /><br />"The Taliban gave an interesting response a few days later on its Web site, Alemarah.info. It said the group 'has no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan.' Now, what did that mean? Was it a hint the Taliban might break with al-Qaeda? I don't know, but I hope the White House is asking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to find out."<br /><br />Ignatius concludes: "Obama has a cool and detached style that makes people forget, sometimes, that he is an innovator and a change agent. He would be wise to show the country less of the mental teleprompter and more of the fire inside."Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-76231508647524764782009-11-24T12:23:00.005-05:002009-12-03T09:56:27.229-05:00Something on Which We Can All Agree - Less Government in Criminal JusticeAt last - something on which the right and left can agree....<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/us/24crime.html?_r=1&emc=eta1">"Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice," </a> Adam Liptak describes how both conservatives and liberals are coming around to a position of agreement that government exercises too much power on matters of criminal justice. (The notion of excessive government power is something I've discussed <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=reconciling">here</a> previously.)<br /><br />It is great news for all libertarians - civil, progressive, minimalist alike - that conservatives are coming around from their "tough-on-crime" posture they've held since the days of Nixon, to recognizing that government simply too involved in criminalizing individual activity.<br /><br />Liptak reports:<br /><br />"'It’s a remarkable phenomenon,' said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. 'The left and the right have bent to the point where they are now in agreement on many issues. In the area of criminal justice, the whole idea of less government, less intrusion, less regulation has taken hold.'"<br /><br />"Edwin Meese III, who was known as a fervent supporter of law and order as attorney general in the Reagan administration, now spends much of his time criticizing what he calls the astounding number and vagueness of federal criminal laws.<br /><br />"Mr. Meese once referred to the ACLU as part of the 'criminals’ lobby.' These days, he said, 'in terms of working with the ACLU, if they want to join us, we’re happy to have them.'<br /><br />"Dick Thornburgh, who succeeded Mr. Meese as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and stayed on under President George Bush, echoed that sentiment in Congressional testimony in July.<br /><br />“'The problem of overcriminalization is truly one of those issues upon which a wide variety of constituencies can agree,' Mr. Thornburgh said. 'Witness the broad and strong support from such varied groups as the Heritage Foundation, the Washington Legal Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the A.B.A., the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society and the ACLU.'"<br /><br />A Heritage Foundation report shows that there are "more than 4,400 criminal offenses in the federal code, many of them lacking a requirement that prosecutors prove traditional kinds of criminal intent."<br /><br />Liptak continues: "Harvey A. Silverglate, a left-wing civil liberties lawyer in Boston, says he has been surprised and delighted by the reception that his new book, 'Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent,” has gotten in conservative circles. (A Heritage Foundation official offered this reporter a copy.)<br /><br />"The book argues that federal criminal law is so comprehensive and vague that all Americans violate it every day, meaning prosecutors can indict anyone at all.<br /><br />“'Libertarians and the civil liberties left have always had some common ground on these issues,' said Radley Balko, a senior editor at Reason, a libertarian magazine. 'The more vocal presence of conservatives on overcriminalization issues is really what’s new.' ... 'Conservatives now recognize the economic consequences of a criminal justice leviathan,' said Erik Luna, a law professor at Washington and Lee University."<br /><br />It is a rarity for folks from across the political spectrum to find common ground; but it is encouraging that there seems to be some broadening agreement on lessening the proliferation of criminal statutes.<br /><p></p>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-42743478070575154752009-11-18T08:48:00.003-05:002009-11-18T09:08:07.833-05:00McDonald v. Chicago - Petitioner's BriefThe Petitioner's Brief in the McDonald v. Chicago case, involving whether the 2d Amendment applies to the states, has been filed in the Supreme Court. See it <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/McDonald-brief-11-16-09.pdf">here.</a><br /><br />The brief spends 66 of its 73 pages arguing that the proper constitutional mechanism for incorporating the 2d amendment is the fourteenth amendment privileges or immunities clause (a provision that was improperly buried by the Supreme Court 136 years ago, in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Slaughter-House Cases - </span>as I've <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=privileges+or+immunities">discussed in these pages</a> previously<span style="font-style: italic;">); </span>then makes the conventional due process argument in the remaining pages.<br /><br />Alan Gura, the attorney for the petitioners, recognizes the rare opportunity this case provides to right a monumental wrong that was perpetrated by a Southern-sympathetic Court after the Civil War, and he's done a terrific job making the arguments in this brief.<br /><br />(My two articles on this topic - "Second Amendment Incorporation Through the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities and Due Process Clauses" (in the 2007 <span style="font-style: italic;">Missouri Law Review</span>); and "Rescuing the Privileges or Immunities Clause: How 'Attrition of Parliamentary Processes' Begat Accidental Ambiguity; How Ambiguity Begat <span style="font-style: italic;">Slaughter-House</span>" (in the forthcoming 2009 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal) - are cited in this petitioner's brief at pages 29 and 52, respectively.)Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-26818589080573147352009-11-12T12:25:00.006-05:002009-11-18T23:34:26.212-05:00Destroy the FilibusterAnybody besides me disgusted and discouraged with the healthcare debate?<br /><br />Don't get me started.... Let's just limit the topic for the moment to the entire idea that 41 senators can essentially destroy legislation a majority of Americans AND a majority of Congress want. This is egregiously anti-democratic. Harold Meyerson in his <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111013889.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter">"The Do Nothing Senate"</a> column in the Nov. 11 Washington Post describes the problem well:<br /><br />"A catastrophic change has overtaken the Senate in recent years. Initially conceived as the body that would cool the passions of the House and consider legislation with a more Olympian perspective, the Senate has become a body that shuns debate, avoids legislative give-and-take, proceeds glacially and produces next to nothing. ... With each passing day, the Senate becomes more of a mockery of the principle of majority rule -- democracy's most fundamental precept."<br /><br /><br />So it's time to destroy the filibuster. (See, e.g., <a href="http://www.openleft.com/diary/15963/how-we-can-destroy-the-filibuster">Chris Bowers' "Open Left" blog</a> of November 10.) It used to be that the filibuster was used only rarely; now it is used on virtually any legislation - and this outrageously undemocratic practice is standing in the way of Progress.Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-69133817152118606552009-10-28T09:41:00.005-04:002009-10-28T09:53:30.568-04:00Free Radicals - Individual Efforts Can Change the World<span style="font-size:100%;">The premise of my forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press, <span style="font-style: italic;">Radicals in Their Own Time: Four Hundred Years of Struggle for Liberty and Equal Justice in America,* </span>is that the efforts (mostly unwelcomed, at the time) of certain individuals throughout the nation's history have played huge roles in first identifying, then guaranteeing the freedoms we enjoy today. In this book I focus on the lives of five so-called "free radicals": Roger Williams, Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W.E.B. Du Bois and Vine Deloria.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Yesterday's column by Bob Herbert in the NY Times, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/opinion/27herbert.html?_r=1">Changing the World,</a>" speaks to the mind-set of these sorts of people:<br /><br /></span></span>"The tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them.<br /><br />"This is so wrong. It is the kind of thinking that would have stopped the civil rights movement in its tracks, that would have kept women in the kitchen or the steno pool, that would have prevented labor unions from forcing open the doors that led to the creation of a vast middle class....<br /><br />"Being an American has become a spectator sport. Most Americans watch the news the way you’d watch a ballgame, or a long-running television series, believing that they have no more control over important real-life events than a viewer would have over a coach’s strategy or a script for 'Law & Order.'<br /><br />"With that kind of attitude, ... Rosa Parks would have gotten up and given her seat to a white person, and the Montgomery bus boycott would never have happened....<br /><br />"The nation’s political leaders and their corporate puppet masters have fouled this nation up to a fare-thee-well. We will not be pulled from the morass without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions, in concert with others, can make a profound difference.<br /><br />"It can start with just a few small steps. Mrs. Parks helped transform a nation by refusing to budge from her seat. Maybe you want to speak up publicly about an important issue, or host a house party, or perhaps arrange a meeting of soon-to-be dismissed employees, or parents at a troubled school.<br /><br />"It’s a risk, sure. But the need is great, and that’s how you change the world."<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Individuals like Williams, Paine, Cady Stanton, Du Bois and Deloria had plenty of reason to be discouraged - and they sometimes were, to the point of despondency. They bent, but they didn't break - and they ended up changing the world. <br /><br />Who will be the free radicals remembered from our current era?<br /></span> <span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span>* Release date: summer/fall 2010Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-32823159620830133942009-10-27T08:34:00.008-04:002009-10-27T08:58:10.445-04:00Kudos to Harry Reid for Including Public Option in Proposed Health Care Bill<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603488.html?hpid=topnews">Yesterday's announcement</a> by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will include a government-run insurance plan (a public-option) in the health care bill that will now be debated in the Senate is excellent news.<br /><br />Contrary to naysayers' arguments, including a public option does nothing to limit the ability of private insurers to compete - unless by "competition" one means the ability to impose unfair conditions on customers because they have nowhere else to turn under the current oligarchy.<br /><br />The bottom-line is that a government-run public option would keep the private insurers honest, resulting in better, less expensive coverage for all.<br /><br />Now the Democrats need to put aside their differences to get behind and pass a plan with the public option. One interesting aspect of Reid's proposal would allow individual states to "opt-out," & refuse to participate in the public option - a perfectly reasonable provision that respects America's federalist structure. This could lead to a very interesting side-show in the states - how many citizens would vote with their feet and leave states that opted out?? <br /><br />Sure, it would be nice if a Republican or two (or even more) would take off their partisan blinders for a moment and consider what Americans truly want and need instead of playing the same old politics, but given the experience of the recent past we won't hold our breath - so now it's up to the Senate Democrats to do the right thing and pass this bill.Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-41969221994634788452009-10-24T16:01:00.009-04:002009-10-24T16:33:23.927-04:00Obama Needs to Take Stands on PrincipleIn her column last Sunday, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/opinion/18dowd.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1256414549-fJZubiDKXrYENJxKSIbrBw">Fie, Fatal Flaw,"</a> Maureen Dowd makes a good point that President Obama does not want to compromise so much that his ideals get blurred out of recognition. <br /><br />Quoting Leon Wieseltier in the <span style="font-style: italic;">New Republic</span>, she comments: “'The demotion of human rights by the common-ground presidency is absolutely incomprehensible. The common ground is not always the high ground. When it is without end, moreover, the search for common ground is bad for bargaining. It informs the other side that what you most desire is the deal — that you will never acknowledge the finality of the difference, and never be satisfied with the integrity of opposition. There is a reason that ‘uncompromising’ is a term of approbation.'" <br /><br />Dowd continues, "F.D.R. asked to be judged by the enemies he had made. But what of a president who strives to keep everyone in some vague middle ground of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, without ever offending anyone? <br /><br />"F.D.R. asked to be judged by the enemies he had made. But what of a president who strives to keep everyone in some vague middle ground of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, without ever offending anyone? <br /><br />"White House advisers don’t seem worried yet that Obama’s transformational aura could get smudged if too much is fudged. They say it is the normal tension between campaigning on a change platform and actually accomplishing something in office. <br /><br />"Yet Obama’s legislative career offers cautionary tales about the toll of constant consensus building.<br /><br />"In Springfield, he compromised so much on a health care reform bill that in the end, it merely led to a study. In Washington, he compromised so much with Senate Republicans on a bill to require all nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities about radioactive leaks that it simply devolved into a bill offering guidance to regulators, and even that ultimately died. Now the air is full of complaints that Obama has been too cautious on health care, Afghanistan, filling judgeships, ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and rebuilding New Orleans; that he has conceded too much to China, Iran, Russia, the Muslim world and the banks."<br /><br />For the President to fulfill his promise, every now and then he needs to take a stand on core principle - especially when we're talking about human rights. But Obama appears to be all-too-ready to compromise even there. As 73-year old former Czech president Vaclev Havel said recently about Obama's caving to Chinese dictators by failing to meet with the Dalai Lama during his recent visit to Washington, “It is only a minor compromise. But exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems.”Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-72201900457604173642009-09-30T11:07:00.009-04:002009-09-30T13:32:49.696-04:00Huge News - Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in McDonald v. Chicago re: Privileges or ImmunitiesWord just in that the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in (i.e., decided to hear) the <span style="font-style: italic;">McDonald v. Chicago</span> case <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=mcdonald">discussed here </a>previously - and, most importantly, did not appear to have limited the arguments to due process, as Chicago had suggested.<br /><br />Specifically, here's how the issue is framed in <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/todays-orders-40/">today's order </a>(scroll down to Docket No. 08-1521): "Whether the Second Amendment is incorporated into the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so as to be applicable to the States, thereby invalidating ordinances prohibiting possession of handguns in the home."<br /><br />Please forgive the momentary gloat, but this is precisely the question raised (which my thesis answers in the affirmative) in my <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=missouri">2007 Missouri Law Review article</a>, entitled (in language virtually identical to the Court's stated issue): "<span style="font-style: italic;">Second Amendment Incorporation Through the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities and Due Process Clauses."</span><br /><br />So, the <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=privileges+or+immunities">Privileges or Immunities argument</a> we've been pushing, for so long, is ON in the Supreme Court. This is huge.Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-60864976959707142352009-09-28T14:00:00.005-04:002009-09-28T14:19:51.025-04:00Nordyke v. King RehearingLast Thursday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-heard oral arguments in the case of <span style="font-style: italic;">Nordyke v. King (</span>discussed <a href="http://progressiveliberty.blogspot.com/search?q=nordyke">here</a> previously)<span style="font-style: italic;">, </span>regarding whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment to apply to the states.<br /><br />As <a href="http://theusconstitution.org/blog.history/?p=1338">reported Friday</a> on the Constitutional Accountability Center's "Text and History Blog,"<br /><br /><p>"Just a few hours after the 11-judge <em>en banc </em>panel heard argument, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski issued an order holding off on further consideration of the case until the Supreme Court disposes of three outstanding petitions for <em>certiorari </em>in similar cases –<em><a href="http://www.theusconstitution.org/page_module.php?id=12&mid=9">McDonald v. City of Chicago</a> </em>(No. 08-1521), in which CAC [and law professors Richard Aynes, Jack Balkin, Randy Barnett, Michael Curtis, Michael Lawrence, and Adam Winkler] filed an <em>amicus</em><a href="http://www.chicagoguncase.