Today was an amazing day. No, they didn't invent a new hair-growth product. Today we in the Judiciary Committee defeated an effort to enshrine bigotry in our State Constitution. We beat, by a margin of 8-6, SB 707 which would have constitutionally prohibited same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania. Since my job in the minority generally consists of voting "no" on stuff that's going to pass anyway, it was a great feeling to win one.


There are many amazing things about today's vote. First, it happened in Pennsylvania. Too often on social issues we spend our time cursing out the wild-eyed liberals of Mississippi or complaining that the Burqas favored by the Taliban are too revealing. I don't mean to overstate it, but we have signs saying "Leaving Pennsylvania, Entering Gomorrah" near the borders on all of our interstates.

The other thing that was amazing was the fact that this bill passed the very same Committee that passed a more restrictive bill just 2 years ago by a 10-4 margin. There has been only one change in personnel. This means that 3 Senators actually changed their minds! In doing so they showed great personal courage.

I love when people display courage, even though I am myself afraid of many things. I'm afraid of spiders, snakes, photos of spiders and snakes, people spelling S-P-I-D-E-R or S-N-A-K-E or even people misspelling those words. I'm afraid of clouds, most sauces, especially those with a cream base, tigers, heights, guys who want me to pay my bar tab, shirts, tissues, nuclear war and those peep chicks they sell at Easter. You get the idea.

I was also thrilled that this was a bi-partisan effort. The NO votes included 5 Democrats and 3 Republicans. We hadn't done anything truly bi-partisan since the Republican vs. Democrat Twister tournament this past Christmas. Lets just say that some of those guys from Lancaster County are really flexible.

There were some aspects of this epic journey that troubled me. In particular the E-mails I received. Most were supportive of my efforts to bring equality to Pennsylvania. But the many that were not, were truly frightening. Since this is a family BLOG (in the sense that whole families avoid reading it) I won't repeat actual language. I'll just say that there's an awful lot of hate out there. And I struggle to understand where it comes from.

I plan to write more about the origins of homophobia in the near future. But for now, my hats off to the brave, wise, and enlightened Senators who vote for equality today. They have made millions of gay people they'll never meet feel as if they just a little bit more included in the human family. That's not a bad day's work. Plus, there's no physical labor involved, which is always a plus.

To the Editor:

In the March 12 edition of The Delaware County Daily Times there was an editorial which contained a "Parting Shot" opposing legislation I have introduced requiring insurance companies to provide coverage for non-hospital in-patient treatment for eating disorders. Currently some (although not all) insurance policies only cover acute, crisis care for eating disorders. They will pay the bills for a woman who is rushed to the hospital near death and force-fed until she is back to a survivable weight. But they will not pay to actually treat the disease.

The treatment widely considered the most, if not the only effective protocol for curing eating disorders involves weeks or months of intensive in-patient therapy at a facility that specializes in treating such disorders. Absent this treatment, a patient is overwhelmingly likely to continue starving themselves and wind up right back in the hospital. Many will die.

The editorial, which tastefully says the thought of my bill is "making some people sick" does begin compassionately enough by acknowledging that "nobody likes eating disorders". I'm certain this is a great comfort to the families of those suffering. But the editorial then goes on to make the same argument we hear every time we ask health insurance companies to actually pay for some health care. It claims that "legislation like this" presumably requiring health insurance companies to pay to treat sick people, contributes to "spiraling health insurance rate increases". (The editorial does not specify what other mandated treatments it opposes under the same logic. Mammograms? Colon Cancer Screening? Expensive Chemotherapy?)

On one level the editorial is correct. Although covering eating disorders alone won't add much if anything to the cost of health insurance, it is true that the cumulative affect of requiring health insurance companies to pay for medical care is to raise premiums. Of course another thing that contributes to the rise in premiums is the enormous profits that health insurance companies continue to report each quarter.

But putting that aside, the logic of the editorial is that the less insurance companies cover, the cheaper insurance will be. And again, that is true. In fact, if we want insurance to be really cheap, insurance companies shouldn't have to cover anything at all. If they never have to pay anything, policies will be close to free! The problem of course is that if insurance companies don't pay for treatment to make sick people better, it's difficult to see what value these companies add to our health care system (other than profits for themselves).

So if we're going to require insurance companies to pay for anything at all, it is necessary that there be some standards to determine what such coverage should be. It seems to me that requiring payment for proven treatments which have been shown to cure devastating, often fatal diseases is a reasonable standard. Under such a standard, the treatment requirement in my eating disorders bill would easily qualify.

