I was having dinner with my family to celebrate the Jewish New Year when I learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. As my friend Lauren Johnson Norris posted on Facebook, “According to Jewish tradition, a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah, which began tonight, is a tzaddik, a person of great righteousness. We found that very comforting. So strange to be eating these apples and honey with this sadness.”
We have lost a woman of valor and righteousness. We have lost our warrior and champion.
Salt water next to our apples and honey.
Mixed with our sadness is the acute realization that the tragic loss of Justice Ginsburg means that a woman’s right to control her own body, already under extreme siege, is more in danger now than at any time since Roe v. Wade was decided nearly 50 years ago.
Now, more than ever, we must ensure that our representatives, at every level of government, are fully committed to protecting our fundamental reproductive rights.
I want to share with you the statement released today by my friend and Irvine Community Services Commissioner Lauren Johnson-Norris. It eloquently puts into words what I and many other women are thinking and feeling at this difficult and pivotal moment in our history:
“Justice Ginsburg is an icon for many women, especially women lawyers, because she dedicated her professional life to a singular focus in moving the law toward equality for women. She entered spaces where women were not welcomed and won time and again, not just because of her brilliant mind and persuasive advocacy, but because she stood on the side of equality. As a jurist, she sought to build consensus but, when that was not possible, she provided an essential voice of dissent that spoke truth to power.
The loss of Justice Ginsburg on the United States Supreme Court is devastating at a time when women’s fundamental rights to reproductive health care is under attack. The right of a woman to make autonomous decisions about her own body is the core of her fundamental right to equality and privacy. As a lawyer, mother, and advocate for women, I know that in order to drive equality, we must commit fully and actively to reproductive rights and healthcare for all.”
RBG gave us all she could. She brought us this far. Now it’s our time to carry on the fight, in her name and in her memory, for ourselves, our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters.
The United States Constitution was signed and adopted as the fundamental law of the United States of America by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 233 years ago today on September 17, 1787. In so doing, our nation came into being.
Congress has called on each state legislature to send delegates to a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation in ways that, when approved by Congress and the states, would render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.”
To amend the Articles into a workable government, 74 delegates from the twelve states were named by their state legislatures; 55 delegates showed up, and 39 delegates eventually signed.
James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention, wrote in his dairy that after the meeting on that day, a woman asked Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Franklin “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” to which Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
In fact, the Preamble of this history-changing document makes clear that this was to be a government of the people: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
As United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, explained, “What makes the Constitution worthy of our commitment? First and foremost, the answer is our freedom. It is, quite simply, the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed. It’s also the world’s shortest and oldest national constitution, neither so rigid as to be stifling, nor so malleable as to be devoid of meaning. Our Constitution has been an inspiration that changed the trajectory of world history for the perpetual benefit of mankind. In 1787, no country in the world had ever allowed its citizens to select their own form of government, much less to select a democratic government. What was revolutionary when it was written, and what continues to inspire the world today, is that the Constitution put governance in the hands of the people.”
It is of the nature of constitutions that their meaning evolves over time and in newly encountered situtions. As founding UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in the University of Chicago Law Review, “[t]he Constitution inevitably must be interpreted. There are countless issues — such as whether the president can fire cabinet officials or rescind treaties or assert executive privilege — where the document is silent, but a constitutional answer is necessary. So much of the Constitution is written in broad language that must be given meaning and applied to specific situations. . .”
It is my hope that one day soon the Supreme Court will recognize that in order to ensure and protect our democracy, we must get unlimited and unaccountable money out of politics, and that there must be limits on the amount of money that individuals, corporations, or other organizations can spend to support or attack political candidates or to influence government policies.
It is my hope, too, that one day soon the Equal Rights Amendment will be adopted so that women will at long last be accorded full and equal rights in the United States.
In fact, our Constitution provides the means to make these changes and improvements in our government and our political process.
Our Constitution remains our best hope of “We the People” forming an even “more perfect Union.”
Thanks to tremendous public support, we succeeded!
At the Irvine City Council meeting on September 8, 2020, the Council unanimously agreed to send an official letter to the U.S. Postmaster, on behalf of our residents, to cease and rescind any actions that undermine prompt delivery of the mail, including “expeditious action to re-store mail sorting equipment and remedy the recent changes to USPS polices and procedures that would result in reduced or delayed mail service levels.”
