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Under subpoena from city elections officials, a former GOP ward leader refused to testify this week about his role in diverting mail ballots requested by dozens of Republican voters in South Philadelphia to a P.O. box he controlled.

Billy Lanzilotti invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination through a letter sent by his lawyer Thursday, the same day he had been summoned to appear at a hearing of the Philadelphia City Commissioners.

His refusal to attend along with testimony at the hearing from voters he and others helped to apply for ballots escalates concerns that the effort may have violated the law. Lanzilottis actions had already led to his ouster from his ward leader position and raised concerns about the integrity of the ballots.

Leonard Armstrong, 71, told the commissioners Lanzilotti helped him fill out his ballot application, delivered his ballot, and then dropped it in the mail for him after hed filled it out.

It already had postage, so I didnt see any big deal about it. I didnt know what I was getting involved in, he said during a hearing at the Guerin Recreation Center, in the same South Philadelphia neighborhood where Lanzilotti based his ballot effort.

State law requires voters to return their own ballots unless they have a disability. Third-party ballot delivery what Republicans call ballot harvesting is forbidden. Armstrong said he didnt know that.

It was the first [time I voted by mail], he said. And it will be the last, I can tell you that. Even on my deathbed, it will be my last.

Questioned by the commissioners, Armstrong said he knew he was requesting a mail ballot, but not that it was going to a P.O. box.

Neither did the two other voters who testified Thursday after being subpoenaed. They said they never received the ballots they had applied for the ones sent to Lanzilottis P.O. box, which is also the mailing address for a Republican political action committee he had registered a few months earlier. Both voters used new ballots after elections officials, concerned about what Lanzilotti was up to, reached out to them, voided their original ballots, and sent replacements to their homes.

The voters said those ballots were legitimate and should be counted. City elections officials agreed and voted Friday to accept them, as well as those of three other voters Lanzilotti or others working with him had helped.

I do not believe the voters did anything wrong that would warrant their ballots not being counted, Chris OHara, an investigator for the commissioners, said Thursday. He had interviewed several of the voters and helped them obtain replacement ballots.

Though he refused to testify, Lanzilotti maintained in earlier interviews with The Inquirer that he had done nothing wrong.

He has since referred all questions to his attorney, A. Charles Peruto Jr., who said Friday that his client had made a simple mistake. Lanzilotti stopped his ballot delivery efforts after a May 6 story in The Inquirer raised questions about his effort, Peruto said. That could explain why some voters didnt receive their original ballots, he said, Lanzilotti had them and never delivered them.

He just froze up and did nothing. He stopped, Peruto said. We intend to answer the charges, if any are brought. There was no criminal intent.

The District Attorneys Office has said it is aware of the matter but spokesperson Jane Roh has declined to say whether it is investigating. A representative from the office attended Thursdays hearing.

Lanzilotti has maintained that he had only been offering a service to the voters when he and a few others associated with his political action committee, the Republican Registration Coalition, began knocking on doors in South Philadelphia, offering to help Republicans sign up to vote by mail.

He acknowledged filling out the address portion of the voters ballot applications, inserting his P.O. box instead of the voters home addresses. He said he had their ballots sent to him so they could be hand-delivered by someone they trusted.

It is not illegal for voters to request to have their mail ballots sent to an address other than their own. However, state law requires them to fill out and deliver their applications and ballots themselves, with an exception for disabled voters, who must explicitly acknowledge they had help from a third party in filling out their forms or mailing their ballots.

No such signatures appeared on any of the 39 mail ballot applications submitted by Lanzilotti or those working with him. And in several cases, the addresses were written in the same handwriting across multiple forms while the rest of the forms appeared individually filled out.

Several of the voters whose applications were requested through Lanzilotti told The Inquirer they had no idea who the men were when they showed up at their doors, though they accepted the help applying for mail ballots.

I dont even know who he was, Jackie OKeefe, one of the affected voters who testified at Thursdays hearing, said of the man who assisted her in filling out her application. He told me his name, but I have no clue who he was.

Lanzilotti has faced professional repercussions from his party which has run candidates who have attacked mail voting and falsely portrayed it as rife with abuse since The Inquirer first reported on his ballot effort.

His fellow Republican ward leaders ousted him from his post leading the 39th Ward in South Philadelphia, and he was barred from holding any party office in the city in the future. He also lost a job working on the reelection campaign of U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Bucks).

