Supreme Court to rule on Obamacare, voting rights this month

SCOTUS to rule on Obamacare, voting rights. CA wants to turn disused malls into homes. Canada: 215 Native children found buried at former school.

NATIONAL NEWS

In June, the last month of this year’s session, the Supreme Court will rule on a suit brought by Republicans to strike down the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This is not the first time that Republicans have sought to challenge the act or some of its key provisions before the court. But it is the first time since an overwhelmingly conservative majority was sworn in.

Observers doubt that the court was sufficiently swayed by oral arguments on the Republican side in November to rule Obamacare as being in violation of Constitutional law. If the court were to strike down Obamacare, about 20 million Americans would likely lose their health coverage. Additionally, insurance companies would no longer be obliged to insure individuals with pre-existing conditions.

Voter restrictions

With states across the country passing restrictive voting laws, many will be watching how the court rules on voting restrictions from Arizona. One such restriction prevents anyone other than a family member or caregiver from turning in an early voting ballot for a person who cannot do so themselves for whatever reason.

If the justices uphold the law, Arizona could prevent party organizers from going door-to-door to collect early ballots and turn them in for voters. Until 2016, both Republicans and Democrats engaged in “ballot harvesting”, but the Democrats were more effective. A separate Arizona provision has to do with discarding ballots cast in the wrong district.

During arguments in March, the conservative justices seemed more sympathetic to the state’s view. Lower courts have repeatedly struck down the provisions, ruling that the laws were discriminatory and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1964. The federal appeals court in San Francisco found that the law disproportionately impacted communities of color.

If the top court upholds the restrictions, experts fear it will undermine the power of the Voting Rights Act as a tool to challenge voter restrictions passed under the guise of preventing election fraud. The court’s ruling may also indicate how they would receive challenges to similar laws in other Republican-controlled states.

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California looks to turn abandoned malls into housing

The state of California wants to cut some red tape involved in rezoning commercial properties to alleviate a chronic housing shortage. In recent years, more and more Americans are skipping the hassle of driving to malls and big box stores in favor of shopping online. In California and other states, this has left many massive retail facilities sitting empty. Their once glittering edifices now attract bored teenagers and vandals rather than shoppers, contributing to urban blight.

Rezoning property is a notoriously cumbersome process for developers in California. This is, in part, because municipalities prefer to push developers to attract new retailers since they bring in more tax dollars than residential properties.

The state government wants to make it easier to convert the spaces. One proposal would allow developers to build residential property on such sites without rezoning. A separate initiative would grant money to municipalities who change the zoning to allow developers to build affordable housing.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Canada: graves of 215 indigenous children found at re-education centers

In the late 19th century and well into the 20th, both Canada and the US routinely removed Native children from their families and sent them to residential schools. At these schools, they were taught to reject Native ways of life, forbidden from speaking their Native languages, and indoctrinated to embrace White Christian culture. Those that did eventually return to their reservations were forever changed and divorced from their heritage. But sadly, many never returned.

At the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, researchers have found the remains of 215 Native children, some as young as three. The Tk’emlups te Secwépemc Native group commissioned the ground-penetrating radar study that discovered the graves.

Chance discoveries of remains at such schools are not new. But the technology to quickly and thoroughly study these sites and identify graves is. Canadian indigenous groups are now calling for a nationwide search at former residential schools so that any children found can receive proper burial.

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