Politics

Campaign Finance Protest, Hidden Camera Disrupt High Court

Published

10 years ago

January 22, 2015

Oakland Post

The Supreme Court in Washington. The three female justices say their colleagues are reversing themselves from this week’s Hobby Lobby ruling. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

The Supreme Court in Washington. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the second time in 11 months, opponents of Supreme Court rulings lifting limits on money in political campaigns briefly disrupted proceedings in the courtroom and embarrassed the court by managing to get a camera past court security.

The protest Wednesday took place on the fifth anniversary of the court’s Citizen United ruling that freed corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want on elections for Congress and president.

Supreme Court police arrested seven people who rose shortly after the justices took the bench and shouted brief statements. “One person, one vote,” said one protester.

An eighth person identified as Ryan Clayton was arrested with a camera, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

Clayton appears to have made it past stepped-up security screening by court police officers. The new checks were put in place after the protest group 99Rise posted video of a February 2014 courtroom protest on the Internet. The Supreme Court does not allow cameras or audio recording devices in the courtroom. At times, court police check the belts, pens and even wallets of people seeking to enter the courtroom. Not even lawyers about to argue cases are spared the enhanced screening.

99Rise also claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s protest. Its leader, Kai Newkirk, was arrested last year and barred from the court grounds for a year for disrupting the court in February.

Newkirk suggested in an email that more than one person had a camera on Wednesday and promised to post footage online.

The protesters “stood up in the tradition of nonviolent dissent to speak out against corruption and to defend our democracy on the fifth anniversary of Citizens United,” Newkirk said in a telephone interview.

Those arrested were charged with conspiracy-related offenses arising from the courtroom disturbance, Arberg said. Seven of the eight also were charged with violating a law against making “a harangue or oration, or uttering loud, threatening, or abusive language in the Supreme Court Building,” Arberg said.

___

Several hours after the arrest, President Barack Obama issued a statement repeating his criticism of the Citizens United ruling. “The Citizens United decision was wrong, and it has caused real harm to our democracy. With each new campaign season, this dark money floods our airwaves with more and more political ads that pull our politics into the gutter,” the president said in the statement.

Obama refrained from criticizing the decision or the court at his State of the Union address the night before. Five years earlier, Obama used the speech to chide the court as Chief Justice John Roberts and most of his colleagues sat impassively in their customary places in the front rows of the House of Representatives. Justice Samuel Alito made headlines when he was captured on camera mouthing the words “not true” in response to some of Obama’s criticism.

Alito has not attended a State of the Union since.

___

After the protest and arguments in an important housing discrimination case, the justices spent an hour chewing over an appropriate way to regulate police use of dogs that sniff for drugs during traffic stops when officers have no reasonable suspicion that a vehicle contains drugs. The case seems to come down to how long police may extend a traffic stop to conduct the dog sniff, without violating the constitutional rights of the occupants of the car.

And this led some justices to think about their own experiences of being pulled over.

“Keeping me past giving me the ticket is annoying as heck whether it’s 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 45,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

As he often does, Justice Stephen Breyer searched for a way to resolve the case reasonably, allowing police officers to do their jobs without trampling on citizens’ rights. Breyer said that it is hard to put himself in the shoes of an officer. “We are not traffic policemen, and our experience on stops comes from, unfortunately, being the stoppee rather than the stopper,” he said.

Roberts, with a bit of a wink and a nod, did not acknowledge having himself been stopped by police, but he said he knows people who have been.

Can an officer ask for the car’s registration, Roberts asked? “Usually, people have told me, when you’re stopped, the officer says, ‘License and registration.’ Is that OK?” he asked.

Laughter filled the courtroom and it seemed no one laughed louder than Justice Antonin Scalia, sitting next to the chief justice.

Scalia has a reputation as a bit of a leadfoot. In 2011, he was ticketed by U.S. Park Police for following too closely when he rear-ended the car in front of him and set off a four-car accident on the George Washington Parkway in suburban Virginia. No one was hurt.

___

Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/shermancourt.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

Published

12 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Alameda County

Last City Council Meeting of the Year Ends on Sour Note with Big Budget Cuts

In a five to one vote, with Councilmembers Carroll Fife and Janani Ramachandran excused, the council passed a plan aimed at balancing the $130 million deficit the city is facing. Noel Gallo voted against the plan, previously citing concerns over public safety cuts, while Nikki Fortunato-Bas, Treva Reid, Rebecca Kaplan, Kevin Jenkins, and Dan Kalb voted in agreement with the plan.

