The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been on the front end of several legal trends during the past few years from same-sex marriage to health care reform. Last fall, Massachusetts passed sweeping alimony reform laws advocates hoped would bring the commonwealth into the 21st century.

The new law eliminates lifetime alimony judgments and puts caps on the number of years people will receive alimony based on the length of time they were married. [1] Other states have taken notice. Florida and New Jersey have introduced legislation in the 2012 session to update the alimony laws.

Reform advocates argue that state laws regarding lifetime alimony were drawn up in a bygone era. In the mid-20th century, the social norm of the wife staying home to raise the children and forgo her career to tend to the family led to lifetime alimony laws that respected the possibility that women were, in fact, less likely to be able to start a career later in life and they should be compensated as such.

Today many women see that thinking as antiquated. Judge Jeanine Pirro, who has a show on the Fox News Channel called “Justice with Judge Jeanine”, recently spoke in favor of eliminating lifetime alimony because it simply implies that women have inferior opportunities. [2]

“To me, it supports the idea of women being dependent on men,” she said in a January interview on Fox. “The whole concept of alimony is rooted in an archaic thought that women need to be supported by their husbands.”

Opponents to alimony reform in Florida argue that the law has been written by men with no regard for women and family issues, and that it could deal a crushing blow to women who have spent a lifetime in a supporting role and are left later in life when their job opportunities are limited. About 90 percent of Florida alimony payers are men, according to a November opinion piece in the Orlando Sentinel. [3] The Florida House and Senate are debating separate versions of an alimony reform bill in the 2012 session.

In Massachusetts, bills failed to pass through the Legislature until the state appointed a task force made up of a cross section of reform advocates and family law attorneys with strong and different opinions to debate what needed to be done. According to the Boston Globe, the only consensus among task force members was that the existing system was broken.

The Massachusetts compromise eliminates lifetime alimony and ties the number of years of payment to the number of years in the marriage. In a move to satisfy some family law attorneys, it also allows for alimony in the case of some shorter-term marriages that might not have qualified at all before so that there is time for one party to get back on his or her feet, according to the Boston Globe.

Also under the new Massachusetts law, a judge can eliminate alimony payments when the person receiving alimony begins to live with another person in a “marriage-like situation”. Those involved in the business of divorce in Massachusetts say the new law provides a better and more contemporary roadmap for divorcing couples, family lawyers and judges.

In giving everyone a clear understanding of what kind of outcomes to expect with regards to alimony in a divorce hearing, parties might be more likely to reach a settlement. In the past, divorcing couples were spending many thousands of legal fees trying to squeeze every nickel from each other. The man who started the Massachusetts Alimony Reform movement spent $250,000 in legal fees to reduce his alimony payment by $42,000 a year, according to the Boston Globe.

Another possible side effect to the changes in the law is that people might be more inclined to think twice about new commitments. In most cases, lifetime alimony judgments are nullified when the payee gets remarried. An unintended consequence of that provision is that it discouraged people from making new marital commitments. The new law in Massachusetts and the Florida proposal both address this phenomenon with rules that say as soon as the payee takes up with another partner, the alimony payment is subject to review.

The partner’s new boyfriend/girlfriend phenomenon is a big part of the platform pushed by Florida Alimony Reform’s Alan Frisher. He told The Huffington Post that people cohabitate with a new boyfriend or girlfriend for decades while continuing to collect alimony from their former spouse. [4] One of the bills making its way through the Florida Legislature could even punish a payee for hiding a supportive relationship by making him or her refund alimony paid during the new relationship.

Reform advocates say lifetime alimony is inconsistent with the spirit of the law. So, is alimony about helping a divorced spouse get back on his or her feet? Or is it about punishment?

Fox News’ Judge Pirro argued that the spirit of alimony is helping someone who legitimately needs financial aid get restarted with his or her life. To say that alimony should last forever implies that that person is incapable of getting on with his or her life.

Laws are now being considered in New Jersey that could change the rules that allow for lifetime alimony awards after as few as 10 years of marriage. [5] Judges in the Garden State use 13 factors including duration of the marriage, age and health of the divorcing couple and earning potential at the time of the split. Judges are not looking at other factors like why the marriage is breaking up or the financial responsibility of the divorcing partners, according to the report by Fox News.

Grassroots movements in Virginia, Arkansas and Connecticut are in the beginning stages of getting new laws considered by their state legislatures. Laws in Florida and New Jersey are both long shots to get passed this session, especially since the Florida Legislature is working on redistricting this year. But as the issue gets debated and gets more coverage, more and more states are likely to consider bringing alimony laws into the 21st century.

Sources
[1] http://articles.boston.com/2011-09-26/news/30204977_1_alimony-law-family-law-alimony-payments

[2] http://video.foxnews.com/v/1389167805001/fight-to-change-nj-alimony-laws/

[3] http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/views/os-scott-maxwell-divorce-alimony-112011-20111119,0,3431551,full.column

[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-benedict/usa-today-on-florida-and-_b_1216240.html

[5] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/11/new-jersey-looks-to-update-alimony-rules-after-advocacy-groups-shudder-at/

The SEO | Law Firm™ News Center extends editorial freedom to their staff writers; thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEO | Law Firm™, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

For the past decade, the political issue of same-sex marriage has played out like a tug of war in state legislatures across the country as weddings are legalized, then banned or rejected, then celebrated.

At the beginning of 2012, there are 29 states with constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and there are at least two more states with voter referendums scheduled during the year. Six states plus Washington, D.C., issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples including New York, which changed its law in 2011. [1]

Maine could be the first state to legalize same-sex marriage by ballot this year, but the state’s history with the issue has been as rocky and twisting as its shoreline. In the summer of 2009, the Legislature and the Democratic Gov. John Baldacci approved a measure making same-sex marriage legal. Opposition groups got the issue placed on the ballot during a wave of backlash against the Obama administration’s health care reform proposals and the people voted to overturn the law. [2]

There is a campaign afoot to legalize same-sex marriage in all six New England states before the end of the year. Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut are already on board. If Maine reverses course again this fall in the referendum, then Rhode Island will be the only state in the region where same-sex couples will not be allowed to formally marry. Rhode Island passed a civil union option last year, but many advocates say civil unions are an insult and a relic of inequality.

Marriage Equality Rhode Island, a group advocating for a change in the state’s law, is not satisfied with the incremental step of civil unions. “You’re never going to see us trumpet civil unions,” MERI’s campaign director Ray Sullivan told the New York Times. “We believe civil unions establish a second-class citizenry.” [3]

While New England remains the nucleus for changes that legalize same-sex marriage, other parts of the country are considering ballot initiatives that would do the opposite.

North Carolina, an island among states that changed their state constitutions to ban same-sex marriage in the middle of the last decade, has a referendum coming up in May.

