Currently viewing the tag: "Blocking"
(Jonathan H. Adler)
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen appealed the decision by a county judge enjoining publication of legislation that would curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees. The AG’s petition, filed with a state appellate court, seeks leave to appeal and a stay of the county judge’s temporary restraining order. The Journal-Sentinel reports:
In its appeal Monday, the state made several arguments. First, the state argued that the court has no jurisdiction over GOP legislative leaders being sued or over La Follette because they all currently enjoy legal immunity.Second, the state argued that the court can’t block a bill that hasn’t yet been published into law because that amounts to interfering with the Legislature in its area of responsibility of passing laws.
Last, the state argued that the courts can’t block or strike down a law passed by the Legislature purely on the basis of lawmakers failing to follow the rules of the lawmaking process such as legislative rules or the open meetings law. State Supreme Court decisions have found that the courts can only strike down or block laws when the Legislature has failed to follow constitutional requirements, the state said in its appeal.
The standoff in Wisconsin continues…
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen wasted no time Friday in announcing the Department of Justice will appeal a judge’s granting of a restraining order that prohibits the publication of the law enacting the Budget Repair Bill.
“The Legislature and the Governor, not a single Dane County Circuit Court Judge, are responsible for the enactment of laws,” said Van Hollen. “Decisions of the Supreme Court have made it clear that judges may not enjoin the Secretary of State from publishing an Act.”
Earlier Friday, Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi granted a temporary restraining order blocking publication of 2011 Wis. Act 10, the Budget Repair Bill, which contains changes to the collective bargaining process for public employees in Wisconsin.
The judge made her announcement Friday morning, saying she did not see sufficient evidence indicating the legislative conference committee could not have given a 24-hour notice for its meeting last week.
Implementation of the Act cannot begin until it is officially published by the Secretary of State. Sumi’s order puts that process on hold, a move Van Hollen argues exceeds her authority.
“Decisions of the Supreme Court are equally clear that Acts may not be enjoined where the claim is that a rule of legislative procedure, even one as important as the Open Meetings law, has been violated,” said Van Hollen. “No matter whether individual citizens agree with the substance of the bill or the manner in which it was enacted, I would hope all see the value in ensuring this matter be given the opportunity to work its way expeditiously through the judicial process.”
Various Democrats and labor union leaders petitioned the court for the order, arguing that 24 hours notice was not given prior to the Conference Committee meeting on the bill.
Republicans, who hold the majority in both the State Assembly and State Senate, counter that the official Rules of the Senate and Assembly waive that notice requirement during Special Sessions of the legislature, like the one in which the budget repair bill was considered.
Senate Rule 93, which provides that for special session bills, “no notice of hearing before a committee shall be required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board,” was actually authored in 1983 by Democratic State Senator Fred Risser (D-Madison), with current Senator Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) the first co-author. The rule’s Assembly counterpart was also implemented in 1983, and supporters included Madison Representative Midge Miller, mother of current Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona).
Act 10 includes several changes in public employee compensation and bargaining powers. Under the new law, most school, state and local employees would have to make a contribution to their pensions, 5.8% of pay for most state employees, and approximately 12.6% of the total cost of their health care premiums. Also, many issues would no longer be subjects of collective bargaining and employee wages could not be raised by more than inflation each year, unless a referendum was passed.
Written by Rezwan
Medianama has updates on reports that some ISPs in India appeared to have blocked access to certain sites, including blogging site TypePad, bulk SMS site ClickATell.com, Mauj Telecom owned mobile apps site Mobango and others.
A Wisconsin judge just issued an order temporarily blocking Gov. Scott Walker’s assault on collective bargaining rights from going into effect:
Judge Maryann Sumi issued the order to temporarily block the law as Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne had requested as part of his lawsuit.
Ozanne filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Republican legislative leaders of violating Wisconsin’s open meetings law during the rushed run-up to a Senate vote on the measure last week.
