Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/307515
ByJudyLin The Associated Press SACRAMENTO The Sac- ramento-based Pacific Le- gal Foundation this week will take another step in its challenge to President Barack Obama's health care law, claiming it imposes new taxes unconstitutionally. The foundation, which ad- vocates for limited govern- ment, is scheduled to make oral arguments Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. A district court ruled last year against the foundation, which filed the case on be- half of Iraq war veteran and Washington state small busi- ness owner Matt Sissel. Foundation attorney Tim- othy Sandefur said during a news conference Monday that the Affordable Care Act should be considered unconstitutional because it violated the Constitution's origination clause, which requires tax bills to start in the House as a way to keep taxing authority closer to the people. He said Senate Major- ity Leader Harry Reid had taken a House measure to help veterans buy homes, gutted it and transformed it into the Affordable Care Act legislation, which requires most Americans to carry health insurance and pro- hibits insurers from turning away the sick. After a long debate, the bill barely passed a divided Congress, with no Republican support. "We say completely gut- ting the entire contents of a bill and replacing it with an entirely different bill is not an amendment; that's just subterfuge," Sandefur told reporters outside the state Capitol. In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the crux of the health care law, ruling that the penalties to enforce it are a tax Con- gress is authorized to levy. About 8 million people had signed up for an individ- ual policy on the newly cre- ated online marketplaces through the April 15 enroll- ment deadline. Another 4.8 million lower- income people gained cover- age through an expansion of Medicaid, which the Su- preme Court ruled was op- tional for the states. Sandefur acknowledged that the foundation is argu- ing a procedural rule after the nation's highest court made its decision, but he said the court should clarify the role of the Senate and the House in tax bills. "If the people of the United States want the Af- fordable Care Act, then there's no reason why Con- gress can't go back and re- pass this thing the correct way," he said. Messages left for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice were not immediately re- turned Monday. AFFORDABLE CARE ACT Gr ou p cha ll en ge s he al th l aw a s un co ns ti tu ti on al By Paul Elias The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO In a de- cision still studied in law schools as a 19th century lesson in bigotry, the Cal- ifornia Supreme Court in 1890 denied Hong Yeng Chang's application to prac- tice law solely because he was Chinese. Now, students at a Northern California law school are working to right that ancient wrong. They hope to persuade the cur- rent court to reverse its 124-year-old decision. Students at the Univer- sity of California, Davis, School of Law's Asian Pa- cific American Law Stu- dents Association and two professors have submitted an application to practice law to the State Bar of Cal- ifornia on behalf of Chang. It is a first step before ap- proaching the high court, which licenses California's attorneys. The state bar vets all California applications and recommends approval or denial to the California Su- preme Court. The Supreme Court usually follows the recommendation of the state bar. "This is a unique situ- ation and we don't know what the Committee of Bar Examiners will do with the application," spokeswoman Laura Ernde said. The com- mittee is scheduled to con- sider the application in late June. ApprovingChang'sappli- cation would correct a per- sonal injustice and serve a broader public interest pur- pose, the students and pro- fessors wrote the state bar. "Admitting Mr. Chang would be a powerful sym- bol of our state's repudi- ation of laws that singled out Chinese immigrants for discrimination," said Gabriel "Jack" Chin, a pro- fessor at UC Davis School of Law and the student as- sociation's adviser. Chang studied at Yale University and Columbia Law School, graduating from Columbia in 1886. Af- ter initially being denied a chance to take New York's bar exam, a special act of the state Legislature en- abled him to sit for the test and pass. The New York Times reported at the time that Chang was the first Chinese immigrant to be- come an American lawyer. In 1890, he moved to Cal- ifornia with plans to prac- tice law and represent the burgeoning Chinese pop- ulation in San Francisco. But the California Supreme Court turned down Chang's application, citing the fed- eral Chinese Exclusion Act — which barred Chinese natives from obtaining U.S. citizenship — and a Califor- nia law prohibiting noncit- izens from practicing law. "It's a pretty notorious decision," Chin said. Chin said that Chang's case is well-known in legal circles interested in com- batting discrimination. He also said the project is a good lesson for the Asian Pacific American Law Stu- dents. EDUCATION Law students push to license dead attorney CHANGFAMILY—THEASSOCIATED PRESS This undated family photo shows Hong Yeng Chang. The Associated Press FAIRFIELD Investigators trying to determine what caused the crash of a vin- tage airplane during a stunt at a California air show said Monday they will start by ex- amining the wreckage and ground scars. Howard