One in ten federal judgeships are currently vacant, a reality that has crippled many federal courts. As ABA president Bill Robinson recently explained, “[d]elay at the federal courts puts people’s lives on hold while they wait for their cases to be resolved. Businesses face uncertainty and costly holdups, preventing them from investing and creating jobs. In sum, judicial vacancies kill jobs.”

Of  course, this problem has an easy solution — confirm the people President Obama nominated to fill these vacant seats. Presently, nineteen nominees have cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. Twelve of these judges cleared the committee without a single objection, and five more were voted out of the committee with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) as the only objector. Lee, of course, recently promised to oppose every single one of Obama’s nominees, and he also believes that national child labor laws, Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional — so his opinion of a nominee’s qualifications for the bench are not really entitled to any weight.

Yesterday, a wave of Democratic senators spoke out of the Senate floor about the growing vacancy crisis and the need to confirm these pending nominees, so it is clear that some action is coming on these nominees. When it comes — and it should not wait one second longer than it needs to — Senate Republicans will have a choice. They can either serve the American people by confirming a slate of judges that no reasonable person has lodged a single objection to, or they can prove that they care about nothing more than obstructionism by blocking these votes.

 

South Carolina elections are still free of dead voters.

That’s what the State Election Commission concluded from its investigation into South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson’s declaration that over 900 dead people may have voted in recent elections.

Though the charge itself is laughable, South Carolina was still compelled to devote taxpayer money to investigate whether their elections had indeed been tainted by zombie voters. Unsurprisingly, they uncovered no evidence of voter fraud:

The State Election Commission said Thursday that 95 percent of the 207 allegedly dead people who voted in the 2010 general election either were alive and cast ballots legally or did not vote. [...]

Of its review of the 207 contested votes cast in 2010, the commission found:

• 106 votes were clerical errors by poll workers – mistakes like marking John Doe Sr. instead of John Doe Jr.

• 56 votes were “bad data matching” – meaning the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which raised concerns about zombie voters, was wrong in assuming the voters were dead.

• 32 votes were “voter participation errors,” meaning someone was credited as voting in an election when they did not, most likely because of a stray mark on the voter rolls that was electronically scanned to record a voter’s participation.

• Three ballots were cast absentee by voters who died before Election Day.

In the other five percent of cases, there wasn’t enough information to determine an explanation, though still no evidence for fraud.

When Wilson first leveled the charge, many conservative media outlets, from Human Events to Fox News to Weasel Zippers and others, jumped on the story, using it as justification for South Carolina’s discriminatory voter ID law. Now, four days after the State Election Commission released its initial findings, none of these organizations have ran an update or correction, much less a full story informing their readers that “dead voters” in South Carolina still don’t exist.

That’s the major problem with Scooby-Doo accusations like “dead voters”: the investigation is sexy, but the finale is always far more mundane. As ThinkProgress wrote earlier this month, “when the allegations are inevitably shown to be false, far fewer news outlets follow up.” As a result, many people are still left with the mistaken impression that dead voters tainted South Carolina’s recent elections.

Last year, the Florida legislature passed a bill enacting requirements for groups conducting voter registration drives so onerous that even the League of Women Voters were forced to pull out of the state. Sensible individuals would see this episode as a cautionary tale. South Carolina legislators view it instead as a how-to guide.

This week, the South Carolina House will consider HB 4549, a bill that mimics Florida’s changes to its voter registration laws. Among the changes contained in the bill is a new requirement that voter registration groups must submit registration applications within 48 hours of completion or face a fine of up to $1,000 per application. It has already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee and faces good prospects in the overall House, which Republicans control 76-48.

A similar 48-hour requirement is precisely what forced the League of Women Voters out of the Sunshine State. Now, the same could happen in South Carolina.

HB 4549 “would make it very difficult for the LWV to register voters in South Carolina,” Barbara Zia, co-president of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina told ThinkProgress. If it’s passed in its present form, Zia said, “the League could not afford the liability and risk that it would entail to continue registering voters in South Carolina.”

Voter registration drives disproportionately benefit minorities and low-income communities. Last election cycle, black voters were four times as likely as white voters to register via a registration drive.

South Carolina is already hurting in the voter turnout arena. In 2010, the state ranked just 36th in turnout. If the legislature succeeds in passing these new restrictions, that ranking will surely drop further.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the “mother of all corporate immunity cases,” by all accounts it did not go well.