Ozanne, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit contending that a legislative committee that broke a political stalemate that had kept the law in limbo for weeks met without the 24-hour notice required by Wisconsin’s open meetings law. The Republican majority voted last week to pass the legislation without Senate Democrats, who had left the state to block just such a vote. Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law last week.
Today’s decision is only a temporary order suspending the law until the judge has more time to consider the case, but it will “prevent Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law — and allowing it to take effect — until [the judge] can rule on the merits of the case.” That could be quite some time, as Ozanne plans to call as many as 20 witnesses and supporters of the law will likely want to present their own evidence in response.
As ThinkProgress previously explained, a Wisconsin judge has the power to invalidate government business which takes place in violation of the state’s open meetings law. While today’s order is only temporary, it buys time for supporters of workers rights in Wisconsin to present their arguments to the court and to gather additional protesters if the Wisconsin GOP attempts to repass the law with proper notice.
Procedure.
Opponents of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s bill recasting negotiating rights for the state’s public-employee unions won a round in court today — and the judge hinted that they have a strong chance of winning overall. Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order blocking publication of the budget-repair bill, instructing the Secretary of State to [...]
Congress has more power than people realize. For intance, during the Vietnam War, it could have ended American involvement in it-by pulling the funding. The Democrats became the anti-war party during that time-they controlled both houses of Congress during that conflict.
The newspaperman in The Right Stuff
movie said it best about aeronautics: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”
But that truth goes beyond defense and airplanes.
The House GOP is having its Buck Rogers moment now. Doug Ross details it in his post, Establishment GOP: yes, we’ll fund Obamacare with our Continuing Resolution and, as an aside, do we get to call it BoehnerCare now?
Michele Bachman (R-MN) has been vocal in her opposition to the latest continuing resolution to fund the government by her call to block a $ 105 billion permanent ObamaCare funding mechanism; she is supported by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Rep. Tim Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS).
They know about “bucks” and Buck Rogers.
Related posts:
CPAC 2011 video: Rep. Steve King of Iowa fights ObamaCare
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Washington (CNN) - Congress just got one more incentive to find a compromise over government spending before the standoff leads to a government shutdown.
The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent late Tuesday that would withhold pay for members of Congress and the president if a government shutdown were to happen.
Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Barbara Boxer of California introduced the bill last week, arguing that if a standoff over government spending leads to a government shutdown, politicians should “feel the pain,” too.
“We have to take steps to make sure that elected officials here are living by the same rules as everyone else,” Casey said during a news conference last Thursday.
During the news conference the two senators made a point of highlighting various reports that said Republicans were not ruling out a possible shutdown.
The specter of a government shutdown has been hanging over the current debate on a government spending bill. The funding measure expires March 4, and if the two parties can’t come to an agreement on spending cuts before then, a short term measure to keep the government running would need to pass to avoid a government shutdown.
Members of Congress and the president fall under mandatory spending, and their paychecks would not be affected in the case of a shutdown, according to Sens. Boxer and Casey. Under their proposal, that loophole would close. Additionally, the legislation would not allow back pay for lawmakers and the president for any days worked during a shutdown.
“If the government is forced to shut down, members of Congress and the president should be treated the same way as all other federal employees,” said Boxer. “We should not be paid, and to take it one step further, we should not be paid retroactively once the government reopens.”
“We should feel the pain,” Boxer said, “and we hope that this is such a simple piece of legislation, it’s so fair, that it will wake people up.”
Washington (CNN) - Congress just got one more incentive to find a compromise over government spending before the standoff leads to a government shutdown.
The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent late Tuesday that would withhold pay for members of Congress and the president if a government shutdown were to happen.
Democratic Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Barbara Boxer of California introduced the bill last week, arguing that if a standoff over government spending leads to a government shutdown, politicians should “feel the pain,” too.
“We have to take steps to make sure that elected officials here are living by the same rules as everyone else,” Casey said during a news conference last Thursday.
During the news conference the two senators made a point of highlighting various reports that said Republicans were not ruling out a possible shutdown.
