Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declares Proposition 8 to be Unconstitutional

By: Charles Press

On February 7, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional because the court ruled that it violated the equal protection clause.  The court’s ruling was narrow and did not address the broader question of whether or not same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry.  Rather, the court pointed to the fact that proposition 8 rescinded a right that was held and exercised by California residents when many of them legally married.   The court ruled 2-1 on the issue, and the lone dissenter, N.R. Smith, expressed the possibility of voters believing that there might have been a rational basis in passing the law to promote “responsible procreation”.  Justice Scalia, however, in Lawrence v. Texas, dismissed this idea when he asked “what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising [t]he liberty protected by the Constitution? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry.”

The case could very well find its way to the Supreme Court, as it will likely be appealed. 

Further reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/calif-same-sex-marriage-ban-ruled-%20unconstitutional/2012/02/07/gIQAMNwkwQ_story.html

Social Media and Public Records

By: Graham I. Rabinowitsch

With the increase in use of social media by government agencies and public officials, questions about the public record status of social media posts, comments, tweets, etc. have risen and will likely continue to persist. Laws pertaining to public meetings and records are referred to as Sunshine Laws. Under sunshine laws, typically, government agencies must conduct all business at open, public meetings, officials may not discuss any business which may come before their body with other members of the body outside of such meetings, and all records pertaining to public business must be made available to the public. Social media, an interactive part of the lives of many Americans (especially the younger generations), can complicate matters.

For traditional public records (ex. paper documents, email, etc), a designated custodian of records maintains copies of the records for the official file. Facebook posts and comments and tweets and direct messages are not saved to the file servers of government agencies. Should the public official manually archive such data and transmit it to their agency’s designated custodian? It becomes an issue when public officials blend their personal and official social media presences. If it relates to public business or is an official page or feed, the information should be available to the public and maintained as a record just as traditional paper documents and emails are. The public has a right to know how their officials make decisions that affect their lives. Where is the line drawn? Should public officials have separate accounts for their private life and their official role, making sure they do not post anything that could be interpreted as a public record on their private accounts? In a world like today, can public officials afford to avoid social media entirely?

Further Reading

·       Best Practices for Social Media Usage in North Carolina http://www.records.ncdcr.gov/guides/best_practices_socialmedia_usage_20091217.pdf

·       Naples Daily News – School district officials Twittering cautiously to avoid violating open records laws http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/jun/25/school-district-officials-twittering-cautiously-av/

·       National Council of State Legislatures – Examples of Policies Related to Legislative Use of Social Media http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/telecommunications-information-technology/policies-for-legislative-social-media-social-net.aspx

·       News Service of Florida – Open Records Challenged by Social Networking http://www.jaxobserver.com/2010/02/23/open-records-challenged-by-social-networking/

·       Sun-Sentinel – Tweets, postings trigger public records rules for officials http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-social-media-government-20120206,0,3353953.story

Affordable Care Act: Helpful or Harmful?

November 30^th, 2011

Giulia Stavropoulos

One of the biggest, and possibly most obvious, issues with health insurance is that many Americans are unable to afford it. On November 14^th, 2011, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari, reviewing a prior decision that was made by the United States Court of Appeals to declare a mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional. This specific mandate required all people to have at least the minimal coverage requirement for heath insurance.

In addition to reviewing this decision, the Supreme Court specifically decided to review the Medicaid expansion that was incorporated in the ACA. The ACA proposed to add Medicaid expansions to cover qualified adults under the age of sixty-five and would supposedly add an addition sixteen million Americans to Medicaid’s policy. The government would pay for the first three years of expansion, but would then rely on states’ share that would grow to ten percent. The states originally challenged this expansion believing that it was unwarranted due to the possibility of Medicaid losing all its funding, consequently negatively affecting the states for which Medicaid holds the largest source of federal funding. This case will be argued in front of the Supreme Court in mid-2012 and will be decided in the summer.

There are numerous opinions on the proper healthcare coverage and insurance plan mostly due to the fact that being covered with health insurance is an important issue to all Americans, especially in today’s economic crisis. It is possible that this case will bring positive changes to the Affordable Care Act, and hopefully positive changes to all Americans who are at risk of losing all of their income from unpredictable illnesses. But will it make all Americans sufficiently content? Probably not.

Is it beneficial for Medicaid to implement this expansion? Could this specific case bring us any closer to satisfying everyone’s needs?

Further reading:

Care And Cost:

http://careandcost.com/2011/11/16/high-court-to-review-acas-minimum-coverage-requirement-medicaid-expansion/

The New York Times:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/the-supreme-court-and-health-care-2/?scp=2&sq=supreme%20court&st=cse