Plagens of the Na- tional Transportation Safety Board said his team will also look at the time it took emer- gency crews to respond. Witnesses Geoff Arnwine, who attended the show on Sunday with his son, was among the people who said it seemed like a long time be- fore fire crews arrived at the scene of the crash at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield. Arnwine couldn't say ex- actly how long it actually took and wondered if the pi- lot died on impact or from the ensuing fire. "The people around me were almost screaming," he said. "What is going on here? Why aren't they trying to get him out? Where is the fire engine?" Base spokesman Jim Spellman said crews were dispatched promptly and responded within a minute or two. A hotshot team from the base was among the re- sponders, he said. The crash brought a quick halttothe"ThunderOverSo- lano"showattendedbyanes- timated 100,000 spectators. No one else was injured. The Air Force identified the pilot as Edward An- dreini, 77, of Half Moon Bay. Federal Aviation Adminis- tration records show he was the registered owner of the 1944 Stearman biplane, a World War II-era plane com- monly used to train pilots. Andreini was trying to perform a maneuver known as "cutting a ribbon" where the inverted plane flies close to the ground so a knife at- tached to it can slice a rib- bon, Col. David Mott, 60th Operations Group com- mander at the base, told the San Francisco Chronicle. The plane, flying low over the tarmac, crashed and caught fire, creating a thick plume of black smoke seen in video. Roger Bockrath, a retired photojournalist, was taking pictures of the show and wit- nessed the crash. He said Andreini, flying into a some- times gusty wind, passed on two attempts at the stunt before trying a third time, when he hit the tarmac and slid to a stop in an open field. "He got down too low and hit the tarmac," Bockrath told The Sacramento Bee. "He skidded about 500 feet and just sat there. The plane was essentially intact, just wrong side down." Bockrath said nearly 2 minutes went by before someone appeared with a fire extinguisher. By then, the aircraft was fully en- flamed and collapsing from the heat. He said it took a to- tal of five minutes before fire crews arrived. Lynn Lunsford of the FAA said the agency was on site and will be part of the inves- tigating team. Andreini's website said audiences would be "thrilled at the sight of this huge bi- plane performing double outside loops, square loops, torque rolls, double snap rolls, and ... a heart-stop- ping, end-over-end tumble maneuver." NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AIR SHOW Re sp on se t im e ey ed i n pl an e cr as h BRYAN STOKES — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A worker fights a fire a er a vintage biplane crashed upside-down on a runway at an air show at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield on Sunday. The Associated Press SAN DIEGO U.S. Air Force rescuers worked to get two badly burned Chinese sail- ors off a boat in the Pacific Ocean as seven of their un- injured comrades and the bodies of two others re- turned home on a Chinese- flagged vessel, an official said Monday. Six other Chinese sailors are believed to be missing af- ter their boat sank. A crew aboard a Venezuelan fishing boat found 11 sailors floating inalifeboatFridayafternoon, saidMaj.SarahSchwennesen of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. The Vene- zuelan crew said four sailors were badly burned, and two later died of their injuries, Schwennesen said. The two burned in either a fire or an explosion will be transported to a San Diego hospital for treatment, offi- cials said. Airmen from the 563rd Rescue Group parachuted intothewateroffMexico'sPa- cificcoastSaturdayafternoon and used inflatable boats to reach the Venezuelan vessel. They are continuing to care for the injured Chinese sailors amid preparations to hoist the patients and U.S. rescuers onto three helicop- ters and fly to Cabo San Lu- cas, a coastal city in western Mexico.Theinjuredpairwill be taken in a different air- craft to a burn unit in San Diego, accompanied by the airmen giving them care. It wasn't immediately clear when the transfer would occur, and Schwen- nesen said Monday morning that as far as she knew, the injured sailors were still on the Venezuelan vessel. Lan- guage barriers and commu- nication delays can hold up information. She said the seven head- ing back to China were in good condition after being rescued. The Venezuelan boat had sent out a request for help around 5 p.m. Friday, and it was received by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center. Because of an estimated six-hour flight that in- cluded traveling over miles of ocean, a refueling air- craft was dispatched from the Arizona Air National Guard in Phoenix. COAST US rescuers work to get Chinese sailors off boat in Pacific Ocean By Juliet Williams The Associated Press SACRAMENTO Republican gubernatorialcandidateNeel KashkarisaidMondaythathe has pumped $500,000 of his ownmoneyintohiscampaign andhaslaunchedhisfirsttele- vision ad as his campaign struggles just four weeks ahead of the June primary. The commercial, which is airing statewide, shows the former U.S. Treasury official choppingwoodonpropertyhe owns near Truckee. He says career politicians don't know how the value of a dollar. In theatrics reminiscent of former Gov. 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