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Amazon workers strike at multiple facilities as Teamsters seek labor contract
Legal Interview |
2024/12/19 06:51
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Workers at seven Amazon facilities went on strike Thursday, an effort by the Teamsters to pressure the e-commerce company for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized strikes in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect an impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
At one warehouse, located in New York City’s Staten Island borough, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees - including many delivery drivers - have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at one Amazon warehouse in San Francisco, California, and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City; Atlanta, Georgia, and Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join,” the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. |
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Court will hear arguments over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care
Legal Interview |
2024/12/01 11:57
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Advocates for transgender rights are turning to a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.
The justices on Wednesday are taking up the issue of gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which has been banned by Tennessee and 25 other Republican-led states.
The fight over whether transgender adolescents can access puberty blockers and hormonal treatments is part of a broader effort to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.
Trump backed a national ban on such care as part of his 2024 campaign in which he demeaned and mocked transgender people.
In its waning days, the Biden administration, along with families of transgender adolescents, will appeal to the justices to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
“The stakes are high, of course, for transgender adolescents, but also for the parents who are watching their children suffer, who are just trying to do right by their kids,” Chase Strangio, who represents the families at the Supreme Court, said in an interview. Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, will be the first openly transgender person to argue before the high court.
A lawyer for Tennessee will argue that the “life-altering gender-transition procedures” are risky and unproven and that it’s the state’s role to protect children.
Trump nominated three justices in his first term who pushed the court in a more conservative direction that included the decision in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years.
Yet one of Trump’s appointees, Justice Neil Gorsuch, also authored a ruling in 2020 that protected LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace under federal civil rights law.
The administration and transgender families both rely on that decision to bolster their arguments.
After Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, it’s possible the new administration could weigh in on the case, which is not expected to be decided until the spring.
There are about 300,000 people between age 13 and 17, and 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute is a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics to inform laws and public policy decisions.
Most Republican-controlled states have adopted a ban similar to the one in Tennessee, and those laws mostly are in effect, despite legal challenges. The Tennessee case is the first time the nation’s top court will consider the constitutionality of the bans.
Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz, a 20-year-old college student in Massachusetts who is transgender, said his life would have been very different if he were just a few years younger and living in one of the states.
“These bans are denying people the opportunity to live and excel,” he said in an interview. “There are thousands of transgender youth across the country that are thriving just like me because we’ve had the love and understanding of our families and because we’ve had access to proper care.”
The bans in Tennessee and elsewhere have put families in the position of deciding whether to travel for ongoing health care, go without or wait until their children turn 18.
Erin Friday, a leader of Our Duty, an international group that supports the bans on gender-affirming care for minors, said the case is going to be as important as Roe v. Wade. She said upholding the Tennessee law would bolster the cases for the laws restricting sports participation and bathroom use.
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Tight US House races in California as GOP maintains control over the chamber
Legal Interview |
2024/11/14 07:05
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Republicans and Democrats awaited the outcome of vote-counting for crucial U.S. House districts in California on Wednesday, as the GOP clinched majority control of the chamber next year with a race call in neighboring Arizona.
In a rematch from 2022, Rep. Ken Calvert — the longest-serving Republican in the state’s congressional delegation — defeated rival Democrat Will Rollins in the 41st District, which lies east of Los Angeles and was a top target for national Democrats.
In Southern California’s Orange County, Democrat Dave Min defeated Republican Scott Baugh in a closely divided swing district, ending Baugh’s bid to seize the seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Katie Porter in what was once a conservative stronghold.
The 47th District, southeast of Los Angeles, was a top target for national Republicans looking to protect and possibly expand the their narrow majority.
Calvert, who was backed by President-elect Donald Trump, claimed his 17th term in a district narrowly carried by Trump in 2020.
“This is a hard-fought victory that shows voters want someone who will put results above partisan politics,” Calvert said in a post on the social platform X.
Min, also posting on X, said that in Congress he will “fight to protect our democracy, safeguard our freedoms and expand economic opportunity.”
Baugh said on the same platform that “despite running a strong campaign … that effort is going to come up a little short.”
On Tuesday, Republican Rep. David Valadao’s victory in California’s 22nd District moved Republicans within two wins of retaining the House gavel, with the tally 216-207 in favor of the GOP, as counting continued in a sliver of races across the country.
With Calvert’s win, the Republican tally reached 217. That became 218 on Wednesday night, securing a majority margin, as Rep. Juan Ciscomani won reelection to a seat representing southeastern Arizona. Some squeaker races remained in play in California.
