Because It Works

We've been waiting quite some time for this. After years of ballot initiatives, legal challenges, and legislation, medical marijuana is closer than ever to becoming fully legal in Nevada. Nine months after SB 374 was signed into law, Clark County is preparing zoning regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries.

So why is this important? Clark County is the first Southern Nevada municipal government to consider medical marijuana dispensary regulations. And that means Clark County may be the first Southern Nevada municipal government to legally sanction the sale of medical marijuana.

Even with the state legalizing medical marijuana dispensaries, the City of Henderson has banned them while the City of Las Vegas has been dragging its feet in issuing dispensary regulations and most of the rest of the state's municipal governments have been sitting on their hands. So it's a big (f**king) deal that Clark County is moving forward in allowing dispensaries.

But why is this such a big deal? Why should local governments cater to potheads' desires to get stoned? Believe it or not, this is about more than just "potheads getting stoned". This is about patients accessing the treatment they need.

Like it or not, some patients use marijuana as medicine... Because it works. What hasn't worked, on the other hand, is the War on Drugs. While many of the above mentioned potheads have been subjected to long, expensive, and nonsensical prison sentences, multinational drug cartels continue to thrive in the violence plagued black market. The cartels truly have been the only ones "winning" the War on Drugs.

In the big picture of the War on Drugs, Clark County's consideration of dispensary regulations may not seem like a big deal. However, it will be should Clark County adopt new regulations. After decades of criminalizing people who are just looking for treatment that works, Nevada has the chance to move in a different direction... And start implementing sensible drug policies that work.

Alas, The Buffett Rule "Only" Raises Some Revenue & Brings About Some Tax Justice.

Yesterday, ProgressNow Nevada and PLAN were on the sidewalk just outside the Sunset Post Office (across Sunset Road from McCarran Airport). Why? They figured "Tax Day" would be the perfect day to highlight the many problems hidden in the federal tax code.

Here's the problem.

This Tax Day, a significant majority of Americans think that the rich are getting off easy compared to middle- and working-class Americans. According to the latest CNN poll, “68% of respondents said the current tax system benefits the rich and is unfair to ordinary workers, compared with 29% who disagreed with that view.” The poll’s respondents have good reason to think the rich pay less: Many millionaires pay a lower effective tax rate because their income comes from capital gains or other low-tax investments, instead of wages. Yet Senate Republicans blocked the Buffett Rule last night, which would have helped address this problem, even though it too has strong support from the public.

That's right. "The usual suspects" blocked The Buffett Rule. And they whined about "raising taxes" on the 1% who hardly pay any.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada has long supported the idea of the Buffett Rule and this bill. But Sen. Dean Heller, a Republican, voted against it Monday evening -- dismissing it as a “campaign gimmick,” anticipating the attacks Democrats will be lobbing his way with an answer.

“While Nevada struggles with high unemployment, the president and Senate Democrats have chosen to focus on a measure that will not create a single job,” Heller said in a statement. “They have ignored rising gas prices, have not passed a budget in more than three years, and shoved job-killing government health care on small businesses across the country. Now, the best they can do is push a tax hike designed for nothing more than a campaign press release. It’s no wonder the American people are so frustrated with Washington.”

Reid's statement following the vote stated: “Today Senate Republicans again put millionaires ahead of the middle class. Currently, most hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate than many of their middle-class employees – but while the incomes for the wealthy have ballooned in recent years, middle-class wages haven’t kept pace with the price of a college education or a secure retirement. The measure that Republicans blocked today would have restored fairness to our tax code and reduced the deficit without asking middle class families or seniors to sacrifice any more than they already have."

Oh, jeez. Where has Dean Heller been? Oh yes, that's right. He's been busy attacking women's health care. I guess he just hasn't had time to actually do his job and propose any real solutions for the problems our country faces.

Meanwhile, Joe Heck has been busy trashing The Buffett Rule on Twitter. I guess he has to do whatever he can to have his BFF's back. After all, Joe Heck's BFF, Willard "Mr. 1%" Romney, only paid a 13.9% tax rate on his $21.6 million 2010 income. He certainly wouldn't want "job creators" like Mittens to pay what they're supposed to be paying in taxes.

