Can California Afford Cut-Rate Justice?
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"As the California dream disintegrates for some, they rightly come to the courts." That's according the State Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. But as court business is on the increase, funding is on the decline. This week, she asked the legislature to restore massive cuts made in the courts' budget in the past four years. On our rebroadcast of today's To the Point, the US Supreme Court, the President's healthcare reform and history.
Banner image: The judicial council, led by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, hears a request for emergency funding from San Francisco Superior Court, on September 9, 2011. To her right sits Administrative Director of the Courts William C. Vickrey
Main Topic
Are State Courts Providing Justice to 38 Million Californians? ()
Tani Cantil-Sakauye has been California's Chief Justice since Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her 14 months ago. She was a superior court judge and appellate court justice for 20 years before that, and now presides over a system with 2,000 judges and 20,000 employees. This week, in her first address to a joint legislative session, she said, the judicial branch "must serve as the safety net for a democratic and civil society." But, she called it a "cruel irony" that the same forces that have caused deep cuts in the courts' budget have also increased their workload.
Guests:
- Tani Cantil-Sakauye: California Supreme Court
- Lee Smalley Edmon: Los Angeles County Superior Court
- Emily Green: Daily Journal
Links:
Main Topic
The Supreme Court Takes On Healthcare ()
Led by Florida, 26 states have challenged President Obama's Affordable Care Act, passed two years ago without the vote of a single Republican. Lower courts have been sharply divided on the principal question of whether the federal government can punish Americans who don't buy health insurance. But there's a lot more at stake and, starting Monday, the US Supreme Court will hear six hours of oral arguments on what Republican call "Obamacare." We look at the potential consequences for the President, the Chief Justice and tens of millions of Americans.
Guests:
- Adam Liptak: New York Times, @adamliptak
- Jeffrey Young: Huffington Post, @jeffreyyoung_hc
- James F. Simon: New York Law School
- Erwin Chemerinsky: University of California Irvine, @UCILaw
- Ilya Shapiro: Cato Institute, @ishapiro
Links:
- Liptak on Affordable Care Act and the Commerce Clause
- Liptak on Affordable Care Act and Chief Justice Roberts' legacy
- Young on Supreme Court being powerless to kill many of Obama's healthcare reforms
- Gonzales v. Raich, Supreme Court on (2005 medical marijuana case)
- Simons' 'FDR and Chief Justice Hughes: The President, the Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle over the New Deal'
Underwriters
Which Way L.A.? is made possible in part by the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, which supports study and research into policy issues of the Los Angeles region.
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