The attorney for Genesee Speedway, LLC, and four other racetracks said its too late to appeal this weeks dismissal of a civil complaint against Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James.

The racetracks, represented by Troy attorney Kenneth McGuire Jr., brought a lawsuit asking the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, in part, to prevent Cuomo and James from enforcing gathering limits for outdoor activities if the spectators at those gatherings observe social distancing protocols. Aside from Genesee Speedway, located at the Genesee County Fairgrounds in Batavia, the racetracks in the lawsuit were Lebanon Valley Auto Racing Corp., Genesee Speedway, Airborne Speedway, Albany Saratoga Speedway and The Fonda Speedway.

Were not taking any further action at this point, because nothing would occur that would be relevant to the saving of the season, McGuire said Friday. The problem is an appeal takes between 60 to 90 days to get before a judge. It varies from area to area. Im sure it would be at least that long here.

At Genesee Speedway, following a three-week hiatus, the track was open again for racing last weekend.

The likelihood is the racetracks would run one or two more weeks at the most and then shut down for the season. McGuire said.

We have an option to file a new action. This decision would have to be appealed in 30 days, he said. McGuire said the 30-day window would begin when the state files the courts decision.

Its going to go way beyond having any effect. It doesnt make sense to spend the money (to take further action). Even if we win, we lose. The only hope we had was this preliminary injunction, which the court declined to give us.

Judge Lawrence Kahn of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York announced his decision Tuesday. He also denied a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to keep the defendants Cuomo and James from enforcing orders which prevent the tracks from opening their businesses.

In his decision, Kahn said the racetracks made a First Amendment claim.

Plaintiffs allege that Defendants executive orders barring spectators from their racetracks infringe upon their freedom of speech, assembly, and expressive association, he wrote. Because Plaintiffs fail to identify any guiding legal authority supporting their First Amendment claim, the Court grants dismissal. Here, Plaintiffs make no allegation that Defendants actions were in retaliation against protected speech or conduct. There also does not appear to be any allegation that Defendants infringe upon expressive conduct.

The essence of the racetracks First Amendment claim, the judge said, appears to be that Cuomos edict forbidding spectators, infringes upon the right to assemble.

Kahn on Tuesday said regulations of commercial activity such as a racetrack spectator ban have First Amendment implications only if the activity in question is inseparably intertwined with a particularized message.

The Court is unable to discern any message so closely linked with auto racing or more specifically, its display in front of spectators to trigger First Amendment protection, the judge wrote.

The judge said the complaint by the racetracks included an equal protection claim. They appear to be arguing that their racetracks have been treated differently from other non-essential businesses and from protesters who have been in public demonstrations.

Defendants argue, and the Court agrees, that Plaintiffs equal protection claim must be dismissed for failure to allege specific facts showing that the comparators are similar in relevant respects, Kahn wrote.

On the racetrack spectator ban, Genesee Speedway and the other racetracks have not alleged any facts suggesting some racetracks have not been subject to enforcement, Kahn wrote.

The Court does not find the requisite rough equivalence between private, capacity-limited sports venues on one hand and attendees of public protests on the other. Because Plaintiffs have not plausibly pled facts suggesting they have been treated differently from others similarly situated, the Court grants Defendants motion to dismiss the equal protection claim.

I disagree with that. The thing that annoys me, he (Kahn) claimed that we didnt show that the rioters ... were not similarly situated as the people in the grandstands (at the racetracks).

McGuire said he and the racetracks were arguing that Cuomo cant exercise his power against the tracks and not exercise it against rioters.

See original here:

Too late to appeal judge's decision in Speedway lawsuit RACETRACKS: Attorney for Batavia track and four others says season can't be saved - The Daily...

To the Editor:

America has the potential for reducing the mortality rate of COVID-19, and not only are the state governments and media suppressing the publics access to a potentially life-saving medication, but they are also launching a coordinated effort to control all public opinion. For months, studies have shown that Hydroxychloroquine is a safe and effective treatment for COVID.In fact, for many years, HCQ has been used safely to treat lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and malaria. Many countries sold it over the counter prior to spring of 2020.Several studies in the US have shown that the drug is effective, with the most recent positive studies coming in early July from Michigan, New York, Portugal, India, and Brazil.In countries that have easier access to HCQ (i.e. Israel, Poland, Philippines, and Turkey), the mortality rate from COVID is 1/10 that of countries which have restricted access, like the U.S.