The specter of a government shutdown has been hanging over the current debate on a government spending bill. The funding measure expires March 4, and if the two parties can’t come to an agreement on spending cuts before then, a short term measure to keep the government running would need to pass to avoid a government shutdown.
Members of Congress and the president fall under mandatory spending, and their paychecks would not be affected in the case of a shutdown, according to Sens. Boxer and Casey. Under their proposal, that loophole would close. Additionally, the legislation would not allow back pay for lawmakers and the president for any days worked during a shutdown.
“If the government is forced to shut down, members of Congress and the president should be treated the same way as all other federal employees,” said Boxer. “We should not be paid, and to take it one step further, we should not be paid retroactively once the government reopens.”
“We should feel the pain,” Boxer said, “and we hope that this is such a simple piece of legislation, it’s so fair, that it will wake people up.”
A reporter at The Dallas Morning News says he’s been blocked from following Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s Twitter account — and he’s not the only one.
On Sunday, Tom Benning reported that when he recently tried to follow @GovernorPerry, which is described as the “Personal Twitter feed of Texas’ 47th Governor” and has over 30,000 followers, he received the following message: “Could not follow user: You have been blocked from following this account at the request of the user.” So Benning called Perry’s office:
I put in a call to the governor’s press office, where Ashton Morgan told me the governor has sole control of his personal Twitter account. She added that she would try and get an answer as to why he blocked me.
This not being a pressing issue — the governor is a busy man, after all — I gave them a few days to respond. I had planned to follow up Monday.
But Benning then saw other journalists complaining about being blocked. Bud Kennedy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote: “Is it just me or has @GovernorPerry also blocked you from following him on Twitter? Hurt that I’ll miss text on his next gig with Ted Nugent.” KRLD’s Scott Braddock wrote: “How many members of the Texas media are blocked from following @GovernorPerry on Twitter?”
On Monday, Benning updated his piece to note that Perry’s Twitter blocking has come up as an issue before. In October, The Austin American-Statesman ran a piece on the gubernatorial candidates’ social media habits and reported:
The campaign has multiple Twitter accounts. On the one he posts to personally, @GovernorPerry, he sometimes reposts tweets from followers and replies to messages. He says he blocks Twitter users who attack him with bad language, but he’s also blocked a few progressive bloggers, according to a Twitter list kept by Katherine Haenschen of the Democratic news site Burnt Orange Report.
Perry’s office told TPM they would try to get back to us with a response. For the record, this reporter was successfully able to follow @GovernorPerry this afternoon.
Argue that rule will hand over power to wire…
B&C - Breaking News
House Education Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN)
House Republicans plan to bring their continuing resolution — which provides funding for the government for the rest of the fiscal year — to the floor today for amendments. Of course, such a process invites amendments having to do with a variety of unrelated issues, and this round is no exception.
For instance, one amendment proposed by House Education Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) would prevent the Education Department from following through on new regulations governing the for-profit college industry:
Offered By: Mr. Kline
AMENDMENT NO. 214: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following:
Sec. __X. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to-
(1) implement, administer, or enforce the final regulations on “Program Integrity: Gainful Employment-New Programs” published by the Department of Education in the Federal Register on October 29, 2010 (75 Fed. Reg. 66665 et seq.);
(2) issue a final rule or otherwise implement the proposed rule on “Program Integrity: Gainful Employment” published by the Department of Education on July 26, 2010 (75 Fed. Reg. 43616 et seq.);
(3) implement, administer, or enforce section 668.6 of title 34, Code of Federal Regulations, (relating to gainful employment), as amended by the final regulations published by the Department of Education in the Federal Register on October 29, 2010 (75 Fed Reg. 66832 et seq.); or
(4) promulgate or enforce any new regulation or rule with respect to the definition or application of the term “gainful employment” under the Higher Education Act of 1965 on or after the date of enactment of this Act.