The case involves whether Royal Dutch Shell can be held accountable in American courts for allegedly working with the Nigerian government to torture, execute and detain members of an ethnic group under a law holding the most atrocious human rights violators accountable to international norms. To be clear, there are some legitimate reasons why the Supreme Court should be wary of this case — Shell is a foreign corporation, and its alleged actions occurred on foreign soil, so it is not entirely certain that American courts can reach Shell’s actions. There are worrying signs, however, that the Court’s conservatives are prepared to simply declare all corporations, both foreign and domestic, immune from international legal norms. Most notably, the Court’s supposed swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, asked several questions suggesting that he does not believe corporations can be held accountable to this law:

• “[C]ounsel, for me, the case turns in large part on this: page 17 of the red brief. It says, “‘International law does not recognize corporate responsibility for the alleged offenses here.’”
• “[I]n the area of international criminal law, which is just analogous, I recognize, there is a distinction made between individuals and corporations.”
• Suppose an American corporation commits human trafficking with U.S. citizens in the United States. Under your view, the U.S. corporation could be sued in any country in the world, and it would — and that would have no international consequences. We don’t look to the international consequences at all. That’s — that’s the view of the Government of the United States, as I understand.

If Justice Kennedy is willing to go this far, there’s a good chance that his four even more conservative colleagues are willing to come along with him. Worse, his questions yesterday suggest that the Court is prepared to apply a baffling double standard to wealthy and powerful corporations. Kennedy, of course, was the author of Citizens United, which declared that corporations have the exact same rights as actual human beings for purposes of spending money to influence elections. Yet, when a corporation engages in mass atrocities, they are suddenly entitled to legal immunities far beyond those available to people.

In other words, corporations are people, my friend — except when they torture.

A growing number of ethics questions and investigations are mounting for the Republican House majority, despite earlier leadership pledges of ethical purity.

In 2010, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) promised that if his party won the majority in the midterm elections, he (as majority leader) and his colleagues would take the toughest possible stand on ethics.

I think as the Republicans emerge as a new governing majority, it is incumbent upon us to institute a zero-tolerance policy. We understand there were reasons for our being fired in ’06 and ’08. Some of that had to do with ethics violations. I mean we had several members under public investigations during the time of the ’06 elections. I think we’ve learned that that’s not a good way to gain the confidence of the people and that we ought to be instituting a zero-tolerance policy here.

“We’ve learned our lesson,” Cantor told the National Review Online, “We cannot tolerate any ethics violations or behavior, in terms of compromising the ethics that the people expect us to have as their representatives.” Watch the video:

So, how are they doing?

• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), finance vice chair for the National Republican Congressional Committee (the House GOP’s campaign arm), is reportedly under federal grand jury investigation for alleged reimbursement of campaign donors by his companies, improper tax deductions, inaccurate Congressional disclosure reports.
• Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), (R-AL) continues to chair financial services despite an ongoing investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for alleged insider trading.
• Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), continues to chair the House Armed Services, despite reports that Congressional investigators allege he got a special cut-rate on his Countrywide home loan.
• Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), continues to chair the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Policy and Enforcement Subcommittee, despite reports that Congressional investigators allege he got a special cut-rate on his Countrywide home loan.
• Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), continues to chair the House Rules Committee’s Rules Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process, despite reports that Congressional investigators allege he got a special cut-rate on his Countrywide home loan.
• Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) continues to serve, despite ongoing Federal Election Commission and House Ethics Committee investigations into reports that he engaged in illegal campaign fundraising.
• Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) continues to serve despite reported IRS and FBI investigations into alleged tax evasion and failure to disclose $132,000 in “loans” from a company co-owned by his mother.
• Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) continues to serve despite a reported $117,000 in unpaid child support payments.
• According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA), Gary Miller (R-CA), and Tim Murphy (R-PA) have also been under investigation over the past two years for ethical issues, yet all three continue to serve.

Even Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was hit with an ethics complaint last September. The Office of Congressional Ethics has not yet addressed allegations by American Family Voices that Issa used his “public position to promote his private financial interest” and Issa’s office has denied wrongdoing.

Not only has the House leadership stood by their accused colleagues, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will headline a fundraiser for Buchanan’s reelection campaign this Saturday. But while they may not have learned the lesson, with 68 percent of the country disapproving of the job the House GOP is doing, according to a recent PPP poll, Cantor appears correct that the House Republicans’ ethical laxity is “not a good way to gain the confidence of the people.”

Andrew Cohen chronicles the many uncertainties in Alabama’s case against Thomas Arthur, who was convicted of murder three decades ago and is scheduled to be executed next month. They include a key witness who recanted and then unrecanted her testimony, another man who admitted to committing the murder, and a wig containing DNA evidence that likely belongs to the real killer.

