The Supreme Court announced today that its hearings in the lawsuit challenging the new federal health care reform law will begin on March 26 and will last three days.

Florida is leading the legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a suit that includes 25 other states. State officials have argued that the alleged unconstitutionality of the individual mandate is grounds for striking the bill in its entirety. That argument has not been upheld in lower court decisions.

Both parties have worked actively to make sure that the Supreme Court is able to reach its decision before the 2012 presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the “main part” of the hearing “will take place on Tuesday, March 27, with a two-hour argument over the minimum-coverage provision, which starting in 2014 will require most Americans to carry health insurance.”

The Supreme Court seal (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Hayfordoleary)

Spanish-language news reporters who spoke Sunday on Al Punto, a Univision program, said the coming Supreme Court decision on Arizona’s immigration enforcement law S.B. 1070 will have an impact on both the 2012 elections and on the lives of millions of immigrants.

Alan Rivera of Hispanic News Network said that the Supreme Court decision that would come in June, in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign, and will greatly influence the Obama campaign against the eventual Republican nominee.

Rivera highlighted the fact that, with Justice Elena Kagan not voting, five of the remaining eight justices were selected by Republican administrations. He also said the immigration issue is a constitutional one, and “the court cannot decide against the Constitution,” adding that “the Constitution says that Congress decides” on legislative issues.

Marcello Raimon of Agencia ANSA — a Latin-American news agency — said “we have to wait with our fingers crossed,” hoping “that the Supreme Court does not decide to allow states to do what they want.”

“It is on the conscience of the justices if they will destroy the lives of millions of people,” Raimon said.

“I find it very interesting that instead of talking about immigration reform for 11 million undocumented immigrants, the anti-immigrant environment in the U.S. is so large we’re talking about these issues,” Al Punto host Jorge Ramos said.

The Supreme Court decision to hear the legal challenge to Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law comes at a time when the leading GOP presidential candidates are talking about immigration and trying to strengthen support with Latino voters.

Newt Gingrich has called for a “humane” approach to immigration enforcement, and Republicans share his approach to immigration, but the GOP still has to work hard to get Latino voters in important swing states in the 2012 presidential elections, according to surveys.

ABC News reported that Mitt Romney, during the Fox News debate last week, “laid out more clearly than he has before details of a proposed national ID card system for legal immigrants and the requirement that employers run checks on workers or face ‘very serious sanctions.’”

According to ABC, “Romney said the new protocols would add pressure on illegal immigrants to voluntarily return to their native countries and force them to apply to the U.S. from the ‘back of the line.’”

The Washington Post reported Friday:

Republicans are increasingly worried that their party’s efforts to win a competitive slice of the fast-growing Hispanic vote in important presidential battleground states are being undermined by Mitt Romney’s heated rhetoric on illegal immigration.

Several leading GOP strategists say Romney’s sharp-tongued attacks have gained wide attention in Hispanic media and are eroding the party’s already fragile standing in that community.

The Post adds that  leaders of  conservative groups like the Hispanic Leadership Fund and the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles do not agree with Romney on immigration.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

A federal report released Thursday finds that Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., an advocate for controversial immigration enforcement and detention measures, has committed a “wide range of civil rights violations.”

The Associated Press reports:

The federal government issued a scathing report Thursday that outlines how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release, is a result of the U.S. Justice Department’s three-year investigation of Arpaio’s office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency’s top level.

The AP adds that federal authorities will continue to investigate, among other complaints, “a large number of sex-crimes cases that were assigned to” Arpaio’s office “but weren’t followed up on or investigated at all.”

In a press release issued Thursday, the Department of Justice states that the ongoing civil rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office found “reasonable cause to believe that MCSO, under the leadership of Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio, has engaged in a pattern or practice of misconduct that violates the Constitution and federal law.”

The department found

a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct and/or violations of federal law occurred in several areas, including:

• Discriminatory policing practices including unlawful stops, detentions and arrests of Latinos;
• Unlawful retaliation against individuals exercising their First Amendment right to criticize MCSO’s policies or practices, including but not limited to practices relating to its discriminatory treatment of Latinos; and
• Discriminatory jail practices against Latino inmates with limited English proficiency by punishing them and denying them critical services.