Recently, a group of doctors led by Dr. Simone Gold, a board certified emergency physician and Stanford law graduate, presented scientific evidence that Hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment against COVID-19. The groups goal is to inform the public about how theyve been misled regarding HCQ. One of the doctors, Dr. Stella Immanuel, a Nigerian-based US doctor, has successfully treated more than 350 patients in her Texas clinic with a combination of HCQ, zinc, and azithromycin. As soon as these doctors presented their information at a recent news conference, Dr. Immanuel was attacked for her personal religious beliefs by the media in an attempt to destroy her credibility.Perhaps her personal beliefs are strange to most Americans, but her medical record is intact and her treatment protocol has been successful.Within a short time, the video of the conference was removed by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Squarespace.This violation of free speech is frightening. What has happened to America? Our country has stopped people from assembling in person so they are all assembling online.And now they cant even have a voice online because its being censored.

I encourage you to do the research on Hydroxychloroquine and ask yourself why the media and state governments are so adamantly vilifying it. Dont we all want to find a treatment for COVID, or does this transition into the new normal have more nefarious implications? We are losing our freedoms, folks.Whether you agree with what these doctors are saying or not, we need to stand up for our First Amendment rights.Free speech is being banned very quickly, and once weve lost it, weve lost our country.

Susan Stroud

Southern Shores

FOR MORE COLUMNS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, CHECK OUT OUR OPINION SECTION HERE.

Continue reading here:

Letter to the Editor: Reader: 'We need to stand up for our First Amendment rights' - The Coastland Times

NBC 5 will offer live coverage of events in Chicago as they unfold

UPDATE: A group of demonstrators began heading toward downtown Chicago, appearing to avoid the Dan Ryan Expressway despite earlier plans to shut it down. Heavy police presence reported in the area. Live aerial coverage in the player above.

________________________________________________________________________________

Thousands of protesters were expected to march Saturday with plans to shut down the Dan Ryan Expressway before traveling to downtown Chicago.

NBC 5 will offer live coverage from the scene as events unfold.

Hosted by several area organizations, the protest, titled "Black Lives Matter March: SHUTDOWN OUR DAN RYAN," is set to step off at noon Saturday at 39 W. 47th St.

As of Friday, Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications said the route the protesters are expected to take ends in Grant Park. It includes:

- Westbound on 47th St to the Dan Ryan Expressway onto the Dan Ryan via the ramp- Marchers will then proceed northbound to the 43rd St exit ramp and walk eastbound on 43rd to Indiana, North on Indiana to 31st St- West on 31st St to Michigan Avenue- North on Michigan Ave to Roosevelt Rd (Grant Park)

Illinois State Police confirmed they are aware of the protest and have been in contact with protest organizers "to set up a safe route of travel."

"The Illinois State Police will protect the rights of those seeking to peacefully protest while ensuring the safety of the public," the department said in a statement.

Chicago police also said they were aware of the event.

OEMC said roughly 2,000 protesters were estimated to attend.

Following violent clashes with police during demonstrations at a Christopher Columbus statue in the city, organizers issued restrictions for those planning to march Saturday.

Among the restrictions were no PVC pipes, no wagons or coolers, protesters must avoid CTA Red Line tracks along the route and marchers cannot stay on the expressway once the group exits. Bikes will also be prohibited on the expressway.

Still, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot expressed concerns about the demonstration.

"I have great concerns about allowing anyone ever to get on expressways, particularly in this time," Lightfoot said Friday. "It's a significant drain of police resources, even though we don't have primary jurisdiction over the expressway, we have to be there. And particularly, as I understand it, they're planning to come down to Grant Park. That is our jurisdiction. So I have a lot of concerns about it. We are going to continue to be in conversation with our state partners about this issue and hopefully have a workable solution."

In addition to safety concerns, Lightfoot also said she's worried about people "hijacking" the event.

"We of course support peaceful protests and assembly always, but unfortunately, as we've seen way too many times over the course of this summer, peaceful protests have been hijacked by people who have every made every effort to try to provoke our police, injure our police and end up injuring innocent people who come just to be able to express themselves, as is their God given right- particularly the right under the First Amendment of the Constitution," Lightfoot said. "So these are very complicated, delicate situations. And we need to make sure that first and foremost, we are keeping our residents, our neighborhoods and our businesses and our police officers safe."

Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara also wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney John Lausch Wednesday blasting reported plans of the Saturday protest as an act of terrorism.

We have also learned that there is a major protest scheduled for this weekend on the Dan Ryan Expressway which will lead to more civil unrest and violence, he said. The expressways should provide federal jurisdiction, as it will impede interstate commerce and to be quite frank, to block an interstate highway is an act of terrorism.

