Last month, James Eagan Holmes allegedly stood up in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire on the audience, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others. A year and a half earlier, a different gunman opened fire in a Safeway parking lot in Tuscon, Arizona, wounding then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), killing federal Judge John Roll, and wounding or killing sixteen others. Both shooters used high-capacity magazines to maximize their ability to kill as many people in as short of a time as possible.

In the wake of these two high-profile mass killings, the Republican Party nonetheless decided to include a line in their party platform demanding that access to high-capacity magazines be protected:

Gun ownership is responsible citizenship, enabling Americans to defend their homes and communities. We condemn frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and oppose federal licensing or registration of law-abiding gun owners. We oppose legislation that is intended to restrict our Second Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or magazines or otherwise restoring the ill-considered Clinton gun ban.

The GOP’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is questionable at best. Even Justice Scalia acknowledged in DC v. Heller that bans on “dangerous and unusual weapons” are permissible, and high-capacity magazines almost certainly qualify as such. Unlike regular capacity handguns, which can be used for personal self-defense in the home, massive magazines like the 100 round drum used in the Aurora shooting serve little purpose other than to rain bullets on many, many victims. As one gun show attendee told ThinkProgress, “If ten rounds of ammunition can’t do the job you probably shouldn’t own a gun. I don’t want to live next to that guy.”

Last month, President Obama’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit claiming that a recently enacted Ohio law eliminating early voting in the three days before an election, except for members of the military, violates the Constitution’s guarantee that all voters enjoy equal access to the franchise. The campaign’s lawsuit called for the right of all voters to cast an early ballot be restored in Ohio — it explicitly stated that expanding the franchise, not taking early voting away from military personnel as well, was the appropriate outcome.

In an opinion by Judge Peter Economus, a federal court agreed with the Obama campaign on Friday that the Ohio anti-voter law must be suspended:

“A citizen has a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction.” In Ohio, that right to participate equally has been abridged by Ohio Revised Code ‘ 3509.03 and the Ohio Secretary of State’s further interpretation of that statute with regard to in-person early voting. In 2005, Ohio expanded participation in absentee balloting and in-person early voting to include all registered Ohio voters. Now, “in-person early voting” has been redefined by the Ohio legislature to limit Plaintiffs’ access to the polls. This Court must determine whether preliminary injunctive relief should be granted to Plaintiffs on their claim that Ohio’s restriction of in-person early voting deprives them of their fundamental right to vote. Following Supreme Court precedent, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have stated a constitutional claim that is likely to succeed on the merits. As a result—and as explained below—this Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction.

Amusingly, the court’s opinion relies on the Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Bush v. Gore to reach this holding, citing Bush‘s statement that “[h]aving once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.” Judge Economus’ decision will be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, a Republican-leaning court with a history of legally-challenged partisan decisions benefiting the Republican Party. So it remains to be seen whether Economus’ decision will have staying power.

The Romney campaign, for its part, opposed the Obama campaign’s position in this lawsuit. Had the Romney position prevailed, as many as 900,000 military veterans could have had their right to vote impeded.

Almost immediately after President Obama took office, many Republican politicians seized upon a distorted vision of the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment that would leave America nearly incapable of governing itself. Indeed, top Republicans — including U.S. Senators, governors and members of Congress — have claimed that everything from Social Security to Medicare to federal disaster relief to national child labor laws all violate the Constitution. A similarly erroneous vision of the Constitution has now infected the GOP’s party platform:

We support the review and examination of all federal agencies to eliminate wasteful spending, operational inefficiencies, or abuse of power to determine whether they are performing functions that are better performed by the States. These functions, as appropriate, should be returned to the States in accordance with the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. We affirm that all legislation, rules, and regulations must conform and public servants must adhere to the U.S. Constitution, as originally intended by the Framers. . . . Scores of entrenched federal programs violate the constitutional mandates of federalism by taking money from the States, laundering it through various federal agencies, only to return to the States shrunken grants with mandates attached. We propose wherever feasible to leave resources where they originate: in the homes and neighborhoods of the taxpayers.

The GOP platform closely echoes a brief filed by GOP mega attorney Paul Clement on behalf of several Republican elected officials challenging the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court. According to Clement, because federal revenues are “composed of tax dollars collected from the States’ own residents,” it somehow follows that state governments have a claim on federal revenue. The GOP platform suggests that this claim is so strong that any federal program which grants money to the states is unconstitutional if it also requires the states to comply with certain rules in order to receive that money.