Here is the full text of the official letter sent to the U.S. Postmaster General:
Thank you to everyone who wrote to the Irvine City Council in support of the U.S. Postal Service! This letter is truly the result of democracy in action.
Now, we must keep the pressure on the federal government to ensure that the USPS “to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and render postal services to all communities, without interruption.”
I have received numerous reports of postal boxes suddenly disappearing across Orange County, including Irvine. These reports are consistent with recent changes in policy by the Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service, which have included removing thousands of postal boxes and mail-sorting machines, eliminating overtime for mail carriers, and reducing post office hours.
These changes in U.S. Postal Service policy have been faulted for slowing mail delivery — including the delivery of medicine and medical supplies veterans benefits, Social Security checks, census forms, and rent checks — and for making it more difficult for our residents to vote safely and with confidence that their ballots will be timely received during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For these reasons, Councilmember Farrah Khan and I will be asking our colleagues on the Irvine City Council to speak up on behalf of our residents and our businesses to urge the Postmaster General to immediately end and rescind these changes.
RESOLUTION URGING THE U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL TO CEASE AND RESCIND ALL ACTIONS THAT SLOW DOWN OR UNDERMINE THE PROMPT DELIVERY OF THE U.S. MAIL, ESPECIALLY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
WHEREAS, The United States Postal Service is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution “to bind the country together through the correspondence of the people”; and
WHEREAS, The Postal Service guarantees universal delivery to everyone, ensuring affordable and equitable communication and delivery as a basic right; and is indispensable, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, to the American people, especially veterans, seniors, and small businesses, delivering medications, stimulus checks, social security checks, census forms, rent checks, medical supplies, and election ballots;
WHEREAS, The Postal Service is one of the most important employers in the United States, providing family sustaining jobs, especially to veterans;
WHEREAS, By failing to seek regulatory approval on policy changes that have a nationwide impact, the United States Postmaster General has unilaterally implemented a series of revisions to the postal service’s protocols and procedures that threaten to undermine the timely delivery of mail across the country, including Irvine. These unilateral changes have included:
Removing mailbox locations around the country, including in Irvine and other cities in Orange County;
Decommissioning mail-sorting machines, with severe reductions in sorting capacity and the speed of delivery;
Severely limiting employees from working overtime, despite reported increases in demand and the need to compensate for employees who are out sick or at home quarantining; and
Instructing letter carriers to leave mail behind if it delays routes, running counter to the training postal workers traditionally receive to ensure prompt delivery of the mail;
WHEREAS, The USPS’s actions align with the President’s own recent assertion that he will prevent the postal service from being able to handle the expected surge in demand for voting by mail, and the USPS has warned several states, including California, that it could no longer guarantee timely compliance with all state election deadlines and delivery of all ballots cast by mail for the presidential election.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, THAT THE CITY OF IRVINE URGES THE UNITED STATES POSTMASTER GENERAL TO IMMEDIATELY CEASE AND RESCIND ALL ACTIONS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO REMOVAL OF POST BOXES, DECOMMISSIONING OF MAIL SORTING EQUIPMENT, AND RESTRICTING MAIL CARRIER OVERTIME, THAT SLOW DOWN OR UNDERMINE THE PROMPT DELIVERY OF THE U.S. MAIL, ESPECIALLY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
PASSED AND ADOPTED by the City Council of Irvine at the meeting held on the 8th day of September 2020.
Please join us in urging the Irvine City Council to adopt this Resolution.
You can contact the other three members of the Irvine City Council to tell them tourge the Postmaster General to immediately cease and rescind that slow down or undermine the prompt delivery of the U.S. mail here:
Mayor Christina Shea:
christinashea@cityofirvine.org
Councilmember Anthony Kuo:
anthonykuo@cityofirvine.org
Councilmember Michael Carroll:
michaelcarroll@cityofirvine.org
UPDATE: On August 27, 2020, the California Assembly voted 50-0 in favor of a Resolution that “urges the federal administration and the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate to cease and desist from all efforts to reduce the ability of voters to cast their ballots by mail or diminish public confidence in the vote by mail program as it relates to the November 3, 2020, general election” and that United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to immediately restore all mailboxes and mail sorters back to the communities from which they were removed in order to guarantee the timely and efficient delivery of vote by mail ballots in the November 3, 2020, general election.”
Of course, I would have voted in favor of this Resolution. Our current representative to Sacramento for the 68th AD, Steven Choi, again failed to show up to vote. In fact, Choi has one of the highest no-show rates in the CA legislature. It’s time for us in AD68 to have a representative in Sacramento who cares about the people’s business and shows up to do the job he was elected to do.
UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who wrote to the Irvine City Council in support of the Postal Service. As the result of your efforts, the Council at its meeting on September 8. 2020, unanimously agreed to send an official letter to the U.S. Postmaster, on behalf of our residents, to cease amd rescind any actions that undermine prompt delivery of the mail.
Every immigrant and child of immigrants in the United States should be alarmed by Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship to question the eligibility of Kamala Harris to serve as president. The conservative legal attack on birthright citizenship is no longer just a fringe argument. If Trump gets another term, it could well become law, removing citizenship from millions of Americans born in the U.S. to immigrant parents.
Trump has tweeted that “So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other. It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Many legal scholars agree. . .”
Almost immediately after Joe Biden announced that he had chosen California’s junior U.S. Senator, Kamala Harris, as his running mate, Newsweek magazine published an article by Chapman Law School professor John Eastman questioning whether Harris is eligible to be president. Eastman’s argument against Harris’ eligibility stems from his belief that she is not a “natural born” citizen of the United States under the language of the U.S. Constitution because, although she was born in this country, neither of her parents were U.S. citizens at the time of her birth.
Here is Eastman’s succinct statement of his argument against birthright citizenship:
“The language of Article II is that one must be a natural-born citizen. The original Constitution did not define citizenship, but the 14th Amendment does — and it provides that “all persons born . . . in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” Those who claim that birth alone is sufficient overlook the second phrase. The person must also be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, and that meant subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States (whether lawfully or unlawfully). Such was the view of those who authored the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause; of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1872 Slaughter-House Cases and the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins; of Thomas Cooley, the leading constitutional treatise writer of the day; and of the State Department, which, in the 1880s, issued directives to U.S. embassies to that effect.” (Emphasis in original).
The principle of birthright citizenship in our Constitutional law was inherited from the English common law, where it was called jus soli (“right of soil”), in contrast to citizenship based on the principle of jus sanguinis (“right of blood”).
As opponents of birthright citizenship often point out, very few other countries endow citizenship in this way; instead, most countries require that one or both of a person’s parents be citizens of the country before their children can be citizens, regardless of where the childen were born.
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
The Constitution did not originally define citizenship. However, in 1868, as part of an historic overhaul of the Constitution in the aftermath of the Civil War known as the Reconstuction Amendments, the 14th Amendment was adopted to clarify who was to be deemed a citizen of the United States. The language of the 14th Amendment states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
As Eastman and other anti-birthright citizenship advocates point out, the specific purpose of this language was to overrule the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision that Black people were not citizens of the United States. It was not until the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) that this language was tested in regard to whether it applied to a child of immigrants. In that case, the Supreme Court held, by a vote of 6-2, that under the Fourteenth Amendment, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese citizens who had a permanent domicile and residence in the United States — and whose parents were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power — was a citizen of the United States. The majority held that the language o the 14th Amendment regarding citizenship did not just apply to African Americans, but should be interpreted in light of birthright citizenship principle of the English common law, which included virtually all native-born children, excluding only those who were born to foreign rulers or diplomats, born on foreign public ships, or born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country’s territory. Since that time, numerous subsequent decisions of the federal courts have applied the principle of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment to the children of foreign nationals born in the United States.
According to Eastman and many other conservatives, United States v. Wong Kim Ark was wrongly decided or has been wrongly interpreted. Specifically, Eastman contends that it misinterpreted the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, which should be understood only as a clarification and solidification of the citizenship status of former slaves and their descendents, not immigrants from China or other countries.
He further argues that the issue in Wong Kim Ark was whether a child born to Chinese immigrants “who had become lawful, permanent residents in the United States” and that “the Supreme Court has never held that anyone born on U.S. soil, no matter the circumstances of the parents, is automatically a U.S. citizen.”
Eastman then applies his anti-birthright citizenship analysis to the facts about the parentage of Kamala Harris, asking whether her parents (her mother was born in India and her father was born in Jamaica) were “merely temporary visitors, perhaps on student visas issued pursuant to Section 101(15)(F) of Title I of the 1952 Immigration Act.” If that were the case, Eastman argues, “then derivatively from her parents, Harris was not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States at birth, but instead owed her allegiance to a foreign power or powers — Jamaica, in the case of her father, and India, in the case of her mother — and was therefore not entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment as originally understood.”
