Reposted by Peta Naylor Richkus
🚨NEW: They locked migrants in tiny metal cages and called them “calming areas.” Now a federal watchdog is exposing what happened inside “Alligator Alcatraz.”
meidasnews.com
Federal Watchdog Finds "Alligator Alcatraz" Locked Migrants in Small Metal Cages as So-Called "Calming Areas"
A new report from the Department of Homeland Security's independent inspector general has revealed that the now-shuttered Florida detention center known as
![Conclusion of Judge Dan Friedman, Appellate Court of Maryland in his 2024 Maryland Law Review article, "Is Federal Congressional Redistricting in Maryland Governed by Article III,
Section 4 of the State Constitution? An Analysis of the Trial Court Decision in Szeliga v. Lamone, 83 Md. L. Rev. (Co-author, Law Clerk Barnett Harris)
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol83/iss4/5
CONCLUSION
We think that it is clear that the Szeliga court was wrong in finding that
the constitutional standards set forth in Article III, Section 4 of the Maryland Constitution—requiring “[d]ue regard” for “natural boundaries and the boundaries of political subdivisions”—apply to federal congressional redistricting. There is no evidence that points in that direction. All of the evidence, in fact, points in the opposite direction. In particular, both a textualist and an originalist interpretation clearly indicate that Article III,
Section 4 applies only to state legislative redistricting, not to federal
congressional redistricting. As a result, we conclude that Article III, Section 4 ought to be interpreted to apply exclusively to state legislative districts. Moreover, there is little support for the Szeliga court’s conclusion that if those constitutional standards apply, the enacted plan violated those standards as they had been applied at the time of the Szeliga opinion. This is even more true now, after the Court of Appeals’ most recent decision interpreting those standards.210 As a result, it is our view that while the Szeliga opinion’s view of Article III, Section 4 has no mandatory precedential value, it should also have no persuasive effect on future federal congressional redistricting in Maryland.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6wbl7ntilxdodin65yp64ha3/bafkreifxxiaisxxbt243gg7lp3n24h4ygmzawxikw3udslsrfyt642wcue)
