Later this week, the House will vote on a Republican-backed bill that will limit legal immigration under the guise of trying to expand the number of visas available to international students who earn masters and doctorates in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, mathematics — at U.S. universities. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) is introducing the bill that would add 50,000 STEM visas by cutting the Diversity Visa program, which is intended for immigrants from countries that do not already send large numbers of immigrants to the U.S. Recently, about half of these visas have gone to immigrants from African nations, but under Smith’s plan, they would all be eliminated.

Additionally, Smith’s bill would reduce the number of visas available by letting unused STEM visas disappear. For the first two years, the program would recapture any unused visas and allocate them for people who applied during those two years. But after FY 2014, any visa that is not allocated to a STEM graduate basically would disappear, shrinking overall legal immigration into the U.S.

To counter the Republican measure, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced a Democratic alternative that would expand STEM visas while still protecting the Diversity Visa program and adding additional protections for foreign and U.S. STEM graduates. Lofgren’s measure would expire after two years so that Congress can decide if it should be continued, while the Republican version does not have an end date.

Here’s how Lofgren’s bill compares to the Republican proposal:

In addition to the Democratic and Republican STEM visa bills in the House, Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) also plans to introduce his own STEM bill, which expands visas while also saving diversity visas.

A lobbyist for the tech industry told Politico Smith’s bill is the “capstone of the Republican tech agenda,” but Democrats oppose the legislation for taking away one avenue for legal immigration. “Republicans are only willing to increase legal immigration for immigrants they want by eliminating legal immigration for immigrants they don’t want,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said in a statement.

Expanding the number of visas available to international students who study math and science in the U.S. is not a controversial idea. More than three-quarters of all Americans — including 69 percent of conservatives — support creating STEM visas. But Republicans turned it into a partisan issue with a bill that cuts off one avenue for legal immigration in exchange for another. The U.S. needs to make it easier for tech companies to hire skilled foreign students who have studied math and science at American universities, but following the GOP’s plan and doing it at the cost of other immigration programs is not worth it.

Our guest blogger is Peter Swire, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a professor of law at the Ohio State University.

The secret tape recording – was it illegal? Maybe yes (if they find who did it). But there are some intriguing defenses for the person who made the tape of Mitt Romney saying that 47 percent of Americans are “dependent upon government” and see themselves as “victims.”

At first read, the Florida wiretap law looks like it applies. Florida prohibits “interception” of oral communications, including a tape recording in person. Florida also requires consent from all parties before an oral communication can be recorded. Mitt Romney didn’t consent to the taping. So the person who made the tape could face criminal charges, likely a misdemeanor for a first offense.

But the unknown person who made the tape has at least three defenses. The first two defenses depend on interpreting Florida’s Section 934.02:

“Oral communication” means any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation and does not mean any public oral communication uttered at a public meeting or any electronic communication.

The first defense would argue that Romney was making a “public oral communication” at a “public meeting.” The tape was made at an official campaign fundraising event, so perhaps that is a big enough venue to count as “public.” On the other hand, the campaign appears to have tried hard to exclude all reporters and other members of the general public, so this defense seems fairly weak.

The second defense is more interesting. Did Romney have a justified “expectation” that no one would tape his speech before the packed room? In some earlier decade, the chances of a hidden recording device might have seemed remote. Today is different, though. Lots of people now carry video/audio recording devices. We call them “smartphones” and “laptops.” With changing technology, there is a strong argument that Romney assumed the risk that a staffer, guest, or server was recording his speech.

Third, the person who made the tape could argue that he or she was exercising First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and the press. Romney was making important remarks about the election – the core protected area of the First Amendment.

The First Amendment case law provides excellent protection for Mother Jones, who released the video. In the 2000 Bartnicki case, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects the disclosure of illegally intercepted communications by a radio station and newspapers who did not participate in the illegal interception.