Alabama, however, refuses to allow this evidence to be tested even though it would cost the state nothing to do so:

Late last month, I profiled the wobbly capital conviction against Troy Noling in Ohio and there are remarkable similarities between it and the Arthur case. Both involve white defendants. Both include contentions of innocence and allegations of bad lawyering at trial. Both include a lack of physical evidence linking the defendants to the crime. Both include crucial witness testimony that borders the farcical. And both include state officials reluctant to permit sophisticated DNA testing that might definitively answer questions about whether the defendants committed the murders they will die for.

Arthur’s attorneys are even willing to pay for that testing, the few thousand bucks it would be, and the testing could be completed by the execution date. It is here where prosecutors and judges lose me when they prioritize “finality” in capital punishment cases at the expense of “accuracy.” It would cost Alabama nothing to let Arthur’s lawyers do the testing. And it might solve a case that already has cost the state millions of dollars. Instead, Alabama wants to finally solve its Arthur problem by executing him. No matter how the new DNA test could come out, the state is more interested in defending its dubious conviction.

Alabama can thank the five conservatives on the Supreme Court for its ability to deny Arthur an opportunity to prove his innocence. In 2009, a 5-4 Supreme Court denied a similar DNA test to a potentially innocent man in Alaska.

In January, marijuana legalization activists in Colorado turned in twice as many signatures as they needed to place a legalization initiative on the state’s 2012 ballot. Yesterday, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler officially announced that the activists had submitted enough signatures, meaning the initiative will appear on the ballot this November.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, if passed, the Colorado initiative would legalize limited marijuana use and possession for adults over age 21, while regulating and taxing it like alcohol:

If passed, the initiative would allow adults 21 and older to possess and use limited amounts of marijuana. It would also establish a system of regulations to control and tax marijuana sales, much like the system that exists for alcohol, and direct the state legislature to enact legislation governing the cultivation, processing, and sales of industrial hemp.

“Supporters of rational marijuana policies everywhere should congratulate the residents of Colorado for placing this initiative on the ballot,” Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a press release. Indeed, a slim majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, according to recent Gallup polling, while more than three-quarters support legalization for medicinal purposes. Sixteen states have legalized medical marijuana, but the federal government still maintains strict prohibition laws.

And while progressive Colorado Rep. Jared Polis (D) has led the fight to end marijuana prohibition at the federal level, the cause has also been taken up by libertarians who have used legalization as a wedge issue to attack the Constitution’s guarantee that national leaders can actually govern. Activists in California, for instance, sought to declare Justice Department enforcement of federal marijuana laws unconstitutional last year. While DOJ’s actions were unfortunate, the lawsuit itself was a seemingly frivolous way to attack the federal government.

Meanwhile, libertarian activists and politicians who view much of the 20th century’s social policy as unconstitutional have used marijuana liberalization as an issue to jump-start their anti-government crusades. That should concern progressives, who cannot afford to cede an increasingly popular issue that holds important implications for criminal justice reform and public safety to a movement that wants to use it as a way to end the social safety net and gut worker safety laws.

Since HB 56, Alabama’s extreme immigration law, went into effect last fall, children stayed home from school out of fear that their parents would be deported, and U.S.-born children have been denied food stamps because of their parents’ immigration status. Public utility companies denied service to anyone who did not provide ID to prove they were legally in the U.S. Farmers watched their crops rot in the fields after their workers left Alabama. In all, one study shows that the damage from HB 56 could end up costing Alabama about 100,000 jobs and billions in GDP losses.

After officials began enforcing HB 56, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) set up a hotline for Alabama residents to report how the law affected them. Thousands of calls poured in, and the SPLC has collected some of the most egregious stories: undocumented immigrants denied pay, U.S. citizens harassed because they look like immigrants, a family surviving without water in their home. “The result is a crisis that harkens back to the bleakest days of Alabama’s racial history,” according to the report, which highlights 10 of these stories:

[The stories] illustrate the devastating impact HB 56 has had on Alabama Latinos, regardless of their immigration status. The stories also illustrate that HB 56 has unleashed a kind of vigilantism, leading some Alabamians to believe they can cheat, harass and intimidate Latinos with impunity. These consequences were easily foreseeable.

The law was forged within a legislative debate rife with stereotypes, misinformation, incendiary rhetoric and bigotry. The Senate sponsor told colleagues they needed to “empty the clip” to deal with immigrants. The House sponsor, Rep. Micky Hammon, cited the increase in Alabama’s Latino population to illustrate the growth of the state’s undocumented population. Hammon’s conflation of “Hispanic” with “illegal immigrant” during the legislative debate was so egregious that a federal judge cited it in a recent opinion.