The state’s Republican-led Legislature fast-tracked the legislation with no public comment and placed the measure on the statewide ballot during the Republican presidential primary election this spring. That election will naturally draw higher numbers of conservative voters since there are no statewide Democratic candidates on the ballot, according to the National Journal. [4] Additionally, at least two Democratic Congressmen were given more conservative constituents during the redistricting process and Republicans lining up to unseat them may face off in the May 8 primary with the marriage amendment option on the ballot.

North Carolina’s neighboring states of Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina all have banned same-sex marriage in their state constitutions.

When neighboring states grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, it can put some economic pressure on a state to do the same so that it does not lose the people and potentially the business that comes with the wedding industry. Proponents of same-sex marriage in Rhode Island have made this argument among others as they watch locals go to Massachusetts or Connecticut to get married.

Minnesota borders perhaps the most surprising state where same-sex marriages are legal – Iowa. Minnesotans face a big vote on the issue in the November general election.

The Minnesota Legislature decided to let the people vote to amend the state’s constitution such that marriage is defined as one man and one woman. The vote in May was largely along party lines with Republicans voting for the amendment to be voted on by the people and the Democrats voting against an amendment. [5]

The Republican Party of Minnesota was beset with a sexual scandal in the fall that will not help its moral argument for a constitutional amendment. State Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch resigned her leadership role after party leaders raised questions about her inappropriate relationship with an aide. Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, called Koch a hypocrite on Minnesota Public Radio News. “If it’s befitting for somebody whose own conduct doesn’t measure up to what they’re professing to believe in, or prescribing for others, then they should be called on that.” [6]

In many states like Minnesota and North Carolina, the state already outlaws same-sex marriage, but supporters of a constitutional amendment say such an action will protect the laws from being overturned in the courts.

Gay rights groups in Oregon had spent several years campaigning for support of a state law change to allow same-sex marriages. The group had originally wanted to get the issue on the ballot for the 2012 election in November, but decided last fall to hold off because polling indicated they might not be successful, according to the Oregonian. [7] Oregon voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2004.

Voters in North Carolina, Minnesota and possibly Maine will head to the polls this year to decide how their states will look at same-sex marriage. To date, voters have only ever turned down same-sex marriage rights when states have put the issue to a vote. States have voted against the issue 28 times – most notably in California where the people overturned a state Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal.

Across the country, though, the general population’s opinion on the issue has hit a milestone, according to ABC News. For the first time in about a decade of annual polling, The Washington Post and ABC News found that more than half of Americans – about 53 percent – think gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. The issue is still polarizing, according to the polling, as there has been little shift among those who feel strongly for and strongly against the issue. Those in the middle are shifting the most with Catholics, men and people in their 30s and 40s showing the largest percentage change in attitude. [8]

The polling shows a considerable change in opinions about same-sex marriage since the mid-2000s, which is when many states held referendums that changed their constitutions. At the federal level, President Obama led the U.S. Armed Forces to abandon its Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy on gays and lesbians in the military and instructed the Justice Department to stop defending 1996’s Defense of Marriage Act. [9]

Sources
[1] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html

[2] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/maine-gay-marriage-law-repealed/story?id=8992720#.TvoaSc3q78U

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30unions.html

[4] http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/09/nc-to-vote-on-s.php

[5] http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/122401039.html

[6] http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/12/23/marriage-amendment-hypocrisy-dayton/

[7] http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/11/basic_rights_oregon_will_not_p.html

[8] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/support-gay-marriage-reaches-milestone-half-americans-support/story?id=13159608#.Tvt9qc3q78U

[9] http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/February/11-ag-222.html

The SEO | Law Firm™ News Center extends editorial freedom to their staff writers; thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEO | Law Firm™, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

There are new rumblings that the United States Postal Service is driving its mail truck toward a financial cliff and the U.S. Congress is pushing bills forward that might slow the truck down or even steer it toward safety.

The U.S. House and Senate are considering separate bills that promise to save the USPS about $20 billion a year. The House version has been heavily criticized by the postal union and was voted on mostly along party lines. The Senate version is being touted as more bipartisan, but lacks the teeth of the House bill.

Both bills address the USPS’ employee count. There are about 550,000 postal service employees. The consensus on Capitol Hill is that the USPS could reduce its staff by at least 100,000 in early retirement offerings or buyouts to those already eligible to retire.

Each bill proposes to pay for those buyouts in different ways. The Senate’s proposal would reduce the workforce by getting a repayment from the Office of Personnel Management because of a $7 billion overpayment. This reduction would save the USPS about $8 billion a year. [1] House Republicans call the overpayment fix a “gimmick” and insist that it is the same as a bailout.

A House committee passed the Issa-Ross Bill, H.R. 2309, in October. The House bill includes proposals that would modernize the USPS, an organization that has been around since the 18th century. But more controversially, the Issa-Ross Bill also would create an authority to take over the USPS if it cannot pay its bills.

The authority would have the power to make dramatic cost-cutting policy changes. “The solvency authority will also have the ability to remove postal workers from the expensive federal workers’ compensation system to be placed in their own,” according to a press release from Rep. Darrell Issa’s office. [2]

Another key difference between the Issa-Ross Bill and the Senate’s Postal Service Act is the fate of six-day delivery. The House bill would give the USPS the option to eliminate Saturday delivery quoting a public opinion poll that indicated most people would be fine with five-day delivery if it meant the USPS would be in a better place financially. Eliminating Saturday service could save the USPS about $3 billion a year.

The Senate bill would make five-day delivery a last resort. The committee heard from industries that say they need the USPS’ six-day delivery, such as printing businesses, catalog companies and the paper industry. The Senate’s proposal gives those companies at least two years to develop new business strategies and “…develop remedies for customers who may be affected disproportionately by the change in service.” [3]

How bad is the Postal Service’s economic crisis? The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform says the USPS lost about $10 billion last year. The company is losing customers fast too. Mail volume is down about 20 percent over the past five years, according to the committee. [4]

The USPS was supposed to make a $5.5 billion payment to its retiree health benefit plan in November, but it did not have the money. A 2006 law aimed at saving the Postal Service from financial ruin requires the USPS to pre-fund the retiree health benefit instead of the previous, pay-as-you-go method. Saving money by pre-funding retiree health care plans is showing signs of working by reducing the USPS’ unfunded obligations, according to a report from CNBC.com. [5]

The postal unions have opposed pre-funding retiree health benefits. The union’s stance is that the 2006 law requires the USPS to overfund the retiree health benefit, making it a burden no other federal agency has to bear and causing undue financial hardships. [6]

AFL-CIO blogger James Parks put it this way, “All of the USPS’ losses over the past four years come from this mandate. You cannot find another organization in the world…that pre-funds 75 years of benefits over a 10-year period. And it’s not just the overpayments, it’s the opportunity costs of having to hold that much reserve capital that cannot be used when times are tough, or to invest in more attractive services.” [7]

But Issa told CNBC in October, “The non-partisan Congressional Research Service recently found that pre-funding requirements match Congress’ intent when they were enacted in 2006. The intent is to ensure that the growing unfunded liability for retiree health care for current employees is covered.”