Published

3 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Oakland City Council voted on a plan to balance the $130 million deficit at their last regular meeting of 2024. The plan reduces police spending by $25 million, temporarily closes two fire stations, and guts the cultural arts programs. iStock photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

In the last lengthy Tuesday meeting of the Oakland City Council for 2024, residents expressed strong opposition to the much needed budget cuts before a change in leadership was finalized with the certification of election results.

Oakland police and fire departments, the ambassador program, and city arts and culture will all see significant cuts over the course of two phases.

Phase 1 will eliminate two police academies, brown out two fire stations, eliminate the ambassador program, and reduce police overtime by nearly $25 million. These, with several other cuts across departments, aim to save the city $60 million. In addition, the council simultaneously approved to transfer restricted funds into its general purpose fund, amounting to over $40 million.

Phase 2 includes additional fire station brownouts and the elimination of 91 jobs, aiming to recover almost $16 million in order to balance the rest of the budget.

Several organizations and residents spoke out at the meeting in hopes of swaying the council to not make cuts to their programs.

East Oakland Senior Center volunteers and members, and homeless advocates, filled the plaza just outside of City Hall with rallies to show their disapproval of the new budget plan. Senior residents told the council to “remember that you’ll get old too” and that disturbing their resources will only bring problems for an already struggling community.

While city staff announced that there would not be complete cuts to senior center facilities, there would be significant reductions to staff and possibly inter-program services down the line.

Exiting council member and interim mayor Bas told the public that she is still hopeful that the one-time $125 million Coliseum sale deal will proceed in the near future so that the city would not have to continue with drastic cuts. The deal was intended to save the city for fiscal year 2024-25, but a hold up at the county level has paused any progress and therefore millions of dollars in funds Oakland desperately needs.

The Coliseum sale has been a contentious one. Residents and city leaders were originally against using the deal as a way to balance the budget, citing doubts about the sellers, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group’s (AASEG), ability to complete the deal. Council members Reid, Ramachandran, and Gallo have called several emergency meetings to understand where the first installments of the sale are, with little to no answers.

Bas added that as the new Alameda County Supervisor for D5, a position she starts in a few weeks, she will do everything in her power to push the Coliseum sale along.

The city is also considering a sales tax measure to put on the special election ballot on April 15, 2025, which will also serve as an election to fill the now vacant D2 and mayor positions. The tax increase would raise approximately $29 million annually for Oakland, allowing the city to gain much-needed revenue for the next two-year budget.

The council will discuss the possible sales tax measure on January 9.

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Activism

Protesters Gather in Oakland, Other City Halls, to Halt Encampment Sweeps

The coordinated protests on Tuesday in San Francisco, Oakland, Vallejo, Fresno, Los Angeles and Seattle, were hosted by Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons, calling on cities to halt the sweeps and focus instead on building more housing.

Published

3 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

The California Poor People’s Campaign’s Victoria King erected encampments for unhoused Oaklanders. Victoria King and her committee erected these emergency tents to symbolize the needs of unhoused Oaklanders. Photos by Post Staff.

By Post Staff

Houseless rights advocates gathered in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other city halls across California and Washington state this week protesting increased sweeps that followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision over the summer.

“What we’re dealing with right now is a way to criminalize people who are dealing with poverty, who are not able to afford rent,” said rights advocate Junebug Kealoh, outside San Francisco City Hall.

“When someone is constantly swept, they are just shuffled and things get taken — it’s hard to stay on top of anything,” said Kealoh.

Local houseless advocates include Victoria King, who is a member of the coordinating committee of the California Poor People’s Campaign. She and Dr. Monica Cross co-chair the Laney Poor People’s Campaign.

The demonstrations came after a June Supreme Court ruling expanded local governments’ authority to fine and jail people for sleeping outside, even if no shelter is available. Gov. Gavin Newsom in California followed up with an order directing state agencies to crack down on encampments and urging local governments to do the same.

Fresno, Berkeley and a host of other cities implemented new rules, making it easier for local governments to clear sidewalk camps. In other cities, such as San Francisco, officials more aggressively enforced anti-camping laws already on the books.