There are many federal programs which fit this description, but the biggest one is Medicaid. Medicaid offers funding to the states to provide health services to the poor. States are free to take this money or to leave it, but they must agree to follow certain rules before they can take the money. In other words, Medicaid is exactly the same kind of grant “with mandates attached” that the GOP finds constitutionally objectionable.

Medicaid also covers more than 62 million Americans, all of whom would lose their health coverage if the GOP’s apparent vision of the Constitution were to prevail.

Tom Smith must not be banking on women’s votes to win his Senate bid. The Pennsylvania Republican got in hot water last week when he suggested that having a baby out of wedlock is a rough equivalent to to giving birth to a rapist’s child.

Then last week, on the campaign trail, Smith suggested that the only thing two women might have to talk about is shoe shopping. Approaching two women at a campaign stop, Smith called them “girls,” then added:

SMITH: What are we talking about here, two girls together talking?

WOMAN: We’re talking about the power of petite women.

SMITH: My guess would’ve been you were talking about shoes.

Watch it:

After his suggestion about children born out of wedlock, Smith earned himself the title of “The Next Todd Akin,” a reference to the Republican Missouri Senate candidate who suggested women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

But anti-woman attitudes are far from limited to candidates such as Akin or Smith. Akin partnered with GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to cosponsor the bill that introduced the country to the term “forcible rape” — along with most Republican members of the House.

Harborside Health Center, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the world, has vowed to fight a lawsuit filed last month by a U.S. Attorney General threatening to seize their two California locations. But the forfeiture lawsuit has successfully spooked one of their landlords; the dispensary’s San Jose location (they’re based in Oakland) is now under siege by Concourse Business Center, which owns the building and asked a district court Wednesday to order Harborside to cease growing, possessing and selling marijuana on the property.

While Harborside’s Oakland landlord has stood by them, the San Jose location was given a 30 day warning to shut down. Harborside, which is fighting the DOJ lawsuit rather than agree to shut down, refused. The court will now have to consider granting an injunction against the dispensary barring “the cultivation, possession with intent to distribute, and/or distribution of marijuana in any form.” Harborside has complied with all local and state laws governing dispensary operations, and has worked closely with Oakland officials to create a regulatory system governing the medical marijuana industry.

Harborside serves more than 100,000 patients and pays $3 million in federal, state, and local taxes. In spite of a 2009 Justice Department directive telling federal prosecutors not to go after “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana,” U.S. Attorneys in California and Colorado have boosted their assault on medical marijuana shops in the past year, though medical marijuana use is legal in these states. A favorite tactic is to issue a letter to the landlords of these dispensaries threatening to employ a statute meant to allow the government to seize the assets of drug dealers. The letter has been very effective; roughly 400 dispensaries have been shut down in California just by the mere threat of a lawsuit. Two bills were recently introduced in Congress to protect the landlords of these dispensaries.

After the Los Angeles City Council voted to ban medical marijuana dispensaries last month, the city has been moving to shut down thousands of businesses where they believe such shops are operating. City officials warn that unless the dispensaries close their doors by next week, they’ll face steep fines for every day they remain open.

But medical marijuana proponents are pushing back, attempting to collect enough signatures to force a ballot referendum that would repeal the city-wide ban. In a press conference yesterday, activists announced they believe they now have 50,000 signatures, which will qualify the issue for referendum. They emphasized that this is an important step forward to ensure comprehensive medical care for the city’s residents:

Several patients held a news conference in Eagle Rock on Wednesday to emphasize what activists believe is at stake: the ability of sick people to get the medicine they need.

Michael Oliveri has muscular dystrophy and says the ban will make it more difficult for him to obtain his medical marijuana.

“I was on pain meds for about five years, and I almost died, literally, from fecal poisoning,” said Oliveri. “And ever since then, the only medication I take is medical marijuana.”

Although marijuana is prohibited under federal law, California passed a ballot initiative in 1996 to allow physicians to recommend marijuana to their patients for medical purposes. Since then, over 1,000 medical marijuana shops have sprung up across L.A., and the city council claims the sheer number of dispensaries has made them impossible to effectively regulate. However, a spokesperson for Americans For Safe Access pointed out that instead of establishing legal standards that would help provide operational guidelines, the current ban “pushes everything out of sight.”

Medical marijuana shops are also in jeopardy in other California cities. The world’s largest medical marijuana dispensary, Harborside Health Center, is under pressure from Justice Department officials to close its facilities in Oakland and San Jose.

With Thursday’s ruling that a Texas voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act, a pattern continues to emerge of Republican legislatures and governors attempting to enact illegal voter suppression legislation and courts striking them down. Among the recently rejected laws are strict voter identification laws, provisional voting restrictions, limits on voter registration drives, and reduced availability for early voting.