Arpaio has said he trains his deputies with federal immigration officials, has the largest group of cross-certified law enforcement men and women (160 of them) and proudly talks about his “tent city,” where about 2,000 detainees live “in Korean War tents” and “sleep in bunk beds, 20 to a tent.”

Asked what he would do if the Supreme Court decides to strike down Arizona’s immigration enforcement law S.B. 1070, Arapio said on CNN this week:

It doesn’t change anything. I do like certain parts of that new law, but I’ll tell you one thing, we’ve been doing it under two other state laws. We have two other state laws, one is the employer sanction that the Supreme Court ruled in our favor. So, it’s not going to change anything I’m doing, regardless of what that decision is.

Arapaio endorsed GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry in late November, saying Perry “has done more to combat illegal immigration and secure the border than any other candidate in the Republican presidential field.”

According to new information, a provision in the Affordable Care Act has helped 2.5 million young adults gain health insurance since the law took effect.

It was previously estimated that about 1 million young adults under the age of 26 were affected by President Obama’s health care reform law, but new reports suggest it was more than twice that number.

The Associated Press reports:

Under the health overhaul, children can remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26, and families have flocked to sign up young adults making the transition to work in a challenging economic environment. But the fate of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment remains uncertain, with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear a constitutional challenge next year, and Republican presidential candidates vowing to repeal it.

“The increase in coverage among 19- to 25-year-olds can be directly attributed to the Affordable Care Act’s new dependent coverage provision,” said a draft report from the Health and Human Services Department. “Initial gains from this policy have continued to grow as … students graduate from high school and college.” A copy of the report was obtained by The Associated Press.

…

Using unpublished quarterly statistics from the government’s ongoing National Health Interview Survey, analysts in Sebelius’ policy office determined that nearly 36 percent of those age 19-25 were uninsured in the third calendar quarter of 2010, before the law’s provision took effect.

That translates to more than 10.5 million people.

By the second calendar quarter of 2011, the proportion of uninsured young adults had dropped to a little over 27 percent, or about 8 million people.

The difference — nearly 2.5 million getting coverage — can only be the result of the health care law, administration officials said, because the number covered by public programs like Medicaid went down slightly.

While most of the health care reform law does not go into effect until 2014, the provision in question went into effect last fall and most employer health insurance plans started following through with this change on Jan. 1, the AP reports.

The Supreme Court of the United States Blog wrote Monday: “Adding further to the historic rank of the Supreme Court’s current Term, the Justices on Monday took on the searing constitutional — and political — controversy over state power to strictly limit the way undocumented immigrants live their lives in the U.S.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) “welcomes the decision by the United States Supreme Court to review Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, SB 1070.” The group not only welcomed S.B. 1070 but also helped draft the law through its affiliate — the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

FAIR, according to Open Secrets, spent more than $3.4 million from 1998 through 2011 to lobby Congress on immigration-related legislation, like a proposed House GOP sponsored resolution that “would have prohibited the U.S. Department of Justice from using any funds to sue Arizona in an effort to strike down its new immigration enforcement law, SB 1070.”

“We believe that SB 1070 is a legitimate effort by a state to partner with the federal government in assisting in the enforcement of our immigration laws,” said FAIR President Dan Stein.

The National Immigration Forum wrote Monday: “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will clarify once and for all that only the federal government has the authority to create and enforce immigration law. We believe Arizona’s SB1070 is misguided and unconstitutional and expect the Supreme Court to use this opportunity to slam the brakes on other state-based immigration laws that are in conflict with our Constitution and core American values.”

According to Open Secrets, the Forum has spent more than $1.5 million since 1998 to lobby Congress on issues related to comprehensive immigration reform.

The American Spectator, a publication that “serves as a resource and an outlet for a host of both young and established conservative writers and thinkers” writes today: “Health care reform isn’t the only major policy battle the Obama administration will fight before the Supreme Court. The justices will also hear a case in which the Obama Justice Department asks them to overturn Arizona’s SB 1070, a controversial law empowering state and local police to detain suspected illegal immigrants in the course of their normal work.”

The Spectator, adds:

“We won 5 to 3 on the E-Verify case,” [former Arizona Sen. Russell Pearce, one of the architects of S.B. 1070,] says. “The same issues and constitutional principles are at stake here. I expect we’ll win 5 to 3 again.” (Justice Elena Kagan, the former solicitor general, recused herself in the last case and will do so again in the forthcoming one.) Indeed, the Supreme Court found that Arizona immigration law fell “well within the confines of the authority Congress chose to leave to the States.”

