Tag: federal

Federal appeals court strikes down domestic violence gun law

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But then last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a new ruling in a case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That case set new standards for interpreting the Second Amendment by saying the government had to justify gun control laws by showing they are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The appeals court withdrew its original decision and on Thursday decided to vacate the man’s conviction and ruled the federal law banning people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from owning guns was unconstitutional.
Specifically, the court ruled that the federal law was an “outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted” — borrowing a quote from the Bruen decision.
The decision came from a three-judge panel consisting of Judges Cory Wilson, James Ho and Edith Jones. Wilson and Ho were nominated by former Republican President Donald Trump, while Jones was nominated by former Republican President Ronald Reagan.
The U.S. Justice Department Thursday night issued the following statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland following the decision: “Nearly 30 years ago, Congress determined that a person who is subject to a court order that restrains him or her from threatening an intimate partner or child cannot lawfully possess a firearm. Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional. Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision.”
Thursday’s ruling overturned the federal law and is not likely to impact similar state laws, including one in California. Still, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called the judges who issued the ruling “zealots” who are “hellbent on a deranged vision of guns for all, leaving government powerless to protect its people.”
“This is what the ultra-conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court wants. It’s happening, and it’s happening right now,” Newsom said. “Wake up America — this assault on our safety will only accelerate.”
Chuck Michel, president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said the problem with laws like the one the federal appeals court struck down is that they are too broad and don’t take into account the details of each case.

He offered as an example a client of his whose neighbor filed a restraining order against them because they had pointed a security camera on their property.
“They lost their gun rights,” he said. “When they do a blanket prohibition without considering individualized circumstances, they shoot the dogs with the wolves.”
Thursday’s ruling demonstrates the far-reaching impacts of the Bruen decision. In California, the decision has prompted lawmakers to overhaul their law regarding permits to carry concealed weapons.
Wednesday, Newsom endorsed a bill in the state Legislature that would ban people from carrying concealed guns in nearly all public places, with an exception for churches and businesses who put up a sign saying guns are OK.
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#Federal #appeals #court #strikes #domestic #violence #gun #law
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 3, 2023
Longtime Santos treasurer is out, she tells federal regulator

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Campaigns must have treasurers in order to accept donations, make disbursements and file mandated reports with the FEC. Tuesday is the deadline for campaigns to file year-end reports, which cover the period from late November through Dec. 31. Santos’ campaign had not yet filed his as of Tuesday afternoon, although his campaign has until midnight to do so.
Despite telling the FEC she had resigned from each of Santos’ affiliated committees effective Jan. 25, Marks was still listed as the treasurer on the termination report for a joint fundraising committee for Santos and Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) that bore her electronic signature dated Jan. 30. She was also on a year-end report for a recount committee Santos had formed in 2020.
Santos’ campaign finances have come under intense scrutiny in the past month after the congressman was caught faking much of his biography. Campaign finance complaints with the FEC have alleged that over $700,000 Santos initially reported as a personal loan to his campaign— despite a checkered personal financial history — may have actually represented an illegal straw donor scheme.
The New York congressman’s campaign also reported a series of improbable expenses, including dozens supposedly costing $199.99 — just one cent below the threshold that would require the campaign to keep receipts. As treasurer, Marks signed the forms reporting those expenses and the personal loans, although an amended filing last week no longer included a checked box indicating that money had come from Santos’ personal funds.
Santos has not been charged with a crime or faced enforcement action from the campaign finance regulator, although he is being investigated by local and federal prosecutors. The Washington Post reported last week that the Department of Justice asked the FEC to hold off on enforcement action against Santos as the department pursues its own probe.
Santos, who said Tuesday he would step aside from his committee assignments, dismissed questions about his FEC filings last week, telling reports in Washington he “[did] not touch any of [his] FEC stuff.”
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#Longtime #Santos #treasurer #tells #federal #regulator
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 1, 2023
Federal judge blocks more of New Jersey’s new gun carry law

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The new law, which Gov. Phil Murphy signed in December, revamped the state’s gun carry application process and requirements, and established “sensitive places” where guns could not be carried. The law was in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June which drastically expanded the scope of who could carry guns outside the home.
A legal challenge was filed immediately after Murphy signed the measure into law.
New York enacted a similar law prohibiting where guns can be carried, but that law is also the subject of ongoing litigation.
Gun rights groups did not get everything they sought from Bumb. For example, the judge said the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the prohibition of guns being carried in zoos, medical facilities, airports and on movie sets. Gun rights groups also wanted her to block the prohibition of carrying guns on playgrounds. Bumb denied that request, declaring that playgrounds were analogous to schools — area courts have suggested guns cannot be carried.
Challenges to those provisions of the law, however, are expected to resurface in later phases of the litigation.
“This marks the beginning of the end for Governor Murphy’s blatantly unconstitutional new carry law, which is going down in flames,” Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, said in a statement. “Murphy has clearly demonstrated that constitutional issues are indeed above his pay grade.”
In her 46-page opinion, Bumb, sitting in Camden, wrote that the state failed to provide evidence that some “sensitive places” defined in the law were analogous to “a historical tradition of firearm regulation,” the legal standard for bearing guns being carried somewhere.
Democratic leaders have insisted the new law is consistent with the constitution and the Supreme Court’s June ruling. Senate President Nick Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, who played a key role in crafting the law, had their motion to intervene in the case to defend the law approved on Monday.

