SCOTUS gonna be busy this month

[dan_bgblue]

Some important rulings to be handed down (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/27/us/scotus-pending-rulings/index.html?hpt=hp_bn3)

[CitizenBBN]

My predictions / hopes, as if they matter:

- DOMA : I'm both hoping and expecting it to be stricken at least in part. I hope it is destroyed in favor of a simple principle that any person can pick any one other person, married or not, as their successor and "partner" for federal taxation and benefits purposes. I fail to see why any married person, be it hetero or gay, gets a right to avoid taxes that a single person must pay. If a single person wishs to leave an estate to a dear friend they should have the same tax privilege as any married person IMO.

This would also end a lot of the issues behind the gay marriage debate, and they could return the rest of the decision about what constitutes a "union" to the states. I do expect them to basically hand this back to the states on the broader question of gay marriage. The Court hates making sweeping rulings out in front of societal norms. They will likely choose to let this percolate through the legislative process at the state level a while longer. That would mean DIGging or otherwise sidestepping the California case.

- Voting Rights Act: IMO should be gutted simply on the basis that it only applies to certain voting districts and ignores a huge number of local procedures crafted to discriminate and influence elections. Apply the law to everyone or no one is my principle here.

- Affirmative Action: I'm no fan of any discrimination of any kind, and in this case with a public university I don't think there should be any such discrimination. I get very nervous when governments get to decide who is more deserving of something based not on the actions of each individual but on some broader sense of social justice. You never know when that social justice will turn to something far more ugly.

- Gene patents: They'll try to stay on the middle here, maybe allowing patents of results of discoveries in some way but not of the genes themselves. In a way this is the most interesting case, as principles of patent will generally remain in place longer than the political cases above. Though of late patent and copyright have been heavily distorted IMO, esp. copyright. I'd like to see the Court whack a lot of the changes the RIAA/MPAA have manged to lobby into place.

[Darrell KSR]

Couple of irrelevant sidelines here.

Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder is the voting rights case, and that's my home county. Got a rooting interest in seeing them prevail to strike it down. I'm sorta treating it like a college basketball or football game.

I'm very interested in the DOMA case, too. Have a seminar being presented in two weeks by a former student of mine. She took a select class I taught (we had only 5 students) in estate and gift taxation, and she--a star student, very gifted--approached me after class to discuss a niche market she believed was not being met very well in the Birmingham, Alabama area. It related to legal issues for lesbians and gays and we discussed the DOMA somewhat, to the limited amount I knew about it and how it related to federal estate taxation.

I'll never forget me inquiring about how she developed the interest in that niche market of addressing the legal issues of lesbian and gay clients, and she told me that she "was married to a lesbian."

I got a good chuckle out of that. She has a great personality and very quick wit. Gave a take-home final essay/project (wish I could do that for all classes, but need small classes to do it), and her paper was outstanding.

She maintained contact with me after passing the bar, and she is presenting a seminar in two weeks that will address some of these issues. I am looking forward to attending (although frankly, the issues are almost non-existent to my practice.) From an academic standpoint, I think it promises to be very interesting.

I'll shut up now and allow you Constitutional scholars and SCOTUS folks to talk among yourselves. I'm a popcorn eating, peanut gallery kinda guy when it comes to these things.

[dan_bgblue]

Affirmative Action Case Sent back to lower court by a 7-1 vote (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/24/supreme-court-punts-on-affirmative-action-case-sends-issue-back-to-lower-court/?test=latestnews)

[MickintheHam]

Couple of irrelevant sidelines here.

Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder is the voting rights case, and that's my home county. Got a rooting interest in seeing them prevail to strike it down. I'm sorta treating it like a college basketball or football game.

I'm very interested in the DOMA case, too. Have a seminar being presented in two weeks by a former student of mine. She took a select class I taught (we had only 5 students) in estate and gift taxation, and she--a star student, very gifted--approached me after class to discuss a niche market she believed was not being met very well in the Birmingham, Alabama area. It related to legal issues for lesbians and gays and we discussed the DOMA somewhat, to the limited amount I knew about it and how it related to federal estate taxation.

I'll never forget me inquiring about how she developed the interest in that niche market of addressing the legal issues of lesbian and gay clients, and she told me that she "was married to a lesbian."

I got a good chuckle out of that. She has a great personality and very quick wit. Gave a take-home final essay/project (wish I could do that for all classes, but need small classes to do it), and her paper was outstanding.

She maintained contact with me after passing the bar, and she is presenting a seminar in two weeks that will address some of these issues. I am looking forward to attending (although frankly, the issues are almost non-existent to my practice.) From an academic standpoint, I think it promises to be very interesting.

I'll shut up now and allow you Constitutional scholars and SCOTUS folks to talk among yourselves. I'm a popcorn eating, peanut gallery kinda guy when it comes to these things.
Historic Day for those of us in Shelby County, Alabama. SCOTUS rules in favor of the plantiffs in striking down the VRA.

[dan_bgblue]

Historic Day for those of us in Shelby County, Alabama. SCOTUS rules in favor of the plantiffs in striking down the VRA.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/25/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-act/?test=latestnews

(http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/25/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-act/?test=latestnews)

[MickintheHam]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/25/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-act/?test=latestnews

(http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/25/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-act/?test=latestnews)

Bader's dissent shows how out of touch she is with what goes on in the world today. No one argues that discrimination still exists through out this country. The issue was the statistical data being used to determine where discrimination existed was almost 50 years old. The population of the county in 1960 was 35,000 people. Today it is over 200k. What existed in the 60's doesn't exist today. It is an entirely different place. Golly she is dense.

[kritikalcat]

The argument I've heard from friends unhappy with the VRA decision is: correct decision in a vacuum, bad decision in the real world. They acknowledge that the VRA was outdated; but feel that the current legislative environment will make it very hard to get fair up-to-date protections.

[kritikalcat]

and, since not already posted, SCOTUS struck down DOMA 5-4 and turned back the Prop 8 appeal on standing grounds 5-4 (which means that Prop 8 is dead in California)

[MickintheHam]

The argument I've heard from friends unhappy with the VRA decision is: correct decision in a vacuum, bad decision in the real world. They acknowledge that the VRA was outdated; but feel that the current legislative environment will make it very hard to get fair up-to-date protections.
Congress has had every opportunity to fix any problems with the act and has chosen not to do so when they had the opportunity. Our county in 50 years has moved from small agrarian to large suburban light industrial area. Nothing is the same as 50 years ago.

Those supporting the VRA advance approval of voting changes are the same bigoted group who did nothing when the Black Panthers intimidated voters in Philly.

[suncat05]

I just read Justice Scalia's dissent, and it is a scathing rebuttal to the majority of the Court, and I believe, correct in its essence.