Catanzaras letter was also sent to President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr.

Visit link:

Live Coverage of the Dan Ryan Expressway Protest in Chicago - NBC Chicago

Democrats are cruising toward an electoral cliff, yet we are too busy to notice because were adulating over graffiti.

The right to protest doesnt include the right to pillage. The former is constitutional and the latter crime. Just like theres no protection for screaming fire in a dark theater, there should be no protection to throw bricks, start dumpster fires, smash windows, and play Pablo Picasso all over our state Capitol.

Were told that these activities are for the purpose of proving a point. And were okay with this? One should use the freedom of expression protesting to prove a point. The point of vandalism? No more than destroying property.

And Democrats pretty much have been standing idly by. Hello? Anyone there? The sound of crickets has been deafening. Too many are scared to speak up, afraid of the small swath of the far left and the mob of Twitter trolls. We may not pay a political price this election cycle, but if we keep this up, we will. This rooster will come home to roost.

Now I want to be clear. I unequivocally support peaceful protests. I, like nearly all Americans, am appalled with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, and no telling how many others, at the hands of police. Im appalled that Black people in America make less per hour, have significantly less economic opportunities, are less likely to own a home, and, well, have been getting the short end of the stick for decades.

For too long we have turned a blind eye to the existence of this systemic racism, racial and economic inequality. Although the average voter, even the average protester, probably cant define systemic racism, it doesnt matter. The mere fact that parents of Black children must teach their kids specific, clearly non-threatening ways to act when stopped by the police, ways that no white child ever has to know, screams systemic racism. It should be no surprise theres a Black Lives Matter movement, and no surprise people are pissed off.

Should we be exercising every nook and cranny of the First Amendment to express how pissed we are? Absolutely. Should we march? Of course. Should we demand sweeping change now? Most certainly. But use our state Capitol as a canvass for art to make a point? Are you kidding? I would hope we all hold our First Amendment rights so dear that such destruction would be seen as a grave offense to the Constitution.

Granted, social change happens, in part, because of radical action. Disruption. But when the overall movement is defined by the fringes thugs (yes, I went there) it loses credibility and public support. Suburban moms, blue-collar workers, farmers on the Eastern Plains, and a lot of us others wont put up with trashing the Capitol. And we shouldnt.

Some claim the only way to build a house is to burn the bad one down. But its this very house a democratic institution that is the path to reforms that many of us are fighting for. Case in point, the passage of one of the most expansive police reform bills in the country. The very institution that some want to burn down, and many have defaced without consequence, enacted one of the most sought-after reforms during the 2020 legislative session.

And when did the parade of other progressive issues show up? We on the left need to be careful. The Black Lives Matter movement is becoming conflated with nearly all things progressive. Although Im all-in on this progressive list, I doubt every protester is. Its hard for me to believe that all those kneeling in support of the Black Lives Matter movement also support all these policies of the left.

Yet, were now being told by some apologists its inexcusable to be worried about the trashing of our Capitol when were facing all these other justifiably pressing problems. Pillage art to prove a point. Following this logic, lets go put another crack in the Liberty Bell to prove the point of democracy. Our elected leaders, and the rest of us for that matter, can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can hold two thoughts at once.

These times are calling out for more than one-off democratic leadership and passing on this opportunity would be a disservice to us all. Too many are trying to ride this out, waiting for the moment to pass, effectively saying its a phase. Thats a mistake.

To stay quiet is an implicit, actually complicit, condoning that protesting includes wanton criminality. This is not only wrong, its bad politics. If we keep this up, itll mean jumping off the electoral cliff.

Power to change the law comes with winning elections. Winning elections comes with public support. And to keep that, we Democrats must be true to ourselves and the politics. It is reality.

Ted Trimpa is an attorney and longtime Democratic strategist.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Visit link:

Ted Trimpa: Colorado Democrats need to find their spines and stand against destruction and vandalism - The Denver Post

A former FBI lawyer plans to plead guilty to falsifying a claim made to sustain government surveillance on a key figure in former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to court documents.

It is the first legal development to come from a review of the Mueller team's work, an effort led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut. Attorney General William Barr assigned him more than a year ago to examine the origins of the Russia investigation.

A legal filing submitted Friday in federal court in Washington, D.C., said Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to a single charge of making a false statement by altering an e-mail in the course of seeking a renewal of government surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. The warrant for approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been a flashpoint for conservative critics of the FBI and the Mueller investigation.