In the 45th District, anchored in Orange County, Republican Rep. Michelle Steel’s lead over Democrat Derek Tran was whittled down to a few hundred votes as counting continued.
California is known as a liberal protectorate — Democrats hold every statewide office, dominate the Legislature and congressional delegation and outnumber registered Republicans by a staggering 2-1 ratio. Still, Republicans retain pockets of political clout in the Southern California suburbs and vast rural stretches, including the Central Valley farm belt.
Orange County was once considered conservative holy ground, where white, suburban homeowners delivered winning margins for Republicans year after year. It was a foundational block in the Reagan revolution. But the county has become more demographically diverse and Democratic over time, like much of the state.
The 47th District, which includes Huntington Beach and other famous surf breaks, has been occupied by Porter, a progressive favorite who in 2022 narrowly defeated Baugh, a former Republican legislator. Porter, known for grilling CEOs during Capitol Hill hearings, stepped aside to run for U.S. Senate, but lost in the primary.
Given the stakes in the closely divided district, the contest was especially rancorous. Min ads called Baugh a “MAGA extremist” who would endanger abortion rights. Baugh said Min’s “extreme liberal views” were out of step with the district. |
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North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is elected as the state’s governor
Legal Interview |
2024/11/10 07:06
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North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein was elected governor on Tuesday, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and maintaining Democratic leadership of the chief executive’s office in a state where Republicans have recently controlled the legislature and appeals courts.
Stein, a Harvard-trained lawyer, former state senator and the state’s chief law enforcement officer since 2017, will succeed fellow Democrat Roy Cooper, who was term-limited from seeking reelection. He will be the state’s first Jewish governor. Robinson’s campaign was greatly hampered by a damning report in September that he had posted messages on an online pornography website, including that he was a “black NAZI.”
Democrats have held the governor’s mansion for all but four years since 1993, even as the GOP has held legislative majorities since 2011.
As with Cooper’s time in office, a key task for Stein likely will be to use his veto stamp to block what he considers extreme right-leaning policies. Cooper had mixed success on that front during his eight years as governor.
Otherwise, Stein’s campaign platform largely followed Cooper’s policy goals, including those to increase public school funding, promote clean energy and stop further abortion restrictions by Republicans.
Stein’s campaign dramatically outraised and outspent Robinson, who was seeking to become the state’s first Black governor.
For months Stein and his allies used television ads and social media to remind voters of previous inflammatory comments that Robinson had made about abortion, women and LGBTQ+ people that they said made him too extreme to lead a swing state.
“The people of North Carolina resoundingly embraced a vision that’s optimistic, forward-looking and welcoming, a vision that’s about creating opportunity for every North Carolinian,” Stein told supporters in his victory speech after Cooper introduced him. “We chose hope over hate, competence over chaos, decency over division. That’s who we are as North Carolinians.”
Robinson’s campaign descended into disarray in September when CNN reported that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago. In addition to the “black NAZI” comment, Robinson said he enjoyed transgender pornography and slammed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot,” according to the report. Robinson denied writing the messages and sued CNN and an individual for defamation in October.
In the days following the report, most of Robinson’s top campaign staff quit, many fellow GOP elected officials and candidates — including presidential nominee Donald Trump — distanced themselves from his campaign and outside money supporting him on the airwaves dried up. The result: Stein spent millions on ads in the final weeks, while Robinson spent nothing.
Stein had a clear advantage among women, young and older voters, moderates and urban and suburban voters, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 3,600 voters in the state. White voters were about evenly divided between Stein and Robinson, while clear majorities of Black voters and Latino voters supported Stein.
Fifteen percent of those who voted for Trump also backed Stein for governor, while just 2% of those who cast ballots for Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris backed Robinson.
Patrick Stemple, 33, a shipping coordinator attending a Trump rally last week in Greensboro, said he voted early for Trump but also chose Stein for governor.
Stemple mentioned both Stein’s ads talking about how he has fought illegal drug trafficking and his dislike for Robinson’s rhetoric. Stemple said the graphic language that CNN reported was used in Robinson’s posts reinforced his decision not to back Robinson.
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A man who threatened to kill Democratic election officials pleads guilty
Legal Interview |
2024/10/29 08:50
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A Colorado man repeatedly made online threats about killing the top elections officials in his state and Arizona — both Democrats — as well as a judge and law enforcement agents, according to a guilty plea he entered Wednesday.
Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, acknowledged to a federal judge in Denver that his comments were made “out of fear, hate and anger,” as he sat dressed in a khaki jail uniform before pleading guilty to one count of transmitting interstate threats. He faces up to five years in prison when he’s sentenced on Feb. 3.
Brockbank’s case is the 16th conviction secured by the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which Attorney General Merrick Garland formed in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting the election community.
Earlier this year, French actor Judith Godrèche called on France’s film industry to “face the truth” on sexual violence and physical abuse during the Cesar Awards ceremony, France’s version of the Oscars. “We can decide that men accused of rape no longer rule the (French) cinema,” Godrèche said.
“As we approach Election Day, the Justice Department’s warning remains clear: anyone who illegally threatens an election worker, official, or volunteer will face the consequences,” Garland said in a statement.
Brockbank did not elaborate Wednesday on the threats he made, and court documents outlining the plea agreement were not immediately made public. His lawyer Thomas Ward declined to comment after the hearing.
However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Colorado said in statement that the plea agreement included the threats Brockbank made against the election officials — identified in evidence as Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state’s governor.
Griswold has been outspoken nationally on elections security and has received threats in the past over her insistence that the 2020 election was secure. Her office says she has gotten more frequent and more violent threats since September 2023, when a group of voters filed a lawsuit attempting to remove former President Donald Trump from Colorado’s primary ballot.
“I refuse to be intimidated and will continue to make sure every eligible Republican, Democrat, and Unaffiliated voter can make their voices heard in our elections,” Griswold said in a statement issued after Brockbank’s plea.
Investigators say Brockbank began to express the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021. According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators after his arrest that he’s not a “vigilante” and hoped his posts would simply “wake people up.” He has been jailed since his Aug. 23 arrest in Cortez, Colorado.
Brockbank criticized the government’s response to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted this year for allowing a breach of her election system inspired by false claims about election fraud in the 2020 presidential race, according to court documents. He also was upset in December 2023 after a divided Colorado Supreme Court removed Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot.
In one social media post in August 2022, referring to Griswold and Hobbs, Brockbank said: “Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other,” according to copies of the threats included in court documents. In September 2021, Brockbank said Griswold needed to “hang by the neck till she is Dead Dead Dead,” saying he and other “every day people” needed to hold her and others accountable, prosecutors said. |
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Court revives Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against The New York Times
Legal Interview |
2024/08/27 13:38
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A federal appeals court revived Sarah Palin’s libel case against The New York Times on Wednesday, citing errors by a lower court judge, particularly his decision to dismiss the lawsuit while a jury was deliberating.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote that Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s decision in February 2022 to dismiss the lawsuit mid-deliberations improperly intruded on the jury’s work.
It also found that the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury tainted the jury’s decision to rule against Palin. It declined, however, to grant Palin’s request to force Rakoff off the case on grounds he was biased against her. The 2nd Circuit said she had offered no proof.
The libel lawsuit by Palin, a onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, centered on the newspaper’s 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting, which Palin asserted damaged her reputation and career.
The Times acknowledged its editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected errors it called an “honest mistake” that were never meant to harm Palin.
Shane Vogt, a lawyer for Palin, said in an email that Palin was “very happy with today’s decision, which is a significant step forward in the process of holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the public in general.”
“The truth deserves a level playing field, and Governor Palin looks forward to presenting her case to a jury that is ‘provided with relevant proffered evidence and properly instructed on the law,’” Vogt added, quoting in part from the 2nd Circuit ruling.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said the decision was disappointing. “We’re confident we will prevail in a retrial,” he said in an email.
The 2nd Circuit, in a ruling written by Judge John M. Walker Jr., reversed the jury verdict, along with Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit while jurors were deliberating.
Despite his ruling, Rakoff let jurors finish deliberating and render their verdict, which went against Palin.
The appeals court noted that Rakoff’s ruling made credibility determinations, weighed evidence, and ignored facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly find supported Palin’s case.
It also described how “push notifications” that reached the cellphones of jurors “came as an unfortunate surprise to the district judge.” The 2nd Circuit said it was not enough that the judge’s law clerk was assured by jurors that Rakoff’s ruling had not affected their deliberations.
“Given a judge’s special position of influence with a jury, we think a jury’s verdict reached with the knowledge of the judge’s already-announced disposition of the case will rarely be untainted, no matter what the jurors say upon subsequent inquiry,” the appeals court said.
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