Lanzilotti had been running for ward leader in the 26th Ward, where his mail ballot effort was focused.

Two other men working with Lanzilotti Shamus ODonnell, 27, and C.J. Parker, 24, were also fired from roles with the state Republican Party.

See the rest here:
Philly officials subpoenaed the man behind a potential GOP ballot harvesting effort. He refused to testify. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Unenumerated rights.

Those are the rights that may not be explicitly laid out in the words of the Constitution, but are considered essential to American life anyway.

In 1997 then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist said:

We have repeatedly emphasized that fundamental rights are those that are deeply rooted in our nations traditions.

History and tradition. Thats what Justice Samuel Alitos points to in his draft opinion that could overturn abortion rights in this country.

What else might the justices think is not deeply rooted in the "history or tradition" of the United States?

Obviously, that has implications for other cases," Kenji Yoshino says. "Same sex marriage is not deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition. Contraception. The rights of interracial marriage."

"If we're really taking a baseline that says the right to be recognized as an unenumerated right has to be deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition, all of those rights are now imperiled," Yoshino adds.

Today, On Point: Understanding unenumerated rights.

Kenji Yoshino, professor of constitutional law at NYU School of Law. Director of the Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. (@kenji_yoshino)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst. (@JackBeattyNPR)

Kathryn Tucker, special counsel at Emerge Law Group. She argued the cause of the respondents in the 1997 Washington v. Glucksberg case.

Los Angeles Times: "Op-Ed: A retro reading of the Constitution imperils many rights beyond abortion" "As astute commentators have noted, the draft opinion in Dobbs vs. Jackson Womens Health Organization not only seeks to overrule Roe vs. Wade, but might also someday threaten other decisions like Obergefell vs. Hodges, which secured the right to same-sex marriage."

On unenumerated rights

Kenji Yoshino:It's the air we breathe. And if I can even go further than that, it's really the foundation on which the Constitution has been built because ... at the very founding of the Constitution ... the condition that certain individuals who ratified the Constitution called the anti-federalists, who are worried about overweening federal governmental power, reserved was to say, "We will only vote for this if you enact a Bill of Rights."

One of those Bill of Rights is the Ninth Amendment, and the Ninth Amendment says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." And so, what I love about that is that there's a textual reference in the Constitution to the idea that there are textually unenumerated right. So there's a little bit of a paradox.

On the process by which unenumerated rights are retained by the Court

Yoshino:There are two tests for how to decide what is an unenumerated right. ... The test that conservatives have loved and that Justice [Samuel] Alito is trying to resurrect is a 1997 test that comes from the case, Washington v. Glucksberg. And in Glucksberg, the Court said, when you're trying to ascertain whether something is an unenumerated right, history is going to be your guide. And so the formal test is to question whether or not the right that people are proposing is, "deeply rooted in this nation's history and traditions and implicit and the concept of order liberty." So if you think about that, that is going to be a very backwards looking test.

And the alternative test, which was proposed by Justice [John Marshall] Harlan initially in his dissent in a case called Poe v. Ullman, which actually predated Washington v. Glucksberg, but was a dissent, but was later embraced by the Casey majority in 1992 is this test that says there can't really be any formula. We, of course, look to history as our guide, but we look not only at the traditions that we have as a country, but also the traditions from which we broke. And Harlan says that tradition is a living thing.

On the connection between "history and tradition" and the politics of the moment

Yoshino:I agree that thinking of Dobbs as adopting a very cramped reading of Glucksberg is a really good characterization. ... This is actually Justice Alito's version of history and obviously the people who signed on to that opinion and his version of history is very narrow indeed. So what he's saying is the test here is whether or not the unenumerated right is deeply rooted in this nation's history and traditions. And then he says, abortion is clearly not that. And so QED, abortion is not a fundamental right.

But as Jack was saying earlier, the right to abortion has been around since 1973. As you said earlier, abortions themselves have been conducted since time immemorial. And so he's selecting a very particular version of when history begins and what constitutes that history in order to come to the result that he comes to.

On the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case's precedent on discerning unenumerated rights

Yoshino: [The Griswold case]says the penumbras around the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendment create a right to privacy. So what they're getting at a penumbra is just a shadow, right? is that these textual provisions cast these shadows. And those shadows, which all contain this notion of privacy overlap with each other such that they coalesce into a right in its own right, so that the right to privacy under which the right to contraception is protected is derived from the shadows of actual textual provisions. So text is being used as a counterweight to the lack of history right on point here.

