CSW Real Estate Office With The Honorable US Representative John Conyers Jr (D-MI) 13TH District

The Honorable US Representative John Conyers Jr (D-MI) 13TH District with Kenneth Scott of CSW Real Estate Office.

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Conyers at Bishop Dr. Corletta Vaughn 30-Year Anniversary In The Ministry Celebration

DETROIT, MICHIGAN - APRIL 08: Detroit Council President Brenda Jones; Congressman John Conyers Jr. at Northwest Activities Center Ballroom on April 8, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan.

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Conyers and Cohen Applaud Scotus Decision Clarifying “One-Person, One-Vote” Principle

WASHINGTON – Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), and Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice Ranking Member Steve Cohen (D-TN) released the following joint statement applauding the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Evenwel v. Abbott to reaffirm the use of total-population data by states to draw state legislative election districts, clarifying the meaning of the “one-person, one-vote” principle:

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“Today the Supreme Court importantly reaffirmed the principle that state legislative districts should contain roughly equal numbers of people based total-population census data.  The fundamental principle of ‘one-person, one-vote’ means that states use total-population figures as a basis for drawing legislative districts, even where this may produce a variation in the total number of voters.  This principle is designed to protect the legislative interests of all residents, even if they are not eligible to vote.” 

“A unanimous Court emphasized that nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates and in receiving constituent services, making equity in reapportionment critical to promoting equitable and effective representation.” 

“This unanimous decision should discourage voter suppression efforts that would attempt to manipulate the redistricting process to the disadvantage of emerging minority population with younger than average voting-age and non-citizenship populations.”

The “one-person, one-vote” principle requires that states design legislative districts with roughly equal total-populations.  The challengers in Evenwel sought to change historical precedent to allow states to use more restrictive eligible-voter population numbers in drawing legislative districts.

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Top Republican warns of discrimination at the polls in November

A leading GOP voice on election law is warning that voter discrimination is all but inevitable in November unless Congress acts first to strengthen poll protections.  

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said a 2013 Supreme Court decision gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) threatens to disenfranchise minority voters if lawmakers don't move quickly to update the law.

Writing in The New York Times, Sensenbrenner pointed to the recent primary debacle in Arizona — where sharp cutbacks in the number of polling stations led to hours-long waits in some districts — as an example of the type of barrier voters might face without congressional action.

"If Congress doesn’t act soon, 2016 will be the first time since 1964 that the United States will elect a president without the full protections of the law," Sensenbrenner wrote. "Modernizing the act to address the Supreme Court’s concerns should be one of Congress’s highest priorities." 

The message is aimed more at Sensenbrenner's fellow Republicans than it is at the Democrats, who almost universally support the stronger protections.

While Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said recently that he backs Sensenbrenner's bill to update the VRA, he's also vowing not to bring it to the floor unless it moves first through the Judiciary Committee. 

Ryan's bottom-up approach means the proposal faces a bleak future. The Judiciary panel is headed by an opponent of the legislation, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who says no update to the law is needed due to the "substantial" protections the court left intact. He's singled out the retained power of voters to sue if they feel they've suffered discrimination.

But Sensenbrenner, who championed the last update of the voting rights law in 2006, is taking that argument to task, saying "the law’s strongest protections have been rendered meaningless." He noted that by the time the courts act the election would have been long passed.  

"There is no adequate remedy for voter discrimination after an election because there is no way to know who would have won absent discrimination," he wrote.

In its 5-4 ruling in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a central part of the VRA requiring regions with a documented history of racial discrimination at the polls to get approval from Washington before changing their voting rules. Before the decision, the pre-clearance mandate applied to nine states, mostly in the South, and certain districts within six others.  

The court's conservative majority found that, while the federal government has the power to require pre-clearance of voting changes, the formula dictating which states are subject is outdated and therefore unconstitutional. That formula was last updated in the 1970s.

Chief Justice John Roberts invited Congress to "draft another formula based on current conditions."

Written along with Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), a senior Democrat on the Judiciary panel and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Sensenbrenner's proposal is designed to answer that challenge. 

Under the bill, states found to have discriminated against voters based on race at least five times in the last 15 years would be subject to federal pre-clearance standards. Those that remedy the problems would be deemed exempt from the extra hurdle, while those guilty of future discrimination would be newly subject to it. 

"In this way, the bill responds to the Supreme Court’s concerns about the dated formula and resurrects the protections of the law that have been a part of American elections for five decades," Sensenbrenner wrote.

The op-ed arrives just five days before a crucial primary in Sensenbrenner's home state of Wisconsin, a state that has installed a series of tough restrictions — including a new voter ID requirement and the elimination of some early voting — since the Supreme Court ruling.  

Wisconsin is hardly alone. Since the last presidential election in 2012, 16 states have adopted tougher voting laws, according to the Brennan Center at New York University's School of Law. 

Most of the changes were pushed by Republican legislatures, citing fears of election fraud. 

In Arizona, which was subject to the VRA pre-clearance requirement before the Supreme Court ruling, election officials cut the number of polling locations during last week's primary to 60, down from roughly 200 in 2012 and 400 in 2008. As a result, thousands of people faced waits as long as five hours, and many thousands more are thought to have been discouraged from voting at all.  

Sensenbrenner says that, under his bill, "more people might have voted" in that contest. 

"Would that have changed the results?" he asks. "We’ll never know."

