Page 59 - Amendment Center News Today

On Tuesday, a Hawaii Senate committee passed a bill that would reform asset forfeiture laws to prohibit the state from taking property without a criminal conviction in most cases. But the legislation leaves a loophole open that allows police to circumvent stricter state laws by passing cases off to the feds.

The legislation would create a cause of action in state courts to sue peace officers who “under color of law, subjects or causes to be subjected, including but not limited to failing to intervene, another person to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities granted to the person under the constitutions and laws of the United States and this state."

Today, an Arizona House Committee unanimously passed a bill that would reform the state’s asset forfeiture laws and prohibit the state from taking a person’s property without a criminal conviction in most cases. The proposed legislation would build on important reforms signed into law in 2017 that opted Arizona out of a federal forfeiture program.

Iowa Bill Would Take on Federal Gun Control: Past, Present and Future DES MOINES, Iowa (Feb. 18. 2021) – A bill introduced in the Iowa House would take on federal gun control; past, present and future. Passage into law would represent a major step toward ending federal acts that infringe on the right to keep and bear arms within the state. A coalition of five Republicans introduced House Bill 518 (HF518) on Feb. 15. The legislation would ban any person, including any public officer or employe...

On Tuesday, the New Mexico House passed a bill that would create a process to sue in state court when police use excessive force or take other actions that violate individual rights without the possibility of “qualified immunity” as a defense

Titled the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” the legislation would ban any person, including any public officer or employee of the state and its political subdivisions, from enforcing any past, present or future federal “acts, laws, executive orders, administrative orders, court orders, rules, and regulations that infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.

The legislation would create a cause of action in state courts to sue a peace officer "who subjects or causes to be subjected, including by failing to intervene, any other person to the deprivation of any individual rights arising under Illinois Constitution."

The legislation would create a cause of action in state courts to sue peace officers "who, under color of law, subjects or causes to be subjected, including failing to intervene, any other person to the deprivation of any individual rights that create binding obligations on government actors secured by the Bill of Rights, Article II of the Oklahoma Constitution."

States’ Rights: The Foundation of Our Republic The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.  — Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution Fighting together in the American Revolution, Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge CREDIT: Dunsmore, John Ward, artist. “Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge.” Reproduction of a 1907 painting. St. Paul, Brown & Bigelow, copyright 1...

Read Article The office that oversees legal services for Maine’s poor is asking for more employees to fix a myriad of financial and constitutional problems identified by watchdog groups. The Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services has been under scrutiny as lawyers and legislators alike call for reform. A state agency published a report last year that concluded the commission has little organizational structure, lacks oversight and does not have established policies for attorney billing....