August, 27 2009, 12:30pm EDT
ACLU Charges Unconstitutional Arkansas Rule Illegally Bars Green Party From Ballot
The
American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arkansas filed a lawsuit
today in a federal court in Arkansas challenging Arkansas Secretary of
State Charlie Daniels' decertification of the Green Party of Arkansas
as a political party. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Arkansas voters
and the Green Party, charges that the decision violates state law and
the free speech rights of third parties.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arkansas filed a lawsuit
today in a federal court in Arkansas challenging Arkansas Secretary of
State Charlie Daniels' decertification of the Green Party of Arkansas
as a political party. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Arkansas voters
and the Green Party, charges that the decision violates state law and
the free speech rights of third parties.
"The First Amendment protects not
only the right of third parties to compete in the political arena but
also the right of individual voters to support the candidates who best
reflect their political views," said Bryan Sells, a senior staff
attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. "A lot of voters are
dissatisfied with the choices offered by the major parties, and
Secretary Daniels' decision means that the voters of Arkansas could
have even fewer choices on the ballot when they go to the polls in the
next election."
Daniels decertified the Green Party
under a state law requiring a political party's candidates to earn at
least 3 percent of the total votes cast in gubernatorial or
presidential elections in order to retain access to the ballot in the
next election cycle.
In the 2008 election, the Green
Party's candidates received hundreds of thousands of votes, far
surpassing the three percent threshold. Green Party candidate Richard
Carroll won a seat in the State House of Representatives, and several
other Green Party candidates for the U.S. House and Senate earned over
20 percent of the vote. Daniels nonetheless decertified the Green Party
because its candidate for president, Cynthia McKinney, did not earn
more than three percent of the vote in the presidential race.
"The Green Party clearly represents
the interests of a large number of Arkansans," said Rita Sklar,
Executive Director of the ACLU of Arkansas. "But the Democratic and
Republican parties have set up an unconstitutional system to deny
ballot access to legitimate third parties that have substantial voter
support in order to shield themselves from competition. That's just not
the way democracy is supposed to work."
According to the ACLU, Arkansas'
party-recognition regulation also illegally forces political parties to
compete in gubernatorial and presidential elections. Third parties like
the Green Party do not always have gubernatorial or presidential
candidates, making it impossible to earn 3 percent of the vote for
candidates in those elections.
The ACLU of Arkansas has urged
lawmakers to pass legislation that would bring Arkansas law in line
with the U.S. Constitution. Without a legislative cure parties and
persons wishing to exercise their First Amendment rights are forced to
file lawsuits to have those rights respected.
Attorneys on the case are Sells and
Laughlin McDonald of the national ACLU Voting Rights Project and Holly
Dickson of the ACLU of Arkansas.
The complaint in the case, Green Party of Arkansas, et al. v. Daniels, is available online at: www.aclu.org/votingrights/access/40856lgl20090827.html
More information on the work of the ACLU Voting Rights Project is available at: www.votingrights.org
More information about the ACLU of Arkansas is available at: www.acluarkansas.org/
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Biden Tax Boost Targeting the Rich Called 'Fair, Popular, and Long Overdue'
"Republicans have already made clear they're on the side of the 1 Percenters and big corporations by trying to shield rich tax cheats and endangering Social Security and Medicare with deficit-busting tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations," said one expert. "The contrast couldn't be sharper."
Mar 10, 2023
While far-right Republicans continue threatening to blow up the global economy unless Congress makes cuts to popular social programs, progressive taxation experts are celebrating U.S. President Joe Biden's latest push to invest in "widespread prosperity" by raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.
As part of his fiscal year 2024 budget blueprint unveiled Thursday, Biden calls for a 25% minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01%; reforms to ensure high-income individuals pay their fair share into the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund; and repealing 2017 tax cuts and restoring the top tax rate of 39.6% for people making over $400,000 a year.
Along with pushing for raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%—which is still far below the 35% rate that was in place prior to Republicans' 2017 tax overhaul—the president advocates expanding the child tax credit while eliminating tax subsidies for cryptocurrency transactions, fossil fuel companies, and real estate.
Biden also "proposes to reform the international tax system to reduce the incentives to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions, stop corporate inversions to tax havens, and raise the tax rate on U.S. multinationals' foreign earnings from 10.5% to 21%," according to a White House fact sheet.
