For the first couple of days, every time I saw a blog headline about “Lebron” I though it was about the First Amendment case. But I don't suppose the New York Times could have live-blogged the Supreme Court back in 1995.
Anyway, it's Miami, if you care.
[Update] PS. There's a tax angle here. See Paul Caron's roundup at The Impact of Taxes on Lebron James' Decision.
Prof. Jack Balkin of Yale thinks Judge Truro's opinion's striking down DOMA will not survive appeal:
Judge Tauro is way ahead of the national consensus on the the equal protection issue. Perhaps more importantly, his Tenth Amendment arguments prove entirely too much. As much as liberals might applaud the result, they should be aware that the logic of his arguments, taken seriously, would undermine the constitutionality of wide swaths of federal regulatory programs and seriously constrict federal regulatory power.
…
There is much to admire in Judge Touro's bravery in writing these opinions, and in his forthright declaration that the federal government's policy is unjust and unreasonable. His two opinions are wild, audacious, and fearless in their logic. But for the same reason, they will and should be quickly overturned. I believe that the civil rights of gays and lesbians will someday be vindicated by legislatures and courts. But not in this way.
Jack is not a natural pessimist, so I'm inclined to take his views on this very seriously.
Major pair of decisions in Massachusetts by Judge Joseph L. Tauro (appointed by Nixon, no less): Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional because it denies gay couples equal protection of the laws without a rational basis.
Full text of the decisions: Gill, Commonwealth.
See Adam B's post at Daily Kos for the cliff notes.
Amendment 7 is the poison-pill amendment added by our glorious state legislature in an effort to preemptively undo the effects of Amendments 5 and 6. Today a judge in Tallahassee held that Amendment 7 is too confusing and misleading to be on the ballot. See The Jacksonville Observer, Judge Yanks Redistricting Amendment from Fall Ballot, for more. (The headline is misleading: Amendment 7 is better thought of as the anti-redistricting amendment.)
It's important to understand just how raw a move Amendment 7 is. Florida is a state that is, most of the time, pretty finely balanced between Republicans and Democrats — we were, after all, the ultimate 50/50 state in the Bush-Gore election. But our state electoral districts are heavily gerrymandered to produce an overwhelming Republican majority.
As a result, the only way in which progressive legislation ever happens here is by referendum. That was, for example, how we got the maximum class size amendment passed. (Jeb Bush and other GOP leaders then spent years trying to repeal or undermine it, but generally failed.)
The referendum process is far from perfect, and may even discomfit those small-r republicans who see republican virtue in representative processes and demotic danger in direct democracy, but it has on balance been good for Florida. (See Of Pigs and the Ballot Box.) It was, therefore, particularly unfortunate — but in no way surprising — that Florida Republicans recently managed to enact a constitutional amendment requiring a super-majority for all future amendments.
Florida progressives then decided to attack the root cause of our electoral problems by putting two amendments on the ballot which would eliminate gerrymandering by requiring rational and compact districts. Amendments 5 and 6 — the result of a popular campaign to attract the large required number of signatures — may not be perfect, but they're pretty good. There were certainly good enough to frighten Tallahassee politicians. In fact, from afar it seems the state political establishment panicked. Sadly, this panic was not limited to the State's GOP but also included entrenched Democrats in minority districts who knew that their electoral prospects would be harmed if black voters were no longer lumped together in a small number of political ghettos but instead distributed more rationally according to political and geographic boundaries.
The result was Amendment 7, surely one of the most undemocratic ideas to emanate from Tallahassee in some time. Not even willing to wait to see the results of the popular vote — perhaps they knew what was coming? — our legislators voted to put a poison pill on the ballot which, were it to pass, would largely if not totally undo the effects of the two amendments on the ballot before it. In other words, in response to state constitutional amendments placed on the ballot as a result of a signature campaign, legislators voted to have a counter-amendment designed to keep the current undemocratic structure, and not incidentally keep themselves in power.
I have not yet read the judge's decision. It is certain to be appealed, and will almost certainly end up in the Florida Supreme Court. I hope he is right. There is no question that Amendment 7 is a sneaky trick and an insult to democracy. Kudos to the League of Women Voters and the NAACP who brought this suit and are fighting for all of us.
EFF's Cindy Cohn was interviewed by Stephen Colbert! You can see it here:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Electronic Frontier Foundation – Cindy Cohn | ||||
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Bravo, Cindy! Even if they did hold it for a month.
For years this site has had a Google pagerank of six or seven. All of a sudden it's down to one.
I know I've been boring, and posting less too, but that seems a bit abrupt?
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