Tag Archives: Topic: District of Columbia

LifeNews.com: A pro-life member of Congress has introduced new legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia based on scientific evidence showing unborn children feel pain.

The Blog of Legal Times: A report released today by the Council for Court Excellence shows that the bulk of judges confirmed to the District of Columbia Superior Court come from government service, and also that the nominating process can be “unpredictable” once lawyers are recommended to the White House.

The Washington Post: Ward 5 council candidate Delano Hunter, who was backed by national same-sex marriage opponents in his 2010 campaign, is now touting his belief that the District should not overturn its new same-sex marriage law.

The Washington Post: You’ll recall that last year a D.C. rabbi, Shmuel Herzfeld, sued the city after it scheduled a special election for April 26 — the final day of Passover, a high Jewish holy day.

CBS Washington: The D.C. Council is considering legislation that would make it easier for gay and lesbian couples who marry in the nation’s capital to get divorced.

Washington Blade – “America’s Leading Gay News Source”: Delano Hunter, a Ward 5 civic activist who unsuccessfully challenged Thomas in the September 2010 Democratic primary, told the Washington City paper this week that he plans to run for the seat in a special election expected to take place in May.

News from The Associated Press: Washington, D.C., is growing faster than any state in the nation.

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor Speak Up Movement University Blog: The District of Columbia Office of Human Rights has held that John Garvey, president of Catholic University of America did not violate a District law banning sex discrimination by returning the institution he leads to single-sex dormitories

The Blog of Legal Times: Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Senate Judiciary Committee Republican, said in a written statement released before the vote that he had concerns about her time as New York solicitor general, noting a suit in which she argued that gun manufacturers were public nuisances.

AlgeMeiner.com: “By definition, a union that is not sanctioned by Torah law is not an Orthodox wedding, and by definition a person who conducts such a ceremony is not an Orthodox rabbi.” They also dispelled any doubt over possible flexibility on the matter in the future, writing, “We strongly object to this desecration of Torah values and to the subsequent misleading reportage…the public should not be misled into thinking that Orthodox Jewish values on this issue can change, are changing, or might someday change…any claims to the contrary are inaccurate and false.”

OneNewsNow.com: But Greg Baylor of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) says the DC Office of Human Rights was right to dismiss the complaint. “They acknowledge that this is a reasonable practice,” he notes. “It’s not discriminatory against women or men. It’s just something that universities do and that federal law itself says is a perfectly permissible act by a college or university.”

LifeSiteNews: Following the filing of the complaint, the Cardinal Newman Society commissioned and released a legal memo in July from Alliance Defense Fund attorney Dale Schowengerdt which demonstrated that CUA’s dorm decision was not a form of discrimination. The memo argued, “As long as a college does not subject either men or women to particular disadvantages or unequal burdens, there is no sex discrimination. Moreover, a religious school’s right to maintain separate living quarters for men and women is protected by the Constitution and federal law.”

The Washington Post: n an order issued Tuesday (Nov. 29), the city’s Office of Human Rights said offering only single-sex dormitories is not unlawful discrimination under the District’s Human Rights Act.

The Blog of Legal Times: The D.C. Bar Judicial Evaluation Committee recently kicked off its annual evaluation program and is looking for feedback from attorneys on the performance of 34 judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and Superior Court.

Religion Clause: Yesterday, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a new report titled Lobbying for the Faithful: Religious Advocacy Groups in Washington D.C.

The Hill: Local Washington lawmakers are praising House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) for his efforts to give the District more control over its local budget, but they are rejecting his proposed legislation limiting local funding for abortions.

Pat Buchanan at Townhall : Second, if the Office of Human Rights has nothing better to do than spending six months investigating these nonsensical charges, it ought to be abolished. Give the taxpayers back the money these bureaucrats are wasting, and let them go and, as Ronald Reagan used to say, “test the magic of the marketplace.”

Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy: The proposed law would mandate that public and charter schools, city parks, city libraries, and the University of District Columbia ban any gesture or written, verbal or physical act, including electronic communication, that is …

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: In an interesting bit of “reasoning,” Banzhaf contends that CUA has no good religious reason for not better “accommodating” Muslim prayer because nearby Georgetown University will soon offer Muslim prayer space at a new interfaith center. Surely Banzhaf doesn’t think the Archbishop is legally obliged to either tear down the Basilica or build a mosque on the CUA campus? Right?

The Washington Post: A George Washington University law professor who filed a human rights complaint against Catholic University this summer when it eliminated coed dorm floors has filed a second complaint against the school, saying the rights of Muslim students are being violated.

PRLog: he President of Catholic University, John Garvey, has been directed to respond to new charges of illegal discrimination at his university — against both Muslims and women — and to do so in writing by next Thursday

The Tower: New charges have recently been filed against the University on counts of illegal discrimination against its Muslim and female students. The allegations are being reviewed by the District of Colombia Office of Human Rights (OHR), which has the strictest discrimination laws in the country. President John H. Garvey and the University is being urged to respond to the charges.

The Blog of Legal Times: The District of Columbia’s top two judges on Oct. 24 announced the launch of the Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll, as part with the American Bar Association’s national pro bono program.

The Blog of Legal Times: The District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission released the names Wednesday morning of 20 applicants vying for retiring Judge Joan Zeldon’s seat on the District of Columbia Superior Court bench.

Bloomberg: Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.

Religion Clause: In a press release on Thursday, the ACLU and Americans United announced that they are dropping a lawsuit filed in 2008 (see prior posting) challenging a proposed D.C. arrangement with a religiously-sponsored homeless shelter . . .

ACLU: A religiously based homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. will no longer require the homeless to attend religious services as a condition of getting food and shelter, and the D.C. government no longer plans to pay tax dollars to the shelter as a result of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

News from The Associated Press: Williams and 16 other transgender men and women are graduating Friday from a month-long, city-funded job training and life skills pilot program in the District of Columbia that aims to find jobs for an often-marginalized population.

The Blog of Legal Times: Noting the pending nomination of a sitting magistrate judge, D.C. Superior Court is advertising the position in anticipation of the potential new vacancy.

A group of mentally disabled women and their representatives were given the green light on Friday to file new claims of constitutional violations against the District of Columbia over abortions and other medical procedures performed on the women without the consent of legal representatives or a court order.

The Blog of Legal Times: Public Defender Service attorneys Corinne Beckwith and Catharine Easterly appeared before a Senate committee Friday morning to testify on their nominations to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

The Washington Post: D.C. public and public charter schools, which annually test student progress in reading and math, will also measure what they know about human sexuality, contraception and drug use starting this spring.

The Blog of Legal Times: The three candidates recommended to the White House are Roy McLeese III, chief of the appellate division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia; District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz; and private practice attorney Geoffrey Klineberg.

The Blog of Legal Times: In a closed mediation session held at the D.C. Office of Human Rights last week, Catholic University officials met with George Washington University Law School professor John Banzhaf to try to resolve Banzhaf’s recent complaint concerning the university’s newly enforced same-sex housing policy.

Catholic Culture: Lawyers for the Catholic University of America (CUA) appeared on September 15 before the Office of Human Rights in Washington, DC, at a hearing on a charge that the school is engaging in illegal discrimination by offering only single-sex dormitories for undergraduates.

LifeNews.com: Yesterday, the Senate appropriations measure received approval from the Senate Appropriations Committee that funds the federal government and, unlike the measure House Republicans passed in their committees, the Senate bill funds abortions in D.C.

The Washington Post: Advocates for District autonomy and for abortion rights won a partial victory Wednesday when the Senate released a draft D.C. spending bill that does not include a ban on the city using its taxpayer money to fund abortions for low-income women.

