Beyond Labels

At the end of today’s session, we discussed as a possible topic for next Monday a case argued before the Supreme Court on 30 April: St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. According to a recent New York Times article:

“After Oklahoma’s charter school board approved the proposal to open St. Isidore, the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, sued to stop it.

Mr. Drummond , a Republican, said a religious public school would violate the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion and the State Constitution’s ban on spending public money to support religious institutions.”

The school has said it will include Catholic doctrine throughout its curriculum.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in favor of Drummond’s position that allowing the school to operate as a state chater school, which would require the state to provide funding for it, would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as applied to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment. The US Supreme Court granted the school’s petition for certiorari.

Here are links to some recent New York Times articles about the case and about recent US Supreme Court decisions regarding the Establishment Clause:

Supreme Court Seems Open to a Religious Charter School in Oklahoma (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/us/politics/supreme-court-charter-school.html?unlocked_article_code=1.E08._u1U._zTvZ8w3te83&smid=em-share)

A Key Question Before the Court: Are Charter Schools Public or Private? (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/us/politics/charter-schools-public-private-supreme-court.html?unlocked_article_code=1.E08.TpuM.BDhlATqTsLf2&smid=em-share

Will Religion’s Remarkable Winning Streak at the Supreme Court Continue? (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/supreme-court-religion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.E08.RKwO.ka_NhZt-Nm9r&smid=em-share)

Highlights: Religious Charter School Case Reaches the Supreme Court (https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/30/us/supreme-court-charter-schools?unlocked_article_code=1.E08.487Z.Qs8DoGrEzCD2&smid=em-share)

There will be no Beyond Labels meeting on April 21; the Blue Hill Public Library will be closed in observance of Patriots Day.

At our last meeting, we briefly discussed the “out-migration” of residents from California to states such as Texas and Florida.

It was also asserted that California’s GDP is shrinking (which I don’t think is correct–see the chart at the bottom). Anyway, that prompted us to consider California’s circumstances:

• Does California have a long- (or short-) term economic problem?
  • What are its key strengths and weaknesses as an economy?
• What are the biggest issues that California can realistically address?
  • Regulatory environment?
  • Mix of industries and services produced in the state?
  • Affordability/housing?
  • Resources–such as water?

We’ll see if the topic gets traction–we have more than a week to do our own research and prepare.

We agreed to revisit our two-party system and elections:

The Two-Party System

• How’s it working?
• Is it broken, or operating as designed?
• What structure/system would we prefer?
  • Ideally?
  • Realistically?
• How can we get there? (Or closer?)

Here’s a link to one of my “go-to” articles on the subject.

Money and Politics

There’s been a lot of talk about Citizens United, but the real issue seems to be how best to address the value of money (as distince from policy positions, charisma, etc.) in politics–whether that money comes from corporations or from individuals.

Here’s a recent article on Elon Musk’s interest and activities in Wisconsin.

(And maybe we’ll spend a bit of time discussing how we feel about elected vs. appointed judicial positions.)