The National Council of La Raza ”hopes that by intervening in this case, the Supreme Court will affirm that the federal government is responsible for immigration enforcement and that states do not have the right to usurp that authority by establishing their own immigration laws.”

La Raza is a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization that according to Open Secrets spent more than $5.6 million to lobby Congress from 1998 through 2011 on immigration, as well as other issues: the federal budget, economic development, education, health issues, housing and law enforcement and crime.

The Supreme Court of the United States Blog added: “The Arizona measure, and one in Alabama that goes even further, were passed by state legislatures with the specific intent of making life so difficult for undocumented aliens that they would choose to leave the state. Other states are also passing similar measures.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (Photo: Flickr/ryanjreilly)

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be giving a speech today about laws recently enacted all over the country that some say will suppress voter turnout among minorities, young people and low-income and disabled voters.

The speech comes during a flurry of activity following restrictive voting laws passed all over the country in the past year. Policymakers in states such as Florida have maintained the laws were crafted to prevent voter fraud.

Florida’s Republican-led Legislature passed an elections law last session that reduces the number of early voting days, creates onerous regulations for third-party voter registration drives and shortens the shelf life for ballot initiative signatures, among other things. A sponsor of the bill has said the bill makes Florida’s elections more “reliable.”

Many groups have denounced the laws, saying the new rules restrict voting rights from minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters as the 2012 election looms. Those complaints are gaining traction at the state and federal level. Yesterday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., announced that the Senate will commence with field hearings in January in Florida to investigate the effect of the state’s new law. Holder will today give a speech on the same subject.

The Washington Post reports:

With the presidential campaign heating up, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday.

Holder will speak at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Libary and Museum in Austin, Tex., which honors the president who shepherded the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law.

“We are a better nation now than we were because more people are involved in the electoral process,’’ Holder said in the interview. “The beauty of this nation, the strength of this nation, is its diversity, and when we try to exclude people from being involved in the process . . . we weaken the fabric of this country.’’

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Holder said his department “will be aggressive” in investigating “jurisdictions that have attempted for whatever reason to restrict the ability of people to get to the polls.”

“I think a fundamental question is raised: Who are we as a nation?” Holder said. “Shouldn’t we be coming up with ways to encourage more people to get to the polls to express their views? I am not talking about any one particular state effort, but more generally I think for those who would consider trying to use methods, techniques to discourage people from coming to the polls — that’s inconsistent with what we say we are as a nation.”

The Post reports that “a staff attorney for the ACLU Voting Rights Project … said the Justice Department could reject some laws through the pre-clearance process and file lawsuits seeking to stop others from taking effect.” According to the Post, Holder has already said that “the laws could depress turnout for minorities, poor and elderly people and those with disabilities who would have difficulty securing valid identification documents.”

Florida is currently waiting for a ruling on controversial aspects of its law from a court in the District of Columbia. Five counties in Florida require federal preclearance of voting laws per the Voting Rights Act.

According to a recent poll of opinion leaders in health policy and innovators in health care delivery and finance, almost 90 percent of respondents believe state lawmakers should be implementing the health care reform law.

Parts of the Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Opinion Leaders Survey results released today show that an overwhelming majority of experts would disagree with Florida’s efforts to stall and block the Affordable Care Act in the state.

According to Modern Healthcare:

A full 89 percent of respondents said it is very important or important that federal and state policymakers continue to move forward to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the final Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Opinion Leaders Survey.

…

Survey respondents liked several cost-cutting proposals for Medicare and Medicaid put forth by President Barack Obama in his framework for reducing the federal budget deficit. Among them are adjusting payments to encourage efficient post-acute care, aligning Medicare and Medicaid drug payment policies, and introducing financial incentives to encourage Medicare beneficiaries to use high-value services.

Health care advocates across the state, as well as federal officials, have criticized state lawmakers for stalling the implementation of the health care reform law in the state. Advocates and residents have particularly taken issue with the state turning away millions of federal funds that would have gone to public health programs.

The state of Florida currently has one of the highest rate of uninsured residents in the country. Policymakers in the state are also leading the legal challenge against the health care reform law. It was announced today that the Supreme Court will hear the legal arguments in March 2012.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today (.pdf) that it will review the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care reform law. Twenty-six states, led by Florida, challenged the law — claiming it was an over-reach of federal power.

