by Kristen Pavón

The University at Buffalo Law School Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic started a new project aimed at removing a common barrier to safety for domestic violence victims — not having a safe place for their pets.

Between 25 and 40 percent of battered women with pets feel they can’t escape abusive situation because they worry what will happen to their animals if they leave. Seventy-one percent of pet-owning women entering shelters reported that their batterer had harmed, killed, or threatened family pets.

Through the new Animal Shelter Options for Domestic Violence Victims project, UB Law faculty and students provide individuals with resources to secure the safety of their pets and work to raise awareness about the link between domestic violence and pet abuse.

The Clinic has also developed an online database with information on programs that can either house victims’ pets or have a direct referral system to agencies that will accept pets.

You can learn more about the Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic’s work here.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral argument on Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum and I gotta say, I’m excited to see how this one turns out.

The substantive issue is whether corporations are excluded from tort liability for violations of the law of nations such as torture, extrajudicial executions or other crimes against humanity, or instead may be sued in the same manner as any other private actor under the Alien Tort Statute for such egregious violations (from petitioners’ brief).

From the LA Times:

. . .[I]n a major test of human rights law, the justices will decide whether corporations are like people when they are sued for aiding foreign regimes that kill or torture their own people.

It would “create a weird paradox” if the corporations are people when funding campaigns but not when they violate human rights, said Peter Weiss, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. . . .

On Tuesday, the justices will hear an appeal of a suit accusing Royal Dutch Petroleum and its Shell subsidiary in the United States of aiding a former Nigerian regime whose military police tortured, raped and executed minority residents in the oil-rich delta. The victims included famed Nigerian author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. . . .

Corporate lawyers chafe at these claims. They say it makes no sense to allow foreigners to sue in U.S. courts for actions that took place on foreign soil and under the auspices of foreign governments. Critics also say U.S. officials would not take kindly to foreign suits against American corporations if, for example, they were held liable for killing innocent people in Pakistan or Yemen because they had supplied drones or cruise missiles to the U.S. government. . . .

Obama administration lawyers joined human rights activists in appealing this decision to the Supreme Court.

“It would send a very bad message if we give corporations a blanket immunity if they engage in universally condemned human rights abuse,” said Jennifer Green, a University of Minnesota law professor. . . .

You can read the petitioners’ brief here. Thoughts?

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday Monday, dear readers. This is a special “72 Hours Late” bulletin edition.  The reason, of course, is that I spent the better part of last week preparing for the sublime glory of the Academy Awards.  I simply need to know whom Joan Rivers adores as Hollywood’s most glamorous promenade upon the red carpet.  This week we’ll return to the every-Friday schedule.  While we’re running with the movie theme, here’s a list of the all-time 10 best legal movie lines (from the people at Bloomberg Law).  And as for the public interest news:      

• A  proposal in the Buckeye State to move toward more state funding of the indigent defense program;
• Large-scale public defender layoff in NOLA forces legal luminaries into indigent defense roles;
• In Washington State, a class action alleging unconstitutionally overburdened indigent defense programs goes forward;
• Pay raises for Wisconsin prosecutors (and maybe public defenders) to support attorney retention;
• Yale Law School clinic files a federal suit challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers;
• the boom in pro bono work by corporate counsel offices;
• plumbing the depths of Florida’s legal services funding crisis;
• continuing a national trend, a new veterans diversionary court in PA;
• to address swelling demand for legal services, stakeholders in Tennessee are serving clients by answering legal questions online;
• a Baltimore legal services provider partners with a social work school to provide more holistic services to clients.    

The summaries:

• 2.26.12 – a move to change the Buckeye State’s indigent-defense funding system.  From the Columbus Dispatch: “The County Commissioners’ Association of Ohio again has on its legislative agenda the issue of transferring the responsibility of providing indigent defendants with legal representation from the counties to the state…. Currently, counties set up their own ways of providing lawyers for indigent defendants, and they allocate money. The state then reimburses all counties at the same rate, which last year was about 35 percent. That’s down from the 50 percent the state promised when the system was set up in the early 1970s.

• 2.24.12 – a not-so-subtle message from the bench? It’s all hands on deck in the NOLA legal community as one judge calls upon high-profile lawyers for public defense work.  From the Times-Picayune: “Politicians, local media leaders and on-air pundits filed into a New Orleans criminal courtroom on Friday, under orders from a judge to take on the cases of poor defendants left without lawyers. Criminal District Judge Arthur Hunter, in a splashy move aimed at drawing attention to a wave of layoffs at the Orleans Parish public defender’s office, handpicked some of the city’s best-known lawyers to represent 32 defendants abandoned by the cuts.”  Those called into service included the state bar association president and the Times-Picayune’s publisher.

