Obama in February

President Obama has announced at least one thing he will do when he leaves office. He will work with the new National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is to be chaired by Obama’s previous Attorney General Eric Holder. The committee’s job will be to fight gerrymandering ahead of the 2020 census and following redistricting.

This is fantastic news!

Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos gives an idea of why this group was formed and what they will be doing. Currently about 55% of House seats are drawn to favor the GOP with another 10% drawn to favor Dems. That is why Dems lost the house in 2012 and winning it back this year is a tossup. There is also rampant gerrymandering in many state legislatures, including Michigan. The tasks ahead:

* Target key state legislatures and governors to block bad 2020 maps.

* Win crucial state judicial elections to have the right people overseeing the maps.

* Fund gerrymandering lawsuits to take the case to the Supremes. Hmm… might we see Obama presenting the case before the Justices?

* Support ballot initiatives for 2018 and 2020 to put redistricting in the hands of non-partisan commissions.

The effort could cost over $100 million.

Commenter MissouriDemKC responded:

This. This is why preventing Obama or Clinton from appointing a majority to the Supreme Court is the thing that Republicans are willing to lay down of the railroad tracks for.

Because it is through their use of a Supreme Court majority that the Republicans have been able to control ALL of the government against the will of the majority.

THEIR Supreme Court allows gerrymandering, so that the Republicans have a 30-seat majority in the House even when more people voted for Democrats overall.

THEIR Supreme Court allows unlimited and secret campaign contributions from huge, monied interests.

THEIR Supreme Court allows voter draconian ID laws, to suppress the vote of minorities and the elderly.

THEIR Supreme Court actually selected a President of the United States one year, if I’m not mistaken.
They know that without control of that Court, they’re facing a permanent minority status. That’s why they’ll do anything to prevent a change in the makeup of the Supreme Court.

Which leads me to…

It has been 246 days since Justice Antonin Scalia died and 215 days since Merrick Garland was nominated for that seat. The Senate, under GOP leadership and control, has done nothing in the process to confirm or reject Garland.

Senator John McCain announced that the GOP in the Senate will be united in refusing to confirm any Supreme Court nominee nominated by Hillary Clinton. Since it is likely there will be three more vacancies by the end of a Clinton first term McCain is promising that by 2020 the Court will have only five Justices, and three of them will be Roberts, Thomas, and Alito.

A McCain spokesperson later said he and other GOP senators will “vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications.” It is easy to see that in the GOP view a nomination by Clinton equals unqualified. They may hold hearings (which they haven’t done for Garland), and still refuse to approve all of Clinton’s nominees.

I’m pleased to see that Dems are outspending the GOP in crucial battleground states and, so far, the Koch brothers aren’t refilling GOP coffers. This helps our chances of getting a Dem majority and Chuck Schumer, likely Dem Majority Leader, can change the rules to prevent filibustering Supreme nominees.

Let's go for the record!

There is no ice or snow on the deck today. This is the first time that has been true since December. Yeah, there are still a big pile of snow in the front yard and a couple spots of snow in the back. The forecast for tomorrow is a high of about 50F and Monday might get up to 60F. Perhaps I can get my bicycle out. But we're so close to beating the record for the most snowfall in a season I think we should just go for it. One three-inch dump and we're done. Then we don't have to deal with the record again. I don't want to go through such a harsh winter and not have a record to show for it. That's like getting the silver medal at the Olympics.



Ah, this is a poll to enjoy. The poll was sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign. It found that Americans view gay people more favorably than Evangelical Christians. The numbers: How gays are seen -- 53% favorably, 18% unfavorably. Evangelicals -- 42% favorably, 28% unfavorably. And 62% believe it “is inevitable that gay marriages will be legally recognized by the Supreme Court.”



Same-sex marriage has begun in England and Wales. Weddings started last night at midnight.



AG Eric Holder had declared that all those Michigan same-sex weddings from a week ago will be recognized by the federal gov't. Even if the state gov't won't.

Don't turn their parents into outcasts

The gay marriage trial in Detroit so far has been about whether gay couples are fit parents -- whether allowing them to raise children will result in poorly adjusted children, whether gay parents are too risky. That prompted some musings from Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson.

Want to minimize risks to kids by limiting who can get married? Perhaps we should ban marriage to those who are poor, who make less than $30,000 a year. Maybe we should withhold marriage licenses from those who didn't finish high school. What about those with substance abuse? Perhaps those with a genetic predisposition to violence?

Um, that last one… would ban all men from marriage.

If we don't like keeping the poor, those not well educated, and alcoholics from the wedding chapel it is just as silly to deny marriage to same-sex couples. But these less than optimal parents are still going to continue having children and will still raise them to adulthood.

So if you are interested in the well-being of kids, don't turn their parents into outcasts.



Yesterday I said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the license to discriminate bill after hearing from lots of people and companies. Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin has the lengthy list.

Of course, there are some, such as Rush Limbaugh, who are convince that for Brewer to veto the bill she must have been bullied by gay people and their allies.

Now that Arizona (or at least the governor) has come to its senses, we're done with this nonsense, right? Um, no. A similar bill has just been introduced in Missouri. Sigh. Thankfully, matching bills in Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Maine, and Idaho have already been tossed out. And it seems a bill in Mississippi has been so watered down that nobody is interested in it anymore.



In keeping track of all these cases about marriage equality I'm learning a lot about legal jargon. I now know what a "stay" is. I've seen the Circuit Court map a few times. I've learned about "summary judgment" (everyone agrees on the facts so no trial is necessary).

Yesterday's marriage equality ruling in Texas has a new term, "preliminary injunction." This is issued before a trial to stop the state from enforcing a bad law. To get an injunction the plaintiffs must (1) show they are likely to succeed at the following trial, (2) the damage being done by the law is irreparable, (3) such damage outweighs the damage to defendants, and (4) the injunction is good for everyone.

