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Wednesday, March 2, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court rules for protesters at military funerals; does not change Ohio law
By Jack Torry
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court today ruled that protesters have the right to picket near military funerals, but the justices made clear state and local governments can limit how close picketers get to the cemetery itself.
In a controversial 8-1 ruling, the justices ruled that the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech permitted members of a conservative church to gather near the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq, singing hymns and grasping signs such as “God hates fags.’’
By doing so, the justices tossed out a $5 million in damages that a federal court had awarded to Albert Snyder, whose son Matthew, a Marine, had been killed in 2006. Matthew, who was not gay, had been buried at a Catholic church in Maryland.
“Simply put, the church members had the right to be where they were,’’ Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s opinion. “Given that (the church’s) speech was at a public place on a matter of public concern, that speech is entitled to ‘special protection’ under the First Amendment.’’
Roberts wrote that “speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and - as it did here - inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.’’
Joining Roberts to form the majority were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Stephen H. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Anthony Kennedy.
But the ruling was extremely narrow and involved only the financial damages in the case. Roberts made clear that the ruling did not impact most of the laws in 44 states - including Ohio - that restrict how close protesters can get to a funeral site.
“To the extent these laws are content neutral, they raise very different questions from the tort verdict at issue in this case,’’ Roberts wrote.
In a separate opinion, Breyer wrote that “a state can sometimes regulate picketing, even picketing on matters of public concern,’’ adding that the court’s ruling “does not hold or imply that the state is always powerless to provide private individuals with necessary protections.’’
The protesters, members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, were about 1,000 feet from the burial site. Albert Snyder could only see the top of the protesters’ signs as he was driven to the funeral.
In a sole dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.’’
Alito pointed out that Snyder was not a public figure and only wanted to “bury his son in peace.’’ Instead, Alito wrote that the court’s majority protected the rights of the protesters to “brutalize’’ Snyder.
“In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims,’’ Alito wrote.
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TweetUPDATED with opponent reaction - “Heartbeat” bill to limit abortions gets first hearing; committee hears heartbeats
Backers of the “Heartbeat Bill” to limit abortions on Wednesday used an ultrasound projector so members of a House committee could hear heartbeats of unborn babies carried by two women - one 15 weeks pregnant and the other nine weeks present.
House Bill 125 would require a doctor to check if an unborn baby a woman is carrying has a heartbeat before performing an abortion.
If a heartbeat is detected, an abortion would be prohibited, except to preserve the life or health of the mother, said Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, R-Napoleon, sponsor of the bill.
“When enacted, this bill will be the nation’s strongest pro-life bill,” Wachtmann, also chairman of the Health Committee which is hearing the bill.
Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, which opposes the bill, called the ultrasound demonstration a “stunt.”
“They’re more interested in that than they are in women’s health,” Copeland said.
Wachtmann applauded the unusual presentation.
“I think it kind of hits you in the head about what’s going on in the mother’s womb,” Wachtmann said. “It’s a bit of an eye opener.”
Hearings could take from four to six weeks, Wachtmann said, before a committee vote to send the bill to the House floor.
The heartbeat demonstration was provided by Ducia Hamm, executive director of the Ashland Care Center in Ashland, Ohio. Two women, Heather Raubenolt, 15 weeks pregnant, and Erin Glockner, nine weeks pregnant, were connected separately to a monitor and the movements of their unborn babies was projected on a screen and the heartbeats played over a speaker.
While the bill has 49 cosponsors, the Ohio Right to Life Society does not support it because it believes there is no scenario under which a court would uphold it.
However, Walter M. Weber, senior litigation counsel for the American Center of Law and Justice, told the committee he believes the bill would be constitutional.
TweetCollective bargaining bill passes Senate, heads to House
COLUMBUS — The Ohio Senate on Wednesday voted 17-16 in favor of a bill that would severely restrict collective bargaining rights for 360,000 teachers, cops, firefighters, prison guards and other public workers across the state.