The new regulations — known as “gainful employment” — would prevent these subprime schools, and programs at other universities, from accessing federal dollars if their graduates fail to meet a certain debt-to-income ratio or have high rates of student loan default. Currently, just 11 percent of higher education students in the country attend for-profit schools, yet they account for 26 percent of federal student loans and 44 percent of student loan defaults. The latest data shows that 25 percent of for-profit college students default on their student loans within three years.
As we’ve shown here and here, many for-profit schools engage in predatory lending, use aggressive and misleading recruiting tactics, and leave students buried in debt and without prospects for finding a good job. They make the overwhelming majority of their revenue from the federal government and pay their executives exorbitant amounts, without proper accountability. However, House Republicans, particularly Kline, have been going all out to protect these schools from regulation, and are now trying to use the necessary act of funding the federal government to further that agenda.
When Congress approved a continuing resolution in March to keep the government funded, it did not include additional money for the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to implement the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The two agencies, which were given important new responsibilities under Dodd-Frank, have already had to restrict some activities, delay implementation of various aspects of the law, and put off hiring personnel to fill key new positions policing Wall Street and the nation’s biggest banks.
The budget that the Obama administration proposed yesterday included boosts for both the SEC and the CFTC, as well as a proposal to allow the CFTC to begin collecting fees to raise additional revenue. In fact, under the budget, the CFTC would receive an 82 percent funding boost (to $ 308 million), as it has the vast new task of overseeing the derivatives market.
However, House Republicans have made it quite clear that they have no intention of giving the regulators any additional money. In fact, their proposed continuing resolution for the remainder of the fiscal 2011 year (which ends in October) explicitly cuts funding from both the SEC and CFTC:
Securities and Exchange Commission — $ 25 million from 2010 level
Commodity Futures Trading Commission — $ 56.8 million from 2010 level
This is essentially an attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank through the backdoor, by simply making it impossible for the regulators to implement and enforce the law. As Michael Ettlinger and Adam Hersh noted, this is only inviting another devastatingly expensive financial crisis, in the name of modest savings in the short-run:
The International Monetary Fund estimates that the financial crisis has cost U.S. taxpayers, after subtracting fees and penalties paid by financial institutions, 3.6 percent of GDP — which adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars. On top of that is the cost of the gut-wrenching pain this crisis has caused for most Americans through lost wealth, high unemployment, and stagnating incomes. That’s not to mention the scores of other countries similarly afflicted. Add those up to see the true cost of not regulating finance. Talk about “million wise, trillion foolish.”
When they were in power, Republicans consistently underfunded the regulatory agencies, while appointing regulators that had no interest in actually regulating. Now that new law has been put in place to rectify the situation, the GOP is doing all it can to keep that law from coming online.
After months of working on anything but jobs legislation, GOP lawmakers got an opportunity this week to actually address the crisis. Tomorrow, the Trade Assistance Adjustment (TAA) Program and the Health Care Tax Credit (HCTC) will expire. TAA helps retrain and re-employ workers who have lost their jobs due to foreign trade. HCTC provides compensation to help unemployed workers afford private health insurance. While 72 percent of Americans oppose cutting such critical unemployment assistance, the GOP is seemingly insistent that it expire.
On Tuesday, the House GOP’s plan to extend TAA was pulled from the House floor due to conservative backlash against the government “getting too involved in the economy.” That left the typically obstinate Senate as the last hope to extend the much-needed aid. Together on the Senate floor yesterday, Sens. Robert Casey (D-PA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) offered three different proposals to extend both benefits for 18 months, 4.5 months, and just the HCTC for 18 months by unanimous consent. However, each time, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) was there to block it.