Which makes me wonder, if the damage is irreparable and outweighs the damage to defendants, why does it make sense to stay an injunction?

Most of Judge Orlando Garcia's ruling is now ordinary and routine (and only four years ago it was groundbreaking!). Even so, there are a couple things to mention as analyzed by Ari Ezra Waldman.

First is that Garcia thinks the case is strong enough and the consequences bad enough that denying same-sex couples to marry warrants an injunction.

Then there is an elaboration of the irreparable harm. Waldman wrote:

Every day without the opportunity to marry and every day with a law on the books that says gay love is illegal is demeaning, a threat to dignity, and an erosion of freedom and personhood.

The usual stuff is the Equal Protection violation… Waldman wrote:

Banning gays from marrying does not encourage heterosexuals to marry. And gays are amazing parents. All the traditional arguments fail to explain why anyone would want to prevent gays from marrying. The only thing left is hatred, and that doesn't fly.

… and Due Process:

Judge Garcia noted that all the plaintiffs want to do is exercise their right to choose whom to marry. They are not, as the State of Texas argued, trying to create a "new" right to "get gay married." Marriage is marriage.

From the reactions of several Texans, including Gov. Rick Perry, they still haven't come around to the idea that the federal constitution trumps state law and that there is such a thing as tyranny of the majority.



The discussion in Kentucky has been going something like this:
Federal judge: That ruling earlier this month that said the state must recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages is now final and you must comply.

State AG: Wait! Please give us 60 days to file an appeal. You must issue a stay!

Federal judge: No. I said you must comply now! And you gay couples that want to get married in the state I grant your request to join this case.

So same-sex couples in Kentucky may go elsewhere to get married and have their home state recognize it -- at least until the AG can find someone to issue a stay.



According to US Attorney General Eric Holder it is appropriate for state AGs to refuse to defend same-sex marriage bans in their states. He's extending to them what he is doing himself.



The growing acceptance of gay people allows Free Press cartoonist Mike Thompson to turn a well-known gay scene on its head.

The most vitriolic "I told you so"

The full Indiana Senate passed a marriage protection amendment. This is not all bad, because they approved the version passed by the House, the one without the second sentence that banned civil unions. Which means it will not go before voters this fall. The legislature has to vote on it again after 2014 for possible voter approval in 2016. And voter opinion might change enough to prevent its passage -- or the Supremes may make it unnecessary.

Perhaps many GOP legislatures want the issue to just go away.



There is a lawsuit filed against the 2011 Michigan law that banned employee benefits for same-sex couples in state and local governments. Gov. Rick Snyder has filed a motion asking the court (not sure at what level) to keep the ban. Snyder's reasoning: banning benefits to gays "'eliminates local government programs that are irrational and unfair' and promotes 'financially sound' local agencies." Translation: offering domestic partner benefits is irrational and unfair because the relationships themselves don't meet a government interest. In addition, allowing governments to discriminate against homos saves money.



Vladimir Luxuria is a former Italian Member of Parliament and is transgender. She has been in Sochi and doing some protesting. She was first escorted out of the Olympic Park and dumped in the countryside. After her second protest she was escorted to the airport. Alas, the International Olympic Committee is just fine with that.



Rachel Maddow had a discussion with Kenji Yoshino, NYU law professor, about the string of gay marriage court victories. What caught my attention was the first part of the 9 minute segment in which Maddow reviews all the cool progressive stuff Attorney General Eric Holder has done in just the last year.



Back last June when the Supremes ruled that the federal gov't must recognize same-sex marriages, Justice Antonin Scalia fumed in his dissent that the ruling will be used to overturn state same-sex marriage bans. And that, according to Scalia, was a Bad Thing.

Jesse Wegman of the New York Times Opinion Pages lists all the cases since then where that ruling -- including Scalia's dissent -- has been influential in the judge's thinking: Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Utah, and Oklahoma with more to come.

Which means when another marriage case gets to the Supremes we all are eager for Scalia "to deliver the most vitriolic 'I told you so' in recent Supreme Court memory."



Teresa Tritch, also of the New York Times Opinion Pages, says the call to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour is worthy of support, but still inadequate. But why this figure?

But the recommended amount is more a political calculation than an economic one. It is enough to embarrass Republicans for not going along, but not enough to risk alienating business constituents (with the notable exception of the notoriously low-paying restaurant industry.)

First Presbyterian Church of Norfolk, VA has affirmed three tenets. From the first two -- Jesus is the way to salvation and the Bible is God's infallible Word -- one gets the impression that these are required beliefs for members of the congregation. So here's the third:

God’s people are called to holiness in all aspects of life. This includes honoring the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, the only relationship in which sexual activity is appropriate.

Yep, the third most important belief in this church is that the only permissible sex is straight, married sex.

Fine, lots of churches believe that, though it may be rare to put it in the top three beliefs. But there is a reason for highlighting this particular church. It is where Judge Arenda Wright Allen attends and she credits her current success to the pastor there. And Judge Wright Allen is the one who recently struck down Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage. She has mastered the separation between church and state.

Commitment runs deep

Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that as far as federal cases in court are concerned, same-sex couples will be treated the same as straight couples. That includes the right to decline to give testimony against a spouse, the ability to file jointly for bankruptcy, receive Public Safety Officer surviving spouse benefits, and the same rights as straight spouses when one of them is an inmate. All programs administered by the Justice Department will treat same-sex couples the same as straight couples.

Holder announced this position during the Human Rights Campaign gala. In his speech he said:

As all-important as the fight against racial discrimination was then [in the 1960s], and remains today, know this: My commitment to confronting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity runs just as deep.