Proponents say it has the potential to save billions of dollars and give management the flexibility to deliver services in the face of dwindling resources. Opponents say it will turn collective bargaining into “collective begging” and take away workers’ basic rights that have been state law since 1983.
The vote brought boos and shouts of “Shame on you!” and “We will never forget!” from members of the audience.
State Sen. Shannon Jones, R-Clearcreek Twp., the bill’s primary sponsor, said the reforms are needed because government costs are growing beyond taxpayers’ ability or wiliness to sustain them.
“I understand that change is hard but sometimes change is the only option because the status quo has failed us,” she said. As the delivered her floor speech, two plain clothes state troopers and the Senate sergeant at arms watched her back in a chamber packed with teachers, firefighters, police officers and other union workers opposed to the bill.
The bill now moves to the GOP-controlled House where it is expected to pass. Gov. John Kasich also supports the legislation.
The 644-page bill calls for restricting collective bargaining to wages and conditions of employment, outlawing strikes for all public employees, requiring workers to pay at least 15 percent of health care premiums, and instituting a merit pay system and a method for laying off workers using criteria other than seniority.
When labor and management reach an impasse, it’ll be up to the elected body — a school board or city council — to make the final call on what labor agreements will look like.
Jones called it the “most appropriate solution” since elected bodies are accountable to voters.
State Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, called it a “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition.
Jay McDonald of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police said that system “insures that no employer has any motive to bargain in good faith.”
Ohio Federation of Teachers President Sue Taylor said teachers’ voices will be diminished in how schools are run and subject them to arbitrary and capricious decisions and favoritism.
“This is devastating to all of us,” she said.
How the vote broke down:
Voting against the bill were all 10 Democrats in the Senate, plus six Republicans: Bill Seitz, Jim Hughes, Scott Oelslager, Tim Grendell, Tom Patton and Gayle Manning.
All senators representing the Miami Valley voted in favor of the bill: Shannon Jones, Bill Beagle, Keith Faber, Tom Niehaus, Gary Cates, and Peggy Lehner.
Yes (17):
Bacon, Beagle, Cates, Daniels, Faber, Gillmor, Hite, Jones, Jordan, LaRose, Lehner, Obhof, Schaffer, Stewart, Wagoner, Widener, Niehaus
No (16):
Brown, Cafaro, Grendell, Hughes, Kearney, Manning, Oelslager, Patton, Sawyer, Schiavoni, Seitz, Skindell, Smith, Tavares, Turner, Wilson
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TweetPoll: Voters split on federal government shutdown, collective bargaining
A national Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday showed voters split on a possible federal government shutdown and divided almost as closely over whether collective bargaining for public employees should be limited.
In the poll, 46 percent said it would get a good thing for the federal government to shut down over disagreement in Washington over federal spending and 44 percent said it would be a bad thing.
The results on the collective bargaining question came as the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee in Columbus prepared to vote on a bill that would ban strikes by public employees and impose other limits.
On the issue, 45 percent said collective bargaining should be limited for public employees and 42 percent opposed limits on collective bargaining. However, 63 percent said government workers should pay more for benefits and retirement programs, while 31 percent said they shouldn’t.
On a related question, 47 percent said efforts by governors to limit collective bargaining rights are motivated by a desire to reduce government costs while 41 percent said the motive is to weaken unions.
The poll found a wide partisan gap on the collective bargaining issue, Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, said in a press release.
By big margins, Republicans said workers were overpaid and should pay more for benefits. Democrats, meanwhile, said the workers are paid about right or too little. Independent voters were in the middle.
If there’s a federal government shutdown, 47 percent said they’d blame Republicans while 38 percent would blame Democratic President Barack Obama.
Neither Obama nor members of Congress should be paid if there’s a shutdown, said 78 percent.
The poll was taken by live interviewers by land lines and cell phones with 1,887 registered voters across the country from Feb. 21 to Monday, Feb. 28 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
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