This is our chance to make gerrymandering unconstitutional

Why you should support Common Cause

In January, a federal judge ruled that the Wisconsin Legislature—tasked with drawing legislative districts—would have to re-draw them to less blatantly favor one party over the other.

The Legislature in Wisconsin drew unconstitutionally partisan lines because they wanted to rig the system.

They’ve appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, and you can bet they’ll be well financed.

This problem is called Gerrymandering, and I’m determined to terminate its poisonous impact on our democracy.

That’s why I’ve partnered with Common Cause, a nonprofit focused on promoting open, honest and accountable government.

We want to hire the best-in-the-business lawyers to argue this and other critical cases before the Supreme Court.

If we win, we have the chance to make gerrymandering unconstitutional nation-wide.

But terminating gerrymandering will be expensive.

Arguing a case in front of the Supreme Court, filing amicus briefs, paying for the research and legal expertise necessary to really have a shot at terminating gerrymandering — that’ll take anywhere from $250,000 to $1,000,000.

We’re hoping YOU can help us get to $150,000. And because we must win these cases, I’m personally going to match each and every dollar we raise with my own contribution.

Please chip in whatever you can afford today — even $3 will send a powerful message that the citizens of America won’t stand idly by as politicians protect their jobs instead of earn them.

Message from Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Thank you!

Friends — 

I have been traveling across the globe, but I had to take a moment to write you a quick note of thanks for joining me in the effort to end partisan gerrymandering.

Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, our work begins in earnest. You are on the front lines of this battle, and I’m grateful to have you with me in this fight. 
 
I can think of no better way to celebrate our patriotism after July 4th than boldly proclaiming that as American citizens, we stand united against gerrymandering and the broken political system it has created.
 
We stand against politicians choosing themselves and their jobs over the people. 
 
We stand for American citizens taking political power into their own hands. 
 
You’ve already done your part by donating — now make sure that your friends know we have the chance to make gerrymandering unconstitutional. 
 
Share your support on Facebook.
 

Together, we’re going to make Washington work for regular people again. 
 
I hope you had a fantastic fourth, 

Arnold

USA: Merrick Garland Is Named As President Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee

Chief Judge Merrick Garland in 2013. U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit via AP

Chief Judge Merrick Garland in 2013.
U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit via AP

Federal appeals court judge Merrick Brian Garland is President Obama’s pick to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

The president officially named Garland as a Supreme Court nominee as they stood before the media and a large gathering of attendees in the Rose Garden at the White House Wednesday.

Addressing the refusal by Republican leaders in the Senate to consider a Supreme Court nominee, Obama said that in Garland, he had chosen “a serious man and an exemplary judge.”

He added that in discussions about Supreme Court vacancies — the current one, as well as earlier openings — “The one name that has come up repeatedly – from Republicans and Democrats alike – is Merrick Garland.”

After a more than 20-minute introduction by Obama, Garland received a sustained round of applause and spoke to the crowd in the Rose Garden.

“This is the greatest honor of my life, other than Lynn agreeing to marry me 28 years ago,” Garland said, growing emotional and pointing to his wife.

“As my parents taught me by both words and deeds,” Garland said, “a life of public service is as much a gift to the person who serves as it is to those he is serving. And for me, there could be no higher public service than serving as a member of the United States Supreme Court.”

After describing the importance of community service in his family, Garland said, “I know that my mother is watching this on television, and crying her eyes out. So are my sisters, who have supported me in every step I have ever taken. I only wish that my father were here to see this today.”

He added, “I also wish that we hadn’t taught my older daughter to be so adventurous that she would be hiking in the mountains, out of cell-service range, when the president called.”

Garland, 63, is currently the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A former prosecutor, he’s also viewed as a moderate. And he has cultivated a reputation for openness and collegiality at the D.C. Circuit, a bench that’s sometimes called the second most important in the land.

Garland will visit Capitol Hill Thursday to begin meeting with legislators, Obama said.

Speaking on a sunny mid-morning at the White House, Obama praised Garland for his “decency, modesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence.”

With Garland standing beside him, Obama recounted the judge’s bio, from his youth in Chicago to his sacrifices to go to college and law school — sacrifices, Obama said, that included Garland selling his comic book collection.

Before becoming a judge, Garland occupied top posts in the Justice Department, where he oversaw some of the biggest investigations of the Clinton era, including the Oklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber case, and the Atlanta Olympics bombing.

