The state Supreme Court is about to decide whether millions of dollars
in taxpayer money that started flowing this year to pay student tuition
at private and religious schools continues for a second year.
The state's highest court hears arguments Tuesday on a ruling last
summer that the Opportunity Scholarships program violates the state
constitution because religious schools can discriminate based on faith.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood also said privately run
K-12 schools are not required to meet state curriculum standards.
Supreme Court justices showed they're in a hurry to decide whether
private school vouchers will continue by latching on to the case early.
Parents are already looking ahead and the deadline for them to submit
scholarship applications for the next academic year is March 1.
So far, more than $4.2 million has paid for 1,200 students to attend 216
private schools around the state, according to the State Education
Assistance Authority. That's a fraction of the 5,500 students whose
families sought one of the scholarships, said Darrell Allison, who heads
a group that advocates for expanding the program. Three out of four
applicants for the vouchers, which pay private schools up to $4,200 per
child per year to schools that admit them, were minority students.
"There are literally thousands of families who are looking forward to
their day in court — desperately hopeful for a favorable ruling,"
Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina,
said in a statement.
The program opened this year to families whose income qualified their
children for free or discounted school lunches, a ceiling of about
$44,000 for a family of four. Eligibility increases for the year
starting in August as the ceiling rises to nearly $59,000 per family.
Opponents of the voucher law complain that it violates the constitution
because money from collected taxes goes to religious schools that have
the option of ruling out students who don't follow their faith's
beliefs, turning away the disabled or refusing the children of gay
parents.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Freed Al Jazeera journalist hopeful about Egypt court case
Freed Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste says it is too soon to
celebrate because his two colleagues still face retrial in Egypt.
Greste was freed from an Egyptian prison earlier this month and his two colleagues were released last week. He told BBC on Thursday that the controversial court cases seem to be moving in the right direction.
Greste had initially been sentenced to seven years in jail for spreading false information and helping the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He was deported from Egypt on his release.
Colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed are still in Egypt and are required to report regularly to the police in advance of a retrial expected to begin next week.
Their imprisonment for more than a year sparked numerous protests throughout the world.
Greste was freed from an Egyptian prison earlier this month and his two colleagues were released last week. He told BBC on Thursday that the controversial court cases seem to be moving in the right direction.
Greste had initially been sentenced to seven years in jail for spreading false information and helping the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He was deported from Egypt on his release.
Colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed are still in Egypt and are required to report regularly to the police in advance of a retrial expected to begin next week.
Their imprisonment for more than a year sparked numerous protests throughout the world.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Two justices once open to cameras in court now reconsider
Two Supreme Court justices who once seemed open to the idea of cameras
in the courtroom said Monday they have reconsidered those views, dashing
even faint hopes that April's historic arguments over gay marriage
might be televised.
In separate appearances, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said allowing cameras might lead to grandstanding that could fundamentally change the nature of the high court.
Sotomayor told an audience in West Palm Beach, Florida, that cameras could change the behavior of both the justices and lawyers appearing at the court, who might succumb to "this temptation to use it as a stage rather than a courtroom."
"I am moving more closely to saying I think it might be a bad idea," she said.
During her confirmation hearings in 2009, Sotomayor told lawmakers she had a positive experience with cameras and would try to soften other justices' opposition to cameras.
Speaking at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, Kagan told an audience that she is "conflicted" over the issue and noted strong arguments on both sides.
Kagan said that when she used to argue cases before the court as Solicitor General, she wanted the public to see how well prepared the justices were for each case "and really look as though they are trying to get it right."
But Kagan said she is wary now of anything "that may upset the dynamic of the institution."
She pointed to Congress, which televises floor proceedings, saying lawmakers talk more in made-for-TV sound bites than to each other.
In separate appearances, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said allowing cameras might lead to grandstanding that could fundamentally change the nature of the high court.
Sotomayor told an audience in West Palm Beach, Florida, that cameras could change the behavior of both the justices and lawyers appearing at the court, who might succumb to "this temptation to use it as a stage rather than a courtroom."
"I am moving more closely to saying I think it might be a bad idea," she said.
During her confirmation hearings in 2009, Sotomayor told lawmakers she had a positive experience with cameras and would try to soften other justices' opposition to cameras.
Speaking at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, Kagan told an audience that she is "conflicted" over the issue and noted strong arguments on both sides.
Kagan said that when she used to argue cases before the court as Solicitor General, she wanted the public to see how well prepared the justices were for each case "and really look as though they are trying to get it right."
But Kagan said she is wary now of anything "that may upset the dynamic of the institution."
She pointed to Congress, which televises floor proceedings, saying lawmakers talk more in made-for-TV sound bites than to each other.
Anxiety over Supreme Court's latest dive into health care
Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care
overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme
Court.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state.
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