I keep mulling this over, and I can't think of any way even Republican judges can make this constitutional. But it's mindboggling that they would even try to give the legislative branch the power to decide whether a state AG is permitted to bring a prosecution without the approval of the politicians. Imagine if it was illegal for the state AGs to go after bank fraud without the permission of the politicians they've bought! They already own almost everything, I guess this is their way of trying to snatch that final crumb:

A year ago, even a divining rod would have been tempting to a reporter trying to tease out details about the workings of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The group’s corporate, ideological and lawmaker members wouldn’t admit to an association, much less describe the model bills cooked up at its cushy confabs.

Today, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. One need only pick up one of the 4,000 documents recently obtained by Common Cause, which has filed complaints against the group here and at the national level, and out tumble nuggets of political chicanery.

Exhibit A: The agenda from last week’s ALEC meeting in Charlotte, N.C., where its task forces polished proposed bills that are likely to pop up in the next legislative session here and around the country.At the meeting, ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force considered a proposal entitled the ALEC Attorney General Authority Act. The boilerplate is pretty impenetrable -- one more reason lawmakers don’t write these themselves -- but the summary attached for members’ advance consideration lays out the gist pretty neatly:

“Just as a private attorney cannot bring a suit on behalf of a client without the client agreeing and authorizing such action, and then only within the guidelines allowed by the client, so it should be with the attorney general. Rather than an attorney general deciding on his or her own what authority the office may have to bring a lawsuit, the authority should be defined by the state as reflected by the specific decisions of the legislature via statute. The legislature, not the attorney general, is best positioned to balance the competing concerns that go into the decision of whether to allow a cause of action and under what circumstances.”

In even plainer English: AGs, who are typically the consumer’s lone public advocate these days, may not file suit against, say, a tobacco company, a mortgage fraudster or a national company flaunting state law, unless the legislature passes a bill saying he -- or in our case, she -- can.

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As Mel Brooks sang in The Producers, "If you got it, flaunt it". The radical right wing of the Republican Party (which these days is most of the Republican Party) did that over and over in two hearings on HR #3 and HR #358, which attack reproductive rights. In their usual way, they were all smarmily singing loudly and from the same page.

What did they flaunt? They revealed how they plan to undo Roe v. Wade. They made it clear what weapon they plan to use and in what arena, which we, the pro-choice movement, have for too long abandoned. All the weapons they need are there, and we left them there for the right to pick up and use to beat us up.

The visible weapons are

THE HYDE AMENDMENT.
LEGISLATION REMOVING FEDERAL FUNDS.

The "hiding in plain sight" weapons are

THE "LET WOMEN DIE" PROVISIONS;
THE ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS;
LAWSUITS;
INJUNCTIONS STOPPING ANY AND ALL FEDERAL FUNDS TO ANY AND ALL STATES, CITIES PROGRAMS OR AGENCIES.

What are they hiding in plain sight? How they plan to use the enforcement mechanisms in these bills and any future bills to destroy women's reproductive freedom.

They will attempt to first eliminate every women's access to abortion while also beginning their assault on all Americans' access to birth control. Yes indeedy, birth control is now in the crosshairs!! Certainly, that is what the Pence bill defunding Planned Parenthood is all about. Title X funding disburses money for women's health in general - pap smears, mammograms. And yes, that includes birth control or family planning, something that is now bizarrely controversial. Basically, health care for millions and millions of women.

But they do not plan on stopping there. The theory is throw as many bills against the wall as possible, with a lot of similar and dangerous elements. Then watch which elements they attach to which bill as they try through a variety of legislative maneuvers to paint the Senate into a corner, while the President keeps silent. To these extremists Republicans, his present silence means consent. That is certainly how they will propagandize it.

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This is always a favored tactic of the corporate elite: Keep employees so desperate and afraid, they'll work extra hours for free -- just so you can be chauffeured around Manhattan in a limo:

NEW YORK: Workers for Bank of America Corp, one of the nation's largest employers, have sued the company for allegedly failing to pay overtime and other wages.

The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, consolidates 12 lawsuits filed on behalf of employees in California, Florida, Kansas, Texas and Washington.