Kamala Harris’ parents, Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris, immigrants from India and Jamaica.
Let’s pause for a moment to understand the enormous impact of what Eastman is asserting — and which many other conservatives have also asserted and to which President Trump has now clearly stated his agreement.
First, it would mean that Kamala Harris is likely not eligible to be president (or vice president) of the United States.
Second, it would call into question the citizenship of tens of millions of Americans who were born in the United States but whose parents were not citizens.
Of course, it would also call into question the citizenship of their children and their children’s children, and so on.
I am not going to refute Eastman’s argument here. That has been done by many historians and constitutional law scholars and can be read here, here, and here.
What must be stressed is that the Eastman/Trump argument against birthright citizenship is no longer a fringe idea. Instead, it is close to mainstream in conservative and Republican legal circles, such as the Federalist Society (which Trump and the Republican Party have given a prominent role in selecting federal judges) and could easily become the law of the United States if Trump gets another term and gets to appoint more Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump has made clear that he wants to end birthright citizenship “one way or another.” If that were to happen, the citizenship of tens of millions of people born in the United States to immigrant parents, and the children of these children, would be in question.
That’s part of what’s at stake in the 2020 Election.
At the Tues., July 14, 2020, Irvine City Council meeting, I will move to repeal Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance [Sec. 3-5-501 through 503] as unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution and in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which explicitly prohibits discrimination against people based on “sexual orientation.”
Councilmember Farrah Khan has agreed to join me in putting this item on the July 14 Council agenda and in supporting this motion.
Most residents of Irvine do not know that our diverse and forward-thinking city has an ordinance on the books that specifically and explicitly denies anti-discrimination protection to people based on their sexual orientation.
In fact, most residents are shocked when they learn that the Irvine Municipal Code includes the following:
“Sec. 3-5-503. – City Council parameters.
Except as provided in section 3-5-502, the City Council shall not enact any City policy, law or ordinance that:
A. Defines sexual orientation as a fundamental human right.
B. Uses sexual orientation, in whole or in part, as the basis for determining an unlawful discriminatory practice and/or establishes a penalty or civil remedy for such practice.
C. Provides preferential treatment or affirmative action for any person on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
These provisions were added by Ord. No. 89-1, which was adopted as Measure N by 53% of the voters as an initiative on Nov. 7, 1989, overturning an Irvine Human Rights Ordinance enacted by the Council in July 1988 that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
According to Christina Shea, the initiative was needed because the earlier Human Rights ordinance gave “special legislative protection to the homosexual, bisexual and lesbian communities” and “homosexuality is characterized by a wide range of sexual perversions, varying degrees of promiscuity and a disproportionate percentage of sexually transmitted diseases.”
This anti-LGBTQ ordinance violates both the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
In Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution prohibits a state from banning LGBTQ people from seeking “specific legal protection from injuries caused by discrimination.”
The facts of Romer v. Evans are as follows: after various cities and counties in Colorado enacted laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, the State of Colorado, through a ballot initiative, amended its state constitution to “prohibit[] all legislative, executive or judicial action at any level of state or local government designed to protect . . . homosexual persons or gays and lesbians.” As the Supreme Court explained, under the amendment, “Homosexuals, by state decree, are put in a solitary class with respect to transactions and relations in both the private and governmental spheres. The amendment withdraws from homosexuals, but no others, specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination, and it forbids reinstatement of these laws and policies.”
The Supreme Court declared that the Colorado constitutional amendment was based upon animosity toward homosexual people and lacked a rational relation to any legitimate governmental purpose. Accordingly, the Court determined that Colorado’s constitutional amendment violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment.
Like the Colorado constitutional amendment that the Supreme Court invalidated in Romer v. Evans, Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance attempts to prohibit local government action “designed to protect . . . homosexual persons or gays and lesbians” [i.e., protects people based on “sexual orientation.”] and like the Colorado constitutional amendment invalidated in Romer v. Evans, Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance “withdraws from homosexuals, but no others, specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination.”
Accordingly, Romer v. Evans renders Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance unconstitutional.
Moreover, not only is Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance unconstitutional, it also clearly contradicts and is superseded by California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which explicitly prohibits discrimination against people based on “sexual orientation.”
