HHSlosesinjunctionargumentinOklahomamandatecase

HHS loses injunction argument in Oklahoma mandate case

posted at 1:01 pm on June 7, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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The real stage for the HHS contraception mandate will be the Supreme Court, where arguments have already been heard on the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases involving private-sector secular employers. The fight still continues in lower courts, however, and also in regard to religious employers. In Oklahoma, a federal judge issued an injunction on Wednesday blocking enforcement on more than 200 Catholic employers and thousands of parishes, thanks to a lawsuit filed in March by the Catholic Benefits Association. It is one of the few class-action suits being brought against the contraception mandate:

A government attorney declined to comment Thursday while Catholic officials praised a ruling by U.S. District Judge David Russell that granted an injunction that exempts members from any fines or penalties arising from not complying with the provision while their objections are litigated.

The association — which includes archdioceses, an insurance company and a nursing home across almost 2,000 Catholic parishes nationwide — believes in the Catholic teaching that their ministries should include health care to their employees. But members “also believe in the Catholic teaching that any artificial interference with the creation and nurture of new life is wrong,” Russell said.

“The harm posed to these plaintiffs absent relief is quite tangible — they will either face severe monetary penalties or be required to violate their religious beliefs,” he said.

CBA issued a statement shortly afterward:

The CBA’s general counsel, Martin Nussbaum, noted “this ruling is especially gratifying because this lawsuit, alone among the HHS contraceptive mandate cases, includes three groups of Catholic employers—“houses of worship” that are, by regulation, exempt; non-exempt ministries like colleges, Catholic Charities, and healthcare institutions; and Catholic-owned for profit businesses.” It is also one of only a few class action suits in this unprecedented situation in which so many religious groups have sued the federal government because its Mandate violates their religious beliefs.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, who also serves as VP to the CBA, praised the ruling in a separate statement:

“I’m heartened by today’s ruling,” Archbishop Coakley said. “Judge Russell was right to recognize that the Catholic employers of the Catholic Benefits Association have a right to allow their faith to inform not just their private beliefs, but also their public actions.

“The administration has been discriminatory to grant relief to some Catholic employers and not others based on whether they operate within the diocesan structure or at separately incorporated charitable organizations and for-profit businesses,” he explained. “Whether bishops or businessmen, Catholics cannot in good conscience provide employees with insurance that covers drugs and procedures that undermine the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life.”

“Today is a very good day for proponents of religious liberty in general and for the Catholic Benefits Association in particular,” he added.

The CBA provides health insurance and other benefits to more than 450 employers and parishes around the country. The injunction applies to all of those who get benefits through CBA, which makes it an attractive option now for employers who wish to follow their own religious values when offering benefits — at least as long as the injunction stands. The CBA does provide services for for-profit businesses as well as non-profits and church-related employers, so it may attract some significant new interest after this week’s developments.

This isn’t the end of the case, of course. But even if Hobby Lobby and Conestoga fail, there may be a better case for the Supreme Court to draw a line on interference with religious liberty with the new CBA case developing in Oklahoma. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. 

Note: Our former associate editor Tina Korbe Dzurisin works as communications director for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

Update: I’ve changed the headline, which erroneously stated that HHS lost the case. They haven’t yet — they just lost the argument on a temporary injunction, which suggests that CBA will get the better of the case. But the original headline was just wrong, as one commenter noted, and this is a little more accurate. My apologies.

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Tags: federal court, HHS Contraception mandate, injunction, Oklahoma

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HHSlosesmandatecaseinOklahomafederalcourt

HHS loses mandate case in Oklahoma federal court to 200 Catholic employers

posted at 1:01 pm on June 7, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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The real stage for the HHS contraception mandate will be the Supreme Court, where arguments have already been heard on the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases involving private-sector secular employers. The fight still continues in lower courts, however, and also in regard to religious employers. In Oklahoma, a federal judge issued an injunction on Wednesday blocking enforcement on more than 200 Catholic employers and thousands of parishes, thanks to a lawsuit filed in March by the Catholic Benefits Association. It is one of the few class-action suits being brought against the contraception mandate:

A government attorney declined to comment Thursday while Catholic officials praised a ruling by U.S. District Judge David Russell that granted an injunction that exempts members from any fines or penalties arising from not complying with the provision while their objections are litigated.

