Judicial

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.

What can we learn from the fiscal cliff deal? That Congress could actually enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Let’s face it, the Congress passed the fiscal cliff deal because its members had a sudden epiphany. The compromise — hammered out by the Senate early New Year’s morning as the country teetered over the cliff — was approved by the House of Representatives because the Republican leadership, fearing the wrath of the American people if the nation went cliff-diving, had little choice. And it wasn’t even the whole Congress or even the whole Republican conference that made the deal happen. It was a bipartisan group, with Speaker John Boehner pushing forward. To get there Boehner violated the “Hastert rule” — the majority of the majority rules — and actually got something done on a bipartisan basis.

At the heart of Django Unchained and Lincoln -- two critically-acclaimed films that are both up for best drama at Sunday’s Golden Globes -- is slavery.  Django Unchained chronicles the experiences of a freed slave while Lincoln a focuses on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolished slavery. The renewed attention on slavery and the Thirteenth Amendment calls for fuller consideration of the amendment’s specialized meaning and its applicability to contemporary harms.
 
Enacted in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and several months following Lee’s surrender to Union forces, the Thirteenth Amendment declared that “[n]either slavery nor involuntary servitude. . . shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The 112th Congress adjourned last week without reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The failure of Congress to pass either the Senate- or House-approved (S. 1925 or H.R. 4970) versions was the by-product both of partisan wrangling, as well as acerbic personal attacks that were later derided by the Huffington Post as “incendiary and extreme.”
 
But the last-ditch negotiations between Vice President Joe Biden and House Leader Eric Cantor side-stepped the most important question of all: Are VAWA-funded programs working?

In a year where we have seen much progress from the White House and from the Department of Justice in addressing the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) survivors of violence, there is one national body that has failed to act. The 112th Congress has left much undone and has been slow to compromise or propose solutions to a myriad of issues and concerns facing the country – including for LGBTQ survivors of violence.

Last month the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on a pair of cases concerning the latest struggle for equality: gay marriage. The first is an appeal from the Second Circuit in which a three-judge panel, led by conservative appointee Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs, struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which precludes federal recognition of same-sex marriages sanctioned at the state level. The second case — shepherded by the doyens of Supreme Court advocacy, David Boies and Ted Olson — arises from a Ninth Circuit ruling invalidating California’s controversial Proposition 8, a 2008 voter initiative that confines marriage to the union of a man and a woman.

One night in 1985, when Lavinia Masters was 13 years old, she said goodnight and went to sleep in her Dallas home. She awoke suddenly to find a knife at her throat and an intruder sexually assaulting her.
 
On an ordinary Monday afternoon in 1996, Kristin Yorke was at home in New York City when her roommate returned from work. Unbeknownst to them both, a stranger lurked, forced his way into their apartment and raped both women.

In August, Northern District of California Judge James Ware retired after two decades of service, leaving the court with four vacancies in 14 judgeships. The huge caseload prompted the U.S. Courts to declare all four “emergencies.” Because these openings, which constitute 28 percent of Northern District seats, erode justice, President Barack Obama must quickly nominate, and senators expeditiously approve, judges for the court.

Obama has assiduously pursued guidance from Republican and Democratic officials where vacancies arise prior to nominations. He has recommended nominees of even temperament, who are intelligent, ethical, hard working, independent and diverse in terms of ethnicity, gender and ideology. Northern District Judges Edward Chen and Lucy Koh are quintessential illustrations.