We don’t know whether the Bartnicki protection will extend to the person who taped and reported about Romney’s remarks. Linda Tripp was prosecute under Maryland’s all-party consent law for taping a call with Monica Lewinsky. Will Romney’s taper be far behind?

As ThinkProgress’ Josh Israel explained last January, the rush of secret money seeking to influence the 2012 election can be blamed in no small part on the Federal Elections Commission, which issued regulations weakening federal disclosure laws in 2007. Although federal law requires “all contributors who contributed an aggregate amount of $1,000 or more” to fund a certain kind of election spending by a single organization to be disclosed, the FEC interprets this law to only require disclosure when such contributions are “made for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications.” According to Israel, “[t]his huge loophole has meant that 501(c)(4) groups like Crossroads GPS are required to disclose only their donors who overtly earmark the donation for that communication. Very few donors have done so.”

Last April, a federal district court closed this loophole, at least for certain kinds of election spending. Today, a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed that decision, claiming that federal law is “anything but clear” that the FEC’s loophole should not exist.

Today’s decision is not the end of the road for this issue. The panel essentially sent the case back to the FEC to either “explain the meaning and scope of [its regulation] or, if the agency deems it appropriate, to engage in further rulemaking to better clarify the regulatory regime.” After the FEC takes this action, it is still possible that a court could hand down a subsequent decision closing the loophole even if the FEC does not do so itself.

Nevertheless, courts generally apply a high degree of deference to agency decisions, so the most likely outcome is that whatever the FEC says will continue to be the law. Moreover, it is also unlikely that the FEC will adopt a more pro-disclosure regulation. By design, each major party controls half of the seats on the FEC, which means that the commission generally stalemates on major votes where one party or the other wishes to block certain regulation. Last time the FEC was asked to review a similar disclosure regulation, it split 3-3.

Last month, a Pennsylvania trial judge upheld that state’s Voter ID law, in an opinion that relied at least in part on Nineteenth Century precedent which claimed that vote suppressing laws may be permissible to protect against ‘rogues,’ ‘strumpets,’ and ‘wandering arabs.’ Today, the state supreme court vacated that order, noting that the law is not living up to its own promises of ensuring voters will have access to ID:

[T]he Law contemplates that the primary form of photo identification to be used by voters is a Department of Transportation (PennDOT) driver’s license or the non-driver equivalent provided under Section 1510(b) of the Vehicle Code. Furthermore, the Law specifically requires that – notwithstanding provisions of Section 1510(b) relating to the issuance and content of the cards – PennDOT shall issue them at no cost . . . . As such, the Law establishes a policy of liberal access to Section 1510(b) identification cards.

However, as implementation of the Law has proceeded, PennDOT – apparently for good reason – has refused to allow such liberal access. Instead, the Department continues to vet applicants for Section 1510(b) cards through an identification process that Commonwealth officials appear to acknowledge is a rigorous one. Generally, the process requires the applicant to present a birth certificate with a raised seal (or a document considered to be an equivalent), a social security card, and two forms of documentation showing current residency. The reason why PennDOT will not implement the Law as written is that the Section 1510(b) driver’s license equivalent is a secure form of identification, which may be used, for example, to board commercial aircraft.

The Department of State has realized, and the Commonwealth parties have candidly conceded, that the Law is not being implemented according to its terms. . . . Overall, we are confronted with an ambitious effort on the part of the General Assembly to bring the new identification procedure into effect within a relatively short timeframe and an implementation process which has by no means been seamless in light of the serious operational constraints faced by the executive branch. Given this state of affairs, we are not satisfied with a mere predictive judgment based primarily on the assurances of government officials, even though we have no doubt they are proceeding in good faith.

Turning to marijuana was a last resort for father Jason David. His young son Jayden suffered from a rare and potentially fatal form of epilepsy, and a dozen prescription medications had failed to provide any relief.

