By Jimmy Lakey
May 25, 2021
Rob Natelson, a former Constitutional Law Professor and Constitutional historian, tells Jimmy Lakey that it s time for Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade. Rob currently serves as a Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver.
About KCOL Mornings with Jimmy Lakey
Iowa Senate Republicans re-introduced a Religious Freedom Restoration bill that s been shelved in several previous legislative sessions. What it does is it says that government must be held to the highest standards before it can infringe on a person s free exercise of religion, said the bill s sponsor, Sen. Dennis Guth. Critics say the bill is yet another piece of legislation this year that targets the LGBTQ community. We ve seen 15 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, and this was just the latest, and we re leaving the entire nation for the number of anti-LGBTQ bills, said Damian Thompson with Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit that represents 10,000 LGBTQ youth statewide. It s very distressing for many of our students. I ve seen firsthand mental health problems, risk of suicide, self-harm, etc, really accelerating this legislative session, because we re seeing problematic pieces of legislation like these ran all the time, said Thompson. It allows for discrimination against an
How does packing the court work?
“It’s done by simple legislation,” Robert Peck, President of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, explained.
Congress can change the size of the Supreme Court by passing a bill with a simple majority in the House and Senate, both of which the Democrats control since Vice President Kamala Harris breaks the 50-50 tie in the Senate. President Biden’s signature is the final hurdle to pass such legislation.
“If they vote along party line, [Democrats] would have enough votes to pass legislation like that, absent of the filibuster,” Peck said.
The filibuster is where this gets complicated
President Joe Biden signed his first executive order Wednesday – a national mask mandate to stop the spread of COVID-19.
What exactly does that mandate mean, and what changes for New York and New Jersey, which have already been under mask mandates?