ComradeCosmobot posted:

Don't forget that Canning is still outstanding in case you were betting on whether all NLRB regs for the past four years are null and void and whether almost all Obama recess appointees would be kicked out of office.

haveblue posted:

Just to make sure I understand this- The President is allowed to make recess appointments, but for that to happen both houses of Congress have to agree that they are in recess, and they are allowed to refuse to enter recess indefinitely, so in certain political situations (such as the one we have right now) the President is de facto not allowed to make recess appointments?

mcmagic posted:

Unions are not allowed to picket in front of business's but anti women's rights nut jobs are.

McDowell posted:

What employer isn't incorporated? Isn't that like one of the first steps in 'Starting a Business 101'?


People usually write their nannies and cleaning ladies a check or give them cash. They aren't filling out W2s and providing benefits.

KernelSlanders posted:

No, that was my point. Our government already goes to great lengths to ensure certain people don't hear certain speech, which was my point bringing up NYSE, political conventions, NATO in Chicago, etc. My complaint is that these speakers with this message cannot be told to stay away from a particular area of the city whereas plenty of others can. See also: Reichle v. Howards.

Wax Dynasty posted:

This is the same logic Roberts used to unwind the VRA and for which Ginsburg gave her famoud umbrella quote: "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,"

McAlister posted:

Let's say I'm a bully. How many places can I go and yell filth at people without a nice policeman coming to cart me away to cool off/sober up?

McAlister posted:

At your doctors office while you were minding your own business?

quote:

Who are hated by pretty much everyone because they thrust their politics into the private lives of private citizens uninvited.

Green Crayons posted:

3 boxes for opinions + 2 opinions + First opinion is only 70 pages (opinion + dissent) = crazy Hobby Lobby shenanigans?

edit:

Lyle: "Harris occupied only the first box."

karthun posted:

A S-Corporation can not be held by a C-Corporation.

evilweasel posted:

No. That is the excuse, but we shouldn't have even gotten to the excuse.

evilweasel posted:

Because the RFRA applying to non-profits is an expansion to cover something necessary to achieve Congress's intent. Covering for-profit corporations is not.

Doctor Butts posted:

Could have sworn it was mentioned somewhere that they straight up said there was no compelling interest to cover birth control.

axeil posted:

Well the decision actually expanded the Bill of Rights even though that expansion makes no sense.

evilweasel posted:

And the RFRA does not say what the Supreme Court said it does. It doesn't mention corporations at all, so it is entirely the Court's job to reasonably interpret it. I read the entire thing (it's short) before posting.

Mo_Steel posted:

Ginsburgs dissents are at least a consolation prize for this poo poo sandwich, emphasis in bold is mine:

Emanuel Collective posted:

I'm a little unclear on this point: if RFRA were repealed, would Hobby Lobby still be good law?

Quantum Cat posted:

thefncrow posted:

HL had to win another part of the case to even come to that conclusion. RFRA plainly does not apply to for-profit corporations absent the insane nonsense notion that corporations are people. In the absence of RFRA covering a corporation, it doesn't matter if there is a less-restrictive alternative.

There's really no covering for this loving travesty of a decision. The abuse of the court's power by the conservative wing is infuriating and sickening and should not be defended.

CSPAN Caller posted:

This seems like a huge problem. By extending the scope of these exceptions to for profit firms, it seems like the judiciary would need to start ruling on what is, or is not, a sincerely held religious belief.

Mo_Steel posted:

No, the accommodation in place exists for non-profit religious orgs, not for-profit companies. New accommodations would have to be made, so the question remains.

Mo_Steel posted:

Would you argue then that if there had been no existing accommodation in place that Hobby Lobby should've lost their case?

Mo_Steel posted:

Why? The Court makes no such distinction in it's decision; they even outright state that before offering the accommodation up as a third method to achieve their goal:


e: And further the Court argues:


Therefore the question Ginsburg raises about where this argument stops and the examples she gives are valid comparisons, existing accommodations or no.

Quantum Cat posted:

look Kiwi Ghost Chips, I know you're busy running a hypothetical halal meat-atorium in the U.S. politics thread, but maybe you should take a moment to actually read the opinion and dissent.