On potential concerns about the future of unenumerated rights

Yoshino: I'm extremely concerned about them. I think time will tell, and only time will tell. But we have a test being articulated by the draft of the opinion that, if applied rigorously, would mean the demise of many of the unenumerated rights that we have come to take for granted. So I'm extremely concerned. I'm about to head into teach my new constitutional law class, and I feel like I'm teaching that generation that's going to have to fix this because I'm not relying on my generation to be able to do it.

View original post here:
The fragility of unenumerated rights | On Point - WBUR News

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, on April 23 in Delaware, Ohio. A New York state appeals court ruled Thursday that Trump must answer questions under oath in a civil investigation into his business practices. Joe Maiorana/AP hide caption

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, on April 23 in Delaware, Ohio. A New York state appeals court ruled Thursday that Trump must answer questions under oath in a civil investigation into his business practices.

NEW YORK Former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state's civil investigation into his business practices, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

A four-judge panel in the appellate division of the state's trial court upheld Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron's Feb. 17 ruling enforcing subpoenas for Trump and his two eldest children to give deposition testimony in Attorney General Letitia James' probe.

Trump had appealed, seeking to overturn the ruling. His lawyers argued that ordering the Trumps to testify violated their constitutional rights because their answers could be used in a parallel criminal investigation.

"The existence of a criminal investigation does not preclude civil discovery of related facts, at which a party may exercise the privilege against self-incrimination," the four-judge panel wrote, citing the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Message seeking comment were left with lawyers for the Trumps and with James' office. The Trumps could still appeal the ruling to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

James, a Democrat, has said her investigation has uncovered evidence Trump's company, the Trump Organization, used "fraudulent or misleading" valuations of assets like golf courses and skyscrapers to get loans and tax benefits.

Thursday's ruling could mean a tough decision for Trump about whether to answer questions, or stay silent, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Anything Trump says in a civil deposition could be used against him in the criminal probe being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

At a hearing prior to Engoron's Feb. 17 ruling, Trump's lawyers argued that having him sit for a civil deposition is an improper attempt to get around a state law barring prosecutors from calling someone to testify before a criminal grand jury without giving them immunity.

A lawyer for the attorney general's office told Engoron that it wasn't unusual to have civil and criminal investigations proceeding at the same time, and Engoron rejected a request from lawyers for the Trumps to pause the civil probe until the criminal matter is over.

Last summer, spurred by evidence uncovered in James' civil investigation, the Manhattan district attorney's office charged the Trump Organization and its longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, with tax fraud, alleging he collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty.

See the article here:
Trump loses an appeal and must testify in New York's civil investigation - NPR

Activists rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 2, 2022, after an initial draft majority opinion indicated that the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey should be overturned, which would end federal protection of abortion rights across the country. (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

The U.S. Constitution is a sparse 4,400 words. This parsimonious use of language has provided full employment for generations of American lawyers who can argue what gaps in the document mean. The terse Constitution has also allowed generations of justices on the Supreme Court to act as gap-fillers through the adjudication of cases and controversies. One of the words that does not show up among the Constitutions 4,400 words: privacy.

The Supreme Court has filled that gap by inferring that people in America (not just citizens) have a constitutional right to privacy.There are a few places in the Constitutional text that the justices have located the right to privacy.

The most satisfying is in the Ninth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, which says, The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. In other words, the Ninth Amendment says just because a particular right is not mentioned in the text of the Constitution does not mean that people in America do not have it. Thus the Ninth Amendment is a catch-all protection for rights that are not specifically listed.Historically, the Supreme Court has been extremely hesitant to find new rights in the Ninth Amendment because this opens the justices to the criticism that they are just making up rights to suit their own prejudices or whims. (For a good layperson explanation of the Ninth Amendment, check out the play What the Constitution Means to Me on Amazon Prime.)

