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Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of September 25
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
local news that may end up having nationwide implications:
Seattle City attorney Ann Davison announced Monday that the city has signed onto an amicus brief asking the US Supreme Court to overturn a Ninth Circuit District Court ruling that restricted the ability of Grants Pass, a city in southwestern Oregon, to criminalize sleeping in public places.
the case is Grants Pass v. Johnson, and it builds on a previous 9th Circuit ruling called Martin v. Boise.
lots of cities pass laws saying "It's illegal to be homeless" (really "it's illegal to camp on public property", but it boils down to basically the same thing). Martin v. Boise held that in order to enforce those bans, they have to offer some form of shelter, because otherwise they're just criminalizing the existence of people who are too poor to afford housing.
cities hate this, because it takes time and money to build homeless shelters, but they can easily have cops crack down on homeless people right now.
and so supposedly liberal cities like Seattle are filing amicus briefs (as is California's Governor Newsom) asking the Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit and allow them to sweep homeless encampments ("sweep" is a wonderful bit of euphemistic language used to describe having the police destroy people's makeshift campsites and threaten them with arrest) without offering any other form of shelter.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California dies at age 90, sources tell the AP
Already posted in ~news, so the link is to the discussion rather than directly to the article.