Saturday, September 16, 2006
PERA
Daniel Morgan is raising awareness about something called PERA. It's an act to prevent establishment clause cases from resulting in awards for attorney's fees, which would cripple the ability of civil liberties groups to go about their diabolical work of making sure that this country's constitution is followed. Write your representatives.
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2 comments:
Chris:
Ed Brayton has covered this as well. There are several posts on "Positive Liberty" that discuss it in depth. (Google it to find most of them.)
This is the most simple explanation of what the law entails I have seen:
" This bill is being pushed heavily by the religious right because it would prohibit the awarding of legal fees to successful plaintiffs in establishment clause cases. Currently, if you sue the government for a constitutional violation and are successful - if the court agrees that the government has acted unconstitutionally - the judge, at his or her discretion, may order the agency that violated the constitution to pay reasonable legal fees for the other side. This is mandated in Federal law under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. HR 2679 would leave that in place, but exempt only one type of lawsuit from that rule - lawsuits based on establishment clause grounds.
Naturally, the religious right wants this bill to pass very badly because it would make it far more difficult for plaintiffs to bring suits against the government. And remember, they can only be awarded legal fees if they win the suit. What that means, in essence, is that the religious right is trying to rig the game. They lose such cases often in court and that frustrates them."
http://positiveliberty.com/2006/06/stop-hr-2679.html
The whole article is well worth reading, and the issue is a serious one, but -- given that many congresspeople don't read beyond the titles of the bills -- one which a lot of Representatives might think a harmless and safe vote to placate the religious voters in their district. It would be a good idea to actually contact your representative and let him know what's in the bill.
Thanks for the URL
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