Because state law supersedes any city law or local ordinance, the Unruh Civil Rights Act’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation anywhere in California means that Irvine lacks the power to declare that “the City Council shall not enact any City policy, law or ordinance that: Uses sexual orientation, in whole or in part, as the basis for determining an unlawful discriminatory practice and/or establishes a penalty or civil remedy for such practice.”
Irvine anti-LBGTQ initiative was one of several ballot measures across the nation in the late 1980s and early 1990s not only to seek to repeal existing anti-discrimination ordinances, but to proactively prohibit any local unit of government from ever passing such ordinances in the future.
Hence, the Irvine anti-LGBTQ ordinance includes provisions that purport to make it extremely difficult for a future Irvine City Council to repeal it. According to the ordinance, “Any law or ordinance pertaining to Section 3-5-503 may only be enacted by obtaining the approval of a majority of the voters of the City of Irvine voting on the measure at a regular or special election. Such a measure may only be placed on the ballot by citizen’s initiative or a two-thirds majority vote by the City Council.” [Sec. 3-5-502.].
The Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans made clear that it is an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause to single out LGBTQ people for special burdens. including burdening them with special difficulties in enacting anti-discriminatory laws. According, it is clear that the procedural provisions of Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance — requiring a 2/3 vote of the Council and then a ballot initiative for repeal — is again a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments because it is designed to make passage of protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation especially burdensome and difficult.
The California Legislature dealt with this very issue in its repeal of the unconstitutional sections of Prop 187 by Senate Bill 396 (2014) by a majority vote of the Legislature without a vote of the entire electorate.
As the Judicial Committee of the California Senate noted, “Under existing law, California’s Constitution only authorizes the Legislature to amend or repeal initiative statutes by way of another statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors –unless the initiative statute permits amendment or repeal without their approval. (Cal. Const., art. II, Sec. 10, subd. (c).) This bill [SB 396] seeks to repeal several state statutes implemented upon voter approval of Proposition 187, which generally prohibited the provision of various benefits to undocumented aliens. That proposition did not authorize the Legislature to amend or repeal its provisions without voter approval.”
Nevertheless, the Judicial Committee found that the Legislature had authority to repeal the unconstitutional sections of Prop 187 without a vote of the entire electorate. It reasoned that because the bill did not modify or repeal any provisions of Prop 187 except those that are unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable, it did not make any change in existing law. Accordingly, “SB 396 would not impermissibly repeal or amend the initiative; rather, it would merely update California statutes to accurately reflect current law.” The bill passed the Assembly and the Senate with only a single No vote.
The same circumstances exist here.
Like the parts of Prop 187 repealed by a simple majority vote of the Legislature in 2014, the anti-LGBTQ ordinance is unconstitutional and enforceable. Like the unconstitutional parts of Prop 187, although Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance is unconstitutional and unenforceable, its language remains on the books. Keeping this discriminatory language on the books, “causes confusion and harmful outcomes . . . [Therefore], it is fitting that [we] expressly acknowledge the detrimental impact of the discriminatory [language] by removing its stain from the state’s statutes.”
That is what our City Council needs to do now, and what the precedent of SB 396 gives us clear authority to do: “expressly acknowledge the detrimental impact of the discriminatory [language of Sec. 3-5.501-503] by removing its stain from the [City’s Code.]”
In addition to being unconstitutional and in violation of superseding state laws, Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance is a cruel and embarrassing relic of a more prejudiced time.
Does Irvine want to remain on record as being one of the very few cities in America, and indeed the world, that still officially discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation? I hope not.
For all of these reasons, I will move to repeal Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance.
As noted above, Councilmember Farrah Khan has agreed to join me in putting this item on the next Council agenda for Tues., July 14, 2020, and in supporting this motion.
If you agree with us, please tell Mayor Christina Shea and the rest of the Irvine City Council that Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance [Sec. 3-5-501 through 503] needs to be repealed NOW.
Contact the Mayor and the Irvine City Council by email here.
The United States Constitution was signed by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 232 years ago today on September 17, 1787.
On February 21, 1787, Congress called on each state legislature to send delegates to a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation in ways that, when approved by Congress and the states, would render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.”
To amend the Articles into a workable government, 74 delegates from the twelve states were named by their state legislatures; 55 delegates showed up, and 39 delegates eventually signed.
