Judicial

The future of healthcare in America may be wrapped up in these three letters: A-C-O, the Accountable Care Organization (ACO).

This model to provide high-quality, cost-effective care received momentum from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but it will continue regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision this month. Why? Because an ACO is a sensible, efficient, and patient-centered way to keep people healthy and then care for them during illness.

On May 21, the Senate finally approved superb attorney Paul Watford for the Ninth Circuit three months after his Judiciary Committee vote. However, the countryʼs biggest circuit still has two openings. Accordingly, the Senate must confirm Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Hurwitz, the excellent committee-approved nominee, this week, while President Barack Obama must expeditiously nominate another prospect.

The Ninth Circuit has as many openings as each of twelve regional circuits except D.C. Its judges have twice their caseload, a backlog of 14,000 pending appeals and the slowest disposition time. These dockets make both vacancies “judicial emergencies” and undermine justice in the Ninth Circuit, the court of last resort for 99 percent of appeals from the West. In October 2010, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote chamber leaders to stress the tribunalʼs “desperate need for judges,” urging action “on judicial vacancies without delay” because they mean the “public will suffer.” This month, he added: “If we don’t get more judges confirmed, delay in deciding cases will continue to increase.”

A recently released federal report confirms what most observers have known for a long time—when it comes to federal funding, those who represent the poor in the criminal justice system are largely left out in the cold.  The new study, which members of Congress asked the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct, examines how state, local and tribal governments use critical criminal justice grants – such as the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants (Byrne JAG) and Byrne Competitive grant programs – they receive from the federal government.
   
The GAO found that legal assistance for defendants unable to afford it on their own consistently comprised the smallest percentage of state, local and tribal spending of federal grants. Based on survey responses, the GAO estimated states only allocated seven-tenths of one percent of Byrne JAG money to indigent legal defense over a five-year period, while prosecutors and law enforcement received about 38 percent. The imbalance is even starker at the local level, where indigent defense received a paltry one-tenth of one percent of the money, compared with law enforcement and prosecutors who receive 54 percent. In total, over those five years, police received $1.8 billion, prosecutors and courts nearly $300 million, and indigent defense only $22 million.  Clearly, when it comes to achieving fairness and parity in criminal justice funding, government at every level is simply falling short.

In the age of Onstar, smartphones and GPS tracking devices, we are more effective than ever at tracking people. But the line between a convenient tool and an unreasonable search has become increasingly nebulous.
 
No one wants their every move surreptitiously monitored without permission – whether it be law enforcement, a spurned partner, or a nefarious stranger keeping tabs on us. Given the legal ambiguities associated with modern technology, we must update and clarify the law.

Although the Supreme Court ruled attaching a GPS device to a person’s car without their knowledge constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, there are no rules governing the use of geolocation information obtained from other types of devices.

Over the past months, undocumented youth, top advocates, former immigration officials, and members of Congress of both parties have urged the President to exercise executive authority to stop the deportations of DREAM Act-eligible youth. In response, the president and his top advisors repeatedly indicated that he did not have the authority to do so. This, however, has been a political excuse as the president does have the authority. Just a few days ago, leading legal scholars on immigration and citizenship law propounded, in a letter to the White House, that “there is clear executive authority for several forms of administrative relief for DREAM Act beneficiaries.”

At Obama's fingertips are three devices: Deferred Action, parole-in-place and deferred enforced departure. These forms of relief essentially would allow DREAM Act-eligible youth to remain in the country without the threat of deportation.

There is no more important right in our society than the right to vote – it is the basis of all of our other rights. It is why generations of Americans have fought and died for the right to vote. And as a result of their sacrifices, today government and society as a whole has become more reflective of the democratic principles enshrined in our Constitution.   

Given the importance of this hard-fought right, the American people deserve an election system that not only protects but enhances every eligible voter’s ability to register, cast a ballot, and participate in our democracy. But rather than improve access to the ballot box, over the past year states have enacted laws which undermine this fundamental right.

On the surface, Presidents Bush and Obama have shown little interest in exercising their extraordinary presidential authority to issue pardons and commute sentences.  Many of us who support a robust exercise of executive clemency have been disappointed and disturbed by this inaction. But thanks to Monday’s Washington Post-ProPublica story, we now know that a significant part of the problem stems from a grossly inept Office of Pardon Attorney (OPA) at the U.S. Justice Department. Congress must investigate this vitally important taxpayer-funded office immediately.
 
According to the Post-ProPublica story, the Bush administration was interested in finding deserving candidates for pardons or sentence commutations. Bush had campaigned as a “compassionate conservative” and questioned the practice of sending nonviolent drug offenders to prison for long terms. Clarence Aaron seemed the perfect candidate for a second chance, having been sentenced to life in prison for his first offense, a non-violent drug charge. The missing pieces holding back Aaron’s plea for mercy fell into place when the U.S. Attorney’s office that prosecuted him and the judge who sentenced him both told the Pardon Attorney’s office that they supported Aaron’s request for a reduced sentence.

A group of House Democrats has introduced a remarkably misnamed “People’s Rights Amendment” that, if adopted, would undercut the rights of Americans and transform our society beyond recognition, and deliver an unprecedented body blow to the American economy. This ill-considered proposal would limit application of constitutional rights to “natural persons,” eliminating such rights for all corporate entities. It reveals a stunning disrespect for the established constitutional architecture that has served this country well for over 200 years.

Corporations are, of course, the bugbear of the left wing and a target of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Poor economic performance is blamed on corporate greed — rather than the business cycle and deleterious impacts of ever more onerous federal regulations — and tax incentives offered to companies as inducements to investment are “corporate welfare.”

The truth is that corporations, large and small, are the foundation of our economy and the building blocks of our society. Before the law recognized, around 400 years ago, business corporations as entities with rights separate and apart from their owners or managers, anyone going into business risked everything. A failure could mean personal ruin, with creditors seizing not merely “business” property but anything the entrepreneur owned, and even imprisonment for debt.

On Monday, the Senate confirmed Paul Watford's nomination to the 7th seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The nomination seemed vulnerable to a filibuster but eventually succeeded by a vote of 61-34.

Yet Watford’s confirmation is unfortunately the exception that proves the rule.

The 5th seat on that same court has been vacant for 2699 days, or since 2004. Obstructionist tactics increasingly prevent a vast number of critical judicial and other presidentially appointed positions from being confirmed—so much so that many potential nominees refuse even to subject themselves to the process.

The most powerful of these obstructionist tactics is the filibuster, which is used by the minority to force the majority to reach a 60-vote cloture threshold. Often, the simple threat of the filibuster stymies a nomination from proceeding.

As The Hill reported Wednesday, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain appears to be back in the game on campaign finance reform, and he couldn’t have come at a better time.
 
McCain, who thought he had tamped down the issue with his landmark 2002 law banning soft money, is talking with several Democrats, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the author of the latest bill aimed at SuperPAC transparency. His presence in this important conversation will hopefully help shed more light on the increasingly important issue of public access to information on SuperPAC donors. As a respected member of Congress, McCain’s presence will also increase the activity of lobbyists who are already keeping close tabs on SuperPAC transparency legislation circulating both chambers.
 
The Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling on Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission—a ruling that completely changed the political influence landscape going forward. Allowing organizations to give unlimited amounts of money to Political Action Committees (PACs)—ultimately helping a candidate into office—feels a lot like secret influence peddling which is something that we can all agree is not a good thing.