When legislators supporting HB 56 can’t distinguish between ethnicity and immigration status, it should be no surprise the law brings the chaos and confusion described in the following pages. As the Latinos whose stories are told here can attest, HB 56 has been a dangerous, failed experiment—a humanitarian disaster.

“There is no fixing this law,” said SPLC legal director Mary Bauer. “It does not need to be re-written or tweaked at the margins, as some Alabama legislators have suggested. It should be repealed.” State Sen. Billy Beasley (D) described the repeal effort as an “uphill battle.” Three other senators are supporting Beasley’s proposed legislation that would repeal the bill entirely, and a Republican state senator has introduced a bill that would repeal some of the worst parts of the law.

Alabama lawmakers have had a few months to see the irrevocable damage HB 56 has already done to their state. Gov. Robert Bentley (R) should have called a special session sooner for the legislators to do something about this harmful immigration law, but the SPLC’s new report simply highlights how necessary it is that legislators roll back at least the worst parts of HB 56, if not the entire law — and soon.

Conservative conspiracy theories have had a fun ride since President Obama took office.

First, Barack Obama was a Muslim. Then, he was born in Kenya instead of the United States and only served as president via a forged birth certificate. Then, his decisions as president can only be understood through the frame of “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior”.

Now, according to the latest tale, courtesy of House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), President Obama wants to “convert [our Constitution] to some South African Constitution.”

Issa made the curious accusation Friday at the California Republican Party’s Spring Convention in Burlingame:

ISSA: We’re going to establish a very different policy. One, that we have a president who will respect the Constitution, not try to convert it to some [inaudible] South African Constitution. [Applause]

Listen to it:

Issa likely conflated the erroneous accusation that President Obama wants “some South African Constitution” with and equally erroneous accusation that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg prefers the South African Constitution that has recently infected right-wing commentary.

Earlier this month, Ginsburg told an audience in Egypt that other countries’ constitutions may be better models for their burgeoning democracy than the United States Constitution because more recently drafted constitutions are often more precise in laying out individual rights. If Issa had bothered to the entire interview, however, he would have heard her stirring praise for the First Amendment, her references to the “genius” of our Constitution, and her statement about how powerful it is that our Constitution places power in “We the People.” Moreover, if Issa paid attention to the views of Ginsburg’s conservative colleagues, he would know that conservative Justice Antonin Scalia made a similar point when he testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the Soviet Union’s bill of rights “was much better than ours.”

Yet, even if Ginsburg had claimed that South Africa’s legal traditions are inherently superior to ours, her comments are hardly indicative of President Obama’s views because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is actually an entirely different person than Barack Obama. To help Issa understand this difficult concept, ThinkProgress has prepared the following visual aide:

Hat-tip: @lhfang

Wisconsin prohibits employers from discriminating “on the basis of age, race, creed, color, disability, marital status, sex, national origin, ancestry, arrest record, conviction record, military service, use or nonuse of lawful products off the employer’s premises during nonworking hours, or declining to attend a meeting or to participate in any communication about religious matters or political matters,” and it ensures that this law has teeth by allowing victims of discrimination to hold their employers accountable in state court. That’s about to change, however, as the Wisconsin legislature recently voted to strip the state’s workers of their ability to actually enforce this law — leaving anti-worker Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) as the only obstacle to the law’s total repeal:

The Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating by giving workers more avenues to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

In November, the state Senate approved (SB 202) rolling back this provision. On Wednesday, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes. The legislation is now in the hands of Gov. Scott Walker (R). His office did not return a request for comment on whether the governor would sign it. . . .

Women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men make. In Wisconsin, it’s 75 cents, according to [the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health], which also estimates that families in the state “lose more than $4,000 per year due to unequal pay.”

Walker, of course, has no power to repeal federal law, so he cannot strip Wisconsin workers of their right to be free from race, gender and other forms of discrimination that are banned by national civil rights laws. Nevertheless, Wisconsin law provides additional protections, such as safeguards for people with criminal convictions, that are not available under federal law.

Moreover, as Amanda Terkel points out, Wisconsin state courts can enable victims of discrimination to receive swifter justice instead of waiting for an increasingly overburdened federal judiciary to act. And this problem is only likely to get worse as Walker’s political allies in the U.S. Senate wage an unprecedented campaign of obstruction against President Obama’s nominees to the federal bench.

It’s tough to imagine something more fundamental to a just society that a guarantee that employers will not discriminate, which is why it is so baffling why Wisconsin lawmakers do not believe that their state should protect against such discrimination.