Crows Turn Off posted:

How can SCOTUS even say that unions aren't constitutional? I mean, it's an assembly of people, isn't that guaranteed by the First Amendment? Wouldn't they just be saying that workers cannot assemble? And, isn't that just the free market working as intended, without government intervention (whereas SCOTUS ruling IS government intervention)?

evilweasel posted:

You're being willfully obtuse, not Ginsburg. First, that a for-profit corporation can have a religious belief is absurd. Second, the RFRA was passed in a specific context that is listed in its preamble, all of which you've willfully ignored because the history and context makes clear that what was being overturned was the rule that a law of general applicability was not a substantial burden on an individual's freedom of religion rights. It was not to make a new rule out of thin air and so your attempt to argue that the context of the words immediately surrounding it is all that one would look at is absurd.

evilweasel posted:

It was an undecided issue in the way that many issues in the law that have a blindly obvious answer don't actually have any precedent on point: because it's an argument so inane that nobody thought it passed the laugh test and even tried it (a surprisingly common problem when someone comes up with a really dumb argument you need to address in a brief).

quote:

A corporation by definition cannot have a religion because it doesn't actually have thoughts or beliefs. We extend 'religious' rights to non-profits that are created to advance religious activities as a shorthand for allowing the people involved to exercise their religious rights through the (non-profit) corporate form or other legal organizations. The tax exemption mirrors the relevant point: that the organization is created for solely religious goals so extending it religious rights is a helpful way of preserving the underlying people's rights. All of this is so well understood nobody needs to think or elaborate on why, say, the Roman Catholic Church can operate as a non-profit and we extend it religious rights. It's not because the law recognizes the church as a thinking living thing, it's because that's a good way to respect the religious rights of the people involved and because failing to recognize those religious entities would make it impossible for those religious people to exercise their religion properly. It is a legal fiction, invoked sparingly only when the underlying reasons support it.

This distinction is important because the point of a for-profit corporation is to make money. It is absurd to argue that the organization has religious beliefs because they don't need to run a store in order to meet the dictates of their religion. We have no compelling reason we would find that we need to treat a chain of stores as having a religious belief. The legal fiction entirely breaks down because the reasoning underlying it - that we need to recognize the non-profit organizations that people use to exercise their faith through in order to properly preserve their religious rights - doesn't apply. Instead we have an organization that exists to make profit, that can be sold for profit, claiming it has religious rights. That's absurd and there's no reason that any sane person would think that was intended by the context.

evilweasel posted:

That it has nothing to do with what you're claiming? The essential argument Crown Kosher made (and lost) was that the blue laws were unconstitutional establishments of religion and the Court ruled that they were valid on the secular ground of giving everyone a day of rest. There is no problem with a for-profit company claiming a law is invalid on first amendment grounds because it's an unconstitutional establishment of religion. They had standing because the blue laws severely cut into their profits.

quote:

Secondly, appellees contend that the application to them of the Sunday Closing Laws prohibits the free exercise of their religion. Crown alleges that, if it is required by law to abstain from business on Sunday, then, because its owners' religion demands closing from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, Crown will be open only four and one-half days a week, thereby suffering extreme economic disadvantage. Crown's Orthodox Jewish customers allege that, because their religious beliefs forbid their shopping on the Jewish Sabbath, the statutes' effect is to deprive them, from Friday afternoon until Monday of each week, of the opportunity to purchase the kosher food sanctioned by their faith. The orthodox rabbis allege that the statutes' effect greatly complicates their task of supervising the condition of kosher meat because the meat delivered on Friday would have to be kept until Monday. Furthermore, appellees contend that, because of all this, the statutes discriminate against their religion.

These allegations are similar, although not as grave, as those made by appellants in Braunfeld v. Brown, ante, p. 366 U. S. 599. Since the decision in that case rejects the contentions presented by these appellees on the merits, we need not decide whether appellees have standing to raise these questions.

quote:

I don't really know how to answer this question besides point out the mere fact you're asking it means you really, really don't understand what's going on here. The point is the RFRA is explicitly intended to just go into that existing court doctrinal development and overturn Smith. You're not finding any law on point because Congress wasn't making law on the subject before, and the RFRA explicitly incorporates all of those decisions and is basically "no, this one instead of that one". You cannot understand the RFRA without looking to those cases and the RFRA's findings are part of the law in order to make that very clear.

quote:

We extend 'religious' rights to non-profits that are created to advance religious activities as a shorthand for allowing the people involved to exercise their religious rights through the (non-profit) corporate form or other legal organizations.

Mooseontheloose posted:

Essentially, sole proprietorship, partnerships, and closely held companies said their agency trumps those of their employees.

More seriously, these companies account for like 70 percent of business of the United States and the Supreme Court said it's totally cool to impose your religious beliefs on abortion/contraception because reasons but reasons of other people outside of contraceptives is not good reasons.

Deadulus posted:

This ruling has stated that this specific religious belief is valid, but others like blood transfusion and vaccines are not. Correct?

Deadulus posted:

I thought that the argument qualified this to just these specific BC drugs and for just a specific type of company. Is that incorrect?