The Senate plan suggests recalibrating the retiree health benefit plan pre-funding by stretching it out over a longer period of time.

The American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union took their disdain for the Issa-Ross Bill an extra step by running national television ads indicating that the House bill would force the USPS to fire “…thousands of military veterans.” The ads ran on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News for a week. [8]

The union TV ads also warned viewers that postal service finance solutions include discussions of shutting down post offices.

The USPS operates about 31,000 post offices across the country – that’s more retail outlets than McDonalds, Walmart and Starbucks combined. About 3,500 post offices are on a watch list. Closing post offices can save the USPS money but how much depends on which offices.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said it will take cutting the workforce, cutting the workweek and closing offices to bring the USPS back to solvency. In an interview with Time Magazine, he said, “…if you’re spending $70,000 to operate a place that’s bringing in $10,000, there have to be some other solutions.”

The USPS is analyzing two groups of post offices, rural ones that only keep workers busy for an hour or two a day and urban offices that make less than $500,000 a year with other offices nearby, he told Time Magazine in November. [9] According to the magazine, some mail delivery still has to happen by mule, snowmobile and john boat in some parts of the country.

The House’s Issa-Ross Bill would empanel a task force to look at office consolidation in hopes of saving about $3 billion a year. Ultimately, Congress is trying to find a way to cut the USPS’ budget by about $10 billion a year. That will inevitably require some tough decisions by Congress, some concessions by the unions and a radical restructuring of a company mandated by the Constitution to deliver mail all over the United States.

Sources
[1] http://lieberman.senate.gov/index.cfm/news-events/news/2011/11/senators-announce-bipartisan-agreement-to-save-postal-service-from-bankruptcy

[2] http://issa.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=917&Itemid=28&Itemid=4

[3] http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press.MajorityNews&ContentRecord_id=65EF25C6-5056-8059-7634-A4D626038DAF

[4] http://postal.oversight.house.gov/

[5] http://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432

[6] http://www.apwu.org/news/webart/2010/10-142-oig-refundingreport-101201.htm

[7] http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/09/27/postal-service-crisis-comes-entirely-from-unorthodox-pre-funding-mandate/

[8] http://postalemployeenetwork.com/news/2011/11/postal-unions-honor-military-veterans-and-oppose-destructive-bill-in-new-tv-ad/

[9] http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2099187-4,00.html

The SEO | Law Firm™ News Center extends editorial freedom to their staff writers; thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEO | Law Firm™, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

Meaningful reform of American immigration laws has repeatedly failed to gain traction during the past several years because many have said reform was worthless until the borders were secure. But now the Department of Homeland Security and even President Barack Obama have said border security concerns have been resolved.

“We’ve answered those concerns,” President Obama told a crowd in El Paso, Texas in May. “We have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible.” [1]

A combination of more border patrol agents and improved technology has drastically reduced the number of illegal immigration attempts on the United States border with Mexico, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The build-up began during the George W. Bush administration, Obama said. “The Border Patrol has 20,000 agents – more than twice as many as there were in 2004,” he told the crowd in El Paso. “We now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history.”

It is not just more patrol officers. The department has tripled the number of intelligence analysts working at the border and “unmanned aerial vehicles” are patrolling the skies. There is a border fence along about 650 miles of the border, according to an Oct. 19 story in the New York Times. That leaves about 1,400 unfenced miles to be guarded with agents and technology. [2] Security fencing along the Mexican border can cost as much as $21 million per mile, according to Department of Homeland Security.

The staffing increase at the border has Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano optimistic. “We have committed unprecedented resources to this effort and, this year, will see yet again a historic drop in illegal crossings and more and more contraband seized,” she told a crowd at American University in October. “So let’s take the ‘border is out of control’ myth out of the equation.” [2]

And if DHS is proud of its statistical record of keeping illegal immigrants out of the United States for the past few years, it is just as proud of how many unlawful troublemakers it has thrown out of the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in October that it set a new record for deportation in the year that ended Sept 30. ICE deported 396,906 people by setting enforcement priorities and executing the plan, according to director John Morton. More than half of those removed had been convicted of felonies or misdemeanors. [3]

DHS and ICE set priorities in 2008 to focus deportation efforts on public safety. Recognizing that the department will never have the resources to remove everyone who is in the country illegally (DHS estimates that number to be around 10 million), Napolitano has set her sites on criminals.

Among those deported in the last year, more than 1,000 were convicted of homicide and almost 6,000 were convicted of sexual offenses, according to ICE. About 80,000 illegal aliens were deported from the United States last year who had been convicted of drug crimes or driving under the influence. After criminals, the department has a secondary priority to remove recent border crossers and frequent offenders.

Time Magazine published a graphic in its Nov. 7, 2011, issue showing the top 10 cities for deportations and the dramatic increase each city had seen since 2001. The top city was San Antonio, Texas, with 63,090 deportations and the No. 10 city was New Orleans with 15,363.

Napolitano also replaced the flashy, yet ineffective worksite raids in favor of tighter scrutiny on employers, she said. “We eliminated raids that did nothing to enhance public safety. Instead, we focused on targeted worksite enforcement programs like I-9 audits and criminal prosecutions of employers who egregiously violate employment laws,” she said in October.

So, DHS and ICE have made significant statistical strides both in keeping the border secure and in deporting those in the United States illegally that pose a public safety threat. Meanwhile, state legislatures across the country are drawing up immigration laws of their own.

According to a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, 40 states passed 257 new laws and regulations pertaining to immigration in 2011, which is an 18 percent decrease so far this year from 2010. [4] The top issues for state legislatures were law enforcement, employment and identification. Eighteen states now have an E-Verify system that checks employees work eligibility. Five states – Utah, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina – crafted bills modeled after Arizona’s controversial S.B. 1070, according to the report.

Alabama’s new laws have been heavily criticized and parts of it have been put on hold by the courts pending litigation. In Montgomery this year, Alabama legislators passed legislation requiring schools to verify immigration status on its students and even makes it illegal to give an undocumented person a ride in a car.

Georgia followed suit with immigration laws that have had an immediate affect on the state’s agricultural industry – about 12 percent of its GDP. [5] The Peach State’s tight crackdown on illegal immigrants had the business community sweating even before the law was passed. The Center for American Progress predicts the state will lose $800 million in farm values and crop prices every year as a result of the stricter immigration laws. [6]

The courts already are wrestling with several pieces of state legislation and are predicted to take on more as ambitious legislatures pass new laws. In the meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security says it has secured our border with Mexico and is making great strides in deporting the illegal immigrants who pose a threat to public safety. And many states with large illegal immigrant populations are taking matters into their own state houses and passing legislation to crack down on their illegal residents who place a burden on state funds in health care and services.

Is this an environment where the U.S. Congress can enact some stabilizing, comprehensive immigration legislation? The President hopes so. “You’ve got to help push for comprehensive reform,” he told the crowd in El Paso in May.