Certainly, we've been hearing plenty of spin from the G-O-TEA this week on The Buffett Rule and federal taxes. Here are the facts. Our current federal tax code essentially makes the 99% subsidize the 1% by way of the massive loopholes that the super-rich use (and abuse) to avoid paying taxes. The big corporations that spend the most on lobbying pay the least in taxes. The very wealthiest Americans living in the highest income zip codes in the country pay less in taxes than the working poor living in low income zip codes. Notice a pattern here? Inequality in our federal tax code is real, and it penalizes working class families while continuing to provide "Billionaires' Bailouts".

Oh, and for all the G-O-TEA's whining on budget deficits, they're not proposing any real solutions to close that deficit. They may be whining that the reforms present in "The Buffett Rule" only raise about $47 billion in revenue, but their budget plans actually add to the deficit! So Joe Heck and Dean Heller claim The Buffett Rule is useless because it may "only" raise about $47 billion (which, by the way, is their figure!), yet their preferred policies only worsen the budget deficit while continuing to promote massive inequality. Funny enough, Heck, Heller, and Romney have gone so far to the radical right in opposing common sense tax reform that they even oppose their supposed idol!



And even at Mittens' recent campaign "roundtable", he couldn't stop participants from pointing out some inconvenient truths.



Whoops. So why again is The Buffett Rule such a bad idea? And did the ProgressNow and PLAN supporters rallying outside the Sunset Post Office near McCarran yesterday look so "crazy" after all? I guess they're not alone.

Health Care on Trial (& It's Really More Political Than Legal)

Last week, we celebrated the second anniversary of passage of the Affordable Care Act. We've seen how "Obamacare" benefits the entire country, as well as how the ACA benefits Nevada. But now, health care is on trial. The US Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this week on the legal merits of ACA.

So far, the most challenged provision of ACA has been the individual mandate. But funny enough, Republicans don't like to talk about how it became a key provision of health care reform in the first place.



Once upon a time, Republicans liked the individual mandate because they thought it promoted "individual responsibility". It was not until President Obama agreed to include an individual mandate in his health care reform package that they all of a sudden embraced the legal argument against federal regulatory authority that had previously only been pushed by fringe libertarian legal thinkers.

And that's what makes this week so odd. Over the weekend, both New York Times Supreme Court expert Linda Greenhouse and Slate Supreme Court watcher Dahlia Lithwick stated the obvious, which is that the legal case for health care reform really is more of a slam dunk than most of the media pundits want us to believe. Despite all the political controversy over "LIBERTY!!!", the "tea party" really has no legitimate legal leg to stand upon when it comes to challenging basic federal regulatory authority.

Here's Greenhouse:

So I want to unpack the challengers’ Commerce Clause argument for what it is: just words.

Basically just one word, in fact: “unprecedented.” ...

The government argues that, to the contrary, the “uncompensated consumption of health care” by those who are willfully or helplessly uninsured is itself an enormous economic activity. The uninsured don’t exist apart from commerce. To the contrary, their medical care results in some $43 billion of uncovered health care costs annually and, through cost-shifting, adds $1,000 a year to the average cost of a family insurance policy. People who don’t want to buy broccoli or a new car can eat brussels sprouts or take the bus, but those without health insurance are in commerce whether they like it or not.

And here's Lithwick:



Even "Fox News" pundit Juan Williams thinks Chief Justice John Roberts wouldn't want to support an overtly political move to overturn the ACA, since the case against health care is really more political than legal. And as we've discussed before, even a number of CONSERVATIVE legal scholars believe the ACA is wholly constitutional and within Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce.

Again, this is why the case against "Obamacare" has always been more about the politics than about the law. The legal case really is open-shut, so all the G-O-TEA can do is spew more venom and hope against hope that "The Supremes" put campaign politics above The Constitution. And while this court has been playing with fire lately in reaching some controversial decisions, there's a good probability that even this court suspects overturning the ACA because of partisan politics is simply crossing a bridge too far.

Whatever Happened to "No Legislating from the Bench"?

I guess when far right Republican appointed judges issue opinions that makes teabaggers jump for joy, it's A-O-K.

A federal district court judge in Florida ruled today that a key provision in the new health care law is unconstitutional, and that the entire law must be voided.

