In politically charged case, appeals court hears Affordable Care Act challenge

Photo Credit:Annie Flanagan for The New York Times as published in their report on 7/9/19.

Photo Credit: Annie Flanagan for The New York Times as published in their report on 7/9/19.

The fate of the Affordable Care Act — commonly known as ObamaCare — rests with a federal appeals court, in a judicial standoff that could affect the 2020 presidential election.

The New York Times reports, “A panel of federal appeals court judges on Tuesday sounded likely to uphold a lower-court ruling that a central provision of the Affordable Care Act — the requirement that most people have health insurance — is unconstitutional. But it was harder to discern how the court might come down on a much bigger question: whether the rest of the sprawling health law must fall if the insurance mandate does.”

Yet as the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ponders a ruling, the lawsuit could affect next year’s presidential election, The Hill.com reports.

“The lawsuit has proved to be a headache for congressional Republicans seeking to turn the page on their efforts to repeal ObamaCare after the issue helped Democrats win back the House in last year’s midterm elections,” The Hill.com reports.

“If the case makes it to the Supreme Court, the decision would likely be handed down in June 2020, dropping a bomb in the center of the presidential election.”

The health care law has weathered legal challenges since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the mandate in 2012.

“If the mandate is indeed unconstitutional, the next question is whether the rest of the Affordable Care Act can function without it. In December,” The New York Times reports. “Judge Reed O’Connor of the Federal District Court in Fort Worth said it could not and declared that the entire law must fall.”

Court rebukes President Trump for blocking followers on Twitter

Photo Credit: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times as reported in The New York Times on 7/9/19.

Photo Credit: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times as reported in The New York Times on 7/9/19.

How the First Amendment functions in the social media age gained further clarity this week when a federal appeals court ruled that President Trump violated the Constitution by blocking people from following his Twitter account.

“Because Mr. Trump uses Twitter to conduct government business, he cannot exclude some Americans from reading his posts — and engaging in conversations in the replies to them — because he does not like their views, a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled unanimously,” The New York Times reports.

Tuesday’s ruling may be appealed.

“Mr. Trump’s legal team argued, among other things, that he operated the account merely in a personal capacity, and so had the right to block whomever he wanted for any reason — including because users annoyed him by criticizing or mocking him,” The New York Times reports.

“Courts have increasingly been grappling with how to apply the First Amendment, written in the 18th century, to the social-media era,” The Times continues. “In 2017, for example, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a North Carolina law that had made it a crime for registered sex offenders to use websites like Facebook.”

Court Upholds FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules

In the photo taken June 19, 2015, the entrance to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) building in Washington. (Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)

In the photo taken June 19, 2015, the entrance to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) building in Washington.
(Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)

A three-member U.S. Court of Appeals panel has ruled 2-1 to uphold the FCC’s rules regulating ‘net neutrality.”
 
USA Today explains that “… those Open Internet rules, or net neutrality rules, were crafted to prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs), mainly large cable or telephone companies, from blocking and slowing the transmission of content and from the practice of “paid prioritization,” paying an ISP for faster delivery of content.”
 
The offered a comment from the FCC leadership: “Today’s ruling is a victory for consumers and innovators who deserve unfettered access to the entire web, and it ensures the internet remains a platform for unparalleled innovation, free expression and economic growth,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who cast one of the three commission votes to pass the rules. “After a decade of debate and legal battles, today’s ruling affirms the Commission’s ability to enforce the strongest possible internet protections – both on fixed and mobile networks – that will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future.”
Read more about the significant court case here: 

Federal court upholds FCC’s net neutrality rules

Appeals Court Rules On Long-Standing Appeal Of Deputy Dismissal

A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy (turned security officer) in a labor case that began with a firing in 1990 and illustrates how “old” information can surface on the Internet. Among the issues was if employment records obtained online could be considered the same as “non-public” records and if the California Science Center acted property when it discovered previous information.
 
In effect, the employee explained his dismissal from the sheriff’s department in way, but it later surfaced that there was more possible wrongdoing involved. That came to light in 2007, years after the incident and after the employee had been working and received promotions. The worker’s legal team argued that online information should not be allowed for consideration because it was obtained without a waiver or other legal means for obtaining employment records. The Science Center countered that it got the information from the Internet.
 
You can read about California Science Center v. State Personnel Board (Arellanes), 13 S.O.S. 4282 at the MetNews here.