Heritage Experts Today


Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today. Please reply to this email to arrange an interview. S1 Imperils Free and Fair Elections – If it becomes law, it will interfere with the ability of states and their citizens to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, to ensure the accuracy and validity of voter registration rolls, to secure the integrity of elections, and to participate and speak freely in the political arena. It would not only eliminate basic safety protocols, but mandate new, reckless rules and procedures. Senators who support it should realize that they are essentially in favor of throwing the validity and credibility of future elections in doubt and taking away the authority of the voters of their states to make their own decisions on how their elections should be run. Merrick Garland's misleading voting claims – what AG gets wrong about US elections – Election audits, just like the routine audits conducted in the business world, are intended to ensure that election rules and procedures were complied with and that voting equipment functioned correctly. The intent is to identify and remedy any problems that may have occurred in last year’s election and to instill greater public confidence in our democracy, not to diminish it. Take, for example, the ongoing audit in Windham, New Hampshire, that uncovered a serious problem in local voting machines misreading absentee ballots. The miscounted ballots did not change the outcome of the election, but without the audit, local officials would not have known they had a problem that needs to be fixed before the next election. Indeed, every election jurisdiction in the country should conduct post-election audits, and Garland should encourage them, not try to stop them. Heritage expert: Hans von Spakovsky Try this ‘Critical Race Theory’ checklist – Is your school principal denying that her school makes use of Critical Race Theory when you call to complain about it? If so, it’s likely that she’s either misinformed, or just spreading disinformation. Here below is how to tell the difference. There is a need for a checklist because as more and more Americans reject CRT indoctrination in schools, workplaces, or even the military, educators, HR personnel and others are feeling the need to engage in a little, uh, CYA. Sophists among academics, the Twitterati, and the political world, are rising to support this disinformation, too. Frankly, the purveyors of CRT and related theories are shocked that Americans from all walks of life are speaking up against CRT. They thought they could take over classrooms, offices, the military — the whole country, really — without meeting any resistance. Instead, parents are speaking out — from Loudoun County, Va., where I spoke to 300 loud parents meeting at the county government building on Saturday, to Douglas County, Colo., where school district authorities were astounded at the vehemence of the opposition. Heritage expert: Mike Gonzalez D.C. Statehood Bill Is Constitutionally Dubious and Pragmatically Flawed – Here's the troubling aspect about this: It pushes forward the idea that the bulk of the District of Columbia—a federal enclave functioning as the seat of the federal government—can be converted into the Douglas Commonwealth, a co-equal sovereign state, by mere legislation. It can't, at least not constitutionally, a fact agreed on by all Justice Departments, Republican or Democrat, until President Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, overruled his own Office of Legal Counsel because it had come to the same conclusion. But it's not the first time that statehood proponents have taken this tack (though it is the furthest they've ever gotten), so the myriad constitutional problems with this approach have previously been catalogued. Heritage expert: Zack Smith Greg Abbott Has A Plan To Secure The Border. America Must Support Him. – Any so-called “constitutional crisis” over Texas taking common-sense steps to protect its own people pales in comparison to the ongoing and real constitutional crisis of a president abandoning his duty to secure our nation’s borders and protect its people. The border crisis was not caused by Texas or Governor Abbott. Nor is Texas the only state that must deal with the problems it creates. Other governors may join Abbott in rising to the challenge, but with or without allies, he has a long, tough road ahead of him. His recent announcement, however, gives hope that he has the policies and the grit needed to deal with the crisis Washington has dumped at his doorstep. Heritage expert: Mike Howell Supreme Court issues a win for religious liberty, but just barely – The city can once again refuse to associate with any agency that does not embrace a specific view of marriage. The court’s decision, Alito wrote, "might as well be written on the dissolving paper sold in magic shops." The silver lining is that at least five justices indicated they are open to correcting Smith’s egregious constitutional error. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined Alito’s separate opinion, which dismantled Smith and reads like the majority opinion it will hopefully one day be. In addition, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh indicated that, when the time is right to reconsider Smith, the free exercise clause’s text and structure make it "difficult to see" how it does not "require religious exemptions from generally applicable laws in at least some circumstances." Heritage experts: Tom Jipping and Sarah Perry In Third Obamacare Decision, Supreme Court Doesn’t Decide Whether Its Constitutional – Standing is the question at the heart of the Constitution’s cases and controversies limitation. After all, if the court decides a case that it has no authority to decide, no matter what outcome it reaches, it is acting unconstitutionally. However, on the standing question raised in this case, Alito has the better argument. Alito correctly points out the majority’s view of standing—that it exists only if the states’ harm is traceable to the mandate itself—is myopic and not a faithful application of the court’s other standing precedents. Indeed, he notes that in many cases going back more than 100 years, the court adopted the same conception of standing that it rejected here. In doing so, Alito correctly points out that the majority’s opinion has muddied the waters of the caselaw governing standing. Alito likely has the better of Thomas and the majority on the waiver issue too. They say that the states waived this standing theory by failing to raise it in the courts below. But Alito points out that the states made very similar arguments below. Heritage expert: GianCarlo Canaparo 4 Big Problems With Biden’s “Infrastructure” Plan – Infrastructure projects grow the economy based only on how useful they are. The administration’s decision to prioritize transportation modes that aren’t a fit for America’s geography would lead to a tremendous amount of wasteful spending. On top of the misguided infrastructure choices, the plan also includes massive amounts of spending that have nothing to do with infrastructure. This includes hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, “green” slush funds, big subsidies for electric vehicles that will overwhelmingly benefit wealthy households, and a Medicaid benefit expansion. These provisions should stand or fall on their own, not hide behind popular terms like “infrastructure.” In short, the “American Jobs Plan” would destroy rather than create jobs, harm rather than enhance global competitiveness, and waste huge sums on infrastructure. Congress would be better off using the proposal as a guide for what not to do. Heritage expert: David Ditch 13 Examples of How Miami’s Police Chief Is Wrong on Defensive Gun Use – The reality of gun violence is that, despite police officers' best efforts, they rarely are able to arrive fast enough to protect potential victims before they would be able to protect themselves if they were armed. Data shows just how important the Second Amendment is during the vast majority of instances when police can’t get to the scene in time. Almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times a year. Rather than doing their utmost to undermine the Second Amendment, gun control advocates should take notice of how it allows ordinary Americans to protect themselves every day with lawfully wielded firearms. Heritage expert: Amy Swearer
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