The state Supreme Court is about to decide whether millions of dollars
in taxpayer money that started flowing this year to pay student tuition
at private and religious schools continues for a second year.
The state's highest court hears arguments Tuesday on a ruling last
summer that the Opportunity Scholarships program violates the state
constitution because religious schools can discriminate based on faith.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood also said privately run
K-12 schools are not required to meet state curriculum standards.
Supreme Court justices showed they're in a hurry to decide whether
private school vouchers will continue by latching on to the case early.
Parents are already looking ahead and the deadline for them to submit
scholarship applications for the next academic year is March 1.
So far, more than $4.2 million has paid for 1,200 students to attend 216
private schools around the state, according to the State Education
Assistance Authority. That's a fraction of the 5,500 students whose
families sought one of the scholarships, said Darrell Allison, who heads
a group that advocates for expanding the program. Three out of four
applicants for the vouchers, which pay private schools up to $4,200 per
child per year to schools that admit them, were minority students.
"There are literally thousands of families who are looking forward to
their day in court — desperately hopeful for a favorable ruling,"
Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina,
said in a statement.
The program opened this year to families whose income qualified their
children for free or discounted school lunches, a ceiling of about
$44,000 for a family of four. Eligibility increases for the year
starting in August as the ceiling rises to nearly $59,000 per family.
Opponents of the voucher law complain that it violates the constitution
because money from collected taxes goes to religious schools that have
the option of ruling out students who don't follow their faith's
beliefs, turning away the disabled or refusing the children of gay
parents.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Freed Al Jazeera journalist hopeful about Egypt court case
Freed Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste says it is too soon to
celebrate because his two colleagues still face retrial in Egypt.
Greste was freed from an Egyptian prison earlier this month and his two colleagues were released last week. He told BBC on Thursday that the controversial court cases seem to be moving in the right direction.
Greste had initially been sentenced to seven years in jail for spreading false information and helping the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He was deported from Egypt on his release.
Colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed are still in Egypt and are required to report regularly to the police in advance of a retrial expected to begin next week.
Their imprisonment for more than a year sparked numerous protests throughout the world.
Greste was freed from an Egyptian prison earlier this month and his two colleagues were released last week. He told BBC on Thursday that the controversial court cases seem to be moving in the right direction.
Greste had initially been sentenced to seven years in jail for spreading false information and helping the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He was deported from Egypt on his release.
Colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed are still in Egypt and are required to report regularly to the police in advance of a retrial expected to begin next week.
Their imprisonment for more than a year sparked numerous protests throughout the world.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Court dismisses 3rd lawsuit against hen cage law
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a decision to dismiss a
lawsuit by a farmer that challenged a law banning the inhumane
confinement of egg-laying hens.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the 2012 decision by a lower court to throw out the lawsuit by egg farmer William Cramer. Cramer's lawsuit said the law is unconstitutionally vague.
It's the third time courts have rejected lawsuits by egg farmers against California's landmark Proposition 2.
"We are thrilled that the court sided with the millions of California voters who supported this measure and chose to end extreme and reckless factory farming practices," said Jonathan Lovvorn, senior vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation for the Humane Society of the United States.
The initiative approved in 2008 bans the inhumane confinement of egg-laying hens, breeding pigs and veal calves in cages so small the animals cannot stretch their limbs, lie down or turn around.Since its passage, farmers have complained that the measure lacks specific language designating appropriate cage size and as a result puts them at risk of misdemeanor charges and fines up to $1,000.
In addition, they say they are on the hook for millions of dollars in upgrades but can't get bank loans without knowing whether new cages will be in compliance.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the 2012 decision by a lower court to throw out the lawsuit by egg farmer William Cramer. Cramer's lawsuit said the law is unconstitutionally vague.
It's the third time courts have rejected lawsuits by egg farmers against California's landmark Proposition 2.
"We are thrilled that the court sided with the millions of California voters who supported this measure and chose to end extreme and reckless factory farming practices," said Jonathan Lovvorn, senior vice president and chief counsel for animal protection litigation for the Humane Society of the United States.
The initiative approved in 2008 bans the inhumane confinement of egg-laying hens, breeding pigs and veal calves in cages so small the animals cannot stretch their limbs, lie down or turn around.Since its passage, farmers have complained that the measure lacks specific language designating appropriate cage size and as a result puts them at risk of misdemeanor charges and fines up to $1,000.
In addition, they say they are on the hook for millions of dollars in upgrades but can't get bank loans without knowing whether new cages will be in compliance.
Anxiety over Supreme Court's latest dive into health care
Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care
overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme
Court.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state.
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