Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Breaking News: Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Health Care Law


You’ve probably seen news reports on the lawsuits challenging the health care law across the country. Two courts of appeals have held that the health care law is constitutional, while one has disagreed. Today, the Supreme Court announced it will hear two of these cases and issue a decision by June 2012.

To make clear what’s at stake, I’ve recorded a short video explaining the legal challenges, why we think the law is constitutional, and what women could lose if the law is struck down.

 
Click to watch our video about the health care law litigation.

The health care law puts an end to insurance companies‘ practice of treating women like a pre-existing condition. Already, the law is helping women and their families by making it illegal for insurance companies to drop people once they get sick, prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions, and ensuring that new health plans provide no-cost preventive health care services such as mammograms and pap smears. By 2014, it will expand Medicaid coverage to 8.2 million more women, guarantee maternity coverage, and end the practice of charging women more than men for the same insurance. All of this and more is at stake in the Supreme Court.

Once you’ve watched the video, please visit our special page dedicated to keeping you up-to-date on the latest news about the health care law litigation.Thanks for all you do for women and families.

http://action.nwlc.org/site/R?i=O1L5xqvxpetjLj_CH-OqLQ

Sincerely,

 
Emily J. Martin
Vice President and General Counsel
National Women’s Law Center

Investigat​e Clarence Thomas & Restore Ethics on the Supreme Court


Nearly 45,000 activists have already signed our petition urging a DOJ investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas‘ ethics violations. Please add your name now and help us get to 60,000 signers by the end of this week!    WWW.PFAW.ORG

New research by our allies has shed more light on the controversy over Justice Thomas’ failure to disclose his wife Virginia’s income on important judicial disclosure forms. The research shows that Justice Thomas knew enough about how to fill out the forms that he generally recorded his wife’s employment and earnings until 1997, when for some reason he just stopped. Since then, until recently correcting the forms, Thomas failed to disclose more than $1.6 million of his wife’s earnings, primarily from the ultraconservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.

This is just the latest revelation into why an ethics investigation of Justice Thomas is so needed, and why I am asking that you sign our petition to support calls by Rep. Louise Slaughter and her colleagues for the U.S. Judicial Conference to recommend the Justice Department launch an investigation now.

WWW.PFAW.ORG

Thanks! And after you sign, please help spread the word.

— Michael

Original Message:

Join the call for a Justice Department investigation into Clarence Thomas’ ethics violations.

Efforts to hold Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accountable for ethics violations just jumped to the next level.

A group of 20 House Democrats led by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) are now pushing for a Justice Department investigation into Justice Thomas’ possible serious violations.

Please sign our petition supporting the call for an investigation now.

The letter Rep. Slaughter and 19 of her colleagues sent was to the Judicial Conference of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. It urges the Judicial Conference follow the law and refer the matter of Justice Thomas’ non-compliance with the Ethics in Government Act to the Department of Justice.

Various reports have raised concerns about Justice Clarence Thomas’ seemingly flagrant disregard for important disclosure requirements under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. Justice Thomas failed to disclose his wife’s earnings on judicial financial disclosure forms on which he was required to do so. And there are questions about his acceptance of gifts from interests with significant stake in several Supreme Court cases.

The Supreme Court’s very legitimacy and the public’s trust in the institution are under threat if Justices do not strictly adhere to ethical standards. It’s incredibly important that Justice Thomas’ violations are not ignored and that he be held accountable.

Hold Justice Clarence Thomas accountable — take action to support a DOJ investigation now!

Many of you have stood with our previous work to call out Justice Thomas for his conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety his actions have created. This is a significant escalation in those ongoing efforts, and it’s very important that you continue to stand with us.

After you sign, please help spread the word and recruit more Americans to this cause.

Thank you for your activism and your unyielding commitment to fair and just courts — the American Way.

Sincerely,

Michael Keegan, President

Paycheck Fairness Returning to Congress: Act Now


Next Tuesday is Equal Pay Day, the day when an average woman’s wages will catch up to those of her male counterparts in 2010. That’s right — the wage gap equates to over THREE MONTHS’ worth of women’s work. A steep discount, and it’s outrageous!

Fortunately, some of our allies in Congress think that the wage gap is as outrageous as we do. So in honor of Equal Pay Day, they are reintroducing the Paycheck Fairness Act on Tuesday!

Ask your Members of Congress to co-sponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act today!  www.nwlc.org/fairpay 

Women Are Not WorthLess

Ask your Member of Congress to co-sponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act and Stop Discounting Women today!

As you probably remember, and with the help of thousands of activists like you, the Paycheck Fairness Act passed the House and fell just a few votes short of moving forward in the Senate in the last Congress. It was close — the closest we’ve ever been.

Take action — ask your Members of Congress to co-sponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act now!

Let’s make sure that this year, on Equal Pay Day, Congress knows that Women are Not WorthLess! Thank you for all of your support in the past, and let’s get geared up to see Paycheck Fairness through to the end in the 112th Congress!

Sincerely,

Fatima Goss Graves

Vice President for Education and Employment

National Women’s Law Center

P.S. The women of Wal-Mart took their fight for fair pay all the way to the Supreme Court last week! Did you see our Wal-Mart Manager Madness bracket? Pick your “favorites” today as we whittle down the Egregious Eight to the Foul Four. The Sexist Slam-Dunk will be unveiled next week on Equal Pay Day, so stay tuned!

