A Federal Judge declared Obama's Health Care Bill Unconstitutinal. Dec. 13, 2010

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US Judge Rejects Key Part of Obama Healthcare Law

Monday, December 13, 2010 12:11 PM

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RICHMOND, Va. – A federal judge declared the Obama administration's healthcare law unconstitutional Monday, siding with Virginia's attorney general in a dispute that both sides agree the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately will decide.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson is the first federal judge to strike down the law, which two others in Virginia and Michigan have upheld. Several other lawsuits have been dismissed and others are pending, including one 20 other states have joined in a Florida filing.

Virginia Republican Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli filed a separate lawsuit in defense of a new state law that prohibits the government from forcing state residents to buy health insurance. However, the key issue was his claim that the federal law's requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional.

Hudson, a Republican whom President George W. Bush appointed, sounded sympathetic to the state's case when he heard oral arguments in October, and the White House expected to lose this round.

Administration officials told reporters last week that a negative ruling would have virtually no impact on the law's implementation, noting that its two major provisions — the coverage mandate and the creation of new insurance markets — don't take effect until 2014.

The central issue in Virginia's lawsuit was whether the federal government has the power under the constitution to impose the insurance requirement. The Justice Department said the mandate is a proper exercise of the government's authority under the Commerce Clause.

Cuccinelli argued that, although the government can regulate economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, the decision not to buy insurance amounts to economic inactivity that is beyond the government's reach.

Supremes Punt on Obama Eligibility AGAIN! (by Caleb) Nov. 30, 2010

Supremes punt on Obama eligibility again

Posted by Caleb on November 30, 2010 · Comments (59) 

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today it would not hear Kerchner v. Obama, a case challenging whether President Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve in the Oval Office.

The case is the latest in a lengthy series of cases in which U.S courts have refused to hear any arguments about Mr. Obama's eligibility.

The court effectively killed the Kerchner case with one terse statement: "The motion of Western Center for Journalism for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied."

"I don't think the court helped heal the country," said Mario Apuzzo, the New Jersey attorney who argued the case on behalf of retired Navy CDR Charles Kerchner. "We still don't know Mr. Obama's status. … The court is supposed to take cases that are important, and I can't imagine a case more important than this one."

"You need justice to resolve conflicts between people, and when justice is denied people continue to go after each other in a savage way. We did not get justice, " Apuzzo told WND. "For the court to deny our justice sets the country back terribly."

"This decision did not help Mr. Obama," Apuzzo added. "It did not bring legitimacy to his office. Mr. Obama does not have legitimacy of office by the court or by the consensus of the nation, because many people question whether he is a natural born citizen. How does our nation go forward with this kind of result?"

"This matter should have been addressed by the media and political parties early in the spring of 2008 during the primaries. It wasn't," wrote Kerchner Monday morning. "Congress should have addressed this when asked and when constitutionally it was required to. It didn't. The courts should have addressed the merits of the questions when appealed to early on. They didn't. Everyone in our system of government chose appeasement over confrontation and punted the ball to someone else."

"Now it is far worse," Kerchner continued. "The Supreme Court has chosen appeasement and inaction over action and dealing with the issue and questions openly in a court of law under the rules of evidence and law. Our constitutional republic and legal system is now compromised and broken."

Read More: By Brian Fitzpatrick, WorldNetDaily

In-State Tuition upheld for illegal immigrants (by Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer) Nov. 16, 2010

In-state tuition upheld for illegal immigrants

Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

 

California's Supreme Court became the first in the country Monday to affirm the right of illegal immigrants to pay the same college tuition as state residents, rather than the higher out-of-state rate.

The ruling upholds a 2002 state law that lets students pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities if they attended a California high school for at least three years before graduating.

Civil rights groups, university officials and undocumented students themselves applauded the ruling, which may impact thousands of people living in the United States illegally who apply to California colleges each year.

California's tuition law affects not only undocumented students, but also anyone who meets the high school criteria, such as boarding school students whose parents live in other states or graduate students who grew up in California but lost residency by going to college somewhere else.

Nine states have similar laws.

Of the 2,000 or so University of California students who benefit from the law, about 400 are undocumented, according to a UC survey. Other state universities say they don't track students' status.

"Through their hard work and perseverance, these students have earned the opportunity to attend UC," said Mark Yudof, UC's president. "Their accomplishments should not be disregarded or their futures jeopardized."

Nonresidents sue

In 2005, 42 people who live outside California sued UC, arguing that the state's tuition law gave illegal residents an unfair advantage over legal U.S. residents when applying to college. Federal law prohibits such advantages for undocumented students "on the basis of residence within a state."

But Monday's ruling said the California law is not based on residence, but on such factors as how many years a student attended high school.

"If Congress had intended to prohibit states entirely from making unlawful aliens eligible for in-state tuition, it could easily have done so," the court ruled.

Attorney Kris Kobach, who represents the plaintiffs, called the ruling a "very weak opinion." He said he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

Kobach, recently elected Kansas secretary of state, co-wrote Arizona's immigration law requiring police to question anyone they suspect of living in the country illegally. He said California's taxpayers lose millions of dollars each year because the state doesn't require undocumented students to pay the out-of-state rate.