Roger Vinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, agreed with the 26 state-government plaintiffs that Congress exceeded its authority by passing a law penalizing individuals who do not have health insurance.

"I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate," Vinson writes. "Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void."

Even if it has no real legal footing.

The judge has the chutzpah to cite McCollough v. Maryland:

[S]hould congress, in the execution of its powers, adopt measures which are prohibited by the constitution; or should congress, under the pretext of executing its powers, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not intrusted to the government; it would become the painful duty of this tribunal, should a case requiring such a decision come before it, to say, that such an act was not the law of the land. McCulloch, supra, 17 U.S. at 421, 423.

Is the individual mandate "prohibited" by the Constitution? Is it being use to accomplish an object not intrusted to the government? This citation is nonsensical. The judge argues:

[T[he means used to serve [the health bill's] end must be “appropriate,” “plainly adapted,” and not “prohibited” or inconsistent “with the letter and spirit of the constitution.” [.. .] The Necessary and Proper Clause cannot be utilized to “pass laws for the accomplishment of objects” that are not within Congress’ enumerated powers. As the previous analysis of the defendants’ Commerce Clause argument reveals, the individual mandate is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution.

This reasoning turns McCollough on its head. The issue is not whether the Constitution empowers Congress to enact an individual mandate, but rather whether the object of Congress' use of the individual mandate is a purpose permitted by the Constitution. The judge concedes the object is Constitutional and that the Constitution does not prohibit an individual mandate. Thus, the reasoning even this judge applies compels a finding that the individual mandate is in fact constitutional.

In the end, the judge bootstraps the individual mandate to declare the entire health bill unconstitutional because, the judge argues, the mandate is essential to the functioning of the entire scheme. How this squares with the mandate not being "necessary and proper" is beyond me.

The decision however, has a better chance of succeeding in higher courts precisely because of the non-severability decision. The insurance companies will be happy with this decision, as opposed to the Virginia decision which struck down the mandate but not the health bill.

That said, I doubt any of these decisions survive.

Believe it or not, there is precedent for this. In the past, hard-right conservative judges struck down the Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Minimum Wage, and even Social Security, only for The Supreme Court to later rule all these bills Constitutional and upheld them as law of the land.

And hopefully, this will come to pass again.

The [Commerce C]lause as written gives Congress the power to regulate economic decisions and there is a long line of Supreme Court cases that reinforce Congress’ broad power to enact laws that substantially affect prices, marketplaces, or other economic transactions. Health care comprises some 17 percent of the national economy and the failure to purchase health insurance — the very passivity that Vinson is referring to — is having a significant impact on national health care spending and growing costs.

But this too is an argument that he rejects. “If impact [of the uninsured] on interstate commerce were to be expressed and calculated mathematically, the status of being uninsured would necessarily be represented by zero. Of course, any other figure multiplied by zero is also zero. Consequently, the impact must be zero, and of no effect on interstate commerce.” Caring for the uninsured, in other words, is free and creates no cost shifts throughout the system.

That’s just not true (doctors and hospitals and treat the uninsured for free) and the argument unravels further when Vinson completely dismisses the Necessary and Proper Clause by arguing that it’s subservient to the Commerce Clause. That Clause, Vinson writes “is not really a separate inquiry, but rather is part and parcel of the Commerce Clause analysis as it augments that enumerated power by authorizing Congress ‘To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper’ to regulate interstate commerce.”

This is the kind of distortion that really undermines the entire decision and sets Vinson apart as an activist who has decided that Congress has no power to regulate insurance companies, establish exchanges, extend drug discounts to seniors, and give small businesses tax credits to help purchase insurance are all unconstitutional. Conservatives should be outraged.

Isn't it funny how teabaggers often praise The Constitution... Except when they don't like it? The Commmerce Clause was included in Article I, Section 8, for a reason. Congress has the authority to make laws to ensure a fair and orderly marketplace. And in this case, Congress passed health care reform last year to make health care more affordable and accessible. There's really nothing in The Constitution making this "illegal", and teabaggers are really grasping at straws in hoping that these overtly political decisions from a small handful of "activist" conservative judges are somehow upheld.

Let's see what The Supreme Court Justices have to say when this case ends up in their hands.