President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One (Pic by The White House, via Flickr)

The court will hear the legal arguments in March, before the presidential election.

Bloomberg reports that “the justices today said they will consider whether Congress exceeded its authority by requiring all Americans to either acquire insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.”

Florida has argued that the alleged unconstitutionality of the individual mandate is grounds for striking the bill in its entirety.

However, as the Los Angeles Times reports, this argument has not been upheld by lower courts:

Only three of the 12 appellate judges who have reviewed the law have decided it is unconstitutional to require all Americans to have health insurance. Not a single appeals court judge has said the entire law must be tossed out, the position advocated by Florida and 25 other Republican states leading the legal assault.

While the legal battle has loomed, Florida legislators have actively stopped or impeded the implementation of the health care reform law in the state as much as they have been able to. Florida is currently one of the only states without any plans to start a state exchange as is required by law. Florida also has one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the country.

The Foundation for Government Accountability was incorporated as a nonprofit on June 27, 2011. According to the organization’s website, the group’s goal is to “develop and promote free market public policies that achieve limited, constitutional government and a robust economy that will be an engine for job creation across the state.” The IRS lists the Foundation as a “public charity with a 50 percent deductibility limitation.”

The man behind this new right-leaning public policy advocacy group: Tarren Bragdon.

While unknown to most Floridians, Bragdon made quite a name for himself in Maine, where a newspaper called Bragdon “arguably the most influential non-elected suit” in the state capital.

At the age of 21, Bragdon became the youngest state representative ever elected to the Maine Legislature, but he moved on to influence policy in other ways after two terms.

As CEO of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, Bragdon ran afoul of Democratic critics for running a policy group that “cloaked itself as a ‘scholarly research center’ while advancing policy embraced by the extreme right and Libertarianism, a movement currently marshaled nationally by factions of the tea party,” according to another Maine newspaper.

Steve Mistler, who profiled Bragdon for the Sun Journal, reported that the group faced “allegations that its increased involvement in this year’s gubernatorial election pushes, if not violates, the political lobbying limits allowed by its tax-exempt status”:

The center’s political activism is made more relevant after a recent report in The New Yorker magazine detailing the tea party’s billionaire benefactor, Koch Industries. The modern-day oil baron has funnelled millions into the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity group.

According to the story, AFP is at the nexus of a national web of like-minded nonprofits set up as analysis centers to produce policy papers challenging climate science and regulation of the financial industry. Billed as education positions, the analysis papers ultimately benefit the organization’s anonymous corporate donors, the story says.

The furor over AFP would seem distant from Maine politics if not for the group’s similarities to the Maine Heritage Policy Center. The connection is more than resemblance: Two months ago AFP started a Maine chapter and began partnering with the policy center to hold activist training seminars.

Bragdon has repeatedly dismissed claims that the group broke any of the rules that restrict tax-exempt organizations, as well as claims that the group was bankrolled by shadowy monied interests such as the Koch brothers. His work eventually caught the eye of individuals in Florida who want the Sunshine State to have its own version of the Heritage Policy Center.

According to Bragdon, he left his influential position in Maine because he was interested in working in a bigger state.

“This was a good opportunity for me,” he tells The Florida Independent.

Bragdon says there “were initial donors who were interested in having [him] here” in Florida, but will not name who those donors are.

“Every year we will disclose our donors,” he says. “Unless they would prefer us not to disclose their contribution, but we don’t usually have a problem with that.”

While Florida donors might not request anonymity, Maine donors did request it back when Bragdon was with Heritage Policy Center. In March, Bragdon told a Maine newspaper that his donors chose to remain anonymous because of possible “political retribution (against) individuals who may choose privately to support our work.”

The Foundation for Government Accountability logo (Pic via floridafga.org)

While there is little knowledge of who helped open the Foundation’s doors, documents show the group already has a tie to a big name in conservative circles. According to the group’s articles of incorporation, one of the group’s “initial trustees” is Robert Levy of the Cato Institute. Levy is now officially a member of the Foundation’s board of directors.

