Source: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2018/05/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 04:19:59+00:00

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The State of Illinois yesterday became the 37th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, 45 years after Congress proposed it. This leave the ERA just one state short of the 38 (three-fourths of the states) required for amendment.
But Illinois's vote comes well after the (already extended) congressional deadline of June 30, 1982. So does it count toward validation as an amendment? Given the deadline and putative ratification rescissions by five states, can the ERA come into force under any circumstances? Or does it need to be re-proposed, and re-ratified?
The Congressional Research Service addresses these and other questions in this report.
Spoiler alert: There's no "right" answer.
In its opinion in United States v. Schock, a panel of the Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of a motion to dismiss a criminal indictment by former Illinois Congressperson Aaron Schock (pictured below). Schock was charged with crimes committed as a Congressperson including "filing false or otherwise improper claims for reimbursement for his travel and furnishings, and with failing to report correctly (and pay tax on) those receipts that count as personal income."
Schock moved the dismiss the indictment as impermissible under the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause, Art. I §6 cl. 1, which provides that members of Congress “for any Speech or Debate in either House, shall not be questioned in any other Place.” The district judge denied the motion and the Seventh Circuit panel, in its opinion by Judge Easterbrook, allowed an interlocutory appeal. The panel held, however, that "on the merits" the Speech or Debate Clause "does not help Schock, for a simple reason: the indictment arises out of applications for reimbursements, which are not speeches, debates, or any other part of the legislative process." In short, submitting a false claim under established rules differs from the formulation of those rules.
However, the court noted that Schock’s principal argument rests on the Rulemaking Clause, Art. I §5 cl. 2, which provides “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” As the court stated, "the rules about reimbursable expenses were adopted under this clause and, Schock insists, because only the House may adopt or amend its rules, only the House may interpret them. Ambiguity in any rule (or in how a rule applies to a given claim for reimbursement) makes a prosecution impossible, Schock concludes, because that would require a judge to interpret the rules."
Judges regularly interpret, apply, and occasionally nullify rules promulgated by the President or another part of the Executive Branch, as well as statutes enacted by the Legislative Branch; why would reimbursement rules be different?
However, Judge Easterbrook's opinion stated that the court "need not come to closure" on the issue of whether there is something "special" about legislative rules, acknowledging contrary precedent, because an interlocutory appeal on that ground is not available.
Neither the separation of powers generally, nor the Rulemaking Clause in particular, establishes a personal immunity from prosecution or trial. The separation of powers is about the allocation of authority among the branches of the federal government. It is an institutional doctrine rather than a personal one. The Speech or Debate Clause, by contrast, sets up a personal immunity for each legislator. The Supreme Court limits interlocutory appeals to litigants who have a personal immunity—a “right not to be tried.” No personal immunity, no interlocutory appeal.
Thus, Schock can appeal on this basis only after judgment. Judge Easterbrook's opinion foreclosed the possibility of success on this issue by the en banc Seventh Circuit: the opinion was "was circulated before release to all judges in active service;" and "None favored a hearing en banc."
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (D.D.C.) today tossed two lawsuits filed by Kaspersky Lab arising out of the government's rejection of Kaspersky products. The ruling ends Kaspersky's challenges and means that the federal prohibition on government use of Kaspersky products stays on the books.
Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber-security firm, filed its first suit in response to the Department of Homeland Security's Binding Operative Directive that required all federal departments and agencies to stop using Kaspersky products. DHS issued the BOD out of concern that Kaspersky products on the government's networks and computer systems could create a security risk. Kaspersky argued that the BOD violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment.
Kaspersky filed its second suit in response to the National Defense Authorization Act, which also prohibited the government from using Kaspersky products. (The NDAA contained a somewhat broader prohibition, effective October 1, 2018.) Kaspersky argued that the NDAA was an unconstitutional bill of attainder.
The court ruled first that the NDAA did not violate the Bill of Attainder Clause, because the prohibition wasn't "punishment" under any of the three tests adopted by the D.C. Circuit (the "Historical Test," the "Functional Test," or the "Motivational Test"). The court dismissed this suit.