Obama made particular mention of the Oklahoma City case this morning, noting the diligence with which Garland pursued the case, as well as the care and consideration he showed to victims of that attack and their families — including carrying the program from a memorial service for the fallen as he worked on the case.

The president quoted Garland saying that the case was “the most important thing I have ever done in my life.”

Garland has been a finalist for two other Supreme Court openings during Obama’s presidency; he joined the appeals court in 1997, after a long Senate delay and a 76-23 vote.

Today, Obama noted that Garland has earned bipartisan support for his work. In the past, the judge has won praise from senior Republican figures that include Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and Chief Justice John Roberts.

The president’s move to fill the seat left vacant by Scalia, who died just over one month ago, comes as conservative Republicans have pledged to block any attempt to fill the spot before a new president is sworn in next January.

Garland’s nomination opens a new chapter in what could become an epic and bruising fight over both the ideological tilt of the nation’s highest court and President Obama’s legacy.

This morning, Obama called on the Senate to hold a fair confirmation hearing of his nominee, and to hold an up-or-down vote.

Announcing his plan to fill the vacancy, Obama said, “it is both my constitutional duty to nominate a Justice and one of the most important decisions that I — or any president — will make.”

A native of Illinois, Garland attended Harvard Law School and was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He then went into private practice at a law firm before taking a job as a federal prosecutor during President George H.W. Bush’s administration. He and his wife, Lynn, have two daughters.

Speculation over Scalia’s replacement had settled on Garland and two other appeals court judges in recent days, as NPR reported:

Judge Sri Srinivasan, 49, also of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia

Judge Paul Watford, 48, of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco

Here’s how NPR’s Nina Totenberg described each judge, on today’s Morning Edition:

Garland is “formerly a prosecutor; he ran the Oklahoma City bombing investigation; he ran the Unabomber investigation. … The con is that because he has all that experience, he’s 63 years old, and a lot of Democrats would like somebody younger than that, who presumably would be there longer than that.”

Srinivasan is “widely respected, has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He doesn’t have a long Court of Appeals record — but that’s not enough to flyspeck very carefully.”

Watford “has been on the 9th Circuit since the first Obama administration; there were 34 Republican votes against him, but there were Republican votes for him. If he doesn’t make it this time, I guarantee you his name will be in the mix next time.”

Nina also noted that when the Senate confirmed Srinivasan to the federal bench in 2013, it did so by a vote of 97-0. That standing, and his potential to become both the first South Asian and the first Hindu on the high court, led many to view Srinivasan as the favorite to be Obama’s nominee.

Once he’s nominated, Garland will likely find a contentious reception in the Senate — but Nina said the outcome of the national election could shape that process.

Referring to both Garland and Srinivasan, Nina said earlier this morning that if current Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton wins in November, “the likelihood is that the Republicans would go ahead and confirm either one of these two men, on the theory that anybody Hillary Clinton would nominate would be more liberal.”

Before making his decision, Obama said, he consulted with legal experts across the political spectrum. And he listed three qualities he sought in a potential Supreme Court justice:

– An “independent mind, unimpeachable credentials, and an unquestionable mastery of law.”

– A recognition of “the limits of the judiciary’s role.”

– Awareness “that justice is not about abstract legal theory, nor some footnote in a dusty casebook.”

After that last point, Obama said he wanted a candidate who had experienced life outside academic or justice settings, so they would understand the way the law “affects the daily reality of people’s lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times.”

“I am fulfilling my constitutional duty,” Obama said at the close of his message. “I’m doing my job. I hope that our Senators will do their jobs, and move quickly to consider my nominee.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, the White House noted that the last time the Senate refused to vote on a president’s Supreme Court nominee was in 1875 — and that “one-third of all previous U.S. presidents have had a nominee confirmed to the Supreme Court in an election year.”

In: npr

“Under God’s authority”: The case of clerk Kim Davis

meme secular state

Not for winning or being appointed in clerk position, this will belong to her and, from that post, she can decide who deserves a service and who does not. The exercise of public service is not about choices (It’s Not About what you believe) because is a duty, and she can´t have that discriminatory behavior against any person in relation with the goods and services that the state provides to its citizens.

Public service is mandatory for all civil servant. Public administration and the civil service is characterized by the objectivity and impartiality that is embodied in the fact prevent personal or individual elements affect the civil servant criteria when making decisions.