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/cac_cert_stage.pdf"> brief</a> urging Supreme Court review; <em>National Rifle Ass’n v. City of Chicago</em> (No. 08-1497), the companion case to <em>McDonald</em>, also out of the Seventh Circuit; and <em>Maloney v. Rice</em>, (No. 08-1592), the comparable New York “numchucks” case coming out of the Second Circuit. All three of these petitions present challenges to local laws restricting the sale or possession of arms, and are asking the Court to determine whether, and if so how, the individual right to bear arms is “incorporated” against state and local action.</p> <p>"These three petitions are currently scheduled to be considered at the Supreme Court’s so-called “long conference” on September 29. The Court is expected to announce its decision on whether to hear the cases soon thereafter.</p> <p>"The Ninth Circuit’s action suggests that the Supreme Court should not wait any longer for the Circuit courts to weigh in on the incorporation question. So far, both the Second and Seventh Courts have found no incorporation, citing binding Supreme Court precedent, thus there is technically no “split” on the matter. While the Court frequently waits until a pronounced split has developed among the federal circuit courts before granting review, here, the lower courts have indicated that they feel this is a matter for the High Court to decide."</p>Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3122159219131426808.post-33492114697761879622009-09-04T09:17:00.013-04:002009-09-04T10:57:52.854-04:00Just Do It - Obama Needs Backbone for Meaningful Healthcare Reform, a la FDRIn <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/opinion/03smith.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=roosevelt%20the%20great%20divider&st=cse"> "Roosevelt, the Great Divider"</a> in yesterday's New York Times, Jean Edward Smith explained that much of the meaningful progressive reform accomplished during the New Deal was done by a pugnacious president willing to exercise his majority in Congress even though he knew he would be highly criticized by his opponents.<br /><br />“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said on national radio before the 1936 election, Smith recalls. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”<br /><br />When he was seeking to make major progressive reform, FDR did not waste his time trying to work with the deeply entrenched obstructionist minorities interested only in maintaining an unjust status quo. He did not consult giant utilities, for example, when he sought to create the Tennessee Valley Authority which would provide affordable electricity throughout the poor South. He did not ask for the permission of Wall Street when he proposed the Securities and Exchange Commission to curb greed. Had he caved to the loud minority who believe that government has no role in providing a social safety net, we would have no Social Security. His arguments for maximum hours and minimum wage laws and the right to bargain collectively were over the heated objections of American business. And, to show that it was not always traditionally conservative vested interests that he faced down, organized labor was vociferous in its objection to the Civilian Conservation Corps because of the low wages paid by the corps.<br /><br />In short, Smith explains, "majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission." He assuaged his Democratic colleagues to maintain his majorities, but "his Republican opponents were relegated to the political equivalent of Siberia.... [He] lambasted the 'economic royalists' who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having 'earned the hatred of entrenched greed.' In another speech he mocked 'the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs' who criticized the government’s relief efforts.... Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process."<br /><br />By contrast, President Obama's "fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead." Smith suggests "[i]t is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices. Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land."<br /><br />Really, what does Obama have to lose? Face it: the Right, marching to the tune of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Steele, is never going to play ball. Their main agenda is political - whatever it takes to bring Obama down, they're for. So Obama might as well stand up, like FDR, and say, "to heck with 'em - we're going to pass reform with teeth that will create the sort of humane society of which we are all worthy."<br /><br />What does that mean? As David Brooks suggests in his column today, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html?scp=1&sq=let%27s%20get%20fundamental&st=cse">"Let's Get Fundamental": </a>"There are many people telling [President Obama] to go incremental. They’re telling him to just enlarge the current system a bit and pay for it by pounding down a few Medicare fees. But did Barack Obama really get elected so he could pass the Status Quo Sanctification and Extension Act?<br /><br />"This is not the time to get incremental. It’s the time to get fundamental. Reform the incentives. Make consumers accountable for spending. Make price information transparent. Reward health care, not health services. Do what you set out to do. Bring change."<br /><br />Much of what has made America great was brought about by progressive legislation. If President Obama wants to be a great president who makes lasting, meaningful progressive change, he should stand up, be brave (in his own way, if not in the outright combative manner of FDR), and commit to a strong progressive plan. Accept that the ever-present regressive 40% of American society will bitch and moan about it (but of course they will take full advantage of its benefits once available) - they'll never change, so might as well just move forward despite them.Michael Anthony Lawrencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11836636605306772046noreply@blogger.com