Source: https://axiomamuse.wordpress.com/tag/federalism/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 21:53:31+00:00

Document:
By David K. Williams, Jr.
I somehow missed this very interesting piece of news when it was first circulated in November, but uncovered it in my efforts to trace the recent announcement that DPS is to install license plate recognition cameras around the state back to the original source of the project.
I am especially confounded by the way this is being implemented-reportedly by an executive order to be issued by Gov. Henry on the 23rd of Dec.
Oklahoma residents might assume that such a decision would need approval from the state legislature. The Governor apparently thinks otherwise.
Oklahoma officials illegally spent about $600 million in federal stimulus money during the 2009 legislative session because the funds were not certified by the State Equalization Board, attorney Jerry Fent told an Oklahoma Supreme Court referee Wednesday.
. . . Fent, of Oklahoma City, told referee Greg Albert that an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution approved by voters in 1985 requires certification.
It would also explain how Oklahoma is suddenly to be getting 200 license plate spanning spy-cams without so much as a cursory once over by our representatives.
“I want that illegal spending stopped,” says Mr. Fent.
And I want decisions of such magnitude as surveillance devices being installed to at least have to run the legislative gauntlet so we might have some sort of input on the matter!
Fent said the same issues apply to about $100 million in federal money over which the governor’s office was given discretionary authority.
Fent also questions the authority of a coordinating council appointed by Gov. Brad Henry to oversee the use of Oklahoma’s stimulus funds.
Assistant Attorney General Scott Boughton gives a set of reasoning to counter Mr. Fent’s argument that does not impress. The OKC Attorney explains very his argument very straightforwardly.
Fent said the question is who has authority over such funds coming into Oklahoma, the state or the federal government. He said the attorney general’s office was arguing for the latter.
“This case is sovereignty versus federalism,” he said.
My thoughts tended towards governance by bureaucracy versus representative democracy but point well taken.
Keith Haywood, a prisoner filed suit against several corrections officers, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a civil rights statute that can help gain access to constitutional claims that they otherwise may not have available to them under state or federal law.
New York Supreme Court denied his clam under New York, Corrections Law Sec. 24 (1) Which says that only the Att. General, on behalf of the state, may prosecute a civil action against a corrections officer, in his personal capacity when he is acting within the scope of his duties.
The Supreme Court ruling in Haywood v. Drown got lost in the news last week, but it was an important constitutional case involving the principle of federalism. The issue concerned the extent to which the central government can commandeer state judicial systems. Unfortunately, by a narrow 5-4 vote, the Court gave the central government a green light.
The Court holds that New York Correction Law Annotated §24, which divests New York’s state courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over suits seeking money damages from correction officers, violates the Supremacy Clause ofthe Constitution, Art. VI, cl. 2, because it requires the dismissal of federal actions brought in state court under42 U. S. C. §1983. I disagree. Because neither the Constitution nor our precedent requires New York to open its courts to §1983 federal actions, I respectfully dissent.
Until this setback, the Court’s conservatives were doing well in this corner of the law. In New York v. United States (1992), the Court ruled that state legislatures were not subject to federal direction. In Printz v. United States (1997), the Court ruled that state executive officers were not subject to federal direction. This case stood for the proposition that state courts are not subject to federal direction. Alas, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the liberals to subordinate the states to federal control.
Justice Thomas’s argument relies on the key premise, on which the majority oscillates, that Correction Law § 24 is not an immunity provision at all, but is instead solely a jurisdictional provision.
The Supremacy Clause gives states the power to deny enforcement of a federal right if they have a “‘valid excuse'” for doing so (Howlett, 496 US at 369, quoting Douglas v New York N.H. & H.R. Co., 279 US 377, 387-388 ). One permissible exception is when a state court lacks jurisdiction due to a “neutral state rule regarding the administration of the courts” (Howlett, 496 US at 372). The Supreme Court has explained that states “have great latitude to establish the structure and jurisdiction of their own courts” and that Congress must “take the state courts as it finds them” (id. [internal quotation marks omitted]; see also Brown v Gerdes, 321 US 178, 189  [Frankfurter, J., concurring] [“[t]he Constitution does not require New York to give jurisdiction to its courts against its will”]; National Private Truck Council Inc. v Oklahoma Tax Commn., 515 US 582, 587 n 4 ).
Holding otherwise, the dissent maintains, forces the states into an “all-or-nothing choice”: creating courts of general jurisdiction or courts of limited jurisdiction alone. Withdrawing a class of claims from a court’s purview would be prohibited.
Some view the case to be about the proper division of state and federal power-Like Thomas but others view it as a question of individual rights, for the prisoner and say that if the attorney general must be the one to initiate action then naturally prisoners will not be permitted access to justice.

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