Although many of these proposals are unlikely to go anywhere due to the GOP-controlled U.S. House and divided Senate, Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said Friday that "it's great to see President Biden leading the charge to increase taxes on billionaires, crack down on stock buybacks by massive corporations, and prevent the wealthiest Americans from cheating on their taxes and avoiding paying what they owe."
"The tax policies laid out in this budget are fair, popular, and long overdue," she declared. "The next time someone claims that we can't afford to protect Social Security and Medicare for future generations—or that we need to cut popular investments in education, healthcare, housing, or clean energy—show them President Bident's latest budget proposal and ask them why they care so much about protecting the ultrawealthy from paying their fair share."
According to Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy executive director Amy Hanauer, "President Biden's budget proposal presents a bold vision for what tax justice should look like in America."
"The provisions would raise substantial revenue, fund important priorities, and increase tax fairness," she stressed. "The revenue raisers are laser-focused on taxing very wealthy individuals and corporations, and the budget would reduce the deficit while easing costs for American families, particularly for middle and low-income parents."
Americans for Tax Fairness executive director Frank Clemente asserted Thursday that "President Biden's budget plainly shows whose side he's on: working families struggling with the high cost of healthcare, childcare, housing and more—not the wealthy elite and their big corporations rolling in dough and dodging their fair share of taxes."
"Republicans have already made clear they're on the side of the 1 Percenters and big corporations by trying to shield rich tax cheats and endangering Social Security and Medicare with deficit-busting tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations," Clemente added. "The contrast couldn't be sharper."
As Common Dreams reported earlier Friday, the House Freedom Caucus said its 45 members would "consider voting" to raise the U.S. debt limit if their colleagues in Congress abandon some of Biden's key economic priorities, slash hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending, and restrict federal agencies' future budgets.
Responding on Twitter, Biden said that "extreme MAGA House Republicans are showing us what they value: tax breaks for the rich."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Three Years Into Covid Pandemic, World Leaders Say 'Never Again' to Vaccine Apartheid
"These past three years should act as a warning for future pandemics," said former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "We need a return to genuine cooperation between nations in our preparation and response to global threats."
Mar 10, 2023
Around 200 current and former world leaders, Nobel laureates, health and faith leaders, and activists this week marked the third anniversary of the World Health Organization's Covid-19 pandemic declaration by taking aim at the "vaccine apartheid" that according to one advocacy group was responsible for one death every 24 seconds during the outbreak's first year alone.
A letter led by the People's Vaccine Alliance notes that three years have passed since "the World Health Organization (WHO) first characterized Covid-19 as a pandemic" on March 11, 2020 and implores governments to "never again" allow nationalism and capitalist greed to supersede human needs."
"We have seen extraordinary feats of scientific innovation and an enormous mobilization of public resources to develop effective vaccines, tests, and treatments," the letter continues. "But we have also seen a global response held back by profiteering and nationalism."
The signers asserted:
We are hopeful that an end to the acute stage of the Covid-19 pandemic may be in sight. Thus, the world is at a critical juncture. Decisions made now will determine how the world prepares for and responds to future global health crises. World leaders must reflect on mistakes made in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic so that they are never repeated.
There are decades of publicly funded research behind Covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests. Governments have poured taxpayer money by the billions into research, development, and advance orders, reducing the risks for pharmaceutical companies. These are the people's vaccines, the people's tests, and the people's treatments. Yet, a handful of pharmaceutical companies has been allowed to exploit these public goods to fuel extraordinary profits, increasing prices in the Global North while refusing to share technology and knowledge with capable researchers and producers in the Global South.
"Instead of rolling out vaccines, tests, and treatments based on need, pharmaceutical companies maximized their profits by selling doses first to the richest countries with the deepest pockets," the letter adds. "Billions of people in low- and middle-income countries, including frontline workers and the clinically vulnerable, were sent to the back of the line."
These inequities, the alliance said, resulted in over 1.3 million preventable deaths—one every 24 seconds—in the pandemic's first year alone. Even today, as the pandemic enters its fourth year, much of the Global South lacks adequate access to Covid-19 testing and treatments.
The letter's signatories urge world leaders to take immediate action to:
- Support a pandemic accord at the WHO that embeds equity and human rights in pandemic preparedness and response;
- Invest in scientific innovation and manufacturing capacity in the Global South through projects like the mRNA Technology Transfer Hub established by the WHO and partners;
- Invest in global common goods; and
- Remove the intellectual property barriers that prevent knowledge and technology sharing.