A second source of the right to privacy that justices have relied on for decades are the two due process clauses found in the Fifth Amendment and 14th Amendment. (The Fifth Amendment applies to the federal government, and the 14th applies to the 50 states.) The Supreme Court has used the due process clauses to articulate the protection of fundamental rights including the right to privacy. The 14th Amendments due process clause states: nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law This word liberty is the textual peg the Supreme Court has used to find the right to contract, the right to marry, the right to intimate relationships, the right to use contraception and the right to abortion. When the Supreme Court rules a right is fundamental using a due process clause, this is known as substantive due processand reproductive freedoms have long been covered as substantive due process rights.

And a final source of the right to privacy is the shadow of the Bill of Rights.In a case called Griswold v. Connecticut from 1965, the Supreme Court was considering the constitutionality of a Connecticut law that made use of contraceptives by married couples a crime. Justice Douglas wrote in Griswold that privacy could be found in the emanations and penumbra of the Bill of Rights.

A penumbra is a term from astronomy that refers to the shadow cast by a planet from a light source like the sun. Here the light source was the Bill of Rights, and the shadow (or penumbra) created a zone of privacy.Using this metaphor, Douglas concluded that marital privacy included the right to use contraception. Other justices in Griswold located the right to privacy in either the Ninth Amendment or the 14th Amendment.But the upshot was clear: After Griswold, married women had the right to use the pill and other contraceptives like diaphragms. The Supreme Court would later expand access to single persons as well in Eisenstadt v. Baird.

When the Supreme Court rules a right is fundamental using a due process clause, this is known as substantive due processand reproductive freedoms have long been covered as substantive due process rights.

The language used by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973 is:

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendments concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendments reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a womans decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

Thus, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court expanded on the right of privacy articulated in Griswold and said the right also included the decision of whether to have an abortion. (A good overview of how substantive due process has impacted womens privacy rights in particular is the Netflix special, Amend: The Fight for America, episode 4.)

Substantive due process has also been used to protect the right to marriage and sexual intimacy. In Loving v. Virginia in 1967, the Supreme Court invalidated an anti-miscegenation law. The Supreme Court wrote in Loving:

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.

(Vice celebrated the 50th anniversary of Loving by talking to interracial couples today.)

And in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, the Supreme Court invalidated a state law that criminalized sodomy. In Lawrence the Court also relied on substantive due process and the right to privacy declaring, The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter. Casey at 847. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.

(For more on this case, see Lamda Legals Overruled!)

Thus, the problem with Justice Alitos approach to privacy in his leaked opinion overruling Roe v. Wade is that stomping on the right to privacy wont just impact abortion rights. It could have long reaching impacts on keeping the government outside of heretofore private spheres like marriage, sex and our bodies.

Sign and share Ms.s relaunched We Have Had Abortions petitionwhether you yourself have had an abortion, or simply stand in solidarity with those who haveto let the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House know: We will not give up the right to safe, legal, accessible abortion.

Up next:

See the rest here:
Where Is Privacy in the US Constitution? The Wide-Ranging Ramifications of a Roe Overturn - Ms. Magazine

On 19 March 2020, the European Commission adopted the Temporary Framework on State aid measures to support the economy in the current context of the COVID-19 outbreak ("Temporary Framework"). The Temporary Framework is based on Article 107(3)(b) TFEU and aims to remedy a serious disturbance in the European economy. The Temporary Framework allowed States to adopt measures to contribute to the continuity of economic activity during the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure recovery after the crisis.

The Temporary Framework, adopted in March 2020 and initially in force until the end of 2020, provided for five categories of aid which could, under certain conditions, be considered by the Commission to be compatible with the internal market:

aid in the form of direct grants, repayable advances or tax concessions, up to a maximum amount of EUR 800,000 per company;

aid in the form of loan guarantees;

aid in the form of subsidised interest rates for public loans;

aid in the form of public guarantees and reduced interest rates provided to enterprises through credit or other financial institutions; and

aid in the form of short-term export credit insurance.

In view of the pandemic's development and its impact on the economies of EU Member States, the Temporary Framework has been amended several times and its duration extended.

On 3 April 2020, the Commission adopted a first amendment so that aid could be used to accelerate research, testing and production of COVID-19-related products, to protect jobs and to further support the economy during the crisis (see our article of 7 April 2020).

On 8 May 2020, it adopted a second amendment to further facilitate access to capital and liquidity for companies affected by the crisis (see our article of 13 May 2020).

On 29 June 2020, it adopted a third amendment to further support start-ups and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and to encourage private investment (see our article of 10 July 2020).