The Justice Department's inspector general reported last December than when Clinesmith was working in the FBI's Office of General Counsel, he altered an e-mail about Page so that it said he was "not a source" for another U.S. intelligence agency. Page has publicly said he briefly was a source for the CIA.

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

Clinesmith told the inspector general he did not consider Page to be a "recruited asset."

"Kevin deeply regrets having altered the e-mail," said his lawyer, Jonathan Shur. "It was never his intent to mislead the court or his colleagues, as he believed the information he relayed was accurate, but Kevin understands what he did was wrong and accepts responsibility."

Page said in a statement Friday that Clinesmith was "finally being held accountable and pleading guilty to committing a felony for his involvement in the plot to falsely portray me and by implication the Trump administration as traitors. The actions by the full band of government officials and Democrat operatives involved in the creation of the false applications for my FISA surveillance warrants were entirely unconscionable."

"Clinesmith, his organization and their associates put my very life at risk, leading to abusive calls and death threats because of my personal opinions and support for President Trump," Page continued. "There is a long way to go on the road to restoring justice in America, but certainly a good first step has now been taken."

President Donald Trump remarked on the development at a White House news conference Friday, calling Clinesmith "a corrupt FBI attorney who falsified FISA warrants in James Comey's corrupt FBI."

"That is just the beginning, I would imagine, because what happened should never happen again," Trump said. "He is pleading guilty. It's a terrible thing. The fact is, they spied on my campaign and they got caught. You will be hearing more."

Barr foreshadowed the expected plea agreement in an interview with Fox News on Thursday evening. He said it not be an "earth-shattering development," but would be "indication that things are moving along at the proper pace, as dictated by the facts in this investigation."

The inspector general's report concluded that the FBI had a legitimate reason for opening an investigation in to Russian election meddling and whether anyone connected with the Trump campaign was involved. The report concluded that there was no proof of political bias in the decision.

But Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the FBI made serious and repeated mistakes in seeking an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conduct surveillance of Page. The FBI's submissions to the court made assertions that were "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," he said.

Barr said he asked Durham to look into the origins of the investigation because he did not believe the FBI had a proper reason for launching it. He told NBC News last December that the FBI started looking at the campaign on the thinnest of suspicions and kept pushing even after it went nowhere.

"There has to be some basis before we use these very potent powers in our core first amendment activity. And here, I felt this was very flimsy," he said.

Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.

Tom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Ken Dilanian contributed.

See the original post:

Ex-FBI lawyer to plead guilty to falsifying claim made to continue surveillance of key figure in Mueller probe - NBC News

Historians who specialize in voting rights and African-American womens history have played a welcome and unusually public role in combating the myths that have long surrounded the womens suffrage movement and the 19th Amendment, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Tuesday.

In the lead-up to this centennial, these same campaigning historians have warned against celebrations and proposed monuments to the suffrage movement that seemed destined to render invisible the contributions of African-American women like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mary Church Terrell, Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells all of whom played heroic roles in the late 19th- and early 20th-century struggles for womens rights and universal human rights. In addition to speaking up for Black women of the past, these scholars have performed a vital public service by debunking the most pernicious falsehood about the 19th Amendment: that it concluded a century-long battle for equality by guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Americans who imbibed this fiction in civics classes are caught off guard when they hear the more complicated truth that millions of women had won voting rights before the 19th Amendment was ratified, and millions more remained shut out of the polls after ratification. Indeed, as middle-class white women celebrated ratification by parading through the streets, African-American women in the Jim Crow South who had worked diligently for womens rights found themselves shut out of the ballot box for another half century and abandoned by white suffragists who declared their mission accomplished the moment middle-class white women achieved the franchise.

As the distinguished historian Nancy Hewitt has shown, a lengthy campaign and a range of subsequent laws was required to fully open ballot access to others, including Black women, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans, Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans. Among those necessary laws were the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 and the adoption of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the 24th Amendment in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, along with its amendments of 1970 and 1975. In other words, the 19th Amendment was one step in a long, racially fraught battle for voting rights that seemed secure a few decades ago but face a grave threat today.

The white suffrage heroes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony got a stranglehold on the historical record in 1881, when they inaugurated the first volume of what would eventually become the influential six-volume History of Woman Suffrage. The duo and their comrades established an enduring, self-serving legacy when they designated a meeting at Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848 a meeting that Stanton and her collaborator Lucretia Mott attended as the starting point of the womens rights movement. In fact, the movement already was stirring in various forms, and in various places.