Here’s a partial roundup:

• Florida: Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a bill last year to impose harsh new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, requiring them to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours — to the minute — after completion, or face fines. A federal judge blocked the law in late May and agreed to permanent kill its provisions this week. In a separate case, a judge rejected provisions earlier this month that would have reduced the number of days and hours available for earlier voting.
• Ohio: A 2006 Ohio law, signed by then-Gov. Bob Taft (R), said that even in cases where poll-workers steer voters to the wrong polling place, provisional votes cast in the wrong precinct must be discarded. Monday, a federal judge granted an injunction to block this rule.
• Texas: A U.S. District Court three-judge panel blocked a Texas voter ID law — signed by Gov. Rick Perry (R) last May, finding that it “imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” and that “a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty.” Earlier this week, a different federal three-judge panel ruled the state’s gerrymandered redistricting law was also in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
• Wisconsin: In July, a state circuit court judge blocked a voter ID law, signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R). In his ruling, he noted the law addressed a problem that was “very limited, if indeed it exists” and would create a “needless and significant impairment of the right to vote.”

In addition, a federal court in South Carolina is currently considering the legality of a voter identification law. South Carolina state officials have shown no examples of actual in-person voter impersonation fraud and have conceded that requiring a photo identification to vote would not actually prevent a determined voter impersonator from voting as someone else.

These illegal voter suppression tactics — ostensibly designed to solve the virtually non-existent problem of voter fraud — are the real election fraud.

A federal three-judge panel has struck down Texas’ restrictive voter ID law, finding it would suppress minority voting. The Department of Justice blocked the measure after it failed to get the pre-clearance required under the Voting Rights Act for states with a history of discrimination. The DOJ concluded that Latino voters would be disproportionately affected by the ID law.

Now, Judges Rosemary Collyer (a George W. Bush appointee), David Tatel, and Robert Wilkins have agreed, finding that the law “imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” and that “a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty.”

Texas’ law is one of the most extreme of the voter ID laws that have become the new fad among Republican lawmakers in the past 2 years. Under its provisions, Texan voters who show up at the polls without ID would not even fill out a provisional ballot ; they would simply be turned away. The law also has a very specific list of allowed IDs. For instance, expired gun licenses from other states are considered valid, but student IDs and Social Security cards are not.

The court was careful to “emphasize the narrowness of this opinion,” noting it is possible to implement a photo ID law without discriminating against minorities. This leaves open the possibility that Texas could write a less blatantly discriminatory measure before the November election. This is the second Texas election law struck down this week for suppressing minority votes; another panel found the Legislature’s new redistricting map violated minority voting rights.

Although Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler (R) felt the need to question his state’s registered voters about their eligibility to vote, sending a letter earlier this month that asked about 4,000 Colorado residents to provide proof of citizenship, his office has confirmed that at least 88 percent of those voters are indeed U.S. citizens.

Gessler — who ran for office on the platform that “fair and open elections are the foundation of self-government” — sent a letter intended to target “suspected non-citizens” who applied for a driver’s license with a non-citizen document, despite the fact that it is entirely possible to apply for a license before becoming a citizen and before registering to vote. An ACLU public policy director called the letter “intimidating” and pointed out that the registered voters who received it are likely to be “worried that they did something wrong and that their paperwork is not in order.”

After running the voter information for 1,400 individuals through a federal database, however, Gessler’s office verified that the vast majority of the individuals who received the letter did have their paperwork in order and are eligible to vote. There are roughly 168 people remaining to be verified in the database, but an employee in Colorado’s election division acknowledged even this group “may also include people who are citizens.”

Although Gessler denies his attempted voter purge has any political motivation, about 40 percent of his letters were sent to registered Democrats, while only 13 percent went to Republicans. Voter suppression tactics, such as Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) failed voter purge in Florida, do tend to disproportionately target Democrat and Latino voters.

Despite the fact that Republican lawmakers across the country have been pursuing similarly aggressive strategies to tamp down “voter fraud” in their states, the only real threat to democracy is the voter suppression they perpetrate under the guise of stopping it. When pressed on the issue, even the authors and biggest proponents of stringent voter ID laws cannot cite examples of in-person voter impersonation. This is probably due to the fact that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.

Beyond wasting taxpayer dollars to send out unnecessary inquiries, Gessler’s effort may scare legitimate voters but does not appear to have discovered many — if any — illegitimate ones.

