Pearce has a considerable financial advantage. According to the ABC affiliate, Pearce “raised an eye-popping $230,000—including donations from more than 40 states—compared to Lewis’ $69,000.” Yet despite that advantage, and the fact that his campaign managed to get a sham candidate, Olivia Cortes, on the ballot, Pearce may still lose. Pearces opponents challenged…
Category: Law
Gov. Jan Brewer Can’t Explain Her Partisan Political Tampering In Arizona’s Redistricting Process
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has been under fire recently for her dramatic political move to interfere with the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission. Annoyed that the commission did not redraw congressional districts to benefit Republicans, Brewer convinced the GOP-controlled state Senate to impeach the commission’s independent chairwoman, Colleen Mathis. State officials are only…
Senate passes ‘license to bully’ legislation
Advocates for a law to prohibit bullying and provide school districts with the tools to address the problem were dealt a stinging rebuke Wednesday morning in the Republican-controlled Michigan Senate. The GOP pushed through an amended bill, SB 137, which does nothing advocates have pushed for — including reporting requirements and enumeration, or listing, of…
Student jailed 2 nights when she can’t show ID
Early in the morning on Oct. 22, a Saturday, Ms. Zucker, 21, and her friend Alex Fischer, also 21, were stopped by the police in Riverside Park and given tickets for trespassing. Mr. Fischer was permitted to leave after he produced his driver’s license. But Ms. Zucker, on a visit to New York…
Citizens United Going Down? Democrats Introduce Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Ruling
The Supreme Court may treat corporations like people who can spend whatever they want on elections, but the American people dont have to accept it, said Democratic senators who proposed a constitutional amendment Tuesday to retake control of campaign spending.The amendment, introduced by Sen. Tom Udall D-N.M., doesnt directly address the justices legal…
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Says She Will Minimize Police Presence And That She Supports The Movement
After the first heavy-handed police crackdown on demonstrators in Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan wrote a statement on her Facebook page praising police for closing down the Occupy Oakland protest encampment. Now, facing anger from across the world, Quan is backing down on her aggressive language and even says she supports the goals of the movement….
Florida’s welfare drug testing halted by federal judge
Gov. Rick Scott, who signed the measure into law on May 31, touted it as a way to ensure taxpayer money isn’t “wasted” on those who use drugs. “Hopefully more people will focus on not using illegal drugs,” he said then. But, in her order, Scriven issued a scathing assessment of the state’s argument in…
NYPD Inspector Anthony Bologna Violated Pepper Spray Guidelines, Review Finds « CBS New York
An internal NYPD review finds a deputy inspector violated department guidelines when he used pepper spray on Occupy Wall Street protesters last month. Officials say Anthony Bologna, who works in Manhattan North, will lose 10 vacation days for his actions on September 24. He used the spray on women who were penned-in by police. via…
South Carolina Voter ID Law: Yep, Pretty Discriminating
Under South Carolina’s new law, passed in August, prospective voters must present either a valid driver’s license or ID card, military ID, or passport. Absent of any of those, people may still cast absentee or provisional ballots. But, under the state’s new law, these ballot-casters must eventually produce a valid ID. And though…
ACLU Challenge To Small Piece Of Campaign Finance Law May Lead To A Slippery Slope
The ACLU case, brought on behalf of three individuals holding contracts with the government, targets a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972 (FECA) that banned individuals who have direct contracts with the federal government from contributing to candidates running for federal office. This ban excludes employees of corporations that hold contracts with…
Cenk Uygur: How To Regain Our Democracy
Now, you can never stop rich people from spending their own money on their political ideology. But that has happened throughout our history and we have survived that. What has changed in the last 30 years is the power of corporate money, which is nearly unlimited.Starting in 1978, the Supreme Court opened the spigot to…
No GOP Senator Supports Bill to Protect Cloud E-Mail Privacy
Leahy’s bill would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Adopted when CompuServe was king, ECPA allows the government to acquire a suspect’s e-mail or other stored content from an internet service provider without showing probable cause that a crime was committed, as long as the content had been stored on a third-party server…
After Zuccotti Park: Seven Privately Owned Public Spaces to Occupy Next
Privately owned public spaces have proliferated in the past several decades—there are almost 550 in New York City—as a result of zoning concessions the city grants to real estate developers: in exchange for setting aside a nominally public space, property owners such as Brookfield are allowed to bypass height or setback restrictions on…
Disturbing Video: Police Abduct Bank Customer off the Street
In what may be one of the most disturbing videos yet to come from the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, a Citibank customer is seen snatched off the street by police, and forced into the bank, presumably to be held and then arrested. In the video, the woman, wearing business attire, is confronted by a man…
“Occupy” Movement Spreads Around the World
Apparently inspired by the so-called Arab Spring movements in the Middle East and North Africa, the Occupy Wall Street movement began almost as a curiosity, largely ignored by the media, political leaders, and even NYC law enforcement. However, the movement began to grow. As conservative elements began to denigrate OWS and distance themselves, and liberal elements…
OWS: Cop Punches Demonstrator to the Ground
Yesterday, there were several reports of clashes with the police during the Occupy Wall Street march celebrating the reprieve from the cleaning of Zuccotti park, and the possible dismantling of the protest infrastructure. There were fourteen reported arrests, and major news outlets reported that police drove police scooters at and over protesters in order to…
NYPD Drives Over Protesters
The demonstrators in New York began to move toward Wall Street after it was revealed the owners of Zuccotti Park — home to the protest camp — had ditched a plan to clean the park that some claimed was a pretext to evict them. NBC News reported that police used the scooters…
Fact Check: Mayor Menino Falsely Claims Arrested Occupy Boston Members Are ‘Outsiders’ From ‘Another Country’
On early Tuesday morning, Boston police violently arrested 141 members of Occupy Boston for expanding their peaceable assembly to a new encampment without city authorization. The number of activists participating in the occupation of the Rose Kennedy Greenway in the heart of Boston’s financial district has steadily grown since the beginning of October,…
Poll: Support For Death Penalty At 39-Year Low
A Gallup poll released today found support for the death penalty in the United States is at a 39-year low. As Gallup reports, “this is the lowest level of support since 1972, the year the Supreme Court voided all existing state death penalty laws in Furman v. Georgia.” via Poll: Support For Death…
Alabama Immigration Law: Protesters Stage Work Stoppages, Shut Down Businesses
At least a half-dozen poultry plants shut down or scaled back operations Wednesday and many other businesses closed as Hispanics in Alabama skipped work to protest the state’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law. The work stoppage was aimed at demonstrating the economic contribution of Alabama’s Hispanic immigrants. It was unclear exactly how widespread the protests…