Archive for January 17, 2012

She’s Warming Up

56
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

With for­mer Utah Gov­er­nor Jon Hunts­man gone, we’re down to five Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. At least, offi­cially. But let’s be realistic…while it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings, she’s def­i­nitely warm­ing up her vocal chords.

First, let’s look at the South Car­olina polling. The Jan­u­ary 11 Insider Advan­tage poll is clearly an out­lier, as all of the polls on either side show a very dif­fer­ent pic­ture. The Insider Advan­tage poll from Sun­day lines up with the rest. The trend shows Mitt Rom­ney with a double-​​digit lead over second-​​place for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich, who has about a seven-​​point lead over Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) and for­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA). Even if the Diet of Bren­ham anoint­ment of San­to­rum were to take effect, and all Gin­grich and Perry vot­ers were to defect to San­to­rum (an unlikely sce­nario), San­to­rum would beat Rom­ney by a slim mar­gin. The much more likely result is that Rom­ney will walk away with a com­fort­able vic­tory in South Carolina.

This is no small feat. South Car­olina has been the cen­ter of the socon uni­verse for the entirety of Amer­i­can his­tory. For Rom­ney to win in such a state is a clear sign that the bat­tle for the nom­i­na­tion is rapidly com­ing to a close.

Florida polling shows an even big­ger Rom­ney lead, so if Rom­ney wins South Car­olina, Florida is a pretty sure win. Cou­ple this with the national polls that show Rom­ney with a grow­ing double-​​digit lead, and you can almost hear her warm­ing up in the wings. By the end of the month, it seems sure we’ll hear her belt out a few tunes.

And then we can focus our atten­tion on the Rom­ney vs. Obama battle.

Supreme Court Watch: Filarsky v. Delia

3
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in

In the case of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, the Supreme Court estab­lished the con­cept of “qual­i­fied immu­nity” to shield gov­ern­ment employ­ees from pros­e­cu­tion even if they vio­late someone’s Con­sti­tu­tional rights. The idea seems to be that if gov­ern­ment employ­ees are doing what they are sup­posed to do, then they are not liable for the results. The gov­ern­ment may per­haps be sued, but the indi­vid­u­als — state and local, as well as fed­eral — are held faultless.

This pre­vents claimants from explor­ing what is in the mind of gov­ern­ment func­tionar­ies. Some­one who claims his or her rights were vio­lated can­not argue in court that a gov­ern­ment employee meant to vio­late those rights. Does this pro­tec­tion extend to pri­vate cit­i­zens who are not gov­ern­ment employ­ees? Specif­i­cally, if a pri­vate lawyer is retained by a city gov­ern­ment, is that attor­ney pre­cluded from claim­ing qual­i­fied immu­nity solely because he or she is a pri­vate lawyer rather than a gov­ern­ment employee?

That is the ques­tion asked in a case to be argued today before the Supreme Court. (more…)

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