• 2.23.12 – from the AP: “A federal judge in Seattle says a lawsuit challenging the public defense systems in the cities of Mount Vernon and Burlington can proceed. Judge Robert Lasnik also granted the case class-action status Thursday.  The American Civil Liberties Union alleges that two part-time attorneys contracted by the cities fielded more than 2,100 cases in 2010. That’s although Washington state Bar Association guidelines specify full-time public defenders shouldn’t surpass 400 cases a year. The lawsuit alleges the cities fail to provide adequate resources to the public defender system.”

• 2.22.12 – from the State Bar of Wisconsin: “A bipartisan bill intended to retain experienced prosecutors by improving their compensation…advance[s] in the Legislature….  The legislation, 2011 Senate Bill 394 and Assembly Bill 488, establishes a pay progression program for assistant district attorneys (ADAs), but does not fund it in the current biennium, leaving that issue for a future Legislature to address in the next state budget….  On Feb. 15, legislators introduced a bill to create a similar pay progression system for assistant state public defenders.”  The public defender bill is not out of committee yet.

• 2.22.12 – “An immigration law clinic at Yale Law School has filed a federal class action lawsuit challenging the use of detainers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked Wednesday that the suit be expedited now that ICE is rolling out Secure Communities in Connecticut statewide.”  (Story from the New Haven Register.)

• 2.21.12 – the Pro Bono Institute has gotten a lot of traction in American Lawyer Media publications of late.  Most recently, Corporate Counsel looks at the increase in pro bono work performed by, well, corporate counsel, with a focus on PBI’s work in the arena.

• 2.20.12 – a Miami Herald editorial plumbs the depths of the Sunshine State’s legal services funding crisis.  The state government does not fund legal services, so programs have long been dependent on IOLTA funds.  With the real estate market collapsed and interest rates at historic lows, IOLTA funding has been gutted by 80%.  This will lead to lawyer layoffs – “…some 120 of Florida’s 410 Legal Aid attorneys are expected to lose their jobs…” – and fewer clients served unless action is taken now to shore up funding.

• 2.17.12 – continuing a national trend, a suburban Philadelphia county is creating a veterans court to adjudicate some cases involving vets who run afoul of the law.  “Congressman Pat Meehan (R-7) hosted a roundtable discussion to iron out the details of Delaware County’s Veterans Justice Initiative. With representatives from the Veterans Administration…it was announced that a Veterans Treatment Court was ready to go in Delco…. The goal [is] the creation of a diversionary court track for non-violent offenders who served in the military.”  (Story from the Delco News Network.)

• 2.16.12 – “More than 100 low-income Tennesseans are receiving free legal assistance every month through the OnlineTNJustice.org website, but backers of the project want to serve more….  The initiative is a joint project of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and the Tennessee Bar Association. The site allows clients to request advice about specific civil legal issues from volunteer lawyers and get their questions answered online.” (Story from the Tennessean.)

• 2.16.12 – a legal services office pairs with a graduate social work school to provide more holistic services to clients.  From the Public News Service: “The downtown Baltimore [Maryland Legal Aid Bureau] office has been trying something new: teaming up with social workers through the University of Maryland School of Social Work….  Legal Aid offices around the state want to replicate the Baltimore program, but it does require resources, and regular Legal Aid funding cannot be used for the social workers.”

From Reuters:

A federal judge declared on Wednesday that a Washington state rule requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives against their religious beliefs is unconstitutional. . .

The ruling only applies to Washington state but is sure to reverberate nationally, as it comes in the midst of a roiling political debate about a new federal regulation mandating that all health insurance plans – even those sponsored by religious employers – provide free birth control. . . .

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat who had pushed for the pharmacy mandate, said the judge’s ruling left her concerned that some women will be denied timely access to emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within a few days of unprotected sex.

Gregoire said she saw “strong arguments” for an appeal of the ruling, though she said no decision had been made.

The lawsuit was brought by a drugstore owner in Olympia, Washington, and two of his pharmacists, all of whom shared the religious conviction that emergency contraceptives are tantamount to abortion because they can block a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb.