It seeks nationwide class-action status on behalf of employees at retail branches and call centers over the last three years. The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in April directed that the cases be combined.

According to the 44-page complaint, the largest U.S. bank by assets requires employees to work in excess of eight hours per day or 40 hours per week, yet fails to pay them both for overtime and for all straight time worked.

The complaint also accuses the bank of requiring employees to work during unpaid breaks, failing to provide meal and rest breaks, and failing to timely pay terminated employees for earned wages and accrued vacation time.

"Bank of America enjoys millions of dollars in ill-gained profits at the expense of its hourly employees," violating either the federal Fair Labor Standards Act or various state labor laws, the complaint said.

Well, here's a little treasure (PDF) from the Pacific Research Institute (aka right wing hatchery of the west). Sarah Palin has written the foreward for their "Tort Liability Index", where she brags about how "reformed" Alaska's tort system is.

Alaska has the second-lowest monetary tort payouts of any state, controlling for the size of each state’s economy. Our tort costs are particularly low for businesses—another reason for entrepreneurs to locate here. We also have some of the lowest medical liability costs in the country. We appreciate doctors in Alaska and welcome them with open arms, not abusive lawsuits.

Imagine that. If the Deepwater Horizon were to have sunk off the coast of Alaska after destroying all the wildlife in the area, they could've gotten off EASY. Because Sarah Palin was all about watchin' out for the doctor and entrepreneur.

I wonder if I could sue for injuries suffered from slamming my head on the desk repeatedly.

Given these sweeping benefits, all states would do well to follow Alaska’s example and enact legal reforms that eliminate lawsuit abuse. The state motto, after all, is “North to the Future.”

It would be irresponsible of me to simply rant about the idiocy of Sarah Palin writing any kind of foreward for any kind of think tank publication without at least looking at this wonderful tort liability climate in Alaska and sharing that information. So I went looking, and what I found is, well...interesting. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer)

• Life has a price - If you die in Alaska as the result of someone else's negligence, the most you are worth is $400,000 or $8,000 times your life expectancy. Period.
• Grievous injury has a price too - If you are injured or disfigured and the injury/disfigurement is permanent, the maximum you're worth is $1,000,000 or $25,000 x life expectancy.
• Punishment has its limits, too - If it is found that you have been wronged intentionally, punitive damages may be part of the verdict. Those limits range from a $500,000 maximum for an individual injury to $7,000,000 for intentionally inflicted financial injury (e.g. embezzlement, securities fraud, etc). However, if the issue is unlawful employment practices, the cap drops drastically to a maximum of $200,000 for small employers and $500,000 for employers with more than 500 employees.

Now look at those caps, and think about the 11 employees of BP killed on the Deepwater Horizon and ask yourself whether or not tort reform is such a good thing.

Palin's little foreward and endorsement of these practices just cements her as a straight-up Republican. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

Oh, and if anyone sees evidence of actual thought going on in the "think tanks", let me know, okay?

(h/t The Daily Dish)

What a mess this is going to be. But look on the bright side: Until now, legal firms were laying off. Now they'll be hiring for years to come!

Fishermen and property owners along the Gulf Coast have filed hundreds of lawsuits since April against oil company BP and its contractors amid a legal landscape that has changed dramatically since the Exxon Valdez tanker spill sullied Alaska's Prince William Sound 21 years ago.

The Valdez spill prompted Congress to pass the 1990 Oil Pollution Act — intended to give fishermen and others harmed by such spills a quicker route for settling their claims — and nearly two decades of litigation over that spill also has redefined centuries-old maritime law on the issue.

Now, as hundreds of spill victims test those laws, attorneys say many questions remain about how far the protections will go and how long it will take to compensate the fishermen, landholders and beachside cities that have suffered from the spill.

"There are an unbelievable array of issues in this case," said Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, who argued the Exxon Valdez case for the commercial fishermen and other Alaska businesses before the U.S. Supreme Court. "One of the most painful things about the Exxon case was that it took us 20 years to get the case finished and get the money in the pockets of the victims. One can't help but wonder if the same thing is going to happen here."

Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded April 20 and sank two days later, already has asked a judge to limit claims against it to $27 million under an 1851 law that limits liability. A judge has suspended more than 100 claims against Transocean until that issue is decided.

[...] Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the company the Coast Guard says is responsible for a spill must pay up to $1 billion to clean it up and repair natural resource damage and up to $75 million in economic damages to compensate victims for lost income.

BP and its contractors could be forced to pay even more than that if the federal government's investigation finds widespread negligence, deliberate misconduct or violations of federal regulations.

The U.S. government also could bring criminal charges under the Clean Water Act, Migratory Bird Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws, Fisher says. The Justice Department did not return a call for comment.

Thus is refreshing news.

Justice Department officials told Arizona's attorney general and aides to the governor Friday that the federal government has serious reservations about the state's new immigration law. They responded that a lawsuit against the state isn't the answer.

"I told them we need solutions from Washington, not more lawsuits," said Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat.

The Justice Department initiated separate meetings by phone and face-to-face in Phoenix with Goddard and aides to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer to reach out to Arizona's leaders and elicit information from state officials regarding the Obama administration's concerns about the new law.

The strong message that the Justice Department representatives delivered at the private meetings – first with Goddard, then with Brewer's staff – left little doubt that the Obama administration is prepared to go to court if necessary in a bid to block the new law, which takes effect July 29.

Goddard said he noted that five privately filed lawsuits already are pending in federal court to challenge the law.

"Every possible argument is being briefed," said Goddard, who is running unopposed for his party's nomination for the governor's race.

Brewer, who is seeking re-election, later said in a statement that her legal team told the Justice Department officials that the law would be "vigorously defended all the way to the United States Supreme Court if necessary."

The department officials, Brewer said, "were advised that I believe the federal government should use its legal resources to fight illegal immigration, not the state of Arizona."

Maybe Orrin Hatch can come up with a Kris Kobach Amendment and send a person or persons to jail for up to six months if they are instrumental in passing state legislation that allows racial profiling.
Anyway, even the WSJ admits that the Arizona law is unconstitutional.
Is Arizona’s new immigration law constitutional?

We hit the question briefly on Friday in this post, and the initial answer to the question seemed to be no, that in passing an immigration law, Arizona was improperly stepping into the domain of the federal government.

The NYT’s John Schwartz on Wednesday takes a deeper look at the question. His finding: that, yes, the law probably — though not definitely — runs violates preemption principles, and is therefore unconstitutional.

“The law is clearly pre-empted by federal law under Supreme Court precedents,” said UC Irvine’s Erwin Chemerinsky.

For decades, the role of controlling immigration and enforcing immigration laws has fallen to the federal government, not the states. And the law will likely fail on those grounds, said Chemerinsky.

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This Supreme Court is usually ready to hand a win to the Republicans, but it seems it would be a bit awkward if they tried to cooperate with the "unconstitutional health-care law" crowd:

Reporting from Washington - Lawsuits from 14 states challenging the constitutionality of the new national healthcare law face an uphill battle, largely due to a far-reaching Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that upheld federal restrictions on home-grown marijuana in California.

At issue in that case -- just like in the upcoming challenges to the healthcare overhaul -- was the reach of the federal government's power.

Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joined a 6-3 ruling that said Congress could regulate marijuana that was neither bought nor sold on the market but rather grown at home legally for sick patients.

They said the Constitution gave Congress nearly unlimited power to regulate the marketplace as part of its authority "to regulate commerce."

Even "noneconomic local activity" can come under federal regulation if it is "a necessary part of a more general regulation of interstate commerce," Scalia wrote.

The decision throws up a significant hurdle for the lawsuit filed last week in federal court by 13 state attorneys -- all but one a Republican. The Virginia attorney general filed a similar, but separate suit.

The suits claim that the federal government has no right to force individuals to have health insurance -- a central provision of the new healthcare law.

"By imposing such a mandate, the act exceeds the powers of the United States under Article I of the Constitution," according to the suit from the 13 states.

But this week, Obama administration lawyers pointed to Scalia's opinion as supporting the constitutionality of broad federal regulation of health insurance, and most legal experts agreed.

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