History of Woman Suffrage provides a minutely detailed account of a movement that implicitly defined women as people who were white and middle class and renders prominent African-Americans virtually invisible. For a long time, historians who relied on this history duplicated its omissions. The African-American historian Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, who died last year at the age of 77, discredited this lily-white version of events by uncovering more than 100 Black suffragists. In recent decades, historians have shown that Black women were erased partly because they sensibly argued that gender discrimination and racism were interconnected problems that could not be neatly separated.

Books and studies timed to coincide with the 19th Amendments centennial are rendering ever more candid and inclusive versions of this story. In Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement, for example, the historian Cathleen Cahill foregrounds the suffrage struggles of women of color as they played out in New York Citys Chinatown, New Mexico and elsewhere. Ms. Cahill shows how white suffragists worked with and sometimes against marginalized women, including Native Americans and Mexican-Americans.

In the forthcoming book Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, the historian Martha S. Jones offers a version of the suffrage and voting rights story that begins well before the 1848 meeting at Seneca Falls. The history she recounts continues into the 1960s and 70s with the work of revered African-American civil rights organizers like Septima Clark and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Ms. Jones argues that the elided Black women were at the forefront of the quest for womens rights and were overlooked in history because they achieved their victories in civic and political organizations on the Black side of the color line. Invisibility aside, she writes, African-American women pointed the nation toward its best ideals. They were the first to reject arbitrary distinctions, including racism and sexism, as rooted in outdated and disproved fictions. They were the nations original feminists and antiracists, and they built a movement on these core principles.

The Seneca Falls convention concerned itself with a number of womens rights issues, including ecclesiastical policies that excluded women from authority in churches. By then, Ms. Jones writes, Black women in the African Methodist Episcopal Church had capped years of skillful organizing and alliance building by persuading church leaders to grant them licenses to preach. This achievement was built on the singular accomplishments of Jarena Lee, who in 1819 after years of rejection became the first woman authorized to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The ever-broadening story of the womens rights struggle is opening public awareness to other standout Black women as well. One of them is Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who received a belated Times obituary two years ago. Cary was one of the first female lawyers in the country and is described as the first Black woman in North America to edit and publish a newspaper. The paper, known as The Provincial Freeman, was founded in Canada in 1853 and became a forum for women to discuss their lives. In a letter to the editor, one woman, Dolly Bangs, told readers that it was counterproductive to discourage women from leadership roles in the afternoon of the 19th century. She urged women to take their fate into their own hands: It is her right, as her duty, to press boldly forward to her appointed task, otherwise who is guilty of burying her talent?

Among the rising stars Cary championed in The Freeman was the African-American poet and anti-slavery orator Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who would go on to an illustrious career. In 1866, Harper rattled the white suffrage elite in a prophetic speech delivered at the founding conclave of the American Equal Rights Association. She argued that the destinies of Black and white, rich and poor, were all bound up together and that racism was in fact a white womens issue. Ticking off the abuses Black women suffered daily, she thundered: You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs.

Harper did not live to witness the unsettling contrast between scenes of middle-class white women celebrating the 19th Amendment with ticker tape parades and Southern Black women being driven from the polls under threat of bodily harm. A half-century after ratification, when African-Americans were still being beaten and murdered for seeking the vote, the charismatic organizer Fannie Lou Hamer did not stand on the 19th Amendment. As Ms. Jones writes: Yes, she was a woman. But she did not see the terms of the Nineteenth Amendment the one that constitutionalized womens voting rights as protecting her.

The 19th Amendment can fairly be seen as an important milestone in an unfinished journey. It is morally repugnant and counterproductive to mythologize it as a triumph of egalitarianism at a time when the voting rights Hamer and others paid for in blood are under attack in the courts and in state legislatures all over the United States. This disturbing fact needs to remain uppermost in mind as the country unveils its new suffrage monuments and holds its celebratory events.

Read more from the original source:

The 19th Amendment: An Important Milestone in an Unfinished Journey - The New York Times

President Donald Trumps guests at his Bedminster golf club Friday evening engaged in behavior that should concern us all, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday.

You see people inside on top of each other, Murphy said at his coronavirus press briefing. We all ought to be really concerned. Thats where the flareups are coming from.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Earlier this month, Murphy tightened the rules for indoor gatherings, restricting them to no more than 25 people, except for weddings, funerals and religious and political events.

Photos of Trumps Friday press conference showed Bedminster golf club members congregating in the back of the ballroom to watch the event, cheering the president. Many did not wear masks.