They refused to stock or dispense the medication, often referred to as the “morning-after pill” or by the brand name Plan B, and sued to block the regulation.

“I’m just thrilled that the court ruled to protect our constitutional right of conscience,” one of the pharmacists, Margo Thelen, said in a statement issued through her attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The case stems from a rule adopted by the Washington State Pharmacy Board in 2007 requiring pharmacies to stock and dispense most medications, including Plan B, for which there is a demonstrated community need.

In his 48-page opinion, Leighton noted that Washington permitted pharmacy owners to decide against stocking certain medications for any number of “secular reasons” – because they are expensive, for example, or inconvenient to dispense, or because they simply don’t fit into the store’s business plan. Yet the rule did not allow pharmacists to assert a religious reason for keeping certain drugs off their shelves.

“A pharmacy is permitted to refuse to stock oxycodone because it fears robbery, but the same pharmacy cannot refuse to stock Plan B because it objects on religious grounds,” the judge wrote. “Why are these reasons treated differently under the rules?”

Hmmm. Thoughts? You can read the full story here.

by Kristen Pavón

From The Miami Herald:

This nation, a beacon of hope for so many around the world for upholding the rule of law for all, is facing a disaster if access to the courts is denied to the poor simply by economics. This is especially true in Florida. It is one of just four states that currently has zero state funding to help low-income people pay lawyers to dodge foreclosure and eviction or secure unemployment or disability benefits.

Where other states charge court filing fees or allocate money from the state budget, Florida does neither. That’s a black eye for the state that led the nation 30 years ago in finding a novel way to pay for lawyers to represent the indigent in civil cases.

Florida’s Legal Aid community still relies on that 1981 funding base: interest-bearing trust accounts — client money lawyers set aside in escrow for short periods of time. Unfortunately, record low interest rates the past few years have created an unsustainable situation.

Some 120 of Florida’s 410 Legal Aid attorneys are expected to lose their jobs. The Legal Aid Service of Broward will cut 20 positions. The 100,000 cases a year that the Florida Bar Foundation funds will drop by at least a third.

Not surprisingly, Florida Governor Rick Scott [and the entire legislature, for that matter] isn’t doing much about the access to courts situation. He vetoed a $1 million measure that would have helped the Florida Bar Foundation stay afloat (I’ve already mentioned how FBF’s budget crisis upsets me on a personal level).

However, The Miami Herald editorial staff proposed a couple of creative solutions:

• Charge a fee (even if temporary) for bar dues
• Charge sliding scale fees for clients able to pay something
• Claim a fee from retroactive court settlements

You can read the rest of the article here.

It’s tough to think about having our clients bear the burden of the dismal state of access to justice, but is this what we may have to succumb to? What do you think?

By: Steve Grumm

Particularly in the Great Recession’s wake, there has been much discussion about whether and how to make fundamental changes to the way we train new lawyers.  But this debate far predates the recession.  Stakeholders in legal education have for several years been examining the current orthodoxy, especially in asking whether we should be de-emphasizing the “casebook” model in favor of additional experiential learning opportunities and teamwork exercises.

In 2006 Stanford Law School undertook several measures to alter its education model.  Six years later they’re eager to tell us about their progress.  Here’s an excerpt from a detailed press release highlighting SLS’s expansion of team-oriented coursework, clinicals, joint degree programs, etc.. 

Stanford Law School today announced the completion of the first phase of comprehensive reforms to its legal curriculum that began in November 2006—successfully transforming its traditional law degree into a multi-dimensional JD, which combines the study of other disciplines with team-oriented, problem-solving techniques together with expanded clinical training that enables students to represent clients and litigate cases while in law school.

Read the full press release here.

By: Steve Grumm

For several months now a Univ. of Maryland School of Law environmental law clinic has taken heat from some state legislators (and the governor) over its involvement in a lawsuit concerning chicken farming and potential pollution of local waterways.  The developments raise interesting questions about law clinics’ autonomy in taking cases.

From the National Law Journal:

The University of Maryland would have to pay as much as $500,000 toward the legal expenses incurred by a farm’s owners while fighting a lawsuit brought by the school’s environmental law clinic under legislation proposed by a Republican state lawmaker.

State Sen. Richard Colburn introduced the bill on Feb. 13. It was the latest development in a three-year battle between the environmental law clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and Republican lawmakers over the appropriate role of publicly funded clinics.

