Daily Archives: June 13, 2008
North Carolina advances public financing options
North Carolina added the town of Chapel Hill to its Voter-Owned Elections roster this week (we call them Clean Elections here is South Carolina) when the town council approved a measure to offer a full public financing option for town council races.
Following the national trend, the cost of running for office has risen in Chapel Hill in recent years, putting the cost of running for office out of reach of many town residents. Public financing will help remove that barrier to entry, and encourage people from all backgrounds to seek office.
North Carolina has made steady progress in advancing Voter-Owned Elections policy thanks to the efforts of Democracy North Carolina and their allies. Candidates for the state’s Supreme and Appellate courts as well as three of the nine Council of State positions all have the option to run with public financing.
The republic on a knife’s edge
By Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com
There are two ways of looking at the landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision recognizing the habeas corpus rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: As a stirring victory for individual liberty over collective fear – or as a reminder that the one more right-wing justice could make George W. Bush’s imperial presidency “constitutional.”
At the heart of the June 12 decision was the majority’s recognition that President Bush and his political allies have been playing games with the Constitution by turning Guantanamo into a legal black hole for the indefinite imprisonment (or kangaroo-court trials) of people Bush deems “unlawful enemy combatants.”
By the narrowest majority, the Supreme Court rejected Bush’s legal loophole, declaring that the U.S. government cannot evade the constitutional tradition of judicial oversight simply by citing an indefinite “war on terror” and by placing detainees off-shore at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s majority.
The majority also saw the Guantanamo loophole as a device used by the President and the Republican-controlled Congress of 2005-06 to evade the authority of civilian courts as well as the habeas corpus obligation for the Executive to justify a person’s detention.
“The writ of habeas corpus is itself an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers,” the majority ruled, adding that it “must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice David Souter also noted the duration of many Guantanamo imprisonments, “some of the prisoners represented here today having been locked up for six years,” he wrote.
However, four right-wing justices – Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito – saw nothing wrong in creating this modern-day Devil’s Island outside the reach of traditional justice for the duration of the indefinite “war on terror.”
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain also has vowed to appoint more justices in the mold of Bush’s selections, Roberts and Alito. If another Roberts or Alito replaces one of the five more moderate justices, the new right-wing majority would be in position to reverse the latest ruling.