The Blog of Legal Times: District of Columbia Court of Appeals Chief Judge Eric Washington recently began his term as president of the Conference of Chief Justices, a national organization that makes policy recommendations, develops educational programs and advises state judicial systems on best practices for court administration.

LifeNews: The Obama administration is continuing to go after pro-life people who provide abortion alternatives information to women outside abortion facilities. They are going after one elderly man for stepping on a woman’s shoe and breaking the strap.

Christian Post: Dale Schowengerdt is with Alliance Defense Fund and has written a memo on Professor Banzhaf’s complaint. “Christian colleges should not feel compelled to maintain co-ed living arrangements simply because a law professor in D.C. demands it,” said Schowengerdt. “As long as Catholic University or any other institution does not give one party an advantage over the other, then there is no discrimination. Plus, I believe a religious school’s right to maintain separate living quarters for men and women is protected by the Constitution and federal law.”

Kathryn Lopez at The Register-Mail also at National Review: As for the lawsuit against CUA, according to a memo prepared by Dale Schowengerdt, an attorney at the Alliance Defense Fund: “Catholic colleges should not feel compelled to maintain co-ed dorms simply because a lone attorney in D.C. is threatening to sue. No court has ever held that a college must maintain co-ed dorms. And based on well-established law, it is very unlikely that a court would do so.”

ADF legal analysis says lawsuit by DC law professor isn’t right ‘by a long shot’

OneNewsNow.com (7/13): John Banzhaf argues that single-sex dorms violate the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act. But Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) Senior Counsel Gregory Baylor says that is “ridiculous.” “Even the District of Columbia itself has separate restrooms for women and for men,” he points out. “If you take his theory seriously, which I don’t think you can, that sort of segregation of bathrooms would violate the D.C. Human Rights Act.”

AP: For decades Congress has used its power over the District of Columbia to ban the city from paying for abortions for poor women, but during a two-year period when lawmakers reversed course at least 300 women got city-funded procedures, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

Washington Times: People aboard a party bus shot at after leaving a Northeast strip club last week were earlier involved in a fight at the club — the latest in a series of incidents there that include a stripper being hit in the face with a champagne bottle during a tussle between a patron and the entourage of rapper Lil’ Wayne, according to police reports.

NBC Washington: Catholic University’s plan to convert to single-sex dorms could face a legal challenge.

The Blog of Legal Times: An assistant U.S. attorney, a public defender and a Hogan Lovells partner have been tapped as nominees to fill Judge Noël Kramer’s seat on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission announced the three nominees – Alan Burch, Catharine Easterly and Christopher Handman – this afternoon.

LifeNews.com: House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee released the first draft of their bill today funding the District of Columbia and the legislation keeps in place the ban on paying for abortions with taxpayer funds in the nation’s capital.

The Blog of Legal Times: Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who leads Ohev Shalom – The National Synagogue, had originally sued the city before the election, pointing out that April 26 is one of several days when observant Jews are barred from signing their name or completing an electronic circuit, in effect precluding them from casting a ballot.

Blog of the Legal Times: The District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure is recommending D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Morin for a second term. He was first appointed in 1996. In a report (PDF) released this afternoon . . .

Blog of the Legal Times: A federal appeals court in Washington today said expressive dancing is prohibited inside the Jefferson Memorial in a decision that upheld the dismissal of a suit alleging government suppression of First Amendment rights. | Oberwetter v. Hilliard, No. 10-5078 (D.C. Cir. May 17, 2011)

Jason Riley at Wall Street Journal (via Google): A study published last year found that D.C. voucher recipients had graduation rates of 91%. That’s significantly higher than the public school average of 56%.

LifeSiteNews: In an April 19 letter to D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray signed by 94 House members, the lawmakers point out that “history has shown that the District has not always complied with this policy when it has been in place in the past.”

Blog of the Legal Times: The news, however, was tempered by relatively flat revenue growth and the jump in profits appears to have had more to do with cutting lawyers and staff than a significant bump in business.