The clinic represents the Waterkeeper Alliance in the lawsuit against poultry giant Perdue Farms Inc. and a Hudson Farm, a local, family-owned chicken operation that supplies the company. The lawmakers fear that suit and others like it hurt the local economy and shouldn’t be backed with public money.

Have you heard about this?

From Juvenile Justice Information Exchange:

For several years, students in Los Angeles have complained about hefty $250-plus fines for being tardy [under the city’s curfew law], and about police officers who staked out schools to catch students sometimes only minutes late. The ticketing also requires students to go to court, with parents, during school hours, so they miss more class time and parents miss work.

IMHO, laws like this are backwards — they allow for the criminalization of children and ultimately, keep kids away from the classroom. I feel similarly about other disciplinary methods, like in-school suspension. Public Counsel and the ACLU agree:

From the Business Insider:

Activists from the ACLU say the law does the exact opposite of what city councilmembers would like to believe.

Instead of encouraging school attendance, they allege it’s unfairly targeting low-income and minority students who would rather skip school altogether than burden their family with yet another bill to pay.

“They are criminalizing kids for coming to school late,” Laura Faer, education rights director for Public Counsel, a nonprofit public interest law firm, said. “It’s backward in every way.”

I understand the intention behind the laws, but they’re just not working in the right way and students and community members have been up in arms about it. For this reason, the L.A. City Council will vote next week to make amendments to the curfew law.

The curfew amendments — if they get full city council approval on Feb. 22 — would replace the $250 fines with graduated penalties emphasizing counseling. Students ticketed once or twice would be required to participate in an attendance-improvement plan or in counseling or community service. If ticketed a third time, the ordinance would call for a possible monetary fine whose amount is still being negotiated, said Michael de la Rocha, legislative deputy to Los Angeles City Council member Tony Cardenas, who sponsored the amendments.

Cardenas wanted to end all fines, and would prefer capping a third-strike fine at $20, which in reality would end up costing students more, given extra fees that get tacked on, de la Rocha said.

As of January, Los Angeles’ students won’t be required to pay monetary fines — for now — regardless of what the city council does. Last month, Michael Nash, the county’s presiding juvenile court judge, instructed all court officers to stop imposing daytime curfew fines on ticketed students throughout the county and instead order them to show improved attendance, or, if that fails, mandatory counseling or community service.

Interesting. Thoughts?

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Below you will see a lot of news, from Florida, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere about crippling cuts in legal services funding. It can be easy, when reading reports that focus on dry items like IOLTA yields and budget lines, to forget that those dollar figures have real impacts on real people: low income individuals and families who are struggling to get by, to say nothing of legal services staffers who have lost their jobs in budget cuts.  

A story summarized below tells of Legal Services of Greater Miami’s work on behalf of a veteran of operations in Afghanistan whose wartime injuries have left him with physical, mental and psychological after-effects.  After a year of advocacy, LSGM secured $1000 in monthly benefits for their client, who is married with children.  Reading of this impacted me powerfully.  I often jog by the Dep’t. of Veterans Affairs headquarters.  Engraved in stone on the building are these words from Abraham Lincoln, spoken during his second inaugural address in the midst of the Civil War: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

To me, this quote speaks to our shared obligation to provide support for those who sacrifice in service.  Sometimes it falls to legal services lawyers to ensure that that obligation is fulfilled.  So when I think of legal services funding cuts, I think of fewer veterans who access benefits.  I also think of fewer domestic violence victims who achieve legal protection from abusers, and fewer children who receive medical care.  There are tolls exacted on real human beings when figures on spreadsheets shrink. 

This week:

• Maryland’s high court considers the financial burden of ensuring that indigent defendants have counsel at bail hearings;
• New Mexico voters to decide if public defense program should become independent agency;
• an ACLU suit over allegedly over-burdened public defenders in Washington State;
• the Legal Aid Society of Orange County spins off a for-profit entity to help pro se litigants;
• the White House FY2013 budget proposal includes a $402 million LSC appropriation;
• the PA governor’s budget proposal would significantly cut legal services funding;
• to close or not to close the San Joachin County, CA public defender’s office;
• how last November’s LSC cuts are impacting programs in the DC metro area;
• funding woes for Alabama prosecutors’ offices and courthouses;
• federal employee retirements jumped by 24% in 2011;
• speaking of Uncle Sam, a Presidential Management Fellowship application snafu dashes the hopes of 300 candidates;
• Yale Law School cuts back on LRAP program;
• the impact of legal services funding cuts in Florida;
• ditto, West Virginia;
• ditto, Connecticut;
• ditto, Detroit;
• but closing with good news(!), $2 million to the Arkansas Access to Justice Foundation.  

