NAACP Incarceration Report Receives Strong Bipartisan Support

By Anna Cameron

Flanked by a bipartisan coalition of law enforcement experts, the NAACP unveiled a new report on the escalating levels of prison spending at the National Press Club Thursday.

Entitled “Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate,” the report focuses on the increased flow of state dollars away from education and toward prison funding. The study reveals a strong correlation between high incarceration rates and poor education systems in states across the nation. 

“We have arrived at a point where we have, all across our nation, rising prison budgets and falling education budgets. This is inconsistent with a great nation and something that we have to deal with right away,” noted former Education Secretary Rod Paige.

On this issue, the NAACP has garnered the support of an array of lawmakers and experts, among them notable conservatives Grover Nordquist, Pat Nolan, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. 

“Center-right activists and political leaders [are] focusing on ‘How much do we spend on incarceration? Are we getting our money’s worth?’ What is the cost-benefit analysis when someone gets sentenced to prison?’” said Nordquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. “I think It’s been helpful because conservatives have not focused on these issues over the last ten or twenty years.” 

Presently, the United States accounts for five percent of the world’s population, but twenty-five percent of its prisoners.

Supreme Court Justices Offer Few Hints On Class Action Case

In a case that could determine the future of class action law suits, the Supreme Court Tuesday grappled with the question of how far states can go in putting limits on arbitration clauses. Mandatory arbitration clauses appear in most contracts consumers sign, so the case is expected to have very broad consequences in areas as diverse as consumer protection and civil rights litigation.

In Tuesday’s case before the Supreme Court, Vincent and Liza Concepcion are trying to sue over a cell phone purchase made in 2002. AT&T had advertised a cell phone as free, but in fact AT&T charged customers for tax on the phone’s normal price. Because the amount of dispute was so low, Concepcion tried to bring a class action on behalf of everyone else who had taken advantage of AT&T’s offer, but the AT&T contract Concepcion signed said that all disputes had to go to an arbitrator instead of court, and that class actions were not available.

The Supreme Court Justices tried to balance two competing principles: generally states are left free to pass their own consumer-protection laws (in this case, California had said contracts must allow class action lawsuits), but the Federal Arbitration Act, originally passed by Congress in 1925, said that states must apply the same rules to arbitration as they do to normal court cases.

Several outside groups have filed briefs in the case warning about the wide-ranging consequences if the Court rules in AT&T’s favor. If the Court allows companies to effectively remove the option of class action lawsuits, groups like the NAACP say that it will be very difficult to effectively bring employment or mortgage discrimination lawsuits, since those kinds of suits normally involve large groups of people claiming systemic discrimination but with little injury to each one.

All of the Justices today seemed unsure of how to draw a distinction between neutral laws that apply to both arbitration and court cases, and laws intended to unfairly burden arbitration. Further, the Justices expressed concern that any rule they come up with could make a federal case out of all challenges to arbitration clauses.

The case was AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, and a decision will likely be handed down in the spring of 2011.

Sherrod Puts Ball In Obama's Court

Former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee Shirley Sherrod, forced to resign this week after a video was leaked to the press that appeared to show her making racially biased remarks, told ABC’s Good Morning America today that she is not sure whether she has the full support of President Barack Obama.

“I can’t say that the President is fully behind me,” Sherrod told anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I would hope that he is…I would love to talk to him,” she added.

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters yesterday that he acted alone in making the decision to fire Sherrod. However, she told Stephanopoulos this morning that this was not the case.

“The first call I received said, ‘We’re putting you on administrative leave’….The next call was, ‘Shirley, we’re going to have to ask you to resign.’ And then, ‘The White House wants you to resign.’”

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a formal apology to Sherrod, and new reports suggested that the President was putting pressure on Vilsack to offer Sherrod her job back, which he did.

Sherrod Not Sure if She Would Want to Return to USDA

Shirley Sherrod, former USDA director of rural development in Georgia, said that she might not return to her job at the USDA even if asked.  Sherrod was ousted by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack after a segment of her March speech to an NAACP audience was posted.  The segment appeared to be racist, but upon further review, was about learning from experience.  As the full clip emerged, Vlisack said he would reconsider her employment.

“I’m not a racist,” said Sherrod, “Anyone who knows me knows I’m for fairness”

By Philip Bunnell

Hispanic Advocacy Group President Says "Merits and Facts" Of Public Option Strong Enough Without Racial Argument

By Ravi Bhatia, Talk Radio News Service


Racial arguments should not be a part of the healthcare reform debate, according to Janet Murguia, President and CEO of the Hispanic advocacy group called National Council of La Raza.

“I don’t think we have to resort to race issues to get a common sense and sound of health care reform,” she said. “I think that there are people who want to take it in that direction...but the reality is if we just look at the merits and the facts we could make a strong case for inclusion and comprehensive health care reform.”

Murguia spoke during a panel discussion today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The panel, which included her and ranking officials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Campaign for Community Change discussed the benefits of a public option in the health care reform plan. The United States Student Assn. and PowerPAC.org, while part of the alliance to support a public option and a voice for people of color in the health care reform debate, were not represented by the panel.

According to the panel, a public option would enable the U.S government to provide health insurance options to U.S. citizens, which would theoretically provide a competitive alternative to the options offered by private insurers. However, a poll conducted by the Washington Post showed that without a public option, opposition to the overall health care reform plan fell by six points.

The organizations also advocate coverage to all U.S residents regardless of pre-existing conditions or employment status, making comprehensive health care affordable and emphasizing high quality care for everyone.

More than 880,000 African American deaths would have been averted from 1991 to 2000 had health care reform been implemented, according to an analysis of mortality data in 2004 by the American Journal of Public Health.

“Thus far, the economic interests of the insurance [companies] , and those who have particular constituency interests that are not the interests of the American people, have largely dominated the [health insurance] debate,” said LCCR President and CEO Wade Henderson. “Once the American people become informed by the nature of health care reform, they support the public option. Most Americans regardless of age, for example, support Medicare.”

The organizations in the panel pooled together to create television advertisements in English and Spanish that support their public option cause. The ads, scheduled to be aired in select states in the coming weeks, are intended to attract senators who could push for their cause and push citizens of color to mobilize and actively pursue health care reform.

“There are many other constituencies that are part of a broad coalition in support of comprehensive healthcare reform,” Henderson said. “It’s in the economic and the political self interests of the American people to ensure that this kind of comprehensive reform is taken seriously and moves effectively. We’re really only the tip of a more progressive, larger coalition of interests that will be working in a concerted effort to achieve the kind of reform we’ve talked about. ”