Posted on 10/04/2004 1:31:55 PM PDT by freepatriot32
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court turned away several First Amendment-related cases today, appeals by:
A media company claiming it had a right to distribute real-time golf scores. Telemarketing groups challenging the federal do-not-call registry. A Catholic organization challenging a California law that forces it to pay for workers' contraceptive health insurance benefits. The Montana Right to Life Association, which claimed state campaign-contribution limits violated free-speech rights. Alabama's former chief justice and Ten Commandments proponent Roy Moore who was seeking to get his job back.
Morris Communications Co. v. PGA Tour The high court turned away an appeal by Morris Communications Co., which claims it has a right to publish and sell real-time golf scores from PGA tournaments that its reporters cover.
Without comment, the Court let stand a lower ruling allowing the American professional golf tour to restrict media outlets from posting or selling the real-time scores to Web site publishers — unless media outlets purchase a licensing agreement from the PGA first.
The case involves Morris Communications, which began distributing scores its reporters obtained from the tournament's media center. The PGA then imposed new restrictions in 1999 that barred media outlets from publishing the scores immediately; otherwise, their reporters wouldn't be granted access to tournaments.
Morris filed suit, arguing that the restrictions gave the PGA an unfair business advantage as the exclusive publisher and seller of real-time golf scores.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the PGA in dismissing Morris' antitrust claims. It ruled in March that the PGA's real-time scoring system required a significant devotion of money, staffing and technology that justified the organization's insistence on selling or licensing the information to others.
Several media groups, including the Associated Press Sports Editors, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, argued in support of Morris' appeal. They said the PGA should not be given ownership rights to news information at public events.
American Teleservices Association v. FTC The Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge today to the federal do-not-call registry, ending telemarketers' bid to invoke free-speech arguments to get the popular ban on unwanted phone solicitations thrown out.
The Court, without comment, let stand a 10th Circuit decision that upheld the registry of more than 57 million phone numbers as a reasonable government attempt to safeguard personal privacy and reduce telemarketing abuse.
Under the 2003 federal law, businesses face fines of up to $11,000 if they call people who sign up for the registry — unless they have recently done business with them. Charities, pollsters and callers on behalf of politicians, however, are exempt.
Telemarketing groups had filed the appeal, arguing in filings that the registry violated First Amendment rights because it singled businesses out while exempting other groups. They also said 2 million of their 6.5 million workers would lose their jobs within two years if the do-not-call rules stand.
A federal judge in Denver agreed with the telemarketers, but the 10th Circuit upheld the registry in February 2004 after concluding there was no evidence suggesting that charitable or political callers were as intrusive to consumers' privacy.
Catholic Charities of Sacramento v. California The Supreme Court today refused to disturb a ruling that forces some California religious organizations to pay for workers' contraceptive health-insurance benefits.
Justices turned down an appeal from a Roman Catholic organization that wanted the Court to weigh in on states' requiring employers that offer prescription benefits to employees also to cover birth-control pills.
The Court's announcement, on the first day of its nine-month term, keeps the justices out of a divisive church-state dispute; some 20 of the 50 states require employers that have prescription drug-benefit plans also to cover birth-control pills.
Justices had been asked to review California's law, which exempts churches but not church-backed institutions such as hospitals and charity organizations.
Catholic Charities had challenged the law, on grounds that it could not be required to pay for something it viewed as sinful. The state Supreme Court ruled against the group last spring.
"If the state of California can coerce Catholic agencies to pay for contraceptives, it can force them to pay for abortions," attorney Kevin Baine told justices in an appeal for Catholic Charities.
Catholic Charities contended that the case turned on the group's constitutional right to exercise its religious beliefs without government interference.
Timothy Muscat, California's deputy attorney general, said that Catholic Charities could get around the requirement by not offering insurance to employees.
The law was passed in 1999 to stop discrimination against women who had to pay more for drugs than did men.
Catholic Charities does not qualify for an exemption because it offers such secular services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services to the public without directly preaching about Catholic values. Also, the group employs people of many religious affiliations.
Montana Right to Life Association v. Eddleman The Court declined today to hear a challenge to Montana campaign-contribution limits by critics who contended the strict rules infringed on free-speech rights.
The Court, without comment, let stand a 9th Circuit decision that the caps on contributions by individuals and political action committees were justified to prevent even the appearance of corruption in the state political process.
The Montana Right to Life Association had filed the appeal, saying the contribution limits prevented candidates from waging effective campaigns. The limits restricted the First Amendment rights of those wanting to donate money, it said.
The 9th Circuit disagreed, basing its 2003 decision on two U.S. Supreme Court rulings — Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) — that said campaign-contribution limits are permissible if they satisfy an important enough state interest and are narrowly written to do that.
The Montana case involved two laws. One enacted in 1983 limits the total money a legislative candidate can receive from political action committees. The second, approved in 1994, limits contributions from individual donors and political action committees to candidates for the Legislature, governor and other statewide offices. Donations to gubernatorial candidates, for example, are limited to $400, while other statewide candidates can receive $200.
The lawsuit says the limits are among the lowest in the country.
Montana provided enough evidence to support its claim that it was seeking to combat corruption and that candidates weren't unduly harmed since it is relatively inexpensive to mount a political campaign there, the 9th Circuit said.
Moore v. Judicial Inquiry Commission of the State of Alabama The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal today from ousted Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who lost his job after defying a federal order to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument.