The association — which includes archdioceses, an insurance company and a nursing home across almost 2,000 Catholic parishes nationwide — believes in the Catholic teaching that their ministries should include health care to their employees. But members “also believe in the Catholic teaching that any artificial interference with the creation and nurture of new life is wrong,” Russell said.

“The harm posed to these plaintiffs absent relief is quite tangible — they will either face severe monetary penalties or be required to violate their religious beliefs,” he said.

CBA issued a statement shortly afterward:

The CBA’s general counsel, Martin Nussbaum, noted “this ruling is especially gratifying because this lawsuit, alone among the HHS contraceptive mandate cases, includes three groups of Catholic employers—“houses of worship” that are, by regulation, exempt; non-exempt ministries like colleges, Catholic Charities, and healthcare institutions; and Catholic-owned for profit businesses.” It is also one of only a few class action suits in this unprecedented situation in which so many religious groups have sued the federal government because its Mandate violates their religious beliefs.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, who also serves as VP to the CBA, praised the ruling in a separate statement:

“I’m heartened by today’s ruling,” Archbishop Coakley said. “Judge Russell was right to recognize that the Catholic employers of the Catholic Benefits Association have a right to allow their faith to inform not just their private beliefs, but also their public actions.

“The administration has been discriminatory to grant relief to some Catholic employers and not others based on whether they operate within the diocesan structure or at separately incorporated charitable organizations and for-profit businesses,” he explained. “Whether bishops or businessmen, Catholics cannot in good conscience provide employees with insurance that covers drugs and procedures that undermine the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life.”

“Today is a very good day for proponents of religious liberty in general and for the Catholic Benefits Association in particular,” he added.

The CBA provides health insurance and other benefits to more than 450 employers and parishes around the country. The injunction applies to all of those who get benefits through CBA, which makes it an attractive option now for employers who wish to follow their own religious values when offering benefits — at least as long as the injunction stands. The CBA does provide services for for-profit businesses as well as non-profits and church-related employers, so it may attract some significant new interest after this week’s developments.

This isn’t the end of the case, of course. But even if Hobby Lobby and Conestoga fail, there may be a better case for the Supreme Court to draw a line on interference with religious liberty with the new CBA case developing in Oklahoma. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. 

Note: Our former associate editor Tina Korbe Dzurisin works as communications director for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

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Tags: federal court, HHS Contraception mandate, injunction, Oklahoma

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Obama:AfterOklahoma’sbotchedexecution,I’maskingEric

Obama: After Oklahoma’s botched execution, I’m asking Eric Holder to review the death penalty

posted at 2:41 pm on May 2, 2014 by Allahpundit

Is this a real review, or one of those buy-some-time-until-people-forget-about-it “reviews” a la Holder weighing whether to charge George Zimmerman with a federal crime after he was acquitted in Florida? Given the recent dip in support for the death penalty has fallen, Democrats might feel safe-ish pushing for a moratorium on capital punishment in federal cases circa late 2015 or early 2016, to goose their base a little before the next vote. A studiously fair ‘n balanced review by Eric Holder could be just the pretext they need.

Calling a botched state killing in Oklahoma “deeply troubling,” President Barack Obama said Friday the federal government would review death penalty procedures around the country.

Obama said he’s asked Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct an analysis of how death row criminals are killed after an execution attempt in Oklahoma left an accused murderer writhing and convulsing following a lethal injection…

“Racial bias. Uneven application of the death penalty. Situations in which there were individuals on death row who later on were discovered to have been innocent because of exculpatory evidence – all these I think do raise significant questions about how the death penalty is being applied,” he said.

This retort on Twitter caught my attention:

President who sponsored infanticide legislation is deeply troubled by the botched execution of a rapist murderer.

— S.M44 (@redsteeze) May 2, 2014

President who has no opinion on Kermit Gosnell has opinions on botched executions.

— S.M44 (@redsteeze) May 2, 2014

Actually, O didn’t say that he had no opinion on Gosnell last year, he said that he couldn’t comment while the trial was active. Well, the trial’s not active anymore. Has anyone followed up with him on that subject since then? If Holder’s keen on studying how death is meted out in America, the Gosnell slaughterhouse is a fine starting point for an inquiry into the abortion side of it. But that’d be a buy-some-time-until-people-forget-about-it “review” if ever there was one.

