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No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

usatoday.com

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Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#21

Post by Avicebron »

db48x wrote: post #20
Avicebron wrote: post #13

> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.

I completely disagree. Not everything can be included in the Constitution. We have ordinary laws to address things like this.

Never once tried to argue that it should be included in the Constitution. I suppose one of those "other laws" will cover when the government deliberately gives people lead poisoning? I wonder why they didn't go with that one...

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#23

Post by tyjen »

Constitutional right? No. But, it's an abject failure of the local government overseeing the infrastructure to fix or solicit help to fix. Jackson, MS government failed. Targeting them on the grounds of a constitutional violation seems like borderline legal malpractice, but probably an unfortunate standard time wasting legal protocol, for lawyers to suggest this was a viable route to begin with.

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#24

Post by ceejayoz »

_--__--__ wrote: post #19

This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments. Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty r…

That'd require them explaining why "the 14th Amendment predates germ theory" is a reasonable argument but not "the Second Amendment predates machine guns".

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#25

Post by giantg2 »

_--__--__ wrote: post #19

This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments. Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty r…

It should just be reckless endangerment criminal charges - they knew it was unsafe and provided it anyways.

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#26

Post by chermi »

Yes? Why would there be? This is a nation built on negative rights. If you pay taxes/fees to some institution for a service and the the institution fails to provide it, that's already covered by some contract law, no?

I know this will be read as me saying they shouldn't have clean water. What I'm saying is that declaring a positive right is not an effective approach to satisfying that right in this country, or anywhere that I'm aware. But especially this country. If I was in that jurisdiction I would be kind of insulted if this was presented as a reasonable approach to secure clean water.

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#27

Post by giantg2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #24
_--__--__ wrote: post #19

This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments. Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty r…

That'd require them explaining why "the 14th Amendment predates germ theory" is a reasonable argument but not "the Second Amendment predates machine guns".

Germ theory really started around 1860 and the 14th amendment was 1868. Seems they both coexisted.

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#28

Post by anigbrowl »

db48x wrote: post #20
Avicebron wrote: post #13

> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.

I completely disagree. Not everything can be included in the Constitution. We have ordinary laws to address things like this.

And then entities litigate to have those laws overturned on highly abstract theoretical grounds, alleging that they violate the framers' intent in drafting the Constitution, or exceed enumerated powers or whatever.

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#29

Post by jl6 »

At the risk of an analogy, this is like finding that the Linux kernel provides no guarantee that a process won’t contain buffer overflow vulnerabilities. While buffer overflows are bad, and it would be a good idea to try to prevent them, enforcing against them at the kernel level would be a far-reaching prospect with many consequences, intended and unintended.

The judge is opining that other layers of protection are available.

Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

#30

Post by giantg2 »

chermi wrote: post #26

Yes? Why would there be? This is a nation built on negative rights. If you pay taxes/fees to some institution for a service and the the institution fails to provide it, that's already covered by some contract law, no? I know this will be read as me saying they shouldn't have clean water. What I'm saying is that declaring a positive right is not an effective approach to satisfying that right in this country, or anywhe…

It should just be criminal reckless endangerment since they knowingly provided unsafe water.
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