Here are the summaries:

• 2.17.12 – Maryland’s highest court decided Thursday to wait for more information before issuing a mandate that would require lawyers to be available to a defendant within 24 hours of arrest, when it is decided whether he or she will be detained or released.  [T]he Court of Appeals decided to consider responses, due March 5, to motions filed by the Baltimore City District Court Commissioners and state Public Defender Paul B. DeWolfe Jr. before issuing a mandate to enforce its Jan. 4 decision.  DeWolfe, whose office would need an estimated $28 million more annually to make public defenders available at initial bail and bail review hearings, told the court in asking again for a stay of at least 180 days that his office does not have and is unlikely to quickly obtain the resources to comply.”  (Story from The Gazette.)

• 2.16.12 – the question of whether to separate the state’s public defense program from the executive branch so that it operates as an independent agency will be on the November ballot in New Mexico.  (Story from the Daily Times.)

• 2.15.12 – the ACLU is litigating over alleged over-burdened defenders in Washington State.  From the Seattle Times: “Attorneys for the cities of Mount Vernon and Burlington are sparring with the American Civil Liberties Union over allegations that the Skagit County cities knew their public defenders were overburdened with cases. In a federal lawsuit, the ACLU says the two part-time attorneys contracted by the cities fielded more than 2,100 cases in 2010, even though Washington state Bar Association guidelines say full-time public defenders shouldn’t surpass 400 cases a year.” 

• 2.14.12 – there has been much talk in the Great recession’s wake about the rise in pro se clients and the potential value of unbundling legal services delivery.  This SoCal development is interesting: the Legal Aid Society of Orange County is spinning off a for-profit entity, Legal Genie Inc., a “web-based program which combines the power of self-help technology with access to unbundled legal services, enabling self-represented litigants to complete and e-file legal pleadings.” Here’s a press release.

• 2.13.12 – the White House’s FY2013 budget proposal includes a request for $402 million in LSC funding.  This would be an increase over the current $348 million funding level.  For its part, LSC is asking Congress for a higher sum than the White House is: $470 million.  But LSC has also expressed its understanding concerning the White House’s lower proposal, according to the Blog of the Legal Times.  

• 2.13.12 – “Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget would keep general-fund money allotted to the judiciary the same as last year, but funding for civil legal services for the poor would be cut by $274,000….  Mr. Corbett has proposed that legal service s funded in a budget line within the state Department of Public Welfare be funded at $2.5 million, down from $2.74 million last year and down from $3 million two budget cycles ago.”  Story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

• 2.13.12 –  in northern California, San Joaquin County is debating the financial efficiencies of a proposal to close the public defense office.  Here’s the story from the Record. 

• 2.12.12 – the Washington Post reports on how last November’s LSC cuts are impacting grantee programs in DC, MD, and VA.

• 2.12.12 – funding woes are plaguing Alabama courthouses and prosecutors’ offices, and there are more clouds on the horizon.  From the Ledger-Enquirer:  “District attorneys and court officials who rely on state funding are reeling from recent budget cuts that have strained Alabama’s judicial system. The squeeze is being felt in East Alabama counties and elsewhere, prompting circuit clerks to shrink their staffs and scale back hours of operation despite mounting caseloads.” As for Gov. Bentley’s new budget proposal, “District attorneys would [experience] 20 percent cuts. And while the courts requested increased funding next fiscal year, the governor’s plan would slash the total judicial system’s General Fund appropriation by some 26 percent, mitigated mildly by about a 9 percent increase in earmarked funds.”

• 2.10.12 – no attorney-specific numbers, but Government Executive reports that, “[f]ederal retirements increased 24 percent in 2011 from the previous year, according to new statistics from the Office of Personnel Management…. The appeal of buyouts and early outs to agencies grew after the failure of the joint select committee on deficit reduction to agree on a plan to reduce spending by $1.2 trillion triggered across-the-board automatic spending cuts. Those cuts are slated to take effect in January 2013 unless Congress repeals sequestration. While there are no official figures available yet on how many employees accepted such incentives in 2011, tens of thousands were offered, and agencies en masse are likely to offer another round of buyouts heading into fiscal 2013.

