U.S. Law

 ACLU of Illinois: Winning An 

Election Does Not Give Anyone

License to Discard Our Constitution

By Steve Rensberry 

 Commentary

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    EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. -- 11/13/2024 - Following the presidential election of Nov. 5, 2024, the ACLU of Illinois released a statement making the case that the president simply is not above the Constitution, no matter what anyone says about the legality of exercising such powers or in behaving in such a way.

    "Winning an election does not give anyone license to discard our Constitution and behave as a dictator – on day one or any other day," the organization stated.

     The ACLU should be commended for bringing some sanity to the debate. What action, if any, will be taken to fine or punish or stop a fascist-oriented president who deliberately choses to ignore the Constitution, to jail people he personally considers traitors? That's the million dollar question, I suppose. Justice should be done, or justice is worthless and truth is meaningless.

   The ACLU of Illinois statement: 

    Donald Trump has been elected the 47^th President of the United States. But winning an election does not give anyone license to discard our Constitution and behave as a dictator – on day one or any other day. 

    We saw firsthand the threat that the first Trump Administration posed to basic civil liberties, from the way in which the Administration cruelly separated children from their parents at the border and enforced immigration laws in a biased fashion, to his urging police to use harsh tactics – like stop and frisk – that target Black and Brown young men, to his attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ+ folks and anyone who disagreed with him. And, of course, Trump was the architect of the Supreme Court decision that recklessly ripped away the federal constitutional right to access abortion care.

    The ACLU never shied away from challenging Trump’s reckless disregard for the Constitution during his first administration. We stand prepared to do the same this time.  And, we are committed to building and enforcing a firewall of protections in Illinois to limit the inevitable harm that will flow from the new administration’s attacks.

    In short, we will not abandon those whose rights are being violated and we will not abandon the Constitution. 

 Link to the news release: ACLU of Illinois Responds

 

Discrimination

SPLC Demands Action to Address

Surge of Hate Crimes 

October Designated as Hate Crimes Awareness Month

    WASHINGTON — (SPLC)  — 9/29/2024 — The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently responded to the release of the FBI 2023 Hate Crime Statistics Act report by, once again, calling for Congress to expand community-based, prevention efforts and make hate crime reporting mandatory by law enforcement agencies across the country. The SPLC issued its statement on 9/24/24.

    The 2023 report documented 11,862 total hate crimes, including significant increases in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim crimes. Hate crime reporting came from 16,009 participating law enforcement agencies — out of more than 18,800 federal state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies nationwide — reversing a five-year trend of declining police participation. 

    “One hate crime is too many in our country,” SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang said. “While today’s report shows a welcome uptick in the number of law enforcement agencies that are participating in the FBI’s data collection, the picture is still incomplete. Far too many agencies, including many in the Deep South that serve large populations, do not report credible data, which puts many people — especially Black, Latinx, Asian, Jewish, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities — at risk."

 The SPLC has designated October as Hate Crimes Awareness Month to bring more attention to the prevalence of hate crimes and press for urgent action. This annual effort is prompting national conversation and action to prevent hate and foster an inclusive democracy where each of us feels safe and welcome in our communities. 

    “At a time when bigotry, conspiracy theories and disinformation are being mainstreamed and are influencing individuals to engage in hate crimes, we need an accurate understanding of where bias-motivated crime is most prevalent so that we can create coordinated responses that keep communities safe. And, to truly stamp out hate, those responses must incorporate strategies that prevent those susceptible to being influenced by the fringes of society from moving down the dark path of radicalization,” Huang said. 

In The News

Inside Ziklag, the Secret 

Organization of Wealthy Christians

Source: ProPublica, by Andy Kroll and Nick Surgey

    (ProPublica) - 7/13/2024 - The little-known charity is backed by famous conservative donors, including the families behind Hobby Lobby and Uline. It’s spending millions to make a big political push for this election — but it may be violating the law. A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

    These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups . . . .  see full store HERE

 

School Voucher Costs Blow Hole 

in State Budget

Source: ProPublica, by Eli Hager

    (Propublica) - 7/16/2024 - In 2022, Arizona pioneered the largest school voucher program in the history of education. Under a new law, any parent in the state, no matter how affluent, could get a taxpayer-funded voucher worth up to tens of thousands of dollars to spend on private school tuition, extracurricular programs or homeschooling supplies. In just the past two years, nearly a dozen states have enacted sweeping voucher programs similar to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account system, with many using it as a model. 

    

   Yet in a lesson for these other states, Arizona’s voucher experiment has since precipitated a budget meltdown. The state this year faced a $1.4 billion budget shortfall, much of which was a result of the new voucher spending, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a local nonpartisan fiscal and economic policy think tank. Last fiscal year alone, the price tag of universal vouchers in Arizona skyrocketed from an original official estimate of just under $65 million to roughly $332 million, the Grand Canyon analysis found; another $429 million in costs is expected this year . . .  see full store HERE

One Year Later, Uganda's

Anti-LGBTQ+ Law Is Destroying Lives

Source: LGBTQNation

    (LGBTQ) - 7/16/2024 - ​In May 2023, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world. A year on, the law has worsened the state of LGBTQ+ rights and has become a model shaping the thoughts of other African leaders in regard to queerness — it has also led to a major setback despite the decade-long fight against homophobia.