Sources

[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/10/remarks-president-comprehensive-immigration-reform-el-paso-texas

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/us/politics/border-fence-raises-cost-questions.html

[3] http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/speeches/20111005-napolitano-remarks-border-strategy-and-immigration-enforcement.shtm

[4] http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1110/111018washingtondc.htm

[5] http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?TabId=23362

[6] http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/10/georgia_immigration.html

The SEO | Law Firm™ News Center extends editorial freedom to their staff writers; thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEO | Law Firm™, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

American business leaders have been pressing for legal immigration reform in the United States for years, but as the economy continues to struggle, the drumbeat is getting louder for policy change.

The language of the those pushing for legal immigration reform has reached the same pitch normally associated with illegal immigration reform with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg calling America “…the laughing stock of the world” because of the policy. [1]

The business community is concerned that without careful changes to the country’s legal immigration policy, the United States will continue to lose out as entrepreneurs start their companies elsewhere in the world.

Business leaders say the country is not granting enough skilled worker visas to graduates who came here to study. Many have no choice but to go home after graduation instead of moving into the American workforce.

NASDAQ President Robert Griefeld pleaded with the Senate Judiciary Committee this summer that they look at legal immigration reform on its own merit instead of linking it to the larger immigration issue, which is politically contentious. [2]

He argues that legislative inaction will rob the country of a generation of great companies. “A sobering fact is that Google, Yahoo and eBay, many of the job drivers of the last 20 years, would likely not be founded in America today under the current system,” he said.

It can be counter-intuitive to think so, but hiring skilled immigrants has been shown to actually boost American employment. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration hearing on Immigration Reform and Economic Imperatives in July, Griefeld cited a National Foundation for American Policy brief from March of 2008. [3]

“Opponents of enhanced legal immigration argue that when a foreign-born, highly-skilled immigrant gets a job, American graduates are the losers,” Griefeld said. “But my research and experience tell me quite a different story. The National Federation for American Policy says that for every H-1B worker requested, U.S. technology companies increase their overall employment by five workers.”

Griefeld’s words at the Senate hearing were heard loud and clear in India where multiple news services picked up the story including the Deccan Herald and the Times of India. [4] [5]

Other executives that joined Griefeld at the hearing included Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith, who said his company is committed to improving education in the United States, but a shorter-term goal of legal immigration reform will go a long way toward bridging the immediate skills gap in the country’s workforce.

“We not only have a jobs problem in this country, we have a skills problem,” Smith said. “We think it’s important to address and modernize, as you’ve heard, the visa system for students so that they have greater ability and greater incentive to stay in the United States.”

About two months later, Republican Congressmen Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Lamar Smith of Texas co-sponsored a bill that would loosen restrictions on work visas. The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, or H.R. 3012, would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act and free up restrictions on skilled workers from specific countries. There are only 140,000 employment-based visas given out every year by the State Department. As the law reads now, only seven percent of those can come from any one country. [6]

The new bill would eliminate the per-country percentage restriction. The same week as Reps. Chaffetz and Smith introduced their bill, Mayor Bloomberg addressed the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

In his speech, Bloomberg made an impassioned plea for common-sense reform. “Right now, Iceland gets the same quota as India. It just makes no sense,” he said of the per-country restrictions on work visas.

“We’ll get some from Iceland, and we’d love to have them come here. But just because of size, you’re much more likely to get an awful lot from India,” Bloomberg said.

He also used an example of a Canadian software developer named Eric Diep who had a product and investors in Silicon Valley, but had to move his company to Vancouver, Canada, where he has started another company using American capital to grow Canadian jobs because it is easier for him to attract skilled workers there from other countries.

“This is just craziness,” Bloomberg said. “But we can stop it by offering a conditional visa to immigrants who have capital to back their business ventures.”

This kind of incentive-based solution is spreading in an environment of economic desperation. Entrepreneur and Washington Post columnist Vivek Wadhwa suggested in an August column that we could potentially start to solve two crises with one policy.

“We need to increase the number of skilled worker visas, particularly the EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 visa categories,” Wadhwa wrote. “To do this, we could make a visa contingent on the purchase of a home for $250,000 or more, thereby providing a boost to the struggling housing market.” [7]

Wadhwa expects that as many as 20 percent of qualified skilled workers would jump at a chance to buy a house here in exchange for a visa that would put them in the American job market.

“That amounts to more than 100,000 houses being sold within a short period of time – a roughly $25 billion potential boost to the anemic housing market,” he wrote in the Washington Post in August. “Plus these workers will furnish their new houses, buy new appliances, and buy new cars. That amounts to billions more in economic stimulus.” [8]

Attention to the issue of legal immigration has led U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to clarify H-1B guidelines. [9]

“The changes are technical and procedural, but the impact could be significant,” Wadhwa wrote in the Washington Post in August.

Speaking to the same meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where Mayor Bloomberg repeatedly pointed out how illogical American policy is on legal immigration, Mayorkas spoke about some of the tweaks to the system his department is making. [10]

Those changes are significant, but fall well short of the kind of sweeping reforms being requested by NASDAQ’s Griefeld, Mayor Bloomberg and many others.

Sources

[1] http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/301798-2

[2] http://www.micevhill.com/attachments/immigration_documents/hosted_documents/112th_congress/TranscriptOfSenateJudiciarySubcommitteeOnImmigrationHearingOnEconomicImperativesOfCIR.pdf

[3] http://www.nfap.com/pdf/080311h1b.pdf

[4] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/179844/for-every-h-1b-visa.html

[5] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07-29/job-trends/29828925_1_h-1b-worker-h-1b-visas-employment-by-five-workers

[6] http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52626376-90/based-bill-cap-caps.html.csp

[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/we-need-to-stop-americas-brain-drain/2011/09/14/gIQAHOuJLL_story.html

[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/how-a-change-to-the-visa-laws-could-reverse-the-housing-slump/2011/08/16/gIQADVI9IJ_blog.html

[9] http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/20110802-napolitano-startup-job-creation-initiatives.shtm

[10] http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Resources/Resources%20for%20Congress/Testimonies%20and%20Speeches/Chamber%20Speech%20September%2028%202011.pdf

The SEO | Law Firm™ News Center extends editorial freedom to their staff writers; thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEO | Law Firm™, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

There’s just something about beer. It is a concoction as old as civilization, thought to have been invented around the same time as bread, and yet it is still the center of many a political debate in the United States. Long after the end of Prohibition, the age-old beverage made of malted barley and hops finds itself caught between the whims of politicians and the thirst of the people. Despite its iconic status in Super Bowl commercials and sporting arenas across the country, beer remains a hot topic in many states.

During the Minnesota budget shutdown over the summer, beer emerged as a novel way to connect the discord in government with public sentiment when some bars and sports arenas began running out of the bubbly beverage and brewing goliath MillerCoors was forced to pull its products from shelves.