On 13 October 2020, it adopted a fourth amendment to prolong the Temporary Framework and to allow aid to be used to cover part of the uncovered fixed costs of companies hit by the crisis (see our article of 16 October 2020).

On 28 January 2021, it adopted a fifth amendment to further extend the Temporary Framework, to adapt the aid thresholds set out in the Temporary Framework and to allow reimbursable instruments to be converted into direct grants under certain conditions (see our article of 3 February 2021).

Finally, on 18 November 2021, the European Commission extended the Temporary Framework until 30 June 2022 (see our article of 24 November 2021). The main change concerns the introduction of two categories of phasing-out aid, i.e. the option for Member States to grant investment and solvency support measures beyond the fixed expiry date (i.e. beyond 30 June 2022).

Member States can stimulate private investment in enterprises, provided that the investment aid is granted under an aid scheme and in various forms and that the maximum individual aid to an enterprise does not exceed EUR 10 million in nominal value. This ceiling is increased to EUR 15 million where the aid scheme provides for aid exclusively in the form of guarantees or loans. In addition, individual aid must not exceed 1% of the total budget of the scheme, save in exceptional situations duly justified by the Member State concerned.

The eligible costs covered by these investment support measures must only include the costs of investment in (in)tangible assets, excluding financial investments.

In addition, the aid intensity must not exceed 15% of the eligible costs, although increases may be justified where small or medium-sized enterprises are concerned. In the case of aid in the form of guarantees or loans, the aid intensity must not exceed 30% of the eligible costs.

Finally, Member States may limit investment aid to specific economic areas that are of particular importance for economic recovery, provided that such limits are designed in a general way and do not constitute an artificial restriction on eligible investments.

This instrument is available to Member States until 31 December 2022 if the investments concerned were made before 1 February 2020.

Solvency support is intended to alleviate the difficulties associated with a company's level of indebtedness and to act as an incentive for private investment in equity, subordinated debt or quasi-equity, with the aim of achieving risk sharing between Member States and private investors.

Risk sharing is achieved by limiting the value of such a guarantee to a maximum of 30% of the underlying portfolio when covering first losses, with a limit of EUR 10 million on the total amount of funding provided per company.

Like investment aid, solvency support is granted under an aid scheme established on the basis of transparent and objective criteria, in the form of state guarantees or similar measures. Such support will be granted on market-oriented terms and will only be targeted at SMEs as final beneficiaries. Financial institutions are explicitly excluded from the measure.

This instrument is available to Member States until 31 December 2023.

In addition, the Commission has made other changes, namely:

extending from 30 June 2022 to 30 June 2023 the option for Member States to convert certain reimbursable instruments (such as guarantees, loans and repayable advances) granted under the Temporary Framework into other forms of aid, such as direct grants;

adjusting the maximum amounts of certain types of aid in proportion to their extended period;

clarifying the exceptional flexibility provisions of the Commission's rescue and restructuring guidelines; and

extending by three months (from 31 December 2021 to 31 March 2022) the adapted list of non-marketable risk countries for short-term export credit insurance.

At the beginning of 2022, the Commission consulted Member States on a possible extension of the Temporary Framework and requested related macroeconomic data.

However, the European Commission announced on 12 May 2022 that the Temporary Framework would not be extended beyond 30 June 2022, although some measures can be implemented by States after this date; for example, Member States will still be able to convert loans into limited amounts of aid in the form of direct grants, subject to the conditions of the Temporary Framework and provided that this option has been envisaged in their national schemes. This conversion option could be used under strict conditions to cancel loans or parts of loans for the benefit of borrowers who are unable to repay.

Similarly, Member States will also be able to implement their schemes to restructure loans, for example by extending their duration or lowering the applicable interest rates, within defined limits.

In addition, during the phasing-out and transition phase, Member States will be able to adopt the specific investment support and solvency support measures described above until 31 December 2022 and 31 December 2023 respectively, subject to prior authorisation by the Commission (see above).

In conclusion, just over two years after the Temporary Framework's entry into force, the Commission will have enabled Member States to provide rapid and flexible support to companies affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The Commission has in fact adopted more than 1,300 decisions in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, authorising almost 950 national measures for a total amount of State aid estimated at almost EUR 3,200 billion.

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Phasing-out of the Temporary Framework on State aid linked to the COVID-19 crisis - Lexology