Blog of the Legal Times: A deputy director in the public defenders’ office and a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Spouses are among the 34 applicants vying to fill the District of Columbia Superior Court judgeship vacated by now-U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg.

UPI reports and includes photo.

EarnedMedia.org: In response to Mayor Vincent Gray’s protest and arrest for the right to use taxpayer dollars on abortion, a coalition of Washington, D.C. pastors are challenging the Mayor to stand up for “the tiniest of constituents who truly cannot speak for themselves” — the unborn.

ADF attorney Jordan Lorence at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: Self-rule for the District of Columbia is an important topic for consideration, but many will find it difficult to support if it means more abortions and fewer children able to attend private schools.

LifeNews: Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington, DC, was arrested along with three dozen pro-abortion activists on Monday for protesting the budget deal in Congress that will result in banning taxpayer funded abortions in the District of Columbia.

Religion Clause Blog: “AP reports that the compromise reinstates a ban on the District of Columbia using its own local tax funds to pay for abortions for poor women.  Also, according to World Magazine, the President agreed to include the SOAR Act as part of the final budget bill.  The act reopens the voucher program . . . ”

Heritage Foundation: Friday night, House Speaker John Boehner (R–OH) secured a huge win for D.C.’s schoolchildren. In a triumph for low-income families in the nation’s capital, Boehner succeeded in reauthorizing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) in the long-term continuing resolution.

The Hill: “Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Washington Mayor Vincent Gray will join a protest Monday on Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to scrap from the budget compromise riders on D.C. abortion rights and a school voucher program.”

LifeNews: “The House of Representatives today [4/7] approved a short-term continuing resolution that would fund the federal government for a week and that contains a pro-life rider stopping taxpayer funding of abortions in D.C.”

LifeNews: “While most of the pro-life attention to the congressional budget battles has focused on the effort to yank taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business, the long-term budget bill the House passed and Senate rejected also contained numerous pro-life riders addressing other instances of abortion funding or using taxpayer dollars to bankroll pro-abortion groups.”

The Hill: “Over fierce Democratic opposition, the House on Wednesday approved a bill to reestablish a school-choice voucher system for Washington, D.C., residents.”

Heritage Foundation Morning Foundry: In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, children suffer in a public education system rife with violence and ranked among the worst in the nation. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives took action to give those students some hope when it voted to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (D.C. OSP), which provides scholarships to low-income children, allowing them to attend their school of choice. It was one of the most consequential education votes that Congress will make this year.

Politico: “The House voted 225-195 Wednesday afternoon to allocate $20 million to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships Program, which stopped accepting new students in 2009. The bill will open the program to new applicants.”

Washington Post: “The White House announced Tuesday that President Obama was “strongly opposed” to a bill reviving and expanding the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, one day before the measure championed by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is scheduled for a vote on the House floor. But the White House did not threaten to veto the bill, suggesting that it could still pass as part of a larger compromise on education policy.”

Blog of the Legal Times: Two nominees for the federal bench, both with ties to large law firms, each has a net worth in seven figures, according to financial disclosure reports they submitted to the U.S. Senate.

Blog of the Legal Times: “The District of Columbia Judicial Nominating Commission announced today that it is seeking applications from members of the D.C. Bar interested in filling a judicial vacancy on the D.C. Superior Court.”

Blog of the Legal Times: The Senate voted unanimously today to confirm Washington litigator Amy Berman Jackson to a judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Washington Post: “In these dire fiscal times, when even the sacred programs are no longer sacred, Republican leaders have still been able to identify a few that they think deserve more money.”

Blog of the Legal Times: “The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote late today on the nomination of James “Jeb” Boasberg for U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.”

The American Federation for Children (AFC) today applauded the advancement of the bill to reauthorize the highly-successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program by a U.S. House of Representatives Committee.

One News Now: “Members of a U.S. House subcommittee have heard testimony from students and parents urging them to reauthorize the school voucher program in the nation’s capital.”