"In the AIDS pandemic, pharmaceutical monopolies have resulted in an appalling number of unnecessary deaths—and it has been the same story with Covid-19," lamented Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS and co-chair of the People's Vaccine Alliance.
"It was only the production of inexpensive generics in developing countries that made the first generation of HIV medicines available and affordable to people in the [Global] South," she added. "But governments still have not learned that lesson. Unless they break the monopolies that prevent people from accessing medical products, humanity will sleepwalk unprepared into the next pandemic."
East Timorese President José Manuel Ramos-Horta, who also signed the letter, said that "in the Covid-19 pandemic, those of us in low and middle-income countries were pushed to the back of the line for vaccines and denied access to the benefits of new technologies."
"Three years on, we must say 'never again' to this injustice that has undermined the safety of people in every country," he added. "Steps that we take today can hasten global access to vaccines, medicines, and tests in the next pandemic, with regional hubs researching, developing, and manufacturing medical products for everyone, everywhere."
Former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asserted:
The great tragedy of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the failure of multilateralism and the absence of solidarity between the Global North and Global South. These past three years should act as a warning for future pandemics. We need a return to genuine cooperation between nations in our preparation and response to global threats. That requires a pandemic accord rooted in equity and human rights, which places the needs of humanity above the commercial interests of a handful of companies.
Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response co-chair Helen Clark—who served as New Zealand's prime minister from 1999 to 2008—noted that "publicly funded science contributed a lot to the phenomenal success of Covid-19 vaccines."
"Yet, that public investment did not lead to vaccines being treated as global common goods," Clark continued. "Rather, nationalism and profiteering around vaccines resulted in a catastrophic moral and public health failure which denied equitable access to all."
"We need to fix the glaring gaps in pandemic preparedness and response today," she added, "so that people in all countries can be protected when a pandemic threat emerges."
Keep ReadingShow Less
South Carolina Teen Sues School, Teacher Who Shoved Her Over Pledge of Allegiance Refusal
"The thing that's beautiful about America is we have freedoms," said the student's lawyer. "Students in our schools should feel safe."
Mar 10, 2023
Marissa Barnwell, a 15-year-old high school student in Lexington, South Carolina, was joined by her parents and the family's lawyer on Thursday as they spoke publicly about a federal lawsuit they filed against her school district, the state Department of Education, and a teacher who they say assaulted Barnwell late last year for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Surveillance footage from River Bluff High School shows Barnwell walking through a school hallway on November 29, 2022 when the pledge began playing over a loudspeaker.
A state law passed three decades ago requires public schools to play the Pledge of Allegiance over their intercom systems each day at a specific time, but it prohibits any punishment of people who refuse to recite the pledge as long as "they are not disruptive or do not infringe on others."
Barnwell continued walking and was quickly confronted by a special education teacher, Nicole Livingston, who yelled at her and pushed her against a wall before sending her to the principal's office.
"I was just in disbelief," Barnwell said at the press conference Thursday. "You can hear me say in the video, 'Get your hands off of me.'"
Barnwell's parents learned about the incident when she called them in tears, according to the Associated Press. The school did not talk to them about the alleged assault and has reportedly "never responded" to their requests for an explanation.
"It will not be tolerated, and we will get justice for this action that [Livingston] did," Fynale Barnwell, Marissa's mother, toldNews 19 WLTX, a local CBS affiliate.
The lawsuit was filed last month, with the family arguing Livingston violated Barnwell's "constitutional rights by yelling and demanding that M.B. stop walking and physically assaulting her by pushing M.B., on the wall and forcefully touching M.B., in an unwanted way without her consent."
The Secular Coalition for America applauded the family for taking legal action.
Tyler Bailey, the Barnwells' attorney, said Barnwell was "threatened for exercising [her] constitutional rights."
"The thing that's beautiful about America is we have freedoms," Bailey said Thursday. "Students in our schools should feel safe."
According toThe State, a local newspaper, Livingston is still employed by the school.
"Nobody did anything," Bailey said. "This is why the federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular
SUPPORT OUR WORK.
We are independent, non-profit, advertising-free and 100%
reader supported.
reader supported.