Supreme Court: The Chamber’s Genie


Ever since Chief Justice Roberts joined the Supreme Court, corporate America has treated his Court as its personal genie, and Roberts has been eager to grant even many of their most outlandish wishes. As soon as Roberts and his fellow conservative Justice Alito joined the high Court, the Chamber of Commerce’s win rate before the justices spiked eight percentage points above its already very high levels under his conservative predecessor William Rehnquist. Nor is Roberts alone in his willingness to go the extra mile for wealthy corporations. A recent study found that every single justice is more likely to side with the Chamber than the just ice who held the seat 25 years ago. As one of the Chamber’s top Supreme Court litigators bragged, “except for the solicitor general representing the United States, no single entity has more influence on what cases the Supreme Court decides and how it decides them than the National Chamber Litigation Center.” This week, corporate America made three especially large wishes to the justices, and the Court’s conservatives once again appear eager to grant them.

ELECTIONS FOR SALE: The best way for big business to push its agenda is to ensure that elected officials throughout the country owe wealthy corporations their jobs — and the Supreme Court took a big step towards making this vision a reality with its infamous Citizens United decision. In the wake of Citizens United, the Chamber pledged to spend a massive $75 million to elect corporate-aligned conservatives, and the Chamber’s right-wing allies kicked in hundreds of millions of dollars more. Yet Citizens United is merely one part of a much larger campaign to cement big money’s control over American elections. On Monday, the justices moved on to the next stage of this effort. Public financing laws provide one of the strongest defenses against the corrupting influence of big money in politics, but public financing schemes only work if they allow candidates who opt into them to remain competitive. To defend against this problem, Arizona developed a two-tiered public financing system. Candidates receive additional funds if their opponent or corporate interest groups overwhelm them with attack ads, and thus candidates who are determined not to be tainted by the corrupting influence of major donors are n ot left defenseless . Yet, in a case called McComish v. Bennett, the Court’s five conservatives appear poised to strike this two-tiered system down. If they do so, it could be the death knell for public financing, since no candidate is safe from massive infusions of corporate money after Citizens United.

SLAMMING COURTHOUSE DOORS: Many of the Court’s most corporate-friendly decisions create complicated and arcane procedural barriers to Americans seeking justice. The Court’s discredited Ledbetter decision didn’t literally take away women’s right to equal work for equal pay. It just created a procedural rule that made it impossible for women to vindicate their rights if they didn’t learn that they were paid less than their male colleagues until a short time after the discrimination began. In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the Supreme Court will decide whether to shut off another opportunity f or women in the workplace to seek relief — class actions. Class action lawsuits are brought by groups of plaintiffs who share a common injury with each other. These suits are essential to allow ordinary Americans, who often lack the resources to hire lawyers capable of taking on a major corporation on their own, to pool their resources in order to hire counsel that are capable of facing off against someone like Wal-Mart. There is substantial evidence that women who work for Wal-Mart stores shared the same experience of systematic pay and promotion discrimination and thus should be able to bring a class action. If the Supreme Court denies them this right — which it seems likely to do — many of them will be left powerless before Wal-Mart’s legal team.

IMMUNITY TO THE LAW: Procedural victories are all well and good, but there’s nothing corporate America loves more than actual immunity from the law. Past Supreme Court decisions gave sweeping legal immunity to medical device manufacturers and health insurers, and even gave the thumbs up to a biased system of corporate-owned courts that overwhelmingly rule against consumers and employees. In a case called PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, the justices will now decide whether to give sweeping im munity to the makers of generic prescription drugs. If the Court sides with the drug makers in this case, two women could be left with no recourse after a prescription drug caused them to develop a horrific neurological disorder resulting in “grotesque involuntary movements of the mouth, tongue, lips, and extremities, involuntary chewing movements, and a general sense of agitation.” And thousands of other Americans could be left similarly defenseless against the powerful pharmaceutical industry.

Take Action: Send a Message to the Wal-Mart Women


A woman taking a stand for fair pay is incredible. A whole group of women taking a stand for fair pay? Inspirational. And that’s exactly what is happening now.

Send a Message of Support to the Women of Wal-Mart

 The inspiring women of Wal-Mart are standing up against pay discrimination. Will you send them a message of support today?

www.nwlc.org

Ten years after Betty Dukes and her colleagues first brought their claims of discrimination in pay and promotions against Wal-Mart, their case will go before the Supreme Court in two weeks. It doesn’t get much more inspiring than that!

They need our support. Women at Wal-Mart on average were paid far less than men, despite generally having higher performance ratings and more seniority. And women employees were more likely to be passed over for promotions.

Women are not WorthLess. Add your voice and support the women of Wal-Mart!

On March 29, arguments will start in the case to determine whether women employed at Wal-Mart stores across the country can join together in a class action to challenge Wal-Mart’s pay and promotion practices alleged to discriminate against women.

It isn’t easy for these women to do what they are doing — but it’s the right thing to do. Take action and send them a message of appreciation today!

Thank you for your support, and we’ll keep you updated as the case progresses!

Sincerely,

Fatima Goss Graves

Vice President for Education and Employment

National Women’s Law Center

P.S. Want more information about the case? Check out our new fact sheet about the type of gender stereotyping these women faced on the job at Wal-Mart.

www.nwlc.org