The shutdown occurred when Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton could not agree to a budget with Republican legislative leaders. Dayton wanted to include a tax increase on the state’s top two percent wage earners to help close Minnesota’s $5 billion budget gap, but the majority GOP legislature refused and the state government shut down for two weeks starting on July 1. [1]

About 300 restaurants, bars and stores saw diminished inventories of beer and alcohol during the shutdown — some even selling out completely — because the government failed to renew the state-issued alcohol-purchasing card required in Minnesota before the shutdown. [2] After their cards expired on June 30, they had no way to renew their permits, and no way to increase their stocks. Many businesses, already hurting due to the downturn in the economy in a region that has been weak for decades, saw greatly decreased revenues during the two weeks the government was shut down. [3]

But perhaps the most infamous aspect of the Minnesota government shutdown occurred when MillerCoors, one of the largest beer brewing companies in the world, ran into licensing issues and faced the threat of having to pull all of its beer from Minnesota shelves.

MillerCoors sells 39 brands of beer in Minnesota, and must pay $30 for a license to sell each one every three years. [4] The renewal was due on June 13, roughly two weeks before the shutdown, but Minnesota officials said the company was delinquent on its renewal. The company then botched a resubmission, the state said, and then the government shut down.

But a MillerCoors spokesman disagreed, saying the company filed the paperwork in time and even overpaid by $200. The state said that the beer would have to come off shelves, and the company vowed to fight, but the shutdown ended before it came to that. Profits lost from the shutdown would likely not have made much of an effect on MillerCoors’ bottom line anyway, as it is one of the four beer companies that control half of the world’s beer. [5]

That statistic lies at the center of another political issue centered around beer in the United States — the legality of homebrewing.

The signing of the 21st amendment in 1933 repealed Prohibition and made homemade wine legal once again, but it failed to legalize homemade beer, which had been legal before Prohibition. [6] It was not until President Jimmy Carter signed a bill in 1978 that homebrewed beer became legal again. The new bill led to an explosion of innovation and new brewing companies in the United States, but homebrewing remained illegal in many counties and states, and is still illegal to this day. Homebrewing is not explicitly legal in Alabama, and Utah legalized it only in 2009.

The trepidation about legalizing homebrewing and allowing small brewers to start businesses is largely due to ignorance about the process and the craft brewing industry. Rep. Alvin Holmes illustrated this when a group of small brewers attempted to pass a bill in Alabama that would allow small breweries to have taprooms on premises and would allow brewpubs to sell beer off-premises. [7]

“What’s wrong with the beer we got?” Holmes asked, on the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives. [8] “The beer we got drinks pretty good, don’t it?” He asked the House why it was necessary for small breweries to sell beer off-premises.

Other craft brewing companies have been banned from selling their products. Rhonda Kallman, a cofounded of the Boston Beer Company, which sells the famous Samuel Adams Lager, was shocked last year when the Food and Drug Administration told her she had to stop selling her latest project. [9] Moonshot ’69, a beer Kallman had crafted and created by herself, contained caffeine. In light of the controversy surrounding infamous alcoholic beverages containing caffeine, such as Four Loko and Joose, the FDA decided that all alcoholic beverages with caffeine would be banned.

Maryland-based Flying Dog Brewing Company faced a similar issue in Michigan over the summer, where the Michigan Liquor Control Commission determined that the label of the company’s most popular beer, the Raging Bitch IPA, was offensive. [10] The label, taken from a painting by British artist Ralph Steadman, was “detrimental to the health, safety, or welfare of the general public,” they said. Flying Dog filed a lawsuit claiming that its First Amendment rights had been violated, and the state dropped the suit.

Of course, politics and beer is not always doom and gloom. When a controversy over race and profiling emerged after Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley incorrectly arrested Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. outside of his own home, beer was a part of the solution. [11] President Barack Obama invited the two men to the White House for a “beer summit” in an attempt to resolve the issue. The men spoke, and are now on friendly terms.

Beer has seemingly always had some sort of role in the political process. In 1500s-era Germany, officials crafted an entire law about the allowed ingredients in beer, called the Reinheitsgebot. Portions of the law still stand throughout parts of Europe to this day. So beer and politics are nothing new. Whether it is monolithic companies like MillerCoors, craft breweries like Flying Dog, or the sole man or woman attempting to brew a new ale at home, beer will seemingly always have a place in the political landscape.

Sources
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/governor-gop-lawmakers-agree-to-end-shutdown/2011/07/14/gIQAP1brEI_story.html

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/shutdown-crisis-minnesota-is-running-out-of-beer-2011-7

[3] http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/125459928.html

[4] http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/07/13/millercoors-licensing-problems-in-minnesota/

[5] http://www.examiner.com/beer-in-national/four-brewing-companies-control-50-of-the-world-s-beer

[6] http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/government-affairs/statutes

[7] http://aleheads.com/2011/05/31/another-victory-for-craft-beer-in-alabama/

[8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZoTJzh13n8&NR=1

[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/us/29beer.html

[10] http://brewerylaw.com/2011/07/flying-dog-gets-its-way-in-michigan-but-lawsuit-continues/

[11] http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/28/nation/na-obama-gates28

The SEO | Law Firm™ News Center extends editorial freedom to their staff writers thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEO | Law Firm™, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

The Internet has not been making the U.S. government very happy as of late. In the past two years, it has become a battleground for protesting hackers and free speech advocates who seek to test the limits of what they can get away with online. Sites like Wikileaks allow those who have access to confidential government information to leak it online completely anonymously. And groups of hackers and lovers of chaos such as Anonymous and Lulz Security have defaced government websites and pioneered digital sit-ins in the form of distributed denial-of-service attacks.

Government responses to these actions have been varied. Shortly after LulzSec brought down the CIA’s website and released names and passwords to the U.S. Senate’s official website, the FBI seized entire servers from a hosting company to track them down. [1] [2] [3] In the case of Wikileaks, U.S. soldier Bradley Manning was arrested just months after leaking hundreds of thousands of files to the site. [4]

Despite these actions, people have continued to protest, leak confidential information and deface websites. As long as the Internet is anonymous, these sorts of actions against the government will persist.

Repeated bills from the halls of Congress have sought to crack down on the digital frontier of the Web. The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 was introduced to disallow minors from accessing social networking websites in schools, libraries and certain businesses. [5] Critics said it was an overreaching bill that would block access to educational sites, and it was not passed into law. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 drew even more controversy. It would have allowed the U.S. president to effectively turn off the Internet. [6] It did not pass, but a similar bill is now under consideration in Congress.

Another infamous bill, the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act, commonly known as COICA, would have allowed the government to shut down whole websites if it felt a site was infringing on someone’s intellectual property or trademark. [7] Search engines and other sites would be ordered to sever all links to the infringing site, or face consequences. The bill failed in the Senate after Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon blocked it, saying it was “like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb when what you really need is a precision-guided missile”. [8] The Protect IP Act, an almost exact copy of COICA, is now being considered in Congress.