Tags: capital punishment, death penalty, doj, Eric Holder, lockett, obama, Oklahoma

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Oklahomadeath-rowinmatediesofheartattackafter

Oklahoma death-row inmate dies of heart attack after botched execution

posted at 11:21 am on April 30, 2014 by Allahpundit

“This could be a real turning point in the whole debate as people get disgusted by this sort of thing,” said one death-penalty opponent afterward. Could it? See for yourself what this degenerate did to earn himself a spot on the gurney and decide how disgusted you are. He raped the victim, shot her, and then had his cohorts bury her alive while she was bleeding out — and of the two men Oklahoma was set to execute last night, he’s arguably the lesser offender of the two. The other guy raped and killed … an infant. His execution’s now been stayed while Oklahoma figures out what went wrong with the drug cocktail they administered to the first inmate.

If you weren’t on social media while this was first being reported, you missed a tour de force of bien-pensant moral lecturing from some death-penalty opponents, replete with infographics comparing Iran’s hanging of political prisoners and gays with the U.S.’s increasingly rare lethal injections of monsters like Lockett.

After the failure of a 20-minute attempt to execute him, Clayton Lockett was left to die of a heart attack in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma state penitentiary in McAlester. A lawyer said Lockett had effectively been “tortured to death”.

For three minutes after the first drugs were delivered Lockett struggled violently, groaned and writhed, lifting his shoulders and head from the gurney.

Some 16 minutes after the execution began, and without Lockett being declared dead, the blinds separating the chamber from the viewing room were closed. The process was called off shortly afterwards. Lockett died 43 minutes after the first executions drugs were adminsitered.

Why’d they botch it so badly? Lockett and Warner, the other inmate who was set to die last night, sued the state beforehand claiming that the new drug cocktail that Oklahoma was planning to use was untested. The reason the state was using a new drug cocktail in the first place is because some drug manufacturers, especially ones based in Europe, have lately refused to sell traditional lethal-injection ingredients to U.S. prisons. Pentobarbital, the most commonly used drug in executions, has been banned for sale for that purpose by its Dutch maker; Propofol, another effective drug that’s widely used in anesthesia, was similarly restricted by the EU for execution purposes. Essentially, opponents are trying to force a change in U.S. policy on capital punishment by choking off the supply of what’s needed to conduct the most humane method. Oklahoma, rather than give in to that, decided to go ahead with a new drug mix whose application may well have been negligent. Result: It took Lockett 43 minutes to die when, previously, it took an average of just six minutes for other Oklahoma death-row inmates.

Which brings us full circle to the quote at the beginning. This may, in fact, be a turning point insofar as the short supply of execution drugs combined with declining support for the death penalty among Americans might raise the political cost of executions to prohibitive levels. If U.S. drug manufacturers are unwilling or unable (under patent law) to supply prisons with more effective lethal drugs, then public debate will shift to deciding whether states should try a different method of execution altogether or, after decades of “evolving” from hanging to the electric chair to the gas chamber to lethal injection, they should just give up on capital punishment once and for all. (Sorry, Sonny, but the guillotine’s not coming back.) I doubt they’ll ever get rid of it altogether — too many people will read today about what Lockett did to his victim and conclude that he got a much better end than she did, botched or not — but this is a fertile moment opinion-wise for capital punishment opponents to try to scale the practice back.

Tags: death, execution, fallin, lethal injection, lockett, neiman, Oklahoma, penalty

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OklahomaHouseseekstoimpeachhalfofthe

Oklahoma House seeks to impeach half of the state Supreme Court

posted at 4:01 pm on April 26, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

This story hasn’t garnered a lot of attention nationally yet, but it definitely will be of interest in terms of questions surrounding activist judges and courts as well as issues of states’ rights. To put the background in thumbnail version, there are two criminals who were convicted of crimes involving children more heinous then I would care to detail on these pages. They were subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. However, in the course of the appeals process, the Oklahoma State Supreme Court granted a stay of execution. This riled not only the Governor, but several members of the House. (For a full and excellent background on the case, also involving some of the details of these terrible crimes – you have been warned – see this full summary at Redstate.)

While the issue of the stay has since been resolved, the matter wasn’t dropped. And now, the House is moving to address their complaints with the five justices who ordered the stay.

I mentioned yesterday that the recent order by the Oklahoma Supreme Court staying an execution had riled members of the legislature and the state’s governor who refused to acknowledge the order. According to media reports that stay has now been lifted however there is an effort underway to impeach the 5 justice majority that ordered the stay (h/t Gavel Grab for the pointer).

