SCOTUS

Yesterday, the Republican National Committee released a web ad featuring the voice of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli haltingly defending the Affordable Care Act. After saying that “For more than 80 percent of Americans, the, ah, insurance system does provide effective access,” Verrilli trails off, coughing and stuttering for an incredibly long time.

But as Bloomberg News revealed, the awkward silence isn’t credible. It’s entirely doctored. In the actual audio of the case, Verrilli pauses only briefly before continuing “But for more than 40 million who do not have access to health insurance, either through their employer or through government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid, the system does not work.

Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog calls it “the single most classless and misleading thing I’ve ever seen related to the Court,” and he’s right.  But it shouldn’t come as any surprise that this is the tack taken by the GOP. From day one, Republicans decided that the best way to oppose President Obama’s health care reform agenda was by lying about it. Whether it’s about death panels, rationed care or the Solicitor General’ performance before the Supreme Court, Republicans have made clear that there’s no lie they won’t tell in order to damage the president and frustrate his agenda.

After the Citizens United decision, we’ve seen outside groups pushing sleazy “Swift Boat” style attack ads. The fact that the RNC itself chose to push such a blatant lie only underscores how comfortable with dishonesty--and how desperate--the party has become.

Republican leaders, including presidential contenders who hope to lead the party, should renounce these dishonest attacks.

People For's President, Michael Keegan, sent the following letter today to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, all of whom are scheduled to appear this weekend at the Values Voter Summit, alongside the virulently anti-Muslim and anti-gay Bryan Fischer.

Dear ________:

I am writing to express my concern about your appearance this weekend at the upcoming Values Voter Summit. Among the participants this weekend will be Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. We urge you to publically denounce Fischer’s record of hate speech and extremism, and reconsider appearing beside him this weekend.

People For’s RightWingWatch.org blog has tracked Fischer’s career over the past several years. His long and prolific record of hate speech and extremism includes the following recent statements. Just in the past year, Fischer has:

• Demanded that no new mosques be built anywhere in America. (8/10/2010)

• Argued that inbreeding has caused Muslims to be stupid and violent. (9/10/2010)

• Said that Muslims should be banned from serving in the U.S. military. (11/9/2009)

• Insisted that all Muslims are traitors, called for the deportation of all Muslims from the U.S. (4/10/2010)

• Claimed that U.S. service members died in vain because the U.S. failed to make Iraq a Christian nation. (8/19/2010)

• Said that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office.” (8/5/2010)

• Insisted that gays are biased, sexually deviant felons, not to mention pedophiles, and should never serve on the Supreme Court. (4/15/2010, 4/16/2010)

• Called gay adoption “a terrible, terrible, inexcusable, inhumane thing to do to children.” (8/10/2010)

• Argued that we should“impose the same sanctions on those who engage in homosexual behavior as we do on those who engage in intravenous drug abuse." (2/3/2010)

• Wrote: “The inescapable conclusion is that gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism.” (6/10/2010)

• Said: “Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.” (5/25/2010)

• Disparaged family values in the Hispanic community, saying “Also, the illegitimacy rate among Hispanic women is over 50%. I’m not sure pro-family values are as strong in the Hispanic community as Dr. Land wants to believe.” (7/23/2010)

• Called the President a “fascist dictator” for taking steps to hold BP accountable for the Gulf oil spill: “And remember the President's been a fascist ... he says ‘I've been a fascist from day one. They can't blow their nose without asking permission from me, they can't clean the wax out of their ears unless they get a sign-off from me.’ That's what fascist dictators do!” (6/18/2010)

I am attaching the names of over 6,500 concerned citizens who have signed the following letter regarding your participation in the summit:

Values Voter Summit Participants:

Reasonable people can, and do, have reasonable differences of opinion. Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, is not a reasonable person.

By sharing a stage with Fischer at this year's Values Voter Summit, public figures acknowledge the credibility of his shameless anti-Muslim and anti-gay propaganda. Any candidate thinking seriously of running for president in 2012 should think twice about standing alongside a man who has called for the deportation of all Muslims in America; insulted Muslim servicemembers; claimed that brave Americans died in vain because Iraq was not converted to Christianity; and called gay people deviants, felons, pedophiles and terrorists. Bryan Fischer is no mainstream conservative. And neither is any person who shares a platform with him while refusing to denounce his hate-filled propaganda.

We urge you to denounce Fischer's extremism and separate yourself from his comments.

For more background on Fischer’s extreme rhetoric, please click here.

Fischer’s appearance with conservative leaders such as yourself lends his extreme hate speech credibility. We urge you to publicly denounce Fischer’s record and to think twice about sharing the stage with him.

Sincerely,

Michael B. Keegan
President, People For the American Way

As Miranda reported back in May, the Citizens United decision mobilized its proponents in the direction of securing more rights under the First Amendment. The specific target? Soft money contributions.

In the case, RNC v. FEC, the RNC and several affiliate groups argued political parties should be allowed to raise and spend unlimited "soft" money contributions for purposes other than influencing national elections.

The RNC, the CA GOP and the San Diego Co. GOP had claimed they should be allowed to raise the money for redistricting, non-federal state elections and grassroots advocacy. A 3-judge panel in DC Circuit Court ruled unanimously against the RNC earlier this year. Only 3 members of the Supreme Court wanted to hear the case; 4 members must approve for the Court to accept a case.

