Since he is calling his amendment "The Occupied Amendment," I am curious to hear why Rep Deutch voted in favor of HR 347 - the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, also known as the “Trespassing Bill,” which essentially criminalizes free speech and is obviously aimed at the Occupy movement?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29673
Wisconsin is among several states that have court cases pending regarding the validity of laws requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to vote. One of these states, South Carolina, will have its case heard by the United States Supreme Court.
South Carolina is one of nine states that is required under the Voting Rights Act to submit changes in voting laws to the Department of Justice for preclearance. This is largely based on those states and some other entities' previous disenfranchisement of African Americans through poll taxes.
The United Stats Supreme Court declared poll taxes unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia Bd. Of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), writing
'We conclude that a State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax...Our cases demonstrate that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment restrains the States from fixing voter qualifications which invidiously discriminate."
Thus, Harper v. Virginia Bd. Of Elections established the standard that laws may not "invidiously discriminate" against any class of voters.
However, in Crawford v. Marion County, 553 U. S. 181 (2008), the United States Supreme Court ruled that the heavy burden of proof required by the facial challenge, that is, a challenge that seeks a ruling applicable in all circumstances, had not been met and ruled "In sum, on the basis of the record that has been made in this litigation, we cannot conclude that the statute imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters."
It remains to be seen which case or cases the United States Supreme Court will cite in the South Carolina case or whether it will pave a new path. However, given that, according to the Web site of the Brennan Center, the Department of Justice has also rejected voter identification laws of Texas, (http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/voting_newsletter_doj_rejects_texas_voting_law/,
retrieved March 13, 2012), other states may follow.
I can hardly believe that Heartland (talk about an Oxymoron!) has 501c3 status. My daughter with her ballet company had to battle for that! In the meantime, these political hacks are being effectively 'subsidized' by the taxman (i.e. tax payers) to produce and propagate their venomous message that 'teachers are overpaid'. My other daughter with a Masters in Childhood Education earns $32k a year. Wow... what she will do with her ill-gotten gains I have no idea!
When the Republicans (whom I used to respect, but no longer) keep hammering away at the middle class to reduce, in Wisconsin's case, a deficit that was none of their creation (some bad Hedge-Fund karma), do you wonder why folks feel that the US is being sold down the river by the Repugs. Yes, time to kick out Walker and ALL his ilk.
The republican agenda is to diminish the votes of blacks, hispanics,seniors, college students and all who would vote for the democrats. Their facade that we are doing it to protect the electorate is a bunch of you know what. They could care less. It is mean and diabolical for these uncaring republicans to try and pull the wool over the eyes of Americans.They are infiltrating our government from the white house down to our lowly local government. They must be stopped or we will descend into civil unrest or total collapse.
Dear Sir or Madam:
When were you an ALEC member and what role did you play in ALEC? How much money did you (or your constituents) pay in "dues" versus your corporate "equals" in ALEC? Which votes on which ALEC bills were simply for the good of your district? It's all well and good to assert such generic claims, but let's talk specifics.
On the issue of NCSL, it is simply false to contend that NCSL is some sort of liberal-biased alternative to ALEC. Please show me any evidence you have of various supposedly "Dem" model bills from NCSL that are anything akin to the right-wing agenda being stoked via ALEC. For example, I challenge you to send me a link to any of the rare NCSL bills that exist that would prove your point, let alone document some sort of pack of pro-union bills that would act as a counter-weight to the anti-worker bills and agenda pushed by ALEC corporations.
However, it is the case that corporations have been attempting to exert increased influence on NCSL members via the separate NCSL Foundation, in an effort perhaps to replicate their success within ALEC, but the primary groups (NCSL and ALEC) remain markedly dissimilar despite claims by some that they are equivalent.
Here is an article we prepared that compares the groups:
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10882/comparison-alec-and-ncsl
What's your rebuttal to this comparison?
Also, if you've got corporate NCSL model bills to share, we'll investigate it.
Lisa
Pages