Today's Very Special Witnesses in the Prop H8 Trial

While the rest of us are following a special election way out east and ongoing political turbulence here in Nevada, something very interesting is going on in California. On Day 6 of the federal Prop H8 trial, witnesses being called to the stand will include UMass Economics Professor M.V. Lee Badgett and "de-gay-ification" survivor Ryan Kendall. Oh yeah, and this guy will also be testifying.



Yes, Jerry Sanders is the Mayor of San Diego. Yes, he's been elected as a Republican. And yes, he now supports marriage equality.

Karen Ocamb explains some more:

I confess, I had never really heard of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders until his name came up in conjunction with a city council resolution to have the city attorney file an amicus brief in support of the marriage equality case. I confess, too, that once I heard he was a major law enforcement Republican in that very conservative city, I didn’t hold out much hope for him agreeing to the brief – especially since he was up for re-election.

Slap my wrist and shame on me for stereotyping before investigating.

Jerry Sanders gave a news conference that surprised the hell out of the LGBT community – tearfully telling how he had to support marriage equality because he didn’t want anything less for his lesbian daughter and her girlfriend. We panted for that video which we re-played and re-played – some of us wondering with tears streaming down our faces – if our fathers would put their careers on the line to stand up for us.

He did put his career on the line and he did lose a great amount of support from his own political party, but he's gained the respect and admiration of so many equality activists who appreciate him coming around. It will be interesting at the very least to hear what he says on the stand.

Of course, it will also be interesting to hear Professor Badgett detail the legal and financial discrimination we LGBTQ folk still face without civil marriage equality, as well as Mr. Kendall to describe the emotional and physical torture he had to endure because of a few misguided people who thought they could "save" him by "changing" him. All in all, today looks to be a riveting day in the courtroom and I'll link to the coverage of the Prop H8 trial later today.

More on SB 283: What We Have & What We're Still Being Denied

(Also at the Stonewall Blog)

As we've been talking about for some time, SB 283 will officially become law on October 1. This will bring about some major changes in the law, mostly helping us. However, there are some things that we need to remember. Secretary of State Ross Miller hasn't yet updated the Nevada SoS site to include a domestic partnership page (as California's SoS does)

First off, David Parks wasn't joking when he said that this is NOT marriage. While SB 283 provides for domestic partnerships (DPs) that are supposed to treat "domestic partnered" couples just like married spouses, let's remember that this theory doesn't always work out in practice. So while we celebrate the first major advance in civil rights in Nevada in decades, let's keep working toward the final goal of true civil marriage equality.

Probably the most significant reminder of the challenges LGBT families face in this state is the section of SB 283 considering workplace health care benefits. Simply put, employers are NOT required under Nevada law to provide health care benefits to domestic partners of employees as they do to other employees' married spouses. Fortunately it is at least optional, so you'll continue to receive DP benefits at work if your employer already provides them. And if your employer doesn't yet provide DP benefits, you can still try to convince them to do so. Just don't expect the State of Nevada to make them do so... At least until we can improve the DP law.

Nonetheless, SB 283 will change Nevada law for the better for our families. One major example of this will be in family law. Specifically, child custody laws will be improved to make it easier for gay & lesbian couples looking to have children to do so. And considering the current headaches LGBT families with children have, this is quite a welcome development.

And in many other matters, our families will receive more legal protections. Hospital visitation (should the partner become ill) will be easier. Community property laws will apply to domestic partners. State tax benefits currently afforded to married spouses will also be extended to domestic partners.

But again, we must stress that DPs under SB 283 are not marriage and will not be treated by the federal government as such. Even if you and your partner file for a DP this fall, you will still not be able to file a joint federal tax return. You won't be able to receive any spousal benefits from the military or the VA. You won't be able to sponsor your partner for US citizenship or permanent residency if he/she is a foreign national. Unfortunately, DOMA still applies here as it does across the nation. This is why it's crucial that not only Nevada law change to give our families full equality, but that federal law change as well.

I hope this helps answer some of the questions you may have about SB 283 and its imminent implementation. I'll keep the Stonewall site updated with any new information from the Secretary of State, as well as new legal opinions on what will and will not be covered by SB 283.