Asked about the guests, Trump said they took advantage of Murphys exemption.

You know, you have an exclusion in the law, Trump said. It says exactly political activity or peaceful protests. And you can call it political activity, but Id call it peaceful protests because they heard you were coming up. And they know the news is fake. They understand it better than anybody.

Murphy said the exemption on crowd size was for outdoor protests, not those inside a room.

The First Amendment protests relate to outdoor activities principally, and not indoors, he said. Any pictures of people inside on top of each other without wearing face coverings top of each other should concern us all.

The guests wore masks when they attended Trumps Saturday press conference, according to White House pool reports. They watched the president sign four executive orders designed to address the coronavirus-caused recession.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.

Here is the original post:

The actions of Trump guests at N.J. golf club should concern us all, Murphy says - NJ.com

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) A federal judge has delivered some much-needed relief to frustrated brides-to-be in New York, issuing a temporary injunction allowing wedding receptions to be held at 50 percent of the venue's capacity and not be capped at 50 people.

Judge Glenn Subbady of the Northern District of New York ruled in favor of two couples with weddings booked at the Arrowhead Golf Club in Akron, who-- along with the co-owner of the club-- sued Governor Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Letitia James, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the Erie County Department of Health, and the Empire State Development Corporation.

The couples claimed the restrictions put in place by the governor's executive order in March at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic violated their First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights, stating the "restriction will deprive Plaintiffs of an 'irreplaceable life event' (i.e., their ability to have a wedding that allows their friends and family to participate to the full extent contemplated by their Christian faith)."

The ruling allows wedding reception halls to operate at the same level of service as restaurants, which is 50 percent capacity for indoor dining.

"The judge's decision is irresponsible at best, as it would allow for large, non-essential gatherings that endanger public health," a spokesperson for the governor told 7 Eyewitness News in response to the ruling. "We will pursue all available legal remedies immediately and continue defending the policies that have led New York to having - and maintaining - one of the lowest infection rates in the country, while cases continue to rise in dozens of other states."

Judge Subbady's ruling states wedding venues and guests must comply with the same rules in place for restaurants, including tables placed at least six-feet apart from one another and mandatory face coverings when not seated.

See more here:

Federal judge rules wedding receptions in New York state can be held at 50 percent capacity and not capped at 50 people - WKBW-TV

The attorney general of New York has sued to seek the dissolution of the National Rifle Association, alleging fraud and abuse in the way the NRAs chief executive and other officials ran the operation. Given that the NRA has played such a powerfully destructive role in U.S. politics, fighting against gun regulations that demonstrably save lives, its tempting to react with applause.

Yet even liberals who oppose the NRAs mission should take a deep breath and ask: Do we really want an elected attorney general to try to destroy a prominent nongovernmental organization that is arrayed on the other side of the political spectrum from her? What if this were Alabama and the organization were the NAACP? Or Tennessee and the ACLU?

If an organization has really fallen into a condition of fundamental corruption, a state attorney general can demand that it get new leaders, or replace its board of directors and its management in their entirety. Maybe New York Attorney General Letitia James is prepared to settle the case against the NRA with that sort of an organizational overhaul.

But asking the court not to order the reform of the organization, but to dismantle and dissolve it altogether, creates the impression that the attorney general is trying to use the legal system to intervene in the very political dispute in which the NRA is such an important player: the fight over Second Amendment rights and gun control.

It should go without saying that it would be entirely improper for a state official or a federal official, for that matter to use the awesome enforcement power of the government to target advocacy organizations with whose policies the official strongly disagrees. That is the kind of politicization of the legal system that President Donald Trump has tried to promote during his four years in office.

It is no answer to this set of concerns to say that the NRA can just leave New York and incorporate itself somewhere else (like Texas, as Trump suggests). And its not primarily that there would be real-world costs in shifting the organizations location.

The very fact of the lawsuit sends and is presumably at least in part intended to send a message that conservative political organizations are not welcome in progressive New York. You can see where that leads. Progressive organizations then will not be welcome in conservative states. In both environments, partisan, elected attorneys general, who often aspire to become governors, will develop the practice of targeting nonprofit groups that are politically unpopular in their states.

The consequences go beyond the use of the legal system for political aims. They reach all the way to the fundamental right to free association. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court case that established the modern free association right involved similar issues. NAACP v. Alabama was a 1958 case that arose when Alabama Attorney General John Patterson tried to force the NAACP to reveal the names of all its members in the state. Although the NAACP was chartered in New York, it still needed state approval to operate in Alabama, and the attorney general claimed the NAACP hadnt qualified for that approval and couldnt without providing the names.

