This is going to be a big week of decisions to be announced by the Supreme Court as their 2012-2013 session concludes, with closely followed decisions on affirmative action, voting rights and gay marriage on the docket.
The media has made the two decisions regarding same sex marriage the big ones - the challenges to California’s Proposition 8, which barred same-sex marriage in the state, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples.
But issues of race are going to have big implications as well. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is relatively well known in the Tampa Bay area because Hillsborough County is one of those jurisdictions affected by it, as it must have any voting changes "pre-cleared" by the Department of Justice to become the law. And affirmative action at our college universities could very well be on its last legs; you might recall the Court weighed in this just a few years ago. At the time Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said that she thought it could be phrased out in 25 years. She wrote that in 2003, 10 years ago.Under the Roberts/Alito court, it'd be shocking if they didn't vote to phase that out immediately.
This morning Ed Snowden is still in Russia, apparently hoping to get into Ecuador. His exit from Hong Kong yesterday was the talk of the town on the Sunday morning chat shows. On Friday nearly 40 people demonstrated in front of Bill Nelson's district office in support of the NSA whistle-blower.
Tonight the U.S. Senate votes on that massively expansive and expensive new border security amendment. You would think such a measure would still the voices on the right who have used that border security as their reason not to back a comprehensive immigration bill. But if Jeff Sessions can't get behind $30 billion in new funds to protect the border, you wonder if it will go anywhere in the GOP-led House of Representatives.
And Nan Rich came by the Tampa Tiger Bay Club on Friday. The only declared Democrat running for governor in 2014, she told a somewhat skeptical audience that yes, in fact, she can. Win the governor's office, that is.