Increasingly incensed over each of Barrasso’s obstructions, Brown expressed anger uncommon on the Senate floor at Barrasso’s final objection to the HCTC extension. Offended by the apparent GOP hypocrisy in enjoying taxpayer-funded benefits while refusing to aid those “who don’t dress like this everyday” and “don’t make $ 170,000 a year,” he blasted Senators for “turning our backs” on the American worker:
BROWN:…For Senators who want to repeal health care, for Senators who want to strip any assistance…it’s basically turning our backs and saying to these workers: “Sorry about NAFTA, sorry about [Permanent normal trade relations], sorry about these trade agreements I know you lost your jobs because of those, sorry about losing your health insurance, sorry about not having any job training money, and oh by the way, if your house is foreclosed on, that’s just too damn bad too. Madam president, I just don’t get this. I don’t understand why people in this body can’t at least help those citizens who don’t dress like this everyday, who don’t make $ 170,000 a year, who don’t have really good health insurance provided by taxpayers. Why, madam president, are we turning our backs on them?
Watch it:
Brown’s anger is certainly justified. His state alone has “208 groups with 26,427 workers certified for TAA.” About 280,000 workers across the country stand to lose these benefits. Brown’s anger is only likely to grow as it appears that the GOP is holding these benefits hostage in “an effort to pressure the administration” on free trade agreements that helped generate this unemployment issue in the first place. Indeed, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said “he will block TAA until the White House vows to move the free trade agreement with Colombia.”
As Center For American Progress’s Sabina Dewan puts it, “the conservative schizophrenia on trade — pulling funding for the National Export Initiative designed to support American jobs, while threatening to let Trade Adjustment Assistance expire unless the administration ‘moves’ other trade agreements amounts to little more than a conservative anti-jobs and anti-worker agenda.”
Yesterday, Brown’s GOP counterpart Sen. Rob Portman (OH) also “voiced his disappointment” at the House GOP’s obstruction of the TAA “safety net,” promising affected Ohio workers he would “remain committed to [them] and [is] doing all that I can in order to ensure that they receive the benefits they need during tough economic times.” But when his Senate colleagues blocked the extension, Portman was demonstrably silent. His office did not respond to ThinkProgress’s request for comment.
As oil prices continue to climb, a backlog of more than 100 offshore drilling plans for the Gulf of Mexico are awaiting approval from the Obama administration, according to federal data.
The federal government has not approved a single new exploratory drilling plan in the Gulf of Mexico since lifting its deepwater drilling moratorium on Oct. 12. There are currently 103 plans awaiting review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
The information reveals that the Obama administration — not the oil industry — is the culprit for the slowdown of drilling activity in the Gulf. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for more than 25 percent of domestic oil production.
“These new findings prove that BOEMRE cannot claim it isn’t receiving job-creating plans from oil exploration and production companies,” said Gregory Rusovich, chairman of the Business Council of Greater New Orleans and the River Region. “The plans are there. Until BOEMRE reviews the 103 plans awaiting approval, our economy’s stability remains in jeopardy.”
Every two weeks Greater New Orleans Inc. releases a Gulf Permit Index based on publicly available federal data. Thursday’s index revealed an 88 percent decline in deepwater permits compared to the historical average. Not a single deepwater permit was approved in January.
Even shallow-water permits have taken a hit in the Gulf, despite not being subject to the administration’s moratorium last year. Only two new shallow-water permits were approved by BOEMRE in January. Permit issuance is down 30 percent from the historical average.
The decline in drilling is having an economic impact on the Gulf region and also threatens to exacerbate the problems with rising oil prices.
It also means less money for the federal government. With production in the Gulf of Mexico expected to drop this year by 220,000 barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that equals about $ 3.7 million in lost revenue each day (based on the $ 90/barrel oil and the royalty rate of 18.75 percent).
Now isn’t this interesting:
China has blocked the word “Egypt” from the country’s wildly popular Twitter-like service, while coverage of the political turmoil has been tightly restricted in state media.
China’s ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any potential source of social unrest.
A search for “Egypt” on the Sina microblogging service brings up a message saying, “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown”.
The service has more than 50 million users.
News on the Egypt protests has been limited to a few paragraphs and photos buried inside major news websites, but China Central Television had a report on its midday broadcast.
China’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment Saturday on the events in Egypt.