The Court’s decision today not to take the case – with Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy on the other side - is a slim victory for the American people, already harmed by the harsh reality of the Roberts Court’s pro-corporation bent. We should temper our happiness, however, given the fact that a similar case is already pending in another circuit court, and pro-corporation groups are energized about its prospects.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently heard Cao v. FEC May 25. This case is a similar challenge to party restrictions, questioning the very low coordination limits for political parties and congressional candidates.

The day Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement, Senate Republican leadership vowed to obstruct the confirmation of whoever was nominated to replace him. Today, Republican Senators who had previously praised nominee Elena Kagan’s intellect and qualifications have become strikingly less supportive.

And now we have evidence that the obstruction of Obama’s Supreme Court pick, as a way of delaying progress on policy initiatives like climate change regulation and immigration reform, has been the GOP’s explicit strategy all along.

Talking Points Memo’s Brian Beutler obtained a recording of an April 22 RNC strategy call led by right-wing activist Curt Levey:

The crux of the GOP's strategy is to use Obama's nominee to wedge vulnerable Democratic senators away from the party, and drag the confirmation fight out until the August congressional recess, to eat up precious time Democrats need to round out their agenda.

"[I]t wouldn't take much GOP resistance to push a final vote into early August," Levey advised. "And, look, the closer we could get it to the election, frankly, the better. It would be great if we could push it past the August recess because that forces the red and purple state Democrats to have to go home and face their constituents."

Levey acknowledged that a filibuster likely won't last--that Obama's nominee, now known to be Solicitor General Elana Kagan, will almost certainly be confirmed. But he hammered home the point to Republicans that there's value in mischaracterizing any nominee, and dragging the fight out as long as possible, whether or not Obama's choice is particularly liberal.

This is frustrating, but not surprising, from a party that has recently displayed an unparalleled mastery of the Senate’s rules for delay. If they’re willing to stall the confirmation of one of their own party’s most prominent spokespeople, why would they not draw out the confirmation process for an obviously qualified Supreme Court nominee?
 

Don’t say he didn’t warn you. Sen. Jeff Sessions has taken issue with several of President Obama’s criteria for picking a Supreme Court nominee, but he’s especially concerned about the stipulation that the new justice have a “keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people.”

That priority, Sessions warned ABC News this week, is “dangerous.”

One has to wonder if Sessions was similarly terrified in 2006, when in his confirmation hearings before Sessions’ committee, now-Justice Samuel Alito made an eloquent speech about his ability to identify with the concerns of immigrants, children, victims of discrimination, and people with disabilities.

He shouldn’t have worried: despite his professed understanding, Alito helped bring us a variety of decisions that have ignored the realities of daily life in America.

But if he sees out-of-touch as the most desirable quality in a Supreme Court justice, Sessions may have found his ideal Justice in John G. Roberts. Roberts has already reassured us that he missed the Internet age entirely. And on Monday, the Chief Justice showed us his lack of concern for low-wage laborers when he belittled the situation of workers forced to sign bad contracts as “economic inequality or whatever.”

If Sessions is looking for a Supreme Court that disregards the lives of ordinary Americans, he’s got it. But maybe it wouldn’t be so dangerous for our newest Justice to understand the difference between “economic inequality” and “whatever.”

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced today that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will begin her confirmation hearings on July 13th. People for the American Way President Michael B. Keegan released the following statement on the announcement:

"Today's announcement is a clear sign that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is on track to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Judge Sotomayor is an eminently qualified nominee, and the misguided efforts by some prominent Republicans and their right-wing allies to smear her have failed.

In recent years Supreme Court nominees have traditionally had hearings within two months of being nominated. Today's announcement is consistent with the timeline for nominees of both parties." 

Make sure to sign our petition today, calling on the Senate to confirm Judge Sotomayor to the court.

If you haven't already gotten a chance, be sure to read Joan Biskupic's article on the Supreme Court in today's USA Today, a good primer on the choice that voters face on Election Day.

The appointment of life-tenured judges can be an administration's most consequential legacy, as Obama and McCain observed in last week's debate. Five of the nine Supreme Court justices are age 70 or older, so a new president might have to make multiple appointments.

Because the court is tightly split over issues such as abortion rights, race-based policies and the handling of Guantanamo Bay detainees, even a change of one justice could alter the law across the nation for decades to come.

The article does contain one line of very generous understatement.

[Palin] has invoked God on public occasions and suggested she does not believe in a high wall to separate church and state.

I think that's a pretty safe inference.

The website also offers a fun little SCOTUS quiz.  (I don't mean to brag, but I aced it.)

On October 19, 2007, PFAWF joined 11 other civil rights groups in filing an amicus curiae brief in Sprint v. Mendelsohn, an employment discrimination case pending in the Supreme Court and one of the cases that we highlighted in our preview of the Court's term because of its importance to the right of employees who believe that they have been subjected to workplace discrimination to obtain justice in the courts. Other groups joining this brief include the NAACP, MALDEF, the National Women's Law Center, the Asian American Justice Center, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a diverse coalition underscoring the importance of this case to the civil rights community.