The Cato Institute was one of the large conservative groups known to contribute to the Heritage Policy Center while Bragdon worked there. According to SourceWatch, “in its 2006 annual report the Cato Institute states that it made a grant of $50,000 to the Maine Heritage Policy Center.” The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane and Charles Koch of Koch Industries.

Levy is also known as the attorney behind a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Washington, D.C.’s 32-year-old gun ban in 2008. He is also sits on the boards of the Institute for Justice and the Federalist Society.

The Foundation has also registered with the State Policy Network. The State Policy Network has been described by Mother Jones as “a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement.”

“Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases,” Jones reports. “By blasting out policy recommendations and shaping lawmakers’ positions through briefings and private meetings, these think tanks cultivate cozy relationships with GOP politicians. And there’s a long tradition of revolving door relationships between SPN staffers and state governments. While they bill themselves as independent think tanks, SPN’s members frequently gather to swap ideas.”

Bragdon says he chose to base the group in Naples because he “has support” in the area and wants to have the group headquartered where his donor base is. He is looking to open a satellite office in Tallahassee. ”We anticipate on testifying on a couple of issues there,” he says.

Before moving to Florida, Bragdon had already met the biggest names in the state’s conservative circles: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Gov. Rick Scott. While Bragdon was CEO of the group, the Heritage Policy Center hosted Rubio as a keynote speaker. Bragdon says he also met with the governor in Tallahassee in August.

The Ave Herald reported that when Scott visited Immokalee and Ave Maria a few weeks ago,”he was accompanied by Tarren Bragdon, who moved to Ave Maria from Maine recently to set up a new think tank.” Bragdon says he “toured” with Scott in 2009 when Scott was campaigning with the anti-health care reform operation he launched, Conservative for Patients’ Rights.

One of the Foundation’s policy pamphlets was cited in the state’s defense of its new welfare drug testing law, during a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. The Foundation report claimed that a decline in the number of applicants approved for welfare benefits was because of the new law.

“Given the significant decline in August 2011 approvals,” Bragdon wrote, “it appears to be a very significant trend and quite likely related to the drug testing requirement, as the economy did not change radically from June through August.”

A judge threw out the study last week, claiming it was “not competent expert opinion.” The Bush-appointed judge wrote that “even a cursory review of certain assumptions in the pamphlet undermines its conclusions.”

Bragdon says his group researched the state’s welfare drug testing program independently. He was surprised when the state included his pamphlet in its defense.

Right now, Bragdon says he is working to make sure the group is ready to testify in front of state policy-makers during the upcoming legislative session. “The best way to influence policy is to actually talk to these legislators,” he says.

Among the many allegations directed at the Obama administration’s health care reform law, right-wing groups have long accused the law of providing outright funding for abortions.

There are current laws, however, that outlaw the use of public monies for abortion through public health care programs such as Medicaid. There are exceptions to this law (the Hyde Amendment) strictly for instances of rape, incest, or a threat to a woman’s life. The health care law does not undo this already standing practice.

Furthermore, states were allowed to pass state-level bans on Affordable Care Act dollars funding abortions in private insurance plans, too. Florida was one of the states that enacted such a ban — even though it is one of the very few states not implementing the state exchanges in the law and is challenging the law in court.

According to the Research Council press release:

Family Research Council (FRC) was joined today by 30 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in NFIB v. Sebelius, supporting two of the petitions for certiorari in that case, the first filed by the National Federation of Independent Business and the second by 26 states.

The Supreme Court brief was coauthored by Klukowski and eminent constitutional scholar Professor Nelson Lund of George Mason University. Of the amicus brief Klukowski made the following comments:

“We are honored that so many Members of Congress joined our brief. At first severability sounds arcane, but as we saw in the lower court it is the essential key to striking down Obamacare entirely. It’s not enough to only strike down the individual mandate. It’s only one section in a 450-section law. Hundreds of other provisions in Obamacare will kill jobs, ration healthcare and fund abortion, all while bankrupting healthcare providers and burdening America’s families.

“We look forward to building on our success regarding severability in the lower court, helping the excellent lawyers representing NFIB and the states persuade the Supreme Court why the individual mandate is one of those rare provisions requiring the entire law to go down.”

The Minnesota Independent’s Andy Birkey reports that another religious right group has also filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court asking that the law be struck down.

The Florida-led challenge to the health care reform law is set to be reviewed by the justices on Nov. 10, according to the legal resource SCOTUSblog.