The court next ruled that Kaspersky lacked standing to challenge DHS's BOD, because any ruling in its favor wouldn't redress its harm. In particular, the court said that revoking the BOD wouldn't do anything to allow Kaspersky to sell its products to the government, because the (valid) prohibition in the NDAA would prohibit that. The court said that the government, knowing that the NDAA's ban takes effect on October 1, 2018, wouldn't purchase any Kaspersky products in the interim.
The ruling means that the bans on Kaspersky products stay on the books, and the government must remove all Kaspersky products from its systems.
The Sixth Circuit's opinion in Theile v. Michigan upheld Michigan Constitution art VI §19(3) which provides that no person "shall be elected or appointed to a judicial office after reaching the age of 70 years." Judge Theile, who must run for reelection in 2020 when he will be 71, argued that the Michigan constitutional provision (and statutes), violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Sixth Circuit panel found that Judge Theile's argument was foreclosed by Sixth Circuit precedent upholding the very same provision as well as United States Supreme Court's decision in Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991) upholding a similar provision in Missouri. The opinion noted that Gregory was decided only twenty-seven years ago, and the Sixth Circuit case a "mere eighteen," and there was no basis to conclude that the reasoning of those cases has "somehow been overtaken by interceding events and rendered invalid."
Thus, the Sixth Circuit declined to raise the level of scrutiny of the age-based classification to intermediate scrutiny despite Theile's argument that age, like gender, is "immutable." Applying rational basis scrutiny, the Sixth Circuit acknowledged Theile's points that federal judges face no age limits, that eighteen states have no mandatory judicial retirement age, and that many United States Supreme Court justices serve past the age of 70 which is an "archaic" limit. However, the rational basis standard is exceedingly lenient and the Court in Gregory held that Missouri’s judicial age limitation of 70 was rationally related to such legitimate purposes as avoiding laborious testing of older judges’ physical and mental acuity, promoting orderly attrition of judges, and recognizing that judges’ remoteness from public view makes determination of competency, and removal from office, more difficult than for other office-holders.
Judges looking to change the maximum age limits or mandatory retirement ages may have to look for changes in the underlying laws rather that equal protection.
In her Opinion in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, Naomi Reice Buchwald, found that the President's Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, is in violation of the First Amendment when it blocks other Twitter users based on their political views.
Judge Buchwald's 75 page opinion is well-structured and well-reasoned, proceeding through the multiple and complex issues posed by the novel issue. The parties' extensive Stipulation formed the basis of the summary judgment order.
Judge Buchwald first found that the named plaintiffs and organizational plaintiff had standing as to both the President and Dan Scavino, the White House Social Media Director with access to the Twitter account. But she granted summary judgment in favor of Defendant Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who did not have access to the Twitter account (and Hope Hicks, no longer at the White House, was dismissed as a Defendant).
Here, the President and Scavino’s present use of the @realDonaldTrump account weighs far more heavily in the analysis than the origin of the account as the creation of private citizen Donald Trump. That latter fact cannot be given the dispositive weight that defendants would ascribe to it. Rather, because the President and Scavino use the @realDonaldTrump account for governmental functions, the control they exercise over it is accordingly governmental in nature.
With the assistance of Mr. Scavino in certain instances, President Trump uses @realDonaldTrump, often multiple times a day, to announce, describe, and defend his policies; to promote his Administration’s legislative agenda; to announce official decisions; to engage with foreign political leaders; to publicize state visits; to challenge media organizations whose coverage of his Administration he believes to be unfair; and for other statements, including on occasion statements unrelated to official government business. President Trump sometimes uses the account to announce matters related to official government business before those matters are announced to the public through other official channels.” Stip. ¶ 38. “For example, the President used @realDonaldTrump to announce on June 7, 2017, for the first time, that he intended to nominate Christopher Wray for the position of FBI director.” Stip. ¶ 38.
