My Box

My box consisted of 33 pages.

The first 30 refer to the Reagan Administration's appeal to the SCOTUS of the July 9, 1984 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's decision finding certain Title I expenditures to be unconstitutional. In US Department of Education v. Betty-Louise Felton, the 2nd circuit found that Title I (education) funding for remedial students to be taught remedial classes by a public school teacher using public school remedial materials while located within a 'non public school' - which basically means religious. It had worked for 17 years in New York, but suddenly the 2nd Circuit found it to be defacto unconstitutional.

Roberts eloquently authors - on behalf of Counsel to the President, Fred F. Fielding - a comprehensive narrative describing the fundamentals of the case along with the reasons why the Supreme Court should immediately accept the appeal.

There is nothing striking in the document, other than the fact that is very competently written. There is certainly nothing surprising about a Reagan lawyer arguing on behalf of the Department of Education to save a the ability of the Federal government to continue to fund Title I projects in New York as they already had been for nearly two decades.

The largest surprise in what I read was the fact that the ACLU was not involved against to Department of Education... Maybe it was just behind the scenes.

The last 3 pages refer to crime legislation pending in the Congress. It discusses how the Senate had voted 91-1 to pass a comprehensive 46 part 'get tough on crime measure'. The House, on the other hand had taken a piecemeal approach and had 27 separate bills that were being bottled up by procedural maneuvers...

Hmmm... I'll have to go find out which party was in charge of which house of Congress. I have my suspicions as to which party would block tough crime reforms.

That's it. No smoking guns here.