Though some have been troubling, none of these bills have sought to eliminate the most powerful aspect of the Internet; the thing that makes Wikileaks, LulzSec and Anonymous possible. Anonymity. That is, until now.

Under the guise of an anti-child pornography bill – because honestly, who would stand to defend child pornography – a new bill seeks to effectively end anonymity on the Internet. H.R. 1981 – The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 – was just approved by the House Judiciary Committee in a 19 to 10 vote. [9]

The bill would require Internet service providers to keep a record of all of their customers’ activity on the Web for the last 18-month period. It would also force providers to retain customer names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, bank account numbers and IP addresses, and keep them readily available should the government need to access them for investigations. [10] Essentially, it destroys the concept of anonymity on the Internet, as everything you do would be tracked, recorded and made available if the government decided to ask for it.

Though the bill refers to pornography in its title, logs kept by ISPs could also be accessed in other cases, such as insurance fraud, divorces, terrorism, and in hacking cases.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called the bill “mislabeled” and lambasted it when asked by a CNET reporter. “This is not protecting children from Internet pornography,” he said. “It’s creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.” [11]

Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin has said much of the same. “It can be amended, but I don’t think it can be fixed. … It poses numerous risks that well outweigh any benefits, and I’m not convinced it will contribute in a significant way to protecting children,” he said. [9]

As the bill is about much more than just pornography, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California suggested renaming it the “Keep Every American’s Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act of 2011”. Her motion failed. ““I think we ought to say what we’re doing rather than pretend that this is about child pornography,” she said. [11]

Law enforcement officials might not even need a court-approved subpoena to access the information. It allows U.S. Marshals the authority to use administrative subpoenas, which do not need to be approved by a court, to “track down unregistered sex offenders.” [12] Defenders of the bill say that this provision simply brings the Internet up to speed with the telephone system, which authorities have been able to wiretap without a warrant since the Bush Administration made it legal.

“When investigators develop leads that might result in saving a child or apprehending a pedophile, their efforts should not be frustrated because vital records were destroyed simply because there was no requirement to retain them,” said Rep. Lemar Smith of Texas. Smith is the chair of the Judiciary Committee. “This bill requires ISPs to retain subscriber records, similar to records retained by telephone companies, to aid law enforcement officials in their fight against child sexual exploitation.” [12] He also said that not enacting the bill “would keep our law enforcement officials in the dark ages.” [11]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that focuses on Internet-based concerns, issued a strongly worded letter arguing against the bill, calling it a “direct assault on the privacy of Internet users.” [13]

“The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have recognized,” the letter read. “Requiring Internet companies to redesign and reconfigure their systems to facilitate government surveillance of Americans’ expressive activities is simply un-American. Such a scheme would be as objectionable to our Founders as the requiring of licenses for printing presses or the banning of anonymous pamphlets.”

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 still has to make it through the House of Representatives and the Senate, and must be signed by the president before it becomes a law – none of which is likely to happen. Still, it is the most brazen assault on Internet anonymity yet, and like COICA and the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, it is likely to return for a second vote should it not survive the first one.

If that happens, be sure to watch what you click. It could get you in trouble.

Sources

[1] http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2011/06/cia-website-hacked-lulzsec-takes-credit-again.html

[2] http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20070873-260/lulzsec-targets-video-game-maker-zenimax-media/

[3] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/f-b-i-seizes-web-servers-knocking-sites-offline/

[4] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/manning-detainment/

[5] http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5319

[6] http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-5548

[7] http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3804

[8] http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/senator-web-censorship-bill-a-bunker-busting-cluster-bomb/

[9] http://www.nydailynews.com/tech_guide/2011/07/29/2011-07-29_house_panel_approves_isp_snooping_bill_hr_1981.html?r=news/politics

[10] http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/how-the-new-8216protecting-children-bill-puts-you-at-risk/590

[11] http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20084939-281/house-panel-approves-broadened-isp-snooping-bill/

[12] http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/house-panel-approves-child-porn-bill-despite-data-privacy-concerns-20110728

[13] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/07/house-committee-approves-bill-mandating-internet

The SEOLawFirm.com Newsroom extends editorial freedom to their staff writers thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEOLawFirm.com, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.

The presidential elections of 2008 were historic in that Americans elected the first black president, and some argue the 2012 elections could follow suit in momentousness – not because of who gets elected, but because of who does the electing.

Changes to election laws in the United States since the last elections – largely stemming from the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case – now allow corporations, unions, groups and individuals to raise unlimited funds for candidate elections.

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit organization, could legally air television commercials and a documentary critical of Hilary Clinton just prior to the election. [1] This decision overturned the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 – which prohibited corporations and unions from using their funds to create ads mentioning a candidate just before an election – and made it possible for corporations and private entities to spend unlimited amounts of cash to publicly support or disparage a political candidate. [2]

Now, groups of all political affiliations are forming across the country in an attempt to influence the next presidential election. These groups are a form of political action committee, or PAC, officially called “independent-expenditure only committees” but more colloquially known as “super PACs”.

Since their inception in the early 1900s, PACs have been limited. They can only funnel $5,000 donations to candidates or $15,000 to political parties every year. Additionally, an individual may only donate up to $5,000 a year per PAC. [3]

Super PACs, however, have none of these restrictions. They allow for unlimited donations as long as the money goes toward targeted issues, or “independent expenditures”, and not directly to a campaign or political party. [4] Additionally, they permit direct attacks on candidates that were not allowed under previous laws. According to Trevor Potter, a former Federal Election Commission chairman, super PACs are the “clearest, easiest way to spend unlimited funds on an election.” [1]

A super PAC whose primary goal was to bring down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010’s midterm elections demonstrated how a wealthy individual can attempt to shift the elections under these new rules. Joe Rickets, founder of Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs, funneled $600,000 into a super PAC called the “Ending Spending Fund” in Nevada. [4] The fund bankrolled ads in the state highlighting Reid’s use of earmarks and criticizing him for engaging in “wasteful government”. The ads suggested they were paid for by concerned taxpayers, but they were funded solely by Rickets – who, according to election laws, was not even legally obligated to release his name.

Within nine months of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, super PACs were spending $4 million per week and registering at a rate of almost one per day. [1] They may even have influenced the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections. Super PACs favoring GOP candidates outspent super PACs favoring the opposing Democratic candidates three to one just before midterms – a set of elections that saw massive gains for the GOP. [1] They are hoping to pull off a similar victory next year.