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/274780-top-republican-warns-of-discrimination-at-the-polls-in-november

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Conyers and Jackson Lee Praise President Obama’s Action to Commute Sentences, Continue Work to Pass Legislation to Reform Sentencing Laws

WASHINGTON- Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee Ranking Member Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) released the following joint statement after the White House announced the commutation of the sentences of 61 individuals:

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“We applaud the commutations announced today and commend the President’s continued commitment to using his constitutional authority to reduce sentences when appropriate.  During his time in office, he has now commuted the sentences of 248 individuals – more than the previous six presidents combined.  President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch recognize that incarcerating people for unwarranted lengths of time serves no constructive purpose and that we need to take meaningful steps, including sentencing reform, to make our criminal justice system more just and, at the same time, more effective. We are pleased to be working with them in this effort as Congress continues its bipartisan initiative to adopt legislation to address the problems of unfair sentencing and over-incarceration.” 

Visit www.WhiteHouse.gov for more information.

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House Judiciary Democrats Introduce Resolution Urging Senate to Give Full and Fair Consideration to SCOTUS Nominee Merrick Garland

Washington, D.C. –Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), together with the support of all House Judiciary Democrats, introduced a resolution (below) that urges the Senate to observe regular order and to give President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court full and fair consideration and an up-or-down vote.

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives'
John Conyers, Jr.

“Judge Garland is an eminently seasoned jurist and an exemplary nominee for the Supreme Court. His deep respect for and fidelity to the Constitution and his sensitivity to the impact of the law on ordinary people make him a good choice to fill the vacancy,” said Rep. John Conyers. “Unfortunately, with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, we have seen partisan politics regarding Supreme Court nominations reach a new low.  While the House of Representatives does not have a formal say in the nomination process, it is important that its voice be heard on this important constitutional matter. I urge the House to pass my resolution and for the Senate to do its job.”

The resolution expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the Senate should fulfill its constitutional obligation to provide full and fair consideration of President Obama’s nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland.

Justice Antonin Scalia passed away on February 13, 2016, leaving a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Acting pursuant to his authority under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland on March 16, 2016 to fill the vacancy with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Within hours of Justice Scalia’s passing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declared that the Senate would not consider any nominee that President Obama would select, regardless of the nominee’s qualifications.  On February 23, 2016, all Republican Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Senator McConnell in which they pledged not to hold any hearings on any person that President Obama nominated to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.

“During my more than 50 years in Congress, I have witnessed few comparable examples of partisan politics and complete obstructionism.  There are too many important cases still pending before the Supreme Court to allow this vacancy to stall America’s progress. This is not the first time we have confronted this very situation, as the confirmation of Justice Anthony Kennedy by President Ronald Reagan occurred in 1988, a presidential election year,” continued Conyers. “The Senate should do its job, comply with regular order, hold fair hearings on Judge Garland’s nomination, and then hold an up-or-down vote on the nomination.” 

The resolution was introduced with the support of all Democratic Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary: Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Pedro Pierluisi (D-Res.Comm.- PR), Judy Chu (D-CA), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Karen Bass (D-CA), Cedric Richmond (D-LA), Susan DelBene (D-WA), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), David Cicilline (D-RI), and Scott Peters (D-CA).

H.R. 661 Urging Senate to Consider Judge Merrick Garland for SCOTUS

Senate Republican Member Signed Letter, No Hearings, 2-13-2016

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Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr. Markup of H.R. 4771, the “Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2016"

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

Today’s markup of H.R. 4771, the so-called “Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare Act of 2016,” or “HEALTH Act,” is the eleventh time since 1995 that we have considered legislation intended to deny medical malpractice victims the ability to be made whole and to hold wrongdoers accountable.

Notwithstanding the fact that this measure has repeatedly failed to become law because of its many problems, the rushed consideration and timing of this markup are not a coincidence.  We are taking up this bill because the Majority cannot keep its Members together on what to do about the federal budget.   

To begin with, H.R. 4771 is a solution in search of a non-existent problem.

Although the bill’s proponents claim too many medical malpractice lawsuits are driving up medical malpractice premiums, the facts do not support this claim.

It is not the frequency of litigation or the size of jury awards that determines medical malpractice insurance premiums.  Rather, insurance premiums are largely driven by the investment practices of insurance companies that invest premium dollars for maximum return. 

So, when the stock market plummets or interest rates drop, insurers sharply increase premiums and reduce coverage. H.R. 4771 does nothing to address this boom-and-bust cycle in the investment practices of the insurance industry.

And, it does nothing to address the McCarran-Ferguson Act’s unjustified antitrust exemption for the “business of insurance,” repeal of which would go a long way towards stabilizing the medical malpractice insurance market. There is simply no evidence that premiums are going up because of malpractice lawsuits. While not addressing a real harm, this bill would cause real harm by severely limiting the ability of victims to be made whole.

For instance, it imposes an unjustifiably low cap on noneconomic damages.

           

The bill’s $250,000 limit for noneconomic damages – an amount established more than 40 years ago pursuant to a California statute – would have a disparately adverse impact on women, children, the poor, and other vulnerable members of society.

These groups are more likely to receive noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases because they are less able to establish lost wages and other economic losses. For instance, women recover lower amounts in economic damages than men because they receive lower overall wages, and, not surprisingly, they are 3 times more likely than men to receive noneconomic damages. 

Women are also more likely to suffer noneconomic loss, like disfigurement or loss of fertility, or to be the victim of conduct that is likely to lead to punitive damages, such as sexual assault.

           

These harms are furthered heightened by the bill’s new burdens on proving punitive damages and its expansive application to all “health care lawsuits,” not just medical malpractice suits. Whatever the short term savings, the bill would impose broad social and financial costs in the long term, including the additional strains on Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs caused when malpractice victims are denied full restitution.

Finally, the bill represents a deep intrusion into state sovereignty. As any first-year law student knows, tort law is supposed to be the domain of states.

Yet this bill preempts medical malpractice and product liability law in all 50 states to protect insurance companies, providers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers at the expense of victims.

Accordingly, I strongly oppose H.R. 4771 for these and many more reasons and urge the Committee to reject this bill.

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