“Our law pursues common sense boundaries that keep dangerous weapons out of places of learning and recreation where there are children, families, and folks going about their lives in peace,” Coughlin said in a statement. “I am disappointed, but we have joined the lawsuit to ensure our voice is heard in the legal process and look forward to the full law taking effect to keep our communities safe.”
In separate statements, spokespeople for Murphy and Attorney General Matt Platkin also said they were “disappointed” by Bumb’s ruling.
“We are disappointed that the court invalidated common-sense restrictions on the right to carry firearms in public, which are fully consistent with the Second Amendment,” Murphy spokesperson Tyler Jones said. “We look forward to being able to appeal the ruling and are confident that it will be reversed.”
“We are disappointed that the court has undermined important and longstanding protections against firearms violence in our public parks and in casinos,” Platkin said. “Today’s order is bad for public safety and inconsistent with the Second Amendment. But these orders remain temporary, and we look forward to pressing our case, including ultimately on appeal.”
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#Federal #judge #blocks #Jerseys #gun #carry #law
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 31, 2023
Murphy administration bought eight new SUVs — at a cost of $521K — with federal Covid funds

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The budget, however, did require the administration to detail the spending to JBOC.
“NJSP is responsible for the security and transportation of State officials, including the Governor and Lieutenant Governor,” the Department of the Treasury memo states. “As part of their many responsibilities, these officials provide leadership and lend support to the State’s COVID-19 recovery efforts at vaccination sites, hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities and other affected sites.”
The purchases were also mentioned briefly in the Murphy administration’s New Jersey Recovery Plan report last summer, though they didn’t attract any scrutiny at the time.
The eight Chevrolet Suburbans are for use by the Executive Protection Unit, according to Trooper Charles Marchan, a spokesperson for the State Police.
“American Rescue Plan Funding was used to purchase eight Chevrolet Suburbans that went to the State Police’s Executive Protection Unit to support the travel requirements of government officials, including COVID-19-related engagements such as vaccine site visits, hospital tours, and pandemic meetings,” Marchan said in a statement.
The Treasury department memo says the state is eligible to use the funds under a federal regulation that allows them for “costs to improve the design and execution of programs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and to administer or improve the efficacy of programs addressing the public health emergency or its negative economic impacts.”
Assemblymember Hal Wirths (R-Sussex), a member of JBOC and the Assembly minority budget officer, said the expenditure’s connection to the pandemic is “a stretch.”
“It’s legal, but I think it’s not the intention of the federal law to buy vehicles. Especially now. That’s what we’ve been so frustrated with, as budget officer, is the slowness of getting this money out,” Wirths said, referring to Republican complaints that the state government, controlled by Democrats, has been slow to appropriate federal coronavirus relief funds.

“I don’t think it’s a priority, especially this late after Covid,” Wirths said. “If they did it two or three years ago you might have a little more of an argument.”
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#Murphy #administration #bought #SUVs #cost #521K #federal #Covid #funds
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 26, 2023
Newsom renews call for federal action on gun safety after 2 mass shootings in California

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California has some of the most stringent gun policies in the nation, which the governor says helps explain why the state has a gun death rate 37 percent below the national average. Some of those restrictions, however, are in jeopardy following a Supreme Court decision in June on a concealed carry law in New York that invited challenges on a wide range of firearm laws.
Even with California’s laws, people can just bring weapons into the state from elsewhere — which is why Congress should take actions such as restricting the size of magazines and banning assault weapons, Newsom said.
“We can’t do this alone,” Newsom said. “And with all due respect, we feel like we are.”
The governor made the trip to Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, after the killing of seven farmworkers Monday, apparently by another worker. It came less than 48 hours after the attack by a gunman at a dance hall during a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, a small city east of downtown Los Angeles.
Newsom had harsh words for McCarthy, who represents the Bakersfield area, for not making any public statements addressing either shooting.
“I’m still waiting for Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House of Representatives, who purports to represent the people of the state of California,” he said. “We haven’t heard one damn word from him, not since Monterey Park, not what happened here, not one expression of prayers, condolences, nothing, and it should surprise nobody.”
The Speaker addressed the shootings at a press gaggle on Tuesday in the Capitol, around the same time Newsom was speaking in Half Moon Bay.
“Let me begin by expressing my condolences to the families in California with the recent violence over the last couple days,” McCarthy told reporters.

Newsom said he was in the hospital in Southern California visiting victims and family members when he was pulled aside and informed of the second shooting in Half Moon Bay.
The governor, like others in his party, has doubled down on the need for gun restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision. Last year the Democrat-dominated legislature passed a dozen more restrictions, and new bills are in the works for this year.
While the state does have a lower rate of gun death than the national average, it’s been impossible to insulate it from tragedies like the ones seen this week. Increasingly, California Democrats have been looking to Washington to place protections in areas that state policies simply can’t cover.
“We can figure this out — we can,” Newsom said. “We know what to do. It’s not complicated. We do. And we don’t have to do this again and again and again.”
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#Newsom #renews #call #federal #action #gun #safety #mass #shootings #California
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 25, 2023