But the real issue for the forum analysis was not the President's tweets, which the Judge held to be "government speech" not subject to First Amendment constraints as the United States Supreme Court recently explained in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Instead, the "interactive space associated with each of the President’s tweets is not government speech and is properly analyzed under the Supreme Court’s forum precedents," and, Judge Buchwald concluded, is a "designated public forum."
The audience for a reply extends more broadly than the sender of the tweet being replied to, and blocking restricts the ability of a blocked user to speak to that audience. While the right to speak and the right to be heard may be functionally identical if the speech is directed at only one listener, they are not when there is more than one.
Finally, Judge Buchwald rejected the argument that the court categorically lacked authority to enjoin the President: "No government official, after all, possesses the discretion to act unconstitutionally." Nevertheless, she decided that a declaratory judgment should suffice: "we must assume that the President and Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional."
Check out Garrett Epps's piece at The Atlantic on whether the President can be indicted. Epps surveys the legal opinions on this, and asks several scholars, only to conclude that "[w]e just don't know, and we won't know, whether it's allowed until we open the box . . . ."
The Supreme Court ruled today that federal law prohibiting states from authorizing sports gambling violates the anticommandeering principle. The ruling in Murphy v. NCAA strikes the prohibition the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) and opens the door to state-authorized sports gambling across the country.
While the ruling is potentially quite significant with regard to sports gambling, it does not restrict Congress from regulating or prohibiting sports gambling directly. Congress could enact a new law doing just that.
As to the constitutional law: The ruling says that the anticommandeering principle applies both when Congress requires states to act (which we already knew), and when Congress prohibits states from acting (which we didn't yet know, at least not for sure). That could have implications in the sanctuary cities litigation, which involves, among other things, the federal prohibition against state and local governments from restricting their officers in cooperating with federal immigration agents.
The case arose when New Jersey challenged the prohibition on state-authorized sports gambling in the PASPA under the anticommandeering principle. New Jersey sought to revoke its law prohibiting sports gambling, but the NCAA sued, arguing that New Jersey's proposed revocation violated the PASPA's provision that forbids a state "to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact . . . a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme" based on a competitive sporting events and forbids "a person to sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote" those gaming schemes if done "pursuant to the law or compact of a governmental entity." (New Jersey did this once before, but was stopped in the lower courts. The Supreme Court denied cert. in that earlier challenge.) (Importantly, PASPA does not make sports betting a federal crime. Instead, it authorizes the Attorney General and professional and amateur sports organizations to sue to halt violations.) New Jersey countered that PASPA violated the anticommandeering principle insofar as it prohibited the state from repealing its ban on sports betting. The lower courts ruled against the state, but the Supreme Court reversed. Justice Alito wrote for the Court.
The Court first held that New Jersey's repeal fell within PASPA's ban on "authorizing" sports betting: "When a State completely or partially repeals old laws banning sports gambling, it 'authorize[s]' that activity."
The Court then ruled that PASPA's prohibition violated the anticommandeering principle. The Court said that it didn't make a difference whether Congress directed a state to act, or prohibited a state from acting; either way, "state legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress."
The PASPA provision at issue here--prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling--violates the anticommandeering rule. That provision unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do. And this is true under either our interpretation or that advocated by the respondents and the United States. In either event, state legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress. It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.
It was a matter of happenstance that the laws challenged in New York and Printz commanded "affirmative" action as opposed to imposing a prohibition. The basic principle--that Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislatures--applies in either event.
The Court said that PASPA's prohibition on state "licensing" of sports betting similarly violates the anticommandeering principle.
Finally, the Court said that PASPA's prohibition on states from "operat[ing]," "sponsor[ing]," or "promot[ing]" sports gambling schemes, its provisions that prohibit a private actor from "sponsor[ing], operat[ing], advertis[ing], or promot[ing]" sports gambling schemes "pursuant to" state law, and its provisions prohibiting the "advertis[ing]" of sports gambling all cannot be severed and therefore go down, as well.