• 2.10.12 – a glitch in the Presidential Management Fellowship program application process gave false hope to candidates before crushing said hope.  From Government Executive: “A prestigious postgraduate fellowship program run by the Office of Personnel Management has acknowledged it sent acceptance letters to about 300 applicants by mistake in January. The [PMF] program had 9,077 applicants, nominated for the program by their graduate schools, for 2012. Of those, 628 were ultimately chosen as fellows and 1,186 were semifinalists. All semifinalists were invited to conduct in-person interviews.  Approximately 25 percent of the semifinalists received erroneous acceptance letters, according to Fox News.”  Boy, it’s just never good to be one of The 300. 

• 2.10.12 – “Faced with increased enrollment and rising loan costs, the Yale Law School is scaling back its loan forgiveness program. The Career Options Assistance Program, which partially subsidizes tuition loan payments for Law School graduates should they enter relatively low-salary careers, will require a larger student contribution from members of…incoming…classes…. Under the previous policy, law school alumni who earn less than $60,000 [annually]…are eligible to have their loans payments fully subsidized by COAP, while those earning more than $60,000 are expected to contribute a quarter of their income above that baseline. The new policy sets the baseline salary lower, at $50,000, and expects participants to contribute varying percentages of their income toward loan payments, based on a sliding scale…”  (Story from the Yale Daily News.) 

• 2.10.12 – the Miami Herald reports on how legal services providers in Florida have struggled with federal and state funding cuts.  Florida’s IOLTA program was flush with cash and the envy of other states until the recession. IOLTA funds have taken an 88% hit since 2008.  The Herald article touches upon the work that legal services providers do to support veterans and their families.  To me, this powerfully humanizes what it means when we talk in much drier terms of “IOLTA” and budget appropriation lines. 

• 2.10.12 – legal services layoffs in West Virginia.  From the Charleston Gazette: “West Virginia Legal Aid executives announced Friday afternoon that they have laid off 15 case handlers and closed their Logan County office in response to federal budget cuts that promise to saddle the program with a $1.2 million deficit by 2013.”

• 2.10.12 – NBC Connecticut looks at the funding woes plaguing Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, which is the Nutmeg State’s sole LSC grantee.

• 2.10.12 – the impact of legal services funding cuts in the Detroit area, as reported by the Daily Tribune.

• 2.10.12 –  two million dollars from the recent blockbuster mortgage/banking industry settlement will go to the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission.  The Sun-Times has the story: “The Arkansas Attorney General’s office announced the news on Thursday, and funds distributed to the Commission will be used to provide access to civil justice for Arkansans affected by the mortgage crisis

Well, we’re not sure if they’ll be joining forces just yet, but groups in Alabama have reached out to large automakers with a presence in the state to meet and discuss the discriminatory law and the collateral consequences affecting their businesses.

From National Council of La Raza Executive Director Janet Murguia’s HuffPost piece:

Evidence of the detrimental effects that this legislation has had on business in Alabama continues to mount. A new report by the University of Alabama estimates that HB 56 could cost the state between $2.3 billion and $10.8 billion in economic output, $264.5 million in tax revenue, and 70,000 to 140,000 direct and indirect job losses. The heavy-handed nature of HB 56 has also created an unwelcoming environment for foreign investment. In fact, after the law was implemented, a German Mercedes-Benz manager and a Honda executive from Japan were detained for not carrying the identification documents required under HB 56.

This is why this coalition of civil rights and labor organizations reached out to the three top foreign automobile manufacturers in Alabama–Honda, Hyundai, and Daimler AG, which owns Mercedes-Benz–requesting a meeting to discuss the problems surrounding this discriminatory law. The automobile industry was at the forefront of rebuilding Alabama’s economy in the aftermath of the civil rights crisis that gripped the state throughout the 60s’ and continues to rely heavily on the Latino population for growth. These companies are also some of the most innovative in the world with solid records promoting diversity. We strongly believe that their companies should not want to do business in a state that is trying to replicate some of its most egregious sins of the past century.

We are very pleased to announce that NCLR has received a response from Hyundai and that we hope to be sitting down with them in the very near future. We also hope that other prominent automakers and businesses leaders will follow suit so that we can work with them to restore justice to the state of Alabama. NCLR, the Latino community in Alabama and nationally, and our partner organizations are determined to do whatever we can to repeal this repellent law.

Let’s see what happens… Thoughts?