Next up. Air. They wont be happy until they've taken everything from us.
No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
131–140 of 178 posts
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The 14th not covering clean water at the time it was written is not because they didn't have germ theory. That was the legal theory upthread. Which I contest. > Second, the 2nd is a lot clearer than the 14th. "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" seems pretty clear, and I'm inclined to consider "intentionally providing contaminated water" to be a violatio…
Except the law clearly says "deprive" not "provide". You'll have to show how folks are being deprived of water if you want to argue this line of reasoning, "providing contaminated water" is not covered by this text, and has the trivial rebutal that no one is forced to accept said water, even if the alternative is a shit situation. That situation does not deprive them of life, liberty, or property, and so there is no…
Government officials intentionally giving someone lead poisoning is depriving them of life.
I'm 100% fine with "there's no Constitutional requirement for a jurisdiction to provide a water supply" - plenty of folks live on well water. If you're going to provide one, though, you're responsible for it.
Similarly, my town is not required to provide internet access to its residents. If my town does decide to provide internet access to me (like Chattanoga TN), they can't censor my access and use of it, because of the First Amendment.
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly constrains states, and those constitutional restrictions apply to state and local government action.
> The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly constrains states It says states can't make laws that abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens. It does not say states have to provide whatever services citizens would like to have.
If a city chooses to operate a water system, that’s still subject to the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Fourteenth Amendment constrains state and local government action. And the Preamble's "general Welfare" is relevant interpretive context. At the Founding, that meant the safety, prosperity, happiness, and well being of the political community.
So the question isn't whether the Constitution requires cities to provide water, but whether a city that allegedly poisons people through the water system it operates can violate constitutionally protected interests in life, liberty, or bodily integrity.
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#134> alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water. Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights?
In the sense that the law is expansive... probably? But... There is a federal law requiring government officials provide "honest services" (the searchable phrase to learn more). The supreme court ruled it was too vague to be constitutional and restricted its enforcement to outright bribery (more or less). In the US, the executive branch can lie to you. Deception is a common law enforcement tool, as an example. The mi…
I thought the government's use of deception was limited to only circumstances necessary to protect people from harm, not to inflict harm upon them.
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Give how vague constitutional clauses have been (ab)used to sneak in legislation through the judicial system (eg. roe v wade, or louisiana v. callais), the last thing we need are even more avenues to sue the government just because the plaintiff doesn't think the government is acting in the way they think is best.
The Preamble isn't vague about what it's doing, though. It's quite clear. It tells us who is establishing the Constitution and expressly states the purposes for which they are establishing it. Saying that those stated purposes should inform constitutional interpretation isn't a particularly novel idea. Pretending the ratified language at the beginning of the Constitution doesn't matter because taking it seriously mig…
>The possibility that judges can abuse constitutional interpretation is an argument for doing it carefully, not selectively. Or, as Joseph Story put it: "The circumstance, that so construed the power may be abused, is no answer. All powers may be abused."
You realize much of the constitution is designed to constrain what the government can do, exactly to limit the potential for abuse? Sure, it's all great when you're using the "promote the general welfare" as an excuse to enact medicare for all or whatever, not so great when the other side decides it means abortion needs to be banned (what about the "welfare" of babies).
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#136It's interesting how a lot of newer countries just put the right to water directly in the constitution. South Africa says some stuff about the government having an obligation toward "progressive realization" of the goal [1], whereas Slovenia just straight says water is a right [2]. [1]: https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rig... [2]: https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/12...
The problem with the US is Americans treating their Constitution like some kind of Bible, untouchable and beyond reproach, when in reality it should have been a constantly evolving document. South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world on paper because the authors very recently had to reconcile with and forgo their apartheid past. And they had a number of templates to adapt from, including the US, Fran…
Our Constitution can evolve. This whole case is about an amendment to the Constitution! We don't evolve it by reinterpreting the text but by amending the text.
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly constrains states It says states can't make laws that abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens. It does not say states have to provide whatever services citizens would like to have.
It says several things, including this: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" One might argue they're not required to provide water, but I'd argue this means they can't knowingly provide dangerous water laced with a neurotoxin and lie about its safety as in this case. (And there's an "equal protection of the laws" aspect to "lead in the water supply tends t…
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Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Preamble explicitly states that the Constitution is for these six things. The Constitution establishes the Federal government. Not state, county, city, municipal governments. It says what the Federal government is for. Not what those other levels of government are for. The Federal government isn't the government that failed to provide clean water in this case; it's not even responsible for providing city water…
> The Constitution establishes the Federal government. Not state, county, city, municipal governments. This is about a hundred years out of date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights doesn't extend any powers granted by the Constitution to the Federal government, to state, county, city, etc. governments. It just says those governments (well, the State governments, since the Amendment only explicitly says "States", but other local governments when they are implementing or enforcing State statutes) also have to respect the Bill of Rights when they exercise the powers they already had. The Constitution did not establish those other governments. They were already there.
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you allow justifying government power according to some ambiguous notion of general welfare, then all you need to say is that something promotes general welfare. There is more to the structure of the US system than the preamble to the constitution.
You're conflating purpose with power. "Promote the general Welfare" doesn't create unlimited power. The power comes from the Constitution. The point is that once you are interpreting those powers, the Constitution's stated purposes are relevant to what they mean and how broadly they should be understood. Nor was "general Welfare" some contentless phrase at the Founding. Protection, safety, prosperity, happiness, and…
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you meant in your original comment? "This seems to fall under the whole “promote the general welfare” part of the Preamble of the Constitution, though perhaps the court is unaware of it."
The OP is about a federal ruling saying clean water is not a constitutional right, no? And if you're disagreeing you're saying it should be a positive federal right in interpretation if not declaration, implying power of enforcement.
Re: No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly constrains states It says states can't make laws that abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens. It does not say states have to provide whatever services citizens would like to have.
It says several things, including this: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" One might argue they're not required to provide water, but I'd argue this means they can't knowingly provide dangerous water laced with a neurotoxin and lie about its safety as in this case. (And there's an "equal protection of the laws" aspect to "lead in the water supply tends t…
The city is not a State, so that clause would not apply to it. Unless you want to argue that the State of Mississippi was violating the Fourteenth Amendment by not requiring its cities to provide clean water (the article mentions that a few other states have done this). But this suit wasn't against the state.