Justice Thomas concurred in full, but wrote separately "to express [his] growing discomfort with . . . modern severability precedents." In particular, Justice Thomas argued that the Court's severability "precedents appear to be in tension with traditional limits on judicial authority."
Justice Breyer concurred, except to the severability holding on the provision regulating private actors.
Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sotomayor and in part by Justice Breyer, dissented. Justice Ginsburg argued that (assuming arguendo that the state-authorization provision amounted to commandeering) the Court improperly failed to sever the prohibition on state and private-party operations, because they can stand alone.
The Seventh Circuit ruled today that a retailer was not likely to succeed on its First Amendment challenge to Indianapolis's adult-store zoning regulations.
The case, HH-Indianapolis v. Indianapolis, arose when the plaintiff sought to open a retail establishment called "Hustler Hollywood" in Indianapolis. The corporation sought advice from city officials in order to avoid the "adult" designation under the city's changing zoning rules, and, in reliance on that advice, entered into a ten-year lease at a particular location. But when the corporation applied for a structural permit to remodel the property, the city determined that the retailer was either an adult bookstore or an adult service establishment--either way, not permitted in the zone where it was located (but permitted in other areas of the city, including a zone right across the street). The corporation declined to challenge the designation through the state courts and instead brought a First Amendment challenge in federal court.
The Seventh Circuit ruled that it was unlikely to succeed (and thus denied its motion for a preliminary injunction). The court said that the case fell squarely within the Supreme Court's "erogenous zoning" line: "There is simply 'no First Amendment objection' when the City exercises its zoning power to reduce the secondary effects of adult businesses, and HH has alternative avenues of communication."
The court said that the plaintiff's claim really amounted to a challenge to its designation as an "adult" retailer, and under state law belonged in state court.
Check out Floyd Abrams's piece at the NYT, When 2+2 Might Equal 5, on the "right to be forgotten," and how it clashes with the First Amendment.
The State of Texas, along with six other states, sued the government today to halt the DACA program. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Texas, Brownsville, follows the pattern that Texas used to stop DAPA. (Recall that the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Texas in the DAPA lawsuit, and the Supreme Court affirmed by an equally divided Court, but setting no nationwide precedent.) Here's the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and supporting memorandum.
The challenge comes on the heels of yet another ruling that President Trump's rescission of DACA is unlawful.
Texas argues that DACA violates the Immigration and Naturalization Act (quoting the Fifth Circuit's ruling in the DAPA case); that it violates notice-and-comment requirements in the Administrative Procedure Act; and that it violates the Take Care Clause.
Texas is joined by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
In her complaint, Stephanie Clifford, a/k/a Stormy Daniels has sued Donald Trump in his individual capacity for defamation, based on his tweet responding to her allegations that she was threatened.
The one-count complaint avers that Trump is not only attacking the truthfulness of Clifford, but also accusing her of a crime: fabricating a crime and an assailant, both of which are crimes under New York law. The complaint alleges that Trump "made his statement either knowing it was false, had serious doubts about the truth of his statement, or made the statement with reckless disregard for its truth or falsity." The complaint avers that not only has Clifford's reputation been damaged, but that she is receiving threats since Trump's statement and has hired bodyguards to protect her.
Recall that in a separate lawsuit, Clifford has sued Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen for defamation, raising the somewhat usual issues surrounding the First Amendment doctrine in defamation given that Stormy Daniels is a public figure and the matter is one of public concern.
However, the Clifford lawsuit against Trump while he is President also raises the specter of executive immunity. Recall that in Zervos v. Trump, a similar lawsuit for defamation against Trump filed in New York state court by Summer Zervos, the judge held that the lawsuit could proceed; the judge found that the rule in the United States Supreme Court's unanimous 1997 decision of Clinton v. Jones holding that then-President Clinton subject to suit in federal court extended to state court.
One difference in the Clifford suit is that Trump made the allegedly defamatory statement while President; the statement in Zervos was made as a candidate (and the acts in Clinton v. Jones occurred before Bill Clinton became President).
Also at issue could be the "status" of the Trump tweet: is it an "official statement"? Or not even worth noting?

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