But he discovered medical marijuana as a possible solution after seeing a news report about a teenager who was expelled from school for using marijuana to help control his seizures, and learned about forms cannabis that have no psychoactive effects. David explains in a video from the Los Angeles Times:

The worst days of my life were last April. I’ve never seen Jayden so bad in my life. He was literally dying in front of my face. […]

Seeing him having seizures all day long for two months straight, nothing was helping. After he has a seizure, it really takes a toll on him. He gets back up and he just wants to play and have fun like every other child.

I asked my doctor, I know it sounds crazy, but I have a serious question. What do you think about medical marijuana for my son? And he looked at me and said, “you’ve got a life and death situation. I would try anything to save your son’s life.” I had it for two weeks and I was scared to give it to him. And I said, you know what? I’m just gonna give it to him today.

That was the first day, thank god, Jayden ever went seizure-free in his life. The prescription drugs, I feel like they made my son a zombie. Every time I take off another pill, the better he gets.

Rather than smoking the plant itself, Jayden takes a solution made up mostly of cannabidiol, or CBD, a chemical derived from marijuana. CBD has been shown to relieve several other medical conditions, including symptoms from schnizophrenia and anxiety. Cannibas has been known as a treatment for epilepsy since ancient Chinese and Ayurvedic traditions, according to the LA Times.

But the dispensary where David obtains the CBD, the largest in the nation, is now the target of a Department of Justice enforcement action. Although medical marijuana is legal in California, prosecutors are seeking to shut down Harborside Health Center under federal law. As David told told the LA Times, shutting down Harborside could have tragic consequences for Jayden: “I’ve got about a three-week supply left now and I’m running out and I need some more and I can’t find any right now. What am I gonna do? If they shut down my place, where am I supposed to get it tested? How do I know if it has mold on it? How do I know if it doesn’t have pesticides on it? How am I gonna save my son’s life?”

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia spent much of the last Supreme Court term behaving more like a politician than a judge. His dissent from an opinion striking down much of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070 included a rant against an irrelevant Obama Administration policy, and his questions during the Affordable Care Act were laced with conservative talking points more appropriate for Fox News than the Supreme Courtroom.

Yet, in an interview with Reuters yesterday, Scalia said he is “enraged” by suggestions that the Supreme Court has become “politicized.” Less than a minute later, however, Scalia launched into a partisan diatribe, this time claiming Democrats are less loyal to the Constitution than Republicans:

It really enrages me to hear people refer to [the Supreme Court] as a “politicized court.” Neither I nor any one of my colleagues votes a certain way because he or she likes this president or is a member of the party that that president belongs to. I could care less who the president is. They vote that way because that’s who they are. They were selected because of who they are.

So why should it be surprising that when you have a Democratic Party which has been trying for years to appoint people who approve of Roe v. Wade — which means people who are not originalists, who do not stick to the text, who believe in substantive due process or whatever — why should it be surprising when the Democrats have been doing that for 30 years, at least, and the Republicans have been doing the opposite for 30 years — swearing that they are going to appoint people who are not judicial activists, gonna, you know, hew to the text — why should it be surprising that you end up with a Court where the Democratic appointees are quite different from the Republican appointees?

To the extent that Scalia ever had the moral high ground to complain that someone isn’t following the text of the Constitution, he abandoned it completely when he voted to strike down the Affordable Care Act. The Constitution permits Congress to “regulate commerce . . . among the several states,” and the very first Supreme Court decision to interpret these words established that they give the United States “full power” over all forms of interstate trade. The Affordable Care Act regulates trade in health insurance and health care services throughout the country, and thus is clearly and obviously constitutional under the text of the Constitution.

So if Scalia is truly worried about judges who do not follow the text of the Constitution, he might want to look a lot closer to home than the Democratic Party. Moreover, if he is so “enraged” by allegations that his Court is politicized, he might want to consider not adding fuel to those allegations by suggesting that the Republican Party has a monopoly on loyalty to the text of the Constitution.