The Preamble of this history-changing document makes clear why it was written: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
As United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, explained, “What makes the Constitution worthy of our commitment? First and foremost, the answer is our freedom. It is, quite simply, the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed. It’s also the world’s shortest and oldest national constitution, neither so rigid as to be stifling, nor so malleable as to be devoid of meaning. Our Constitution has been an inspiration that changed the trajectory of world history for the perpetual benefit of mankind. In 1787, no country in the world had ever allowed its citizens to select their own form of government, much less to select a democratic government. What was revolutionary when it was written, and what continues to inspire the world today, is that the Constitution put governance in the hands of the people.”
It is of the nature of constitutions that their meaning evolves over time and in newly encountered situtions. As founding UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in the University of Chicago Law Review, “[t]he Constitution inevitably must be interpreted. There are countless issues — such as whether the president can fire cabinet officials or rescind treaties or assert executive privilege — where the document is silent, but a constitutional answer is necessary. So much of the Constitution is written in broad language that must be given meaning and applied to specific situations. . .”
It is my hope that one day soon the Supreme Court will recognize that in order to ensure and protect our democracy, we must get unlimited and unaccountable money out of politics, and that there must be limits on the amount of money that individuals, corporations, or other organizations can spend to support or attack political candidates or to influence government policies.
It is my hope, too, that one day soon the Equal Rights Amendment will be adopted so that women will at long last be accorded full and equal rights in the United States.
In fact, our Constitution provides the means to make these changes and improvements in our government and our political process.
Our Constitution remains our best hope of “We the People” forming an even “more perfect Union.”
The United States Constitution was signed by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 229 years ago today on September 17, 1787.
On February 21, 1787, Congress called on each state legislature to send delegates to a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation in ways that, when approved by Congress and the states, would render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.”
To amend the Articles into a workable government, 74 delegates from the twelve states were named by their state legislatures; 55 delegates showed up, and 39 delegates eventually signed.
The Preamble of this history-changing document makes clear why it was written: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
As United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, explained, “What makes the Constitution worthy of our commitment? First and foremost, the answer is our freedom. It is, quite simply, the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed. It’s also the world’s shortest and oldest national constitution, neither so rigid as to be stifling, nor so malleable as to be devoid of meaning. Our Constitution has been an inspiration that changed the trajectory of world history for the perpetual benefit of mankind. In 1787, no country in the world had ever allowed its citizens to select their own form of government, much less to select a democratic government. What was revolutionary when it was written, and what continues to inspire the world today, is that the Constitution put governance in the hands of the people.”
It is of the nature of constitutions that their meaning evolves over time and in newly encountered situtions. As UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in the University of Chicago Law Review, “[t]he Constitution inevitably must be interpreted. There are countless issues — such as whether the president can fire cabinet officials or rescind treaties or assert executive privilege — where the document is silent, but a constitutional answer is necessary. So much of the Constitution is written in broad language that must be given meaning and applied to specific situations. . .”
It is my hope that one day soon the Supreme Court will recognize that in order to ensure and protect our democracy, we must get unlimited and unaccountable money out of politics, and that there must be limits on the amount of money that individuals, corporations, or other organizations can spend to support or attack political candidates or to influence government policies.
It is my hope, too, that one day soon the Equal Rights Amendment will be adopted so that women will at long last be accorded full and equal rights in the United States.
In fact, our Constitution provides the means to make these changes and improvements in our government and our political process.
Our Constitution remains our best hope of “We the People” forming an even “more perfect Union.”
I was having dinner with my family to celebrate the Jewish New Year when I learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. As my friend Lauren Johnson Norris posted on Facebook, “According to Jewish tradition, a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah, which began tonight, is a tzaddik, a person of great righteousness. We found that very comforting. So strange to be eating these apples and honey with this sadness.”
Salt water next to our apples and honey.
As United States Supreme Court Justice 
These changes in U.S. Postal Service policy have been faulted for slowing mail delivery — including the delivery of medicine and medical supplies veterans benefits, Social Security checks, census forms, and rent checks — and for making it more difficult for our residents to vote safely and with confidence that their ballots will be timely received during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Almost immediately after Joe Biden announced that he had chosen California’s junior U.S. Senator, Kamala Harris, as his running mate, Newsweek magazine published an
These provisions were added by Ord. No. 89-1, which was adopted as Measure N by 53% of the voters as an initiative on Nov. 7, 1989, overturning an Irvine Human Rights Ordinance enacted by the Council in July 1988 that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Accordingly, Romer v. Evans renders Irvine’s anti-LGBTQ ordinance unconstitutional.
The 
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