Judicial

In Chicago, if you ask a school-aged child their number one fear, it’s not braces or a book report. It’s being shot on the way to school. While law enforcement officials around the country face the monumental task of cracking down on the thousands of illegal weapons that flood our streets and take innocent lives each day, it’s children in Chicago who bear the brunt of such violence. Last year in my hometown of Chicago alone, gun violence led to more than 500 homicides and the seizure of more than 7,400 illegal firearms by the Chicago Police Department.

“The cornerstone of the American judicial system is the trial courts,” the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said, “in which witnesses testify, juries deliberate, and justice is done.” But four years of delays in nominating and confirming district judges threaten the ability of the federal trial courts to carry that weight. To keep witnesses testifying, juries deliberating, and justice being done in the federal courts, we need to rebuild an efficient machinery for putting trial judges on the bench.

It seems everyone has some advice for beleaguered Republicans these days, especially when it comes to Hispanic voters and the issue of immigration.
 
Among the many groups and interests who may or may not have the best interests of the Republican Party at heart is the Hispanic Leadership Network, which bills itself as a coalition of Hispanic Republicans. In an appeal to congressional Republicans, the HLN suggests that the party’s rhetoric on immigration policy is the decisive impediment to winning more of the Hispanic vote.

It is a fact that our current family-based immigration system is broken, with massive backlogs, arbitrary quotas, and inhumane processes that keep families apart. It has not been updated in over two decades; its dysfunction keeps spouses, children and their parents separated for years and often decades. Current constraints within the legal immigration process place undue burdens on our American families and our economy. For instance, nearly 4.3 million people, including 1.96 million Asian and Pacific Islanders, are waiting in family immigration backlogs for unconscionable periods of time to reunite with their family members.

Neither the Democratic nor the Republican versions of the Violence Against Women Act survived the last Congress. Now Democrats, headed by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, vow immediate action on a new VAWA that does little to alter current flawed policies on domestic violence. The long hiatus in VAWA authorization represents a golden opportunity to get right what we’ve gotten wrong for so long.
 
VAWA’s detriments are too numerous to deal with here, but surely if we’re going to spend almost half a billion dollars to combat domestic violence, don’t we want a law that actually decreases its incidence?

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Judge Charles Pannell assumes senior status Friday after 13 years of valuable service. This action means that the bench experiences 72 vacancies in 677 district court judgeships and the Northern District has three in twelve, two of which are “judicial emergencies” due to their length. These openings – more than ten percent nationwide and one quarter in the Northern District – undermine justice. Accordingly, President Barack Obama must swiftly nominate, and senators promptly confirm, judges to fill the empty positions.

President Obama’s second term is but weeks old and his “to do” list is growing: reducing gun violence, managing the fiscal cliff and budget sequestration, raising the debt ceiling to pay the nation’s bills, and now following his major address in Nevada this week, comprehensive immigration reform and dealing with the 11 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S.  

President Obama has said one of his biggest regrets from his first term was that he didn’t pass immigration reform. We want to make sure he won’t have the same regret four years from now.

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) and the millions of Latino and immigrant families we represent are committed to working with the president and Congress to pass legislation that will provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million aspiring Americans living in the United States.

As a member of Congress, I took an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. I did not swear to uphold only the sections I liked. The Bill of Rights contain civil liberties so fundamentally important that no matter how unpopular at times, these rights are guaranteed and no president, no Congress and no person can deprive them from us. The Second Amendment, hated by some, is a fundamental right as well. I, and millions of others, see the wisdom of the Second Amendment even as many do not. But whether you see its wisdom, all public officials were sworn to uphold it.

And this is where I part ways with the president. On Wednesday, President Obama sought to undermine constitutional guarantees when he unveiled 23 measures, in a combination of executive orders and proposed new legislation, to restrict gun ownership.

In the wake of the recent Newtown massacre, America’s attention has been sharply focused on the out of control epidemic of gun violence plaguing our country.

Much of the conversation has centered on the need for an assault weapons ban, banning high capacity magazines, universal background checks, and greater mental health investments. All are crucial components of any comprehensive approach to the issue. But none of these by themselves will be sufficient if we ignore another significant part of this tragic reality.