HR 1059 has now been introduced and is replicated below

HR1059 is a bit lengthy to begin pasting in pertinent sections here without turning this into a legal opus filled with far too many WHEREASs and all manner of legal speak for anyone to sit through, but you can follow the link above to read the text. The question here which will probably absorb observers for some time to come is whether rendering a judgement which the legislative and executive branches at the state level disagree with will be found as valid grounds to impeach them. There may be a sympathetic ear in many quarters (including yours truly) to say that setting aside the judgement of the lower court warrants kicking them out. But is that truly a valid reason for impeachment?

The reason I ask is that we have divided government with a lot of antipathy between the sides in many other states (not to mention in Washington) as well. If the courts render judgements we don’t like, providing they provide some sort of explanation in their written decisions, should we start giving them the boot? I’ll want to hear from some lawyers on this one, but it seems rather contrary to the entire concept of the separation of the powers of the three branches. What do you think?

Tags: death penalty, Oklahoma, Supreme Court

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Oklahomawillchargehomeownerswhogeneratetheirown

Oklahoma will charge homeowners who generate their own power

posted at 3:01 pm on April 20, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

A disturbing story out of the Sooner State this week, noted by Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. Under the terms of a recently passed bill, expected to be signed by Governor Mary Fallin, homeowners who install their own private solar or wind turbine energy resources and sell some of the juice back to energy companies will be paying a fee for the privilege.

Utility customers who want to install rooftop solar panels or small wind turbines could face extra charges on their bills after legislation passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Monday.

Senate Bill 1456 passed 83-5 after no debate in the House. It passed the Senate last month and now heads to Gov. Mary Fallin for her approval.

The bill was supported by the state’s major electric utilities, but drew opposition from solar advocates, environmentalists and others. It sets up a process at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to establish a separate customer class and monthly surcharge for distributed generation such as rooftop solar or small wind turbines.

As Doug notes, the claimed reasons for the energy companies and their surrogates (who are behind the move) wanting these fees imposed are weak tea at best.

While I suppose there might be an argument for allowing utilities to recoup costs that are legitimately incurred from the practice of selling energy back to the grid, the idea of charging people extra for doing something that reduces their dependence on the grid while at the same time increasing the amount of energy available seems rather nonsensical. As the linked article goes on to note, these types of systems benefit energy companies by helping to reduce demand on the grid during peak hours and by increasing the amount of energy available during those periods. Given that, one would think that energy companies would want to encourage this sort of thing rather than backing measures like this which could potentiallly hamper it. It’s hard not to see this as an effort by the utility companies to hamper the competition that solar and wind generated energy provide them and, of course, to make sure that they still manage to make some money out of the deal.

There seem to be some activists who are far too quick to embrace this sort of legislation (currently on the table in a number of states) by conflating the issue with the many problems associated with the government getting involved in green energy initiatives. This is a false assertion which, in fact, runs contrary to conservative principles. It is a given that having Washington put their thumb on the scales and dump taxpayer dollars into energy technologies which are unproven or not ready for prime time has been an expensive and unmitigated failure. What this does not mean is that there is no useful application for these technologies anywhere, and small installations of solar, wind and micro-hydro generation have proven effective in private use. If you can exercise your own independence and initiative to supply your own energy, good for you! And if you can create more than you need and sell the excess for a profit, what is more conservative and capitalist than that?

Further, a resourceful person should be preparing to manage and maintain their own energy supplies. As both Erika and I have warned repeatedly, rafts of new regulations from Barack Obama’s EPA and pressure from eco-warriors is moving us toward potentially crippling shortages of energy on the grid. If enough coal fired plants are shut down prematurely, you may not be able to simply take it for granted that the lights will come on when you throw the switch some morning. People willing to make the investment in producing their own energy – as well as spreading the extra around – should be encouraged, not subjected to discouraging fees.

Besides, the total amount of power created by private distributed generation is miniscule compared to the total supply and demand on the grid. This is a giant using a shotgun to go after mosquitoes. So how do rules like this make their way into law? I’ll leave Doug with the last word on that one.

Of course, measures like this have nothing to do with “free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty” and everything to do with crony capitalism.

Yep.

Tags: Mary Fallin, Oklahoma, solar energy, wind energy

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ComingsoontotheOklahomastatecapitol:Could

Coming soon to the Oklahoma state capitol: Could it be … Satan?

posted at 1:21 pm on January 7, 2014 by Allahpundit

The group responsible for this is, apparently, sincerely Satanist, but the design is so ridiculous — “people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan” — that it’s hard to believe it’s not just some unusually epic atheist trolling. Adding two kids to the design, admiring the Dark Lord on either side, was an especially nice touch. If they’re going to troll the entire state, they might as well have gone the whole nine yards and made it a statute of Cthulhu. Every nerd on the Internet would have been behind them then.

