Scott Miller

There will be no Beyond Labels meet in on Monday, May 26; the library will be closed in observance of Memorial Day.

Our next meeting will focus on the current Supreme Court cases regarding birthright citizenship and deportations.

One of the important sub-issues that draws these two subjects together is the question of how broadly a judge’s ruling should apply—only within the local district in which a judge sits, in the regional circuit, or nationwide. In the past (I think) these have been pretty clear. But some recent Trump Administration cases has refocused attention on the issue:

• If a district judge enjoins or temporarily restrains an executive branch action as being likely unconstitutional, should other similarly situated parties be able to rely on that ruling? Or does everyone have to file their own petition for temporary relief?
• Can a “class “ receive protection before it is certified?

Given the fast pace of parallel, and sometimes irreversible, actions, waiting for a full trial, then circuit court appeal, then Supreme Court decision can take years.
I’ll post some links to some related reading as a “comment “ to this post by Wednesday; others are welcome to do so as well.

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.)