Social Justice Shorts: Free Speech, Prisons & Shielding Reporters

WILL THE SENATE FINALLY PASS A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW?

This week the Senate Judiciary committee will turn its focus on the long-debated but never passed shield law for journalists. It will be the first bill taken up and marked up by the committee, which is significant, reported the Washington Times, as it generally suggests the committee is favoring the bill.

Writing for the Washington Post, Walter Pincus has the most complete run down on the issue —including all the lobbying that has been going on for the bill, which Barack Obama vocally supported during his campaign.

And if the bill does get out of committee, where will bloggers fall in this whole shield deal?

Drawing by Patrick Finney

---

In Sunday’s LA Times, pediatric doc Alex Blum writes about the case that still haunts him, and what it suggests for the debate over health care reform.

Here’s how it opens:

Along with every other pediatrician I know, I have seen far too often the unconscionable consequences of children not having healthcare coverage. One case still haunts me.

In the middle of one night during my training at a county hospital outside of Los Angeles, a 12-year-old boy arrived at the emergency room. He was having a seizure. From a brain scan, we made the terrible diagnosis: He had suffered a massive stroke. At best, he would be severely disabled for the rest of his life.

---

SUPREMES SAY CALIFORNIA CANNOT DELAY JUDGE-DEMANDED PRISON POPULATION REDUCTION

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme court said it would not extend California’s Sept. 18 deadline for coming up with a plan that will reduce the state’s inmate population by 40,000 inmates over a period of two years.

The SF Chronicle has the story.

In a brief order Friday, the justices refused to extend a Sept. 18 deadline for telling a special three-judge panel how California will reduce its inmate population by roughly 25 percent over two years.

The order does not represent a decision on the merits of the state’s appeal. Instead, it is a procedural ruling that nonetheless forces the state to comply with the panel’s directive to present a plan for lowering the number of inmates while the appeal goes forward.

It is difficult not to see some irony in the fact that, after weeks and weeks of squabbling and grandstanding, the state legislature couldn’t manage to pass its plan to reduce California’s prison population by 27,000 (through sentencing and parole reform combined with alternative sentencing for certain inmates).

Instead, on Friday, lawmakers passed a wimpy piece of legislation that reduced the lock-up population by only 16,000 inmates.

Yet, now it looks increasingly likely that a panel of federal judges will force a prison population reduction of 49,000—nearly twice the number that was in the bill the legislators wouldn’t pass..

This oughta be interesting to watch.

SCOTUSBLOG has more on the Supremes’ decision.

---

SCOTUS, THE HILLARY MOVIE AND THE 1ST AMENDMENT

Last Wednesday the Supreme Court heard arguments about what has now become known as the “Hillary, the Movie” case.

According to the experts who are quarreling about the issue, the case could either:

1. Trash the campaign finance laws that, since 1907, have been restricting corporate contributions.

OR

2. Endanger the First Amendment.

The New York Times got a panel of legal scholars and law professors together to give their opinions on the damned-whichever-way-they-rule situation.

Then on Sunday, columnist George Will wrote an opinion column on the dilemma for the WaPo.

Here’s how it starts:

Last March, during the Supreme Court argument concerning the Federal Election Commission’s banning of a political movie, several justices were aghast. Suddenly and belatedly they saw the abyss that could swallow the First Amendment….

Both are worth reading.