Which reminds me: Every state capitol should have a statue of Cthulhu.

The Satanic Temple maintains that the Oklahoma Legislature’s decision to authorize a privately funded Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol opened the door for its statue. The Ten Commandments monument was placed on the north steps of the building in 2012, and the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has sued to have it removed.

Similar requests for monuments have been made by a Hindu leader in Nevada, an animal rights group and the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

In response, the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission recently placed a moratorium on considering any new requests…

“I think you’ve got to remember where you are. This is Oklahoma, the middle of the heartland,” said Rep. Don Armes, R-Faxon. “I think we need to be tolerant of people who think different than us, but this is Oklahoma, and that’s not going to fly here.”

And so America waits and wonders: Will Oklahoma greenlight a monument that’s bound to attract every atheist, Goth, metalhead, and wise-ass within hundreds of miles for the requisite smartphone selfies? Does Oklahoma even have a choice? They put up a Ten Commandments monument, after all. In theory, for Establishment Clause reasons, that means they’re stuck having to allow other faith displays too.

Or … does it? The Supreme Court opinion to read here (it’s a short one, mercifully) is Pleasant Grove City v. Summum from 2009. In that case too, a private group had donated a monument of the Ten Commandments to the state for placement in a public park. Another religious group asked the city to display a monument to its faith in the same park; when the city refused, they sued. SCOTUS held (unanimously!) that the state is allowed to be selective in its choice of monuments. It can’t deny you your right to free speech in the park, but permanent displays like monuments are different from speech. What’s at stake here, wrote Justice Alito, is “government speech”:

Public parks are often closely identified in the public mind with the government unit that owns the land. City parks—ranging from those in small towns, like Pioneer Park in Pleasant Grove City, to those in major metropolises, like Central Park in New York City—commonly play an important role in defining the identity that a city projects to its own residents and to the outside world. Accordingly, cities and other jurisdictions take some care in accepting donated monuments. Government decisionmakers select the monuments that portray what they view as appropriate for the place in question, taking into account such content-based factors as esthetics, history, and local culture. The monuments that are accepted, therefore, are meant to convey and have the effect of conveying a government message, and they thus constitute government speech…

If government entities must maintain viewpoint neutrality in their selection of donated monuments, they must either “brace themselves for an influx of clutter” or face the pressure to remove longstanding and cherished monuments. See 499 F. 3d, at 1175 (McConnell, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Every jurisdiction that has accepted a donated war memorial may be asked to provide equal treatment for a donated monument questioning the cause for which the veterans fought. New York City, having accepted a donated statue of one heroic dog (Balto, the sled dog who brought medicine to Nome, Alaska, during a diphtheria epidemic)7 may be pressed to accept monuments for other dogs who are claimed to be equally worthy of commemoration. The obvious truth of the matter is that if public parks were considered to be traditional public forums for the purpose of erecting privately donated monuments, most parks would have little choice but to refuse all such donations.

Monuments say something about the identity of the city or state that displays them, so naturally the city or state, through its representatives, gets to choose which ones to display. Pretty straightforward — except what if a state put up a monument that read “Christianity is the one true faith”? That would, no doubt, accurately reflect the view of most of its residents, but it’s hard to believe the Court would let it fly on Establishment Clause grounds. Alito says virtually nothing in his opinion about that. It falls to Scalia, in his concurrence, to argue that the Establishment Clause poses no problem either because the Court’s already ruled that the Ten Commandments has permissible secular historical and moral meanings in addition to its religious ones. It’s true, the Court did rule that in an earlier case — although without securing a five-vote majority for the holding. It was Breyer who joined with four conservative justices in that one, but he made clear that it was a close call that depended in part on the particular facts of how, and how long, a particular Ten Commandments monument was displayed. Would he come to the same conclusion in a case like Oklahoma’s? When the alternative is to force state capitols to host giant statues of demons with goat heads? I’m thinking … yeah, probably. And even if he didn’t, the remedy would be to force the state to take down its Ten Commandment monument, not to let the Satanists put up theirs. Which, I take it, is what the Satanists are aiming for in the first place.

Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, establishment clause, First Amendment, free speech, government speech, Oklahoma, satan, Ten Commandments

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