Public and civil servants must be objective in the line of duty. It’s like saying “think with reason and not so much with the heart”. It’s like going to a restaurant and the customer orders to the waiter “I would like to order biscuits ’n’ gravy” and the waiter answers to the consumer “sorry I don’t like biscuits ’n’ gravy, so you don’t deserve it, too”.

Finally, rule of law is a principle in public administration and because of that she can´t deny the marriage service even more if the SCOTUS ruled the same sex marriage as a right nationwide. The public servants develops their duties inside a secular state.

arturodiazf

See: The Kentucky clerk who won’t issue marriage licences, and all her deputy clerks have been called to appear at a federal court hearing

Supreme Court says Kentucky clerk can’t deny same-sex marriage licenses

Considero que no es que por ganar o haber sido designado en el puesto, este le pertenezca a ella y, desde esa nueva posición, ella pueda decidir a quien atender y a quien no. El ejercicio del servicio público no se trata de opciones (It’s not about what you believe), sino un deber y como tal no debe discriminarse a ninguna persona respecto de los bienes y servicios que el Estado brinda a sus ciudadanos.

El servicio público es imperativo para todo servidor civil. La administración pública y el servicio civil se caracterizan por la objetividad que se materializa en el hecho de evitar que elementos personales o individuales afecten el criterio del servidor civil al momento de tomar decisiones.

Es como se dice: “pensar con la razón y no tanto con el corazón”. Ello no obsta que el servidor civil tenga un espectro de acción que le lleve a hacer lo correcto pero sin afectar negativa e injustificadamente la situación jurídica del Estado o los derechos del ciudadano.

Imagen: thedailybeast.com

Imagen: thedailybeast.com

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned down a Kentucky county clerk’s request for an emergency order allowing her to continue to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples while she appeals a federal judge’s order requiring her to do so. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Monday to let a Kentucky county clerk deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of what she said were her religious beliefs.

The ruling, made without comment or any apparent dissents, is an early indication that while some push-back against gay marriage on religious grounds may be upheld, the justices won’t tolerate it from public officials.

In one of the first tests of the court’s June 26 decision upholding the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis had argued that her Christian faith prevented her from recognizing such marriages.

Rather than deny only same-sex couples, which the high court had said would be unconstitutional, she chose to stop issuing marriage licenses altogether — and was sued by same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

Davis argued that her refusal was not a major burden for the couples, since Kentucky has about 136 other marriage-licensing locations. But federal district and appeals court judges had refused to grant her wish, forcing Davis to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention. Her petition was filed late last week by the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel.

“If a (same-sex marriage) license is issued with Davis’ name, authorization, and approval, no one can unring that bell,” the petition said. “That searing act of validation would forever echo in her conscience.”

The high court’s ruling doesn’t end Davis’ challenge, still pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit — the same appellate court that previously allowed Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee to block same-sex marriage before being overruled by the Supreme Court. But it means that in the meantime, her office must issue marriage licenses.

En: usatoday

SCOTUS: Kentucky clerk must issue same-sex marriage licenses

KENTUCKY — The Supreme Court on Monday night, August 31st denied an emergency application from a Kentucky clerk who has been refusing to issue marriage licenses because of her religious objections to same-sex marriage.

Image: CNN

Image: CNN

The clerk, Kim Davis, sought to put a lower court ruling on hold pending appeal, and in a one-page order the Supreme Court refused.

Davis is now faced with a lower court order that her office begin issuing licenses effective Monday.

The order marks the first time the issue of same-sex marriage has come back to the justices since they issued an opinion last June clearing the way for same-sex couples to marry nationwide.

Davis, of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, has refused to issue any marriage licenses since the decision — Obergefell v. Hodges — came down. She is an Apostolic Christian who says that she has a sincere religious objection to same-sex marriage. Other clerks in the state have expressed concern, but Davis is the only one turning away eligible couples.

In Court papers, lawyers for Davis said that her “conscience forbids her from approving a (same-sex marriage) license — because the prescribed form mandates that she authorize the proposed union and issue a license bearing her own name and imprimatur.”

“In her belief,” the lawyers wrote, “(same-sex marriage) is not, in fact, marriage.”

They said issuing a same-sex license would amount to a “searing act of validation” that would “forever echo in her conscience.”

En: fox6now