But UC Berkeley sophomore Uriel Rivera, who entered the United States illegally at age 14, said taxpayers lose nothing because students like him have enough trouble paying the in-state rate.

Difference in tuition

At UC, state residents pay $11,300 in tuition a year; nonresidents pay $34,000. State and federal law prohibit illegal residents from receiving public grants or scholarships.

So Rivera and other undocumented students scramble for private scholarships. He wants to become a history teacher.

Today, however, Rivera is so far behind on tuition that the campus library won't even let him take out books.

Still, he said, he feels "happiness and relief" at the ruling. Without the tuition law, he said, "our chances of getting a college education would be nonexistent."

The case is Martinez vs. Regents of the University of California. The ruling can be found at sfg.ly/arNGH3.

E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/16/MNG61GCDH0.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Supreame Court Rebuff Allows Sale of Medical Marijuana in San Bernardino County... (The Press Enterprise, Wednesday, May 20, 2009)

BS Ranch Perspective:

What is up with the decision of the court to allow the Inland Empire of California to have the decisive use of the "Mary Jane" for medical use! This might be the start of the break down for the rest of the country, and the begining of the break down of the rest of the country to gain the use of the Medical sides of Marijuana for the rest of the United States! But isn't it great to know that it was the Inland Empire that gave the world the Hells Angles and now Medical Marijuana use!! 

BS Ranch

Supreme Court rebuff allows sale of medicinal marijuana in San Bernardino County

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03:11 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 20, 2009

By DARRELL R. SANTSCHI
The Press-Enterprise

San Bernardino County residents previously unable to lawfully purchase marijuana for medicinal uses should soon be able to do so after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear challenges to the state's medical marijuana law.

"The Supreme Court is the end of the road," said Allen Hopper, litigation director for the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Law Reform Project. "There is no additional legal challenge left for the counties."

San Bernardino and San Diego counties had sued in San Diego County Superior Court three years ago contending that federal drug law trumps California law, therefore making the possession of marijuana in this state -- for medical or any other use -- illegal.

By refusing to hear the case, the court upheld lower-court rulings that rejected the counties' arguments.

Supporters say marijuana helps chronically ill patients relieve pain. Critics say the drug has no medical benefit and all use should be illegal.

California voters in 1996 decriminalized using marijuana for medicinal purposes, and the state Legislature passed a law seven years later spelling out regulations governing its use, including a requirement that counties issue ID cards to patients who have letters from their doctors confirming the medical need.

Riverside County has been issuing the cards ever since, county spokesman Ray Smith said by phone Monday.

Victoria Jauregui Burns, chief of the Riverside County Public Health Department's HIV program, said San Bernardino County residents cannot cross county lines to obtain ID cards because they must show proof of residence to obtain them.

Riverside County residents must also have a letter from a physician and pay a $153-a-year fee.

The county has averaged 350 applicants a year for the past three years, she said, but the volume of applicants has surged in recent months. Some 200 people have applied for the cards in the past three months.

Supervisors in San Bernardino and San Diego, and as many as seven other California counties that have been waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in, will now consider issuing the ID cards.

San Bernardino County will not issue the cards at least until supervisors are briefed by their attorneys on June 2, county spokesman David Wert said.

The ACLU's Hopper said county supervisors need to understand the meaning of the decision, "so I have no problem with them taking a little bit of time for their lawyers to explain what the legal effect of the decision is."

On the other hand, he said, "It's not rocket science. The Supreme Court said that what the Court of Appeals did stands. The Court of Appeals threw out the counties' challenge."

Scott Bledsoe, of Crestline in the San Bernardino Mountains, said he doesn't trust the county to quickly begin issuing ID cards. He said he will lead as many as 50 medical marijuana proponents in a demonstration at today's supervisors meeting in San Bernardino to press for immediate action.

Bledsoe sued the county in January when it refused to issue him a medical marijuana ID, and he says Monday's Supreme Court decision "bolsters my suit.

"We were expecting, or hoping, that the Supreme Court would deny review of San Bernardino's case," Bledsoe said by phone. "We also assumed that they were going to continue obstructing, even after a ruling like that came down. I filed suit so we could get something going."

Fast Action sought

Aaron Smith, California policy director for the national Marijuana Policy Project, called on the two counties to act immediately.

"It's time for San Diego and San Bernardino counties to end their war on the sick and obey the law," Smith said in a news release Monday.

Tom Bunton, a senior deputy county counsel in San Diego County who argued the case on behalf of both counties, said he was disappointed with the Supreme Court decision, but that "I think it does" mean the end of the battle against California's medical marijuana law.

He said he will recommend that San Diego County supervisors begin issuing identification cards.

Hopper said the Supreme Court decision -- while unexplained by the court itself -- "really comes down to the sovereign right that the state has to decide for itself what its criminal laws are going to penalize or not penalize."

He said he is counting on the Obama administration to continue its hands-off policy on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, a sharp reversal from the Bush administration.

Reach Darrell R. Santschi at 951-368-9484 or dsantschi@PE.com