A super PAC named “Restore Our Future”, formed by a group of supporters of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, reported in July that it received $12 million in the first half of the year. [5] Another group called “Crossroads GPS”, which was started by Republican consultant Karl Rove and others, began a $20 million media attack on President Barack Obama’s economic policies in late June. A pro-Democrat group responded with a hardly comparable $700,000 campaign to support Obama. [5]

Politicians, journalists and members of the media representing a variety of political parties and viewpoints have criticized Citizen United’s unleashing of the super PAC army. Shortly after the ruling, Obama said that Citizen’s United “strikes at our democracy itself” and “[it] gives special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington – while undermining the influence of average Americans.” [6] During his annual State of the Union Address, he said that the ruling allows foreign interests the ability to influence American elections, which resulted in controversy when cameras caught Justice Samuel Alito openly disagreeing with him just a few feet away. [7][8]

Obama’s one-time presidential candidate rival, Republican Senator John McCain, seemed to agree with him. “There’s going to be, over time, a backlash … when you see the amounts of union and corporate money that’s going to go into political campaigns,” he said. [9]

Comedian Stephen Colbert, always seeking to parody an absurd situation, used the opportunity to petition the FEC for his own super PAC. The FEC ultimately granted his wish, with some restrictions, but that failed to stop Colbert from taking to the streets with an iPad and a credit card reader after the verdict. [10] “Please donate, nation, because you can’t spell ‘donation’ without ‘nation’ and ‘dough’,” he said. [11]

Colbert’s super PAC approval may actually have had bigger implications than he initially realized. The FEC took extra time to examine Colbert show publisher Viacom’s role in the super PAC. They ruled that Colbert could form the committee and promote it on his show, but not any other shows on the network, without breaking disclosure rules for Viacom. [12]

This may have implications for networks like Fox News, which employs Mike Huckabee and Karl Rove, both of whom are affiliated with super PACs. The ruling opened the door to future “media exemptions”, allowing media outlets that employ politicians to give undisclosed contributions to favored candidates. Politicians employed by media companies may now be able to use their television shows to raise money for their super PACs without worrying about disclosing it. Colbert suggested Rove thank him for doing the work for him. “I just made it perfectly above-board legal to talk about your super PAC on air and to use your corporate show to promote your super PAC in any way,” he said. [10]

Still, as always, Colbert managed to pry and parody enough to cut at the heart of the matter, as he gloated over the fact that a foreign man had just donated to his super PAC right in front of FEC headquarters.

Sources

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/14/AR2009031401603_pf.html

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html

[3] http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf

[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/super-pac-taxpayers-earmarks-concerned-citizens-campaign-finance_n_772214.html

[5] http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-fundraising-20110705,0,7724179.story

[6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/23/obama-weekly-address-vide_n_434082.html

[7] http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2010/02/constructive-criticism-presidential.php

[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/09/AR2010030903672.html

[9] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/01/mccain-skeptical-supreme-court.html?wprss=44

[10] http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/05/2300841/the-joke-is-on-the-voters.html

[11] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/DC-Decoder/2011/0701/In-time-for-Election-2012-a-Stephen-Colbert-super-PAC.-What-is-that

[12] http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/colbert-gets-permission-to-form-super-pac/

A popular and charismatic young Democrat has admitted to engaging in “improper relationships” with women after being outed by a controversial right-wing blogger, an ethics investigation is underway, and now citizens, pundits and fellow politicians alike are wondering whether he should resign from public office.

The year is 1998, and the politician in question is President William Jefferson Clinton.

Somehow, it seems, the colossal amounts of publicity surrounding that famous scandal failed to reach some of Clinton’s peers, and the story has become somewhat of a trope in the past decade or so. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, presidential candidate and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, and now New York Rep. Anthony Weiner have all been caught engaging in extramarital relationships with women who were not their wives.

Weiner admitted on Monday that he had been involved in “a total of six inappropriate relationships over the past few years” using Twitter, other social networking sites and text messages. [1] This admission came to light when, a few weeks prior, a photograph of a man’s genital area covered up by briefs had appeared on the representative’s Twitter feed. Weiner initially stated that he had been “hacked” and that he had not posted the image. [2] Further scrutiny from CNN host Wolf Blitzer only raised more questions, as Weiner stated that he could not “say with certitude” that the pictures were not of him. [3]

On Monday morning, conservative blogger and publisher Andrew Breitbart posted a shirtless picture of the representative on his Big Government website, and stated that he had at least one much more revealing photo that he would not release. [4] Weiner held an emotional press conference later that evening and admitted that the photographs were indeed of him, that he had sent them to several women and lied to the press about it.

Weiner, a fiery, quick-speaking Brooklyite who represents New York’s 9th District, has seen a swift rise in notice in the past few years largely due to his embrace of social media and willingness to engage with right-wing talk show hosts and politicians. Prior to the incident, Weiner was an early frontrunner in the New York mayoral race that will take place in 2013 due to current Mayor Michael Bloomberg reaching his term limit. [5] Now, Weiner’s future as a politician is in jeopardy.

Weiner announced during his tearful press conference that he would not step down, pledging instead to stay and fight. Unfortunately for the representative, he may not find many allies willing to stand with him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested on Tuesday that Weiner should “call someone else” if he goes in search of advice. “I wish there was some way I can defend him, but I can’t,” Reid told the Washington Post. [6] Other Democrats were just as unsympathetic. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for a formal investigation on Tuesday morning, while fellow N.Y. Rep. Steve Israel condemned Weiner’s “deep personal failure” and suggested that he should leave office.

Republicans, of course, have hit Weiner the hardest. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said, “I certainly don’t condone his activity” and called for Weiner’s resignation. [6] The chairman of the Republican National Committee made a similar declaration. [7]

But should Weiner resign? What bearing does a non-physical extramarital relationship have on his ability to lead? What does his future hold? One can look to his fellow fallen Democrats for answers.

In a comparison to the indiscretions of Clinton, Spitzer and Edwards, Weiner certainly stands to swallow the scrutiny on the most solid ground. Clinton initially lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in a court of law and was held in contempt of court. He was fined $115,000 and was stripped of his license to practice law in Arkansas for five years. [8]

John Edwards cheated on his cancer-stricken wife during his 2008 presidential run and was indicted last month for using campaign money to hide his affair. [9] The former senator is facing six felony charges and could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine.

Spitzer was caught patronizing a prostitution service. No charges were filed following his resignation in March of 2008. [10]

Of the three, Edwards is the only one who was fallen into wide disgrace in the public’s eye. Bill Clinton is currently more popular than ever, with one poll giving him a 55 percent approval rating and a 23 percent disapproval rating – the best ratio of any politician in the poll. [11] He was greeted with massive crowds during the 2008 election cycle and was credited with helping Obama win the presidency. Spitzer has returned to the limelight, hosting a television show on CNN and writing regular columns for Slate, the online news magazine. And, at least according to anecdotal evidence in one TIME article, he still maintains a decent amount of popularity in the New York City region. [12]

If two out of three politicians can come back from sex scandals – scandals in which they physically cheated on their wives – the odds look good that Weiner can pull off the same after a few bouts of “sexting”.

He did, however, lie to his peers, the public and the press. He may not choose to step down because of his actions, but he will likely pay the price for them in the voting booths. A poll conducted by Politico found that 46 percent of New Yorkers believe he should quit, while 41 percent believe he should stay. [13] Thirteen percent said they were unsure.