The Supreme Court held in a landmark decision that the NAACP and its members had a right to freely associate in order to engage in expressive activities. That right to associate included a right not to disclose the names, the court concluded.

The point of the comparison is only to observe that an attorney general has tremendous power to harass a disfavored organization using purportedly neutral state laws and legal processes to get there.

To be clear, I am not taking a view on whether the NRA leadership has in fact engaged in conduct so egregious that the ordinarily appropriate remedy would be dissolution. I dont know the legally correct answer to that question; no one does yet. A court would have to engage in extensive fact-finding to determine the right answer.

But by seeking to dissolve the NRA, the New York attorney general is knowingly creating a narrative that is potentially costly to the rule of law, that may create terrible precedents for other states and that potentially implicates the First Amendment.

This is a situation where the importance of the First Amendment has relevance for the Second Amendment. The NRA is wrong about what the Second Amendment means. But it should enjoy an unimpeded First Amendment right to argue for that incorrect and dangerous interpretation of the Second.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and a professor of law at Harvard University.

More:

Why we should be wary of any attempt to dismantle the NRA - Bangor Daily News

This article is part of aSCOTUSblog symposiumon the Roberts court and the religion clauses.

Kim Colbyis director of the Christian Legal Societys Center for Law and Religious Freedom. She was counsel on amicus briefs on behalf of the Christian Legal Society inEspinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue,Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, Tanzin v. TanvirandFulton v. City of Philadelphia.

Americans religious freedom depends on a patchwork of protections scattered throughout federal and state laws. Religious freedom is protected to a limited degree by the First Amendments free exercise clause; to a much greater degree, but only at the federal level, by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act; and to various degrees by specific religious exemptions tucked here and there into federal statutes and regulations. While state constitutions, as well as some state and local statutes, pay homage to religious freedom, when state courts apply them the results frequently tend to be less robust than their language would suggest.

The Supreme Courts 2019-20 term brought significant religious freedom victories. But it also highlighted the lack of a constitutional safety net for religious freedom. The 2020-21 term offers a critical opportunity to restore a constitutional safety net that has been sorely lacking for three decades.

Thirty years ago, the Employment Division v. Smith decision unexpectedly weakened the constitutional protection for religious freedom. The Smith decision substituted rational basis review or possibly, no review at all for strict scrutiny review whenever a burden on the free exercise of religion is imposed by a neutral and generally applicable law. The court has never explained what it means by a neutral and generally applicable law; it is still not clear whether Smith completely gutted the First Amendment protection for religious freedom or merely shrank it considerably and made it much more complicated and confused. Whatever the degree of damage, this loss of protection applies at the federal level and also at state and local levels.

The cases before the court this term and next term illustrate Smiths regrettable long-term consequences and demonstrate why the court should overrule Smith. A case to be heard next term, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, expressly presents that question.

1. Constitutional protection at state and local levels is needed.

Americans religious freedom varies widely depending on the state in which they live. Smith deprived religious persons of previous bargaining power and incentives necessary to persuade state and local officials to respect religious freedom.

To provide protection in states, the court has labored to identify discriminatory treatment of religious persons because Smith itself left strict scrutiny in place when religious persons suffer discriminatory treatment. The court has utilized two distinct buckets to protect religious persons:

1. Discrimination based on religious status: In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, relying on the state constitution, Montana bureaucrats excluded parents and students from a state tuition tax-credit program because many participating families chose to send their children to religious schools. The court held that the Montana constitution impermissibly discriminated on the basis of religious status in violation of the federal free exercise clause.

2. Discriminatory treatment compared to similar secular conduct: Just three years after Smith, in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the court unanimously ruled that a municipality violated the free exercise clause when it prohibited killing animals as part of a religious ritual, but not as part of a secular activity, such as hunting. In 2018, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court applied Lukumi in ruling that state officials unconstitutionally punished a man of deep religious convictions who refused to create a wedding cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding, but did not penalize other bakers who refused to create cakes with messages to which they personally objected.

Requiring government officials to treat religious conduct with the same respect given similar secular conduct has been an important, if unevenly applied, protection for religious freedom under the Smith regime. But it is not an adequate substitute for reliable constitutional protection of religious freedom achieved through consistent application of strict scrutiny analysis to laws that burden religious freedom. Fulton which involves a citys denial of licensure to a Catholic organizations foster-care program gives the court an opportunity to reinstate strict scrutiny for such laws.

