October 1, 2011
Grotesque Claim: Reduction of Welfare Benefits A Violation of Due Process
Michigan, in the face of a not unique budget crunch, recently implemented a reduction in social assistance (cash payments) from five years to four with, it should be noted, ample exemptions.
A group of recipients filed a lawsuit to overturn this new, lower cap, which went into effect today. The basis of the suit?
The lawsuit says that the welfare cap violates the due process clause of the 14th amendment. They claim that the cutoff notices were vague and generic. The plaintiffs are asking a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order against the cap.
Doesn't the right of due process apply only to criminal cases? So by the logic of this lawsuit, should we view these plaintiffs - and all people who participate in social programs - as criminal defendants???
Of course that's a silly question. But it's not as silly as asserting an unrelated constitutional right to secure, not a social benefit, but a larger share of a social benefit.
ADDENDUM
Dan has answered the question in the third paragraph.
No, any constitutional rights having to do with deprivation of life, liberty, or property.Needless to say, due process rights to government handouts are a very recent and "progressive" development in American jurisprudence.
(I'm pretending for the moment that I didn't see Andrew's comment because the concept described therein is simply incomprehensible.)
Link to the Fourteenth Amendment here. Pertinent excerpt:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
So there is no presumption of criminality. I stand by the main point: it is grotesque to use this or any Constitutional Amendment to assert either the right to participate in a social program or the right to receive the social benefit in a quantity that the recipient finds adequate.
Monique,
What's interesting about these cases is how they potentially involve some very similar logic to the pension-benefit cases working there way through the courts, i.e. if legislation that specifies a benefit creates a "contract" where benefits can never be reduced, then how can benefits provided to anyone be treated differently then benefits provided to public employees?
"Doesn't the right of due process apply only to criminal cases?"
No, any constitutional rights having to do with deprivation of life, liberty, or property.
Needless to say, due process rights to government handouts are a very recent and "progressive" development in American jurisprudence.
Posted by: Dan at October 1, 2011 2:05 PM"What's interesting about these cases is how they potentially involve some very similar logic to the pension-benefit cases working there way through the courts, i.e. if legislation that specifies a benefit creates a "contract" where benefits can never be reduced, then how can benefits provided to anyone be treated differently then benefits provided to public employees?"
Andrew,
Doesn't the requirement that the employee work for the entity and contribute in order to receive the benefit establish the so called contract? I'm no lawyer but wouldn't government need to receive something in exchange for the social/welfare benefit to become a contract within the legislation?
I don't fully understand Andrew's comparison (maybe he can clarify), but I don't think he's saying that there is a contract present. You are correct, Max, that there is no contract unless government is receiving something in return. These due process claims usually revolve around a wrongful deprivation of "property" for XYZ reasons. It sounds like nonsense at a glance, but then I'm not exactly sympathetic to the cause in the first place.
I do agree with the union and the RI judge that there is a contract present between pensioners and the state. Difficult to argue that there isn't. However, I find the union's argument that the contract cannot be restructured in light of dire financial circumstances to be selfish, immoral, and legally absurd.
Posted by: Dan at October 1, 2011 6:09 PMDan is correct,
Newt Gingrich signed a divorce agreement (a contract) then he reneged on that contract and refused to pay child support for his young daughters. Even though there were NO dire financial circumstances. Thankfully the liberal members of a local church collected cash to keep food on the table and the lights on for the young girls.
Gingrich's refusal to pay child support made him even more popular with the "family values" folks on the Reight
Posted by: Sammy at October 1, 2011 9:50 PMJudge Taft-Carter's recent ruling on the RI pension lawsuit was that an "implied unilateral contract" can be created through legislation. I'm not sure what the full ramifications of the "implied unilateral" part are, but she definitely said it's a contract.
Her ruling discusses a 3-part test for determining when legislation creates a contract. The part that relates to being in the employ of the state (the first part) doesn't obviously limit the scope to government employees only. Part 1 of the test is that there has to be something "bargained-for-exchange" for the potential for a contract to exist; the opinion then holds that agreeing to take a job that requires you to join the state retirement system qualifies as the bargain.
But the same reasoning can be applied very easily to something like RI's short-term disablity fund. You have to pay into the fund, by law, as a condition of taking a job in Rhode Island. So if taking a job that requires me to pay money into a specific fund that's supposed to be there for me at a later date constitutes a bargained-for-exchange, RI's SDI qualifies just as much as the state retirement system does, and there's another "implied unilateral contract" there, where benefits might never be reduced (after I've participated in the system for a certain period of time).
A court could back away from this, I suppose, by claiming that any condition required of all Rhode Island workers, public or private, is not something that can be bargained (if they are willing to make Rhode Island the entire universe, and ignore that working in another state or not working at all are possiblities for some), but then they'd be taking a dangerous step towards reverse-engineering a claim that legislation can automatically create benefit contracts for one special class of workers known as public employees but not for anyone else.
For straight-up social services, I'll admit the reasoning would have to get a little more fanciful to find a bargained-for-exchange, but as the subject of the main post shows, it can't be ruled out, as long as courts give themselves the power to decide when contracts have been created without both parties knowing it.
The test for whether a contract exists starts around page 33 here: tinyurl.com/4xj27bs
Sammy - Who the f cares about Newt Gingrich and his family problems? Do you ever have anything interesting to say? You are the biggest tool on this site. We could be talking about the weather and you'd relate it to Newt Gingrich or Dick Cheney somehow. Do you ever hear anyone on this site defending those characters?
Posted by: Dan at October 2, 2011 1:06 AM