PSJD Public Interest News Digest – October 2, 2020

October 2, 2020 at 11:03 am · Filed under Public Interest Law News Bulletin

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress

Interested public. So many urgent concerns clamor for our attention these days. I hope my attempt to be focused in this space suits your needs. Here is some news.

Take care of one another,

Sam

State-Directed Violence

  • In New York NY, Human Rights Watch released a report “provid[ing] a detailed account of the [NYPD] police response to the June 4 peaceful protest in Mott Haven, a low-income, majority Black and brown community that has long experienced high levels of police brutality and systemic racism…’The New York City police blocked people from leaving before the curfew and then used the curfew as an excuse to beat, abuse, and arrest people who were protesting peacefully’” said Ida Sawyer, acting crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. ‘It was a planned operation with no justification that could cost New York taxpayers millions of dollars.’”

    • Free and Fair Elections

  • In Washington DC, “Former Justice Department attorneys expressed concerns…that Attorney General William Barr is using the power of the agency to help President Donald Trump win reelection, citing statements Barr had made about mail-in ballots and the politically fraught inquiry into the Russia investigation. ‘We fear that Attorney General Barr intends to use the DOJ’s vast law enforcement powers to undermine our most fundamental democratic value: free and fair elections,’ according to an open letter signed by about 1,600 former Justice Department employees.”
  • Also in Washington DC, The Nation obtained an FBI intelligence report “warning of an imminent ‘violent extremist threat’ posed by a far-right militia that includes white supremacists–identifying the current election period up to the 2021 inauguration as a ‘potential flashpoint’.”
  • Also also in Washington DC, “[c]oncern is growing over potential confrontations at polling places due to deep partisan divides and baseless claims by President Trump that Democrats will “steal” the election…Such appeals have unnerved voting rights advocates and election officials, especially in light of civil unrest in several cities around the country that have pitted armed groups from the left and right against each other.”
  • In Ithaca NY, Prof. Dorf of Cornell Law discussed how, “[g]iven President Trump’s unprecedented suggestions that he would not accept the result of an election that he loses, the question has arisen whether he might attempt to subvert that result by exploiting an apparent loophole.” Prof. Dorf concluded that “[e]ven if a state legislature has the power to assign its Electors to the loser of the state’s Presidential election, it can only do so by complying with the state’s constitutional procedure for lawmaking, including gubernatorial participation.”
  • In San Francisco CA, “[a] federal appeals court has denied the Trump administration’s request to temporarily block a lower court order that extends the 2020 census schedule. The Census Bureau must continue counting as ordered by the lower court for now, according to the new ruling by 9th U.S. Circuit Judge Johnnie Rawlinson and Judge Morgan Christen, who were part of a three-judge panel. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented.”
  • In the New Republic, a review of Judge Amy Comey Barrett’s jurisprudence focused on Kanter v. Barr, “a Second Amendment case decided last year by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.” Specifically, the author drew attention to Judge Barrett’s dissent in that case, which observed that “history does show that felons could be disqualified from exercising certain rights–like the rights to vote and serve on juries–because these rights belonged only to virtuous citizens.” As the author read Judge Barrett’s argument, “‘Civic rights’ like voting and jury service…can be denied based on whether the individual is ‘virtuous’. From where does this distinction spring? Heller discusses the ‘individual right’ component of the Second Amendment at length but makes no mention of voting rights or virtue. Barrett instead drew upon legal scholars who recast the right to vote in a communal light. ‘The right to vote is held by individuals, but they do not exercise it solely for their own sake; rather, they cast votes as part of the collective enterprise of self-governance,’ she explained.”
  • In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Supreme Court will take up a major voting-rights case after the election, agreeing to decide whether Arizona is discriminating against racial minorities with rules governing how and where ballots are cast. The clash could further weaken the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law the Supreme Court already scaled back in 2013..A federal appeals court struck down two aspects of Arizona’s voting law: its longstanding policy of rejecting ballots cast in the wrong precinct and a 2016 statute that makes it a crime for most people to collect or deliver another person’s early ballot. The 7-4 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said each rule had a disproportionate impact on minority voters.”