Joe Arpaio (R), the infamous Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, is facing more legal trouble. Already facing a class action lawsuit and a U.S. Department of Justice legal complaint, he can again add “federal civil rights and conspiracy lawsuit” to his docket, after a federal appeals court reinstated a suit against him.

A three judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on reinstated a lawsuit filed by Phoenix New Times owners Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin against Arpaio, rejecting his claims of immunity. Lacey and Larkin were arrested after the paper published information about extensive subpoenas they received following a story in which they published Arpaio’s home address.

In July, federal trial began, focused on allegations of racial profiling by Arpaio’s police force. The judge is still considering the class action complaint.

Last December, the U.S. Department of Justice released the findings of a three-year investigation into Arpaio’s practices. In May, the DOJ filed a formal legal compaint against Arpaio for “a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County and jail practices that unlawfully discriminate against Latino prisoners with limited English language skills.” The complaint included accusations that Arpaio and his staff forced women to sleep in their own menstrual blood, assaulted pregnant women, ignored rape, and criminalized being a Latino.

When not busy dealing with these legal actions, Arpaio uses taxpayer funds to pursue a “birther” investigation against President Obama. An honorary chairman for Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign, Arpaio declined Romney’s request for a primary endorsement in the 2012 race.

Arpaio is seeking re-election this November against former Phoenix police sergeant Paul Penzone.

Our Guest Blogger is Inimai Chettiar, a Leadership Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Economists and law professors at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania have published a new study that confirms what reformers have been saying for decades: the criminal justice system is racially biased. The study is a huge step toward unveiling and ending the racial disparities that still persist in the United States.

Those of us seeking to end mass incarceration know it is the New Jim Crow. With more black men under the control of corrections departments than were enslaved on the eve of the Civil War, mass incarceration is the biggest civil rights issue of our time. We’ve presented data pleading for reform to remove the chokehold of poverty-to-prison from our communities: people of color make up 30 percent of the United States’ population, but account for 60 percent of those in prison; black defendants receive longer prison sentence than white defendants; black Americans are far more likely to be arrested than white people. The statistics go on.

But many lawmakers, skeptics, and those who just don’t get it (or don’t want to) argue that these disparities occur because white people are inherently somehow more law abiding than people of color, or that white people commit less serious crimes.  The underlying premise is that since the law doesn’t mention race, the justice system isn’t racially discriminatory.

Think again. This seminal study has now “demonstrated conclusively for the first time that racial bias affects judicial sentencing decisions.” The researchers used a rigorous statistical method that not only controlled for other variables but also controlled for “unobservables” (that may correlate with race), and conducted the study on a statistically significant sample size in Cook County, Illinois.

They found that “judges take race into account in their sentencing decisions” and that “the magnitude of this effect is substantial.” Judges punish criminal defendants differently based on their race – and only their race. Specifically, judges are far more likely to sentence black defendants to prison than white defendants.

The researchers divided judges into categories based on level of race bias. To make these results concrete, they compare two examples. There are two identically situated defendants, who differ only by race – one black and one white. If they are sentenced by a judge who is among the least affected by racial bias (meaning in one of the best case scenarios), the black defendant is still 30% more likely to end up in prison. If they are sentenced by judge who is among the most affected by racial bias (one of the worst case scenarios), the black defendant is almost twice as likely to end up in prison.

Racial bias is at work in almost all courtrooms – and in all parts of the criminal justice system. This study drives home how that is happening, its unfairness, and why we urgently need reform.

Welcome to Justiceline, ThinkProgress Justice’s morning round-up of the latest legal news and developments. Remember to follow us on Twitter at @TPJustice

• In light of the federal court ruling against Texas’ redistricting, several groups are seeking alterations to the interim maps in use for just 2012.
• James Bopp, one of the leading opponents of just about any campaign finance restriction or disclosure requirement, lauded the GOP platform’s anti-campaign finance reform plank as reflective of “what the grass-roots of the party believe. They support the First Amendment and they support no campaign finance restrictions, by and large.”
• On the other hand, in an “Ask Me Anything” chat on Reddit, President Obama continue to oppose the corrupting influence of unlimited money in politics, hoping to “shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.”
• A federal appeals court ruled that a Minnesota school district’s decision not to allow a religious club for elementary students, as part of an after-school program open to other community groups, was likely impermissible viewpoint discrimination.
• And finally, in what was likely a slip of the tongue, one of President Obama’s most persistent critics on border security accidentally endorsed his re-election: Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) told MSNBC “I know if President Obama is elected in November, which I hope he is, he will be able to come together with all of us and come up with a solution. I believe he will secure our borders. And therefore, we can resolve all of the other issues as a simple matter.”