Moore has become a high-profile crusader for Ten Commandment monuments as a result of the dispute over his own 2 ½-ton granite display in the state courthouse.
A federal judge ruled that Moore violated the Constitution's ban on government promotion of religion when he placed the monument in the rotunda of the judicial building in the middle of the night in 2001.
The display was moved last year over Moore's objections, and a state court removed him from office.
Moore's lawyers had called on the Supreme Court to "remedy this travesty of justice" and give him his job back. The high court declined, without comment.
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary found that Moore violated canons of judicial ethics when he refused the federal court's order to move the monument. Moore could try to win back a seat on the court in 2006 elections.
What is wrong with the Supreme Court? They seem to be a Left-wing attack machine on free speech and moral decency. O'Connor and Kennedy are horrible.
A collage of senile tyrannical social reformers massquerading as custodians of the Nation's Constitution.
The entire charade of Supreme Court review must be revisited and the Court restructured to better represent a conservative review body rather than a pack of radical leftist collage students with no senses of history or regard for national tradition.
Agreed.
But I'm afraid that won't happen until the country votes that way, and that won't happen for several years and of course then the Supreme Court would end up being the lagging indicator.
Catholic Charities of Sacramento v. California The Supreme Court today refused to disturb a ruling that forces some California religious organizations to pay for workers' contraceptive health-insurance benefits.
Justices turned down an appeal from a Roman Catholic organization that wanted the Court to weigh in on states' requiring employers that offer prescription benefits to employees also to cover birth-control pills.
The Court's announcement, on the first day of its nine-month term, keeps the justices out of a divisive church-state dispute; some 20 of the 50 states require employers that have prescription drug-benefit plans also to cover birth-control pills.
Justices had been asked to review California's law, which exempts churches but not church-backed institutions such as hospitals and charity organizations.
Catholic Charities had challenged the law, on grounds that it could not be required to pay for something it viewed as sinful. The state Supreme Court ruled against the group last spring.
"If the state of California can coerce Catholic agencies to pay for contraceptives, it can force them to pay for abortions," attorney Kevin Baine told justices in an appeal for Catholic Charities.
Catholic Charities contended that the case turned on the group's constitutional right to exercise its religious beliefs without government interference.
Timothy Muscat, California's deputy attorney general, said that Catholic Charities could get around the requirement by not offering insurance to employees.
The law was passed in 1999 to stop discrimination against women who had to pay more for drugs than did men.
Catholic Charities does not qualify for an exemption because it offers such secular services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services to the public without directly preaching about Catholic values. Also, the group employs people of many religious affiliations.
***
So basically Catholic Charities, an organization that provides free social services that the leftwing deadbeat politicians in California fail to provide but feel obliged to control, is in the unfortunate position of having to make the decision to stop operations in California or stop health care. I am at the point where I would like to see Catholic Charities either continue in civil disobedience or close up in CA and let the state perform the services that it demands. Or not.
I don't like these stories that list cases that are refused by SCOTUS. It's typically just another example of "journalism" being about who can be agitated into reading and responding. They rarely get to the real reasons why the cases were refused. In most cases, I think that the Court either agrees with the lower courts' rulings, they believe that the issue at hand would be better addressed by Congress, or they simply do not have the time to get to them. They can only handle about 2% of the cases appealed to them. I wish these stories would list those cases that ARE heard, so that we could see what might get knocked off the podium if those arguments were granted cert.
After their last session in which they took a lot of heat (and rightly so) it seems like they're not taking anything real controversial right now. I wouldn't be surprised if several Justices want an easy term before they retire next year.
Ummmmmm... shouldn't that be compensation? :) Or, is that a freudian slip? LOL
And they were appointed by...
(Hint: the finest Republican President in ages)
Actually, I enjoyed throwing this at a rabid left-wing co-worker last week... Two of the most extreme-Left judges were appointed by Clinton (Ginsberg and Breyer). The other 7 (an admittedly decent 2-3-2 balance of Left, Right, and undecideds) were appointed by Republicans. So when people bleat about the utter necessity of voting for the correct party because of judicial balancing, they really ought to be pushing for Republicans. Only they have demonstrably kept the Court "balanced".
A damned lie. It actually inserts lower courts, acting in the name of the SC, into a church-state dispute (actually, an employer-employee dispute).
You are correct.
For example, the article states:
"Telemarketing groups had filed the appeal, arguing in filings that the registry violated First Amendment rights because it singled businesses out while exempting other groups."
Their case was not a First Amendment case. It was either a Fifth Amendment (nor shall private proeprty be taken for public use without just compensation) or Fourteenth Amendment case (nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.)
Many cases are "upheld" without comment because the case is incorrectly argued.
Judge Moore tripped the same trap. It was one he, of all people, should have been alert to. He failed to appeal the district court's order while complying with it. Irrespective of whether he's correct or not in his ideological beliefs(that's not the issue), he is bound by the same rule of law that keeps us from becoming a nation with at large anarchy and those who decide for themselves which law and legal process they will abide by and which they think they stand above because of a fervently held belief.
In his race to be a martyr he only demonstrated that he is fool driven by his own unilateral determination of right and wrong.. Of course, it didn't do harm to his fund raising abilities and his contemplated run for the governor's house in Alabama; a 21st Century George Wallace, just what we need in the South today.
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