“I think his chances of running for Mayor are zero. It’s pretty simple,” said New York Magazine political columnist Chris Smith. [14] The Politico poll found that 56 percent of New Yorkers do not want Weiner to run for mayor. [13]

Still, when it comes to politics, time seems to erase certain transgressions in the minds of voters. With Clinton seeing record-high poll numbers, and with well-known cheaters like Newt Gingrich making viable runs for the presidential office, it seems that Weiner could very well be able to stage a comeback at some point in the future, though likely not the immediate future.

In any case, the sooner the media stops using his name to make bawdy puns, the better.

Sources

[1] http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Weiner-Admits-Confesses-Photo-Twitter-Relationships-123268493.html

[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/29/politics/main20067242.shtml

[3] http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/01/rep-weiner-i-dont-know-what-photographs-are-out-there-in-the-world-of-me/

[4] http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/06/news/la-pn-anthony-weiner-photos-20110606

[5] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704288204575363610741624330.html

[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/weiner-faces-democratic-rebukes-ethics-probe/2011/06/07/AGz0rELH_story.html

[7] http://www.freep.com/article/20110608/NEWS07/106080438/Its-time-Weiner-resign-GOP-says

[8] http://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/News/ClintonDisbar-011001.htm

[9] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43260386/ns/politics-more_politics/?GT1=43001

[10] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/nyregion/07prostitution.html

[11] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42878.html

[12] http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1969595,00.html

[13] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56423.html

[14] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20069692-503544.html

The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 forever changed the political landscape in the United States. From a late-’90s era of prosperity and safety emerged a new period of fear, anger and racism perpetuated against Muslims. The Patriot Act was passed into law, which – whether one agrees the additional protections are necessary or not – denies Constitutional rights to Americans who are deemed “suspicious.” And nobody can forget the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have resulted in the deaths of over 6,000 American soldiers. [1]

President Obama places a wreath at the site of the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero, White House Photo, Pete Souza, 5/5/11

On May 2, 2011, 25 U.S. Navy Seals landed two helicopters at a million-dollar mansion surrounded by 12-foot-tall walls in Abbottabad, Pakistan. [2] The Seals engaged in a firefight with several inhabitants of the mansion, and in the ensuing chaos shot and killed Osama bin Laden – the man who claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in a video three years after they occurred. [3]

Several hours later, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a late-night speech to announce that the country’s No. 1 most wanted criminal had been killed.

“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children,” he said, in speech that remained calm and unemotional. [4]

The rest of the country did not maintain the same emotions, as thousands of Americans took to the streets outside of the White House and at the World Trade Center site. They held signs and sang songs about America. Twitter, which has quickly become an easy way to measure the strength of any particular event, exploded with 4,000 tweets per second about bin Laden’s death. [5]

That night, the U.S. celebrated as though the era of terrorism and fear from the last decade had ended, and a new one was about to begin. Many claimed that bin Laden’s death was a turning point toward a new political landscape in the U.S., much like 9/11 had been before it. Were they right?

Barack Obama campaigned on the fact that he was going to pull troops out of Iraq, a widely popular move that may have won him the election. Now, a week after bin Laden’s death, 59 percent of Americans think that the U.S. has accomplished its mission and it is time to leave Afghanistan. [6] Only one third of Americans believe that the U.S. should maintain troops there. With such widespread opinions, it is likely that the U.S. will choose to soon pull forces from the embattled nation for the first time in almost a decade.

News reports after bin Laden’s death claimed that he had “resisted” U.S. forces as they entered the compound, implying that he was armed, and said that he used one of his wives as a human shield to protect himself during the assault. [7] The U.S. government refuted these claims several days later, admitting that bin Laden was not armed and had not used his wife as a shield. [8]

This announcement seems to be a clear departure from the previous U.S. policies of secrecy, misappropriation of facts or outright denial in instances that might otherwise provoke negative international and domestic responses.

During the July 12, 2007 airstrikes in Baghdad, for example, several civilian Iraqis and two journalists were killed along with several insurgents. Military spokesmen claimed that they “took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives” shortly after the incident took place. [9] However, video footage that was leaked to Wikileaks several years after the incident and released on a YouTube video known as “Collateral Murder” showed otherwise, as U.S. Apache helicopters were seen firing on large groups of people and a van that had been driving toward the scene. Two children were in the van; one was injured and the other was killed.

Whether Wikileaks’ persistence in giving the government a black eye had any influence on its decision to release the information about bin Laden is unclear, but hearing the truth shortly after it happened is a refreshing change of policy.

Other signs point to no new changes in U.S. policy.

The Navy Seals that raided bin Laden’s compound recovered plans and videotapes suspected to contain information about future terrorist attacks. One such plan would have shut down all rail transportation on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Al Qaeda had reportedly planned to perform a large-scale attack on the American railroad system, which is hard to protect due to the sheer amount of space that it covers. [10]

In the wake of this discovery, U.S. intelligence officials are contemplating a “no-ride list,” similar to the no-fly list already in place on airlines. [11] They have also considered beefing up Transportation Security Administration presence in railroad stations, even though the TSA has become widely notorious from its use of naked body scanners and enhanced pat-downs. One poll recently showed that the TSA has become as unpopular as the IRS. [12] In any case, the addition of new and invasive security measures to train stations is a sign that bin Laden’s death has had little, if any, effect on America’s psyche.

Bin Laden’s death so far does not seem to have made as obvious an impact on the U.S. political system as the 9/11 attacks, which spurred immediate and strong responses. Besides boosting Obama’s re-election chances, which went up between seven and 12 points according to one Denver Post poll, the government has showed no major signs that it plans to change directions. [13] While bin Laden’s death may itself mark no immediate shifts in policy, it does provide a lens through which the observer can see that obvious changes are taking place: Wikileaks has showed its impact on the American political landscape, and support for an already unpopular war is draining further.

It seems that some things that Osama bin Laden changed in the U.S. will not be changing back after his death.

Sources

[1] http://icasualties.org/

[2] http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-killed-navy-seals-firefight/story?id=13505792

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html

[4] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20058783-503544.html

[5] http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/obamas-bin-laden-speech-triggers-4000-tweets-per-second-2011052/

[6] http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/afghanistan-get-out-59-percent/

[7] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/2/us-osama-used-wife-human-shield/

[8] http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/osama-unarmed-when-shot-dead-us-admits-20110504-1e71d.html

[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071202357.html

[10] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704810504576307470905866438.html

[11] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0509/Bin-Laden-fallout-Do-US-trains-need-a-no-ride-list

[12] http://boingboing.net/2007/12/23/tsa-is-as-unpopular.html

[13] http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_18023439

The SEOLawFirm.com Newsroom extends editorial freedom to their staff writers thus the views expressed in this column may not reflect the views of SEOLawFirm.com, Adviatech Corp., or any of its holdings, affiliates, or advertisers.