 

    In its genocidal fantasies, the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023 stipulates long prison sentences and allows executions for certain types of same-sex activities, making Uganda the first predominantly Christian nation in the world with capital punishment criminalizing homosexuality . . . .  see full store HERE

Law & Policy

People For the American Way

Releases Year-End Statement on

Senate Judicial Nominations

WASHINGTON D.C. – 12/21/2023 – As the Senate leaves for the holiday break with a total of 166 confirmed judges, including this week’s confirmations of former Attorney General for the Cherokee Nation Sara E. Hill and former federal prosecutor John D. Russell for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, People For the American way President Svante Myrick released the following statement:

“People For the American Way commends President Joe Biden and the Senate, under the leadership of Majority Leader Schumer and Senate Judiciary Chair Durbin, for the tremendous progress made in filling the federal bench with highly qualified and fair-minded judges, who reflect the rich diversity of this country. Biden’s appointed judges bring brilliance and credentialed experiences to the federal bench, and with strong records of commitment to protecting the civil and human rights of all of the people in America, they will ensure equality and justice for all.

“It is urgent that the Senate, when it returns in January, prioritize the confirmation of the more than 30 outstanding judicial nominees that will still be awaiting action, including Nicole Berner who will be the first openly LGBTQ+ person ever on the Fourth Circuit and Adeel Mangi who will be the nation’s first Muslim American federal appellate court judge.

“We expect the Senate to prioritize judicial nominations, to process nominees put forward by the White House, and to clear the calendar of nominees awaiting confirmations to fill court vacancies and repair our courts. Time is of the essence.”

About People For the American Way 

People For the American Way, a national progressive advocacy organization, inspires and mobilizes community and cultural leaders to advance Truth, Justice and the American Way. Learn more: http://www.pfaw.org

Church and State

Denial of Care Rule Called

'Dangerous Policy'

Group Applauds Biden Admin. for Plan to Rescind Parts of Rule

    Washington D.C. - (AU) - 12/29/2022 - Americans United for Separation of Church and State President and CEO Rachel Laser issued the following statement on Dec. 29 in response to the Biden administration’s proposal to rescind parts of the Trump administration’s Denial of Care Rule, which invited health care workers to deny medical treatment and services to patients because of personal religious or moral beliefs:

    “We applaud the Biden administration for taking positive steps toward protecting both religious freedom and patients’ health by rescinding the Trump-era Denial of Care Rule. No one should be denied medical treatment because of someone else’s religious beliefs.

    “The Denial of Care Rule was a dangerous policy that weaponized religious freedom and put the health and lives of women, LGBTQ people, religious minorities and so many others in jeopardy. Today’s proposed rule recognizes the potential harm to patients and upholds the fundamental principle of church-state separation.”

    The Denial of Care Rule which was issued in May 2019 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under former President Donald Trump. It invited any health care worker to deny medical care to patients because of the health care worker’s personal religious or moral beliefs. Health care facilities risked losing essential federal funding unless they granted employees carte blanche to deny services. That risk could have forced many health care facilities to eliminate services such as reproductive and LGBTQ care. Federal courts had blocked the rule from going into effect.

 Americans United and allies filed two federal lawsuits challenging the Denial of Care Rule, arguing that HHS during the Trump administration exceeded its authority and arbitrarily and capriciously failed to consider the rule’s potential harm to patients and the health care system, in violation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act. We also argued that the rule was unconstitutional because it favored specific religious beliefs in violation of the First Amendment; violated patients’ rights to privacy, liberty and equal dignity as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment; and chilled patients’ speech and expression in violation of the First Amendment, all to the detriment of patients’ health and well-being.

• In the County of Santa Clara v. HHS, Americans United joined the Center for Reproductive Rights, Lambda Legal, the law firm Mayer Brown LLP and Santa Clara County, Calif., which runs an extensive public health and hospital system that serves as a safety-net provider for the county’s 1.9 million Bay Area residents. Other plaintiffs in the case include providers across the country that focus on reproductive and LGBTQ care, plus five doctors and three medical associations. In Nov. 2019, the district court granted summary judgment in our favor on our Administrative Procedure Act claims, vacating the rule in its entirety.
• In Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Azar, Americans United joined the Baltimore City Solicitor and the law firm Susman Godfrey LLP to represent the Baltimore City Health Department, which has strived to ensure that vulnerable and historically marginalized people can seek medical care without fear of stigmatization or discrimination. After other federal district courts blocked the Denial of Care Rule, the district court held this case in abeyance pending the government’s appeals.

    More information about those lawsuits is available here.