THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Richardson Positioning Himself As Hillary’s Veep: Bill Richardson has dropped out of the running for the presidency. He was never able to break out of the second-tier, and finished a distant fourth in IA and NH, which made it impossible to push an also-weak John Edwards aside and become one of the top-three candidates in the caucuses and primaries yet to be contested. However, to the very end Richardson defended Hillary Clinton in the debates, so it is still possible that he is on her short list of potential running mates. The ticket would be a historic two-fer (first woman, first Hispanic); provides geographic balance; and Richardson has legislative, executive and diplomatic experience that complements whatever knowledge and experience Hillary may have gleaned during her years as First Lady.
† Dan-o Lawsuit Bizzaro: At a hearing on CBS' motion to dismiss disgraced former anchor Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit ($20 million compensatory damages, 50 million punitive damages), a New York State Supreme Court judge indicated that he was inclined to allow the matter to proceed. The judge instructed the parties – the defendants are CBS Corp., former CBS parent Viacom Inc., CBS President Leslie Moonves, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward - to attempt to hammer out an agreement on the scope of pretrial discovery and scheduled a conference on Jan. 23rd, reports The Associated Press.
† States’ Rights Vs. The Feds: A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed San Francisco to compel companies in the city that employ 50 pr more people to provide private or city-provided health care coverage for their workers. A similar mandate on smaller employers goes into effect on April 1. Last month, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that the city ordinance violated the federal Employer Retirement Income Security Act, better (ERISA), which bars states and local governments from forcing employers to provide health insurance or regulating such coverage. The 9th Circuit held that the ordinance doesn't appear to violate ERISA because it mandates a minimum level of employer payments, not a minimum level of health care coverage, reports The Recorder:
"Employers need not have any ERISA plan at all; and if they do have such a plan, they need not make any changes to it," Fletcher wrote. "Where a law is fully functional even in the absence of a single ERISA plan ... we have great difficulty in seeing how the law makes an impermissible reference to ERISA plans."
So there you have it: Federal pre-emption applies only when small towns pass laws yanking business licenses of employers who hire forged documented aliens, but does not apply when those same employers are forced to provide medical coverage to them.
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