2. RFRAs protection for religious freedom at the federal level requires reinforcement.

In response to Smith, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law. RFRA requires the federal government to demonstrate a compelling interest unachievable by a less restrictive means before it may enforce a neutral, generally applicable law against a person whose sincerely held religious beliefs would be substantially burdened by the law.

RFRA, rather than the First Amendment, has provided the primary protection for Americans religious freedom at the federal level for 27 years. A singular legislative achievement, RFRA ensures a level playing field for Americans of all faiths by putting minority faiths and unpopular religious beliefs on an equal footing with faiths that are politically popular.

Two cases on the courts 2019 and 2020 dockets illustrate RFRAs importance to persons of all faiths. In Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, Catholic nuns returned to the Supreme Court for the third time in their nine-year effort to win the right to serve the poor without violating their religious convictions regarding contraceptives. Ruling in the Little Sisters favor, the court held that the federal government had the authority under RFRA to provide a generous religious and moral exemption from an administrative regulation that required employers to provide contraceptive coverage through their insurance plans. Unfortunately, the court did not follow the course urged by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch to find that RFRA not only permitted the exemption but actually required it. In a concurrence, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer, provided a roadmap for the lower court on remand to rule against the religious exemption a prospect that may necessitate a fourth trip to the Supreme Court for the Little Sisters before final victory.

The second RFRA case, Tanzin v. Tanvir, will be argued this fall. Three Muslim men, one a U.S. citizen and two lawful permanent residents, seek to recover money damages from federal FBI employees who allegedly retaliated against them by placing them on the No Fly List for their refusal to become FBI informants within their religious congregations. The issue before the court is whether RFRAs authorization of appropriate relief includes recovery of money damages from federal officials acting in their personal capacities.

The coalition of 68 organizations from across the religious and political spectrum that urged RFRAs passage had one overriding operative principle: RFRA would protect all Americans religious freedom. Anticipating RFRAs main task as protecting minority faiths, few proponents foresaw that Catholic nuns would be denied a modest religious exemption by a popularly elected administration and, therefore, need RFRAs protection.

But the times have changed rapidly and dramatically. Since 2010, religious social conservatives have increasingly faced a rigid insistence that they conform to and promote the orthodoxies of the abortion and LGBT movements even when those orthodoxies directly conflict with their religious beliefs.

As a result, Congress is being pressured to eviscerate RFRA. The Equality Act, H.R. 5, passed the House of Representatives in May 2019 by a vote of 236-173, with a provision buried in it to gut RFRA. The Equality Acts proponents are willing to forfeit all Americans religious freedom in order to suppress religious dissent.

In its decision this term in Bostock v. Clayton County, which re-interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, the court offered reassurance that RFRA, Title VIIs religious exemption and the ministerial exception will suffice to protect religious individuals and institutions. But more needs to be done to make its promise a reality. This is particularly true because many state officials are likely to apply Bostocks rationale to re-interpret state prohibitions on sex discrimination in employment, public accommodations and government programs. Title VIIs religious exemption and RFRA do not follow Bostocks analysis downstream to the states.

The courts reaffirmation in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru of the First Amendments strong protection for religious employers decisions about who will lead their religious mission and teach their religious beliefs does apply to the states. But the protection, while strong, is limited and does not extend to all employees.

More to the point, Our Ladys protection of this essential right was possible only because, eight years ago in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the court set Smith to one side. In Hosanna-Tabor, the U.S. government argued that the free exercise clause offered no protection to a religious congregations decisions regarding who would be its minister or teach its faith in its school. The government understandably relied on Smith for this jaw-dropping proposition, only to find its reliance rejected by a unanimous court. But by requiring the court continually to cabin it or create workarounds, Smith works distinctive institutional damage to the courts reputation.

RFRA and the ministerial exception have performed yeomans work. But they urgently need reinforcement through restoration of consistent and reliable constitutional protection for religious freedom.

By protecting all religious beliefs regardless of their popularity, religious freedom makes it possible for Americans with starkly different worldviews to live peaceably together. Now is the time to restore substantive constitutional protection for all Americans regardless of what they believe or where they live.

Posted in Symposium on the Roberts court and the religion clauses, Featured

Recommended Citation: Kim Colby, Symposium: Free exercise, RFRA and the need for a constitutional safety net, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 10, 2020, 11:20 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/08/symposium-free-exercise-rfra-and-the-need-for-a-constitutional-safety-net/

Original post:

Symposium: Free exercise, RFRA and the need for a constitutional safety net - SCOTUSblog