[Vision2020] Bad News: Idaho appeals 'ag-gag' ruling to 9th Circuit

[Ron Force]

Well, yes, it lost  them all except for the suit in 1996 from Phil Batt
under which the Fed agreed to remove nuclear waste from Idaho (which was
sort of a loss, since the Fed hasn't done what they agreed to do). It's all
good. The fund has been used to pay big awards to the attorneys on the
winning side, like Planned Parenthood. On one hand, the pols can crow to
their supporters that they're standing up for the principles they were
elected to defend; On the other hand, their supporters don't realize that
the Constitutional Defense Fund is really funding their opponents, by
losing and having to pay their attorneys' fees.

Here's the list of losses;
http://www.dailyastorian.com/glance-cases-paid-from-idahos-constitutional-defense-fund-da-ap-webfeeds-news-northwest7eab5cd3ae714d6788e0d3e30ceda808

Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 11:50 AM, Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm>
wrote:

> More fiscal irresponsibility from Idaho’s GOP & TPers . . . I could be
> mistaken, but hasn’t Idaho been on the losing end of every Constitutional
> challenge its brought in the last two or three decades???  It’s a special
> kind of stupid to keep wasting taxpayer money this way.
>
>
>
>
>
> Saundra Lund
>
> Moscow, ID
>
>
>
> *We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.*
> ~ Immanuel Kant
>
>
>
>
>
> Idaho appeals 'ag-gag' ruling to 9th Circuit
> <http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2015/dec/11/idaho-appeals-ag-gag-ruling-9th-circuit/>
>
> Betsy Z. Russell
>
>
>
> FRIDAY, DEC. 11, 2015, 2:33 P.M.
>
>
>
> The state of Idaho has filed an appeal to the 9th Circuit of the U.S.
> District Court decision overturning the state’s “ag-gag law,” the law
> passed by the state Legislature making it a crime to surreptitiously
> videotape agricultural operations. Idaho lawmakers approved the law in 2014
> after the state’s $2.5 billion dairy industry complained that videos of
> cows being abused at a southern Idaho dairy filmed in 2012 unfairly hurt
> their business. The Los Angeles-based animal rights group Mercy For Animals
> released the videos, which showed workers at Bettencourt Dairy beating,
> stomping and otherwise abusing cows in 2012.
>
> The court invalidated the law in August, holding that it violated First
> Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was the first federal court ruling
> on an “ag-gag” law; eight states have passed them. Last week, the groups
> that filed the lawsuit, led by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, filed a
> motion with the court asking that the state pay more than $250,000 to cover
> their attorney fees and costs.
>
> Todd Dvorak, spokesman for Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, said
> the office had no comment today on the notice of appeal, which was filed
> late yesterday.
>
> Ag groups including the Idaho Farm Bureau and Idaho Dairymen’s Association
> had been urging the state to appeal the ruling, according to the Capital
> Press <http://www.capitalpress.com/Idaho>, an ag newspaper.
>
> In the August ruling, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill found that the
> law’s “primary purpose is to protect agricultural facility owners by, in
> effect, suppressing speech critical of animal-agriculture practices.” He
> ruled that evidence indicated the law was “intended to silence animal
> welfare activists, or other whistleblowers who seek to publish speech
> critical of the agricultural production industry.”
>
>
>
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