Tag Archives: federal judiciary

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College student-athletes may unionize

College athletic tradition has just taken a serious — and potentially devastating — punch in the gut.

Call me a fuddy-duddy. That’s OK. I’ll admit to being such where it regards college athletics. A ruling out of Chicago is potentially quite disturbing — to me, at least.

A National Labor Relations Board hearings officer has ruled that Northwestern University student-athletes are employees of the school and therefore should be allowed to form a union if they so desire.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/northwestern-football-players-win-union-ruling-now-77616/

This might open the door eventually to paying student-athletes real money — above board and over the table, instead of under it … allegedly — to play college sports.

Let’s not overstate the immediate impact of this NLRB decision. It’s only a highly preliminary action. The full NLRB board must consider it. The full board might think differently. If it does, you can rest assured the student-athletes who have sued for the right to unionize will appeal it to the federal judicial system. If the NLRB upholds this decision, then look for colleges and universities to file a counter-claim that also will wind its way through the court system.

I get all the arguments in favor of allowing unionization for student-athletes. They do make money for the school they are attending. Did Heisman Trophy winner Johnny “Football” Manziel bring a few extra fans to Kyle Stadium when he played for Texas A&M University? You bet he did.

He also was getting a fully paid college education in the process. His football talent enabled him to win a full-ride scholarship to one of the better schools in the world. Sure, I get that he well might not have taken his classroom obligation as seriously as his football obligation. He wouldn’t be the first student-athlete to, um, forget to crack the textbook while burning the midnight oil studying the playbook.

Manziel is just one example out of many hundreds across the country.

This decision well could change fundamentally the way we view college athletics and those who participate in them.

It makes me seriously uncomfortable to think that these young men and women could well become professionals before they turn pro.

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Proof of citizenship to vote? Oh, please

My friend and former colleague Jon Talton calls it the Kookocracy that’s run amok in Arizona.

I think he’s on to something.

The Arizona — and now Kansas — kooks have been handed a court victory by a judge who says that, yep, it’s OK for those states to demand voters prove their citizenship if they intend to vote.

http://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/2014/03/keep-out-the-vote.html

I’ve been voting in every presidential election since 1972, starting in my home state of Oregon and — since 1984 — in Texas. Not one time has an election judge asked me to produce either a birth certificate or a passport to prove I’m a citizen of the U.S. of A. Never has any elections official looked sideways at me — at least none that I’ve ever noticed — and wondered whether I’m a red-blooded American male.

For the record, I am.

Now, though, the fight to make it more difficult for people to vote is heading down a curious path.

The courts — or shall I say those courts presided over by Republican-appointed federal judges — are notching up victories for the GOP-led effort to curb what they call an epidemic of voter fraud by illegal immigrants.

Of course, no such epidemic exists, except in the fanciful minds of those who want to suppress voter participation by those who might be inclined to vote for those nasty Democrats.

As Talton notes in his blog: “Real instances of serious voter fraud are almost nonexistent, and the few recent scandals have involved Republicans. On the other hand, minority and poor citizens are less likely to be able to produce a passport or birth certificate in order to exercise the franchise.”

I want to be clear about one thing. I join my fellow Americans in upholding the sanctity of the vote. We shouldn’t allow non-U.S. citizens to cast ballots in a rite that is reserved only for those who either swear allegiance to the Constitution or those who earned their citizenship by birthright.

These efforts to make it harder for people to vote, though, simply are un-American.

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Judges aren't elected for a good reason

Politics has no place on judicial bench.

That is why folks on the far right are so wrong to lambaste “unelected judges” for ruling as they do, particularly when their rulings go against the right wing’s tightly held agenda.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/unelected-judges

Paul Burka makes an important point in his blog about Sen. Ted Cruz’s criticism of a federal judge’s ruling that threw out Texas’s ban on gay marriage as being unconstitutional. Cruz used the right wing canard about unelected judges being accountable to no one.

That’s the way the U.S. Constitution was written by the founders. It’s strange to hear so-called “strict constructionists” argue against that very provision. Voters elect presidents, who then have the power to appoint judges to the federal bench. If you dislike the philosophies of the judges, then voters’ only option is to elect presidents who will appoint judges more to your liking.

As a counterpoint to the federal system, look at how many states select their judges. Texas’s system, I should add, is no great shakes. We elect our judges on partisan ballots; they run under political parties’ banners. Do you think their decisions are influenced by partisan pressure? In Texas, judges are every bit the politician that define county commissioners, legislators and the governor.

I rather prefer the federal model in which presidents appoint judges, who then are tasked with interpreting the U.S. Constitution. They get it right and they get it wrong. If they make the correct decisions, then so much the better. If they go the wrong way, well, we have Congress and the president to work together to fix the law.

My strong preference — to the extent that it is possible — to keep politics off the federal bench.