Keep in mind, that the editorial's argument is not logically against my eating disorders bill only. It is an argument against requiring insurance companies to ever pay anything towards our health care out of the billions and billions of dollars they take in from us each year. That would indeed result in cheaper premiums, but I'm not sure it would be a comfort to any of us the next time we get sick.

Daylin


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Parting Shot

State Sen. Daylin Leach, D-17, of Upper Merion, is holding a press conference in Harrisburg Monday to unveil "landmark legislation" that would require health insurers in the state to cover non-hospital, in-patient treatment for eating disorders. On the surface, that sounds like a nice idea.

Nobody likes eating disorders. But the truth is, it's legislation like this that has contributed to spiraling health insurance rate increases that have pushed basic coverage beyond the reach of many. What is worse? Having a policy that doesn't cover non-hospital treatment for eating disorders, or not having a policy at all? Do us a favor, senator. Drop this idea. Just thinking about it is making some people sick.

NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE LIBRARIANS

Two librarians will be selected —
one from a public library and one from a school library
17th Senatorial District

FOR OUTSTANDING SERVICE
• Special Programs
• Knowledge of her/his facility and resources
• Commitment to helping the public

DEADLINE: MONDAY, APRIL 5, 2010
Go to my Website for a Nomination Form
http://www.senatorleach.com/events/Librarian_Award_Flyer_2010.pdf

AWARDS CEREMONY
April 16, 2010 • 8:30 a.m. — 10:00 a.m.
American Reading Company • 201 South Gulph Road King of Prussia, PA

A few days ago, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in McDonald vs. Chicago. The issue in this case is whether or not states and local municipalities are subject to the 2nd Amendment right to carry a gun.

Of course these days, when the conservative 5 Justices "hear argument" what that really means is that they are collectively reliving that magical night they first denied a stay of execution, or whatever else it is that people who have already made up their minds and have no interest in what the dude in the suit standing before them is saying, do.

Our favorite 5 are nothing if not predictable. You don't even have to know the issue before the court to know who is going to win. All you need to know are the litigants. So for example, if it's a prosecutor vs. a criminal defendant, well then the prosecutor is going to win. If it's a civil-rights plaintiff vs. a company accused of discrimination, then the company is going to win, unless the plaintiffs are white guys, in which case the white guys are going to win. In fact, its a pretty good rule of thumb that if the case is white guys against anyone else for any reason the white guys are going to win.

So lets take a little test to see if I've made this clear. Here are three hypothetical cases. See if you can guess (without even knowing the facts of the case) who will win each one. Litigant A or Litigant B.

A) Exxon Mobile

vs.

B) An environmentalist named "Rainbow Smock" who keeps his hair in a bun

A) Dick Cheney

vs.

B) A Muslim detainee named Achmad el-Detainee

A) Walmart

vs.

B) A member of "Feminist Warrior Nation" who wears a bra made out of hemp

If you answered "A" to all 3, you are a genius. If you answered "B" to any of the above, you are what we call an un-genius. In any event, once you understand this construct, it won't be hard to figure out who is going to win McDonald vs. Chicago.

However, I do not view this as a bad thing. First, let me tell where I am coming from. Despite what Ted Nugent says, I am not in favor of taking everyone's guns away from them. Parenthetically, Nugent is also lying about me being the inspiration for "Cat Scratch Fever". I favor reasonable gun restrictions mostly designed to prevent straw purchasers from buying 100 guns at a time and selling them to young, underage, juvenile children or criminals, or people who like to eat other people's liver with fava beans and a good Chianti.

For example I support limiting the number of guns one can purchase to one per month. If you are married that means you and your lovely bride can buy 24 guns a year, enough to invade Peru. That seems sufficient, even to the Peruvians who would probably surrender without a shot being fired. I have long argued that even given the 2nd Amendment, one-gun-a-month would easily be constitutional.

I say this because of how courts interpret individual rights. No right is absolute. The classic example is the one about not being allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. Apparently you can yell "Fire" in an empty theater, but very few people bother. In any event, there are lots of restrictions on free speech and lots of exceptions to every constitutional right. The way the courts evaluate this is that they apply a level of what they call "Scrutiny" (A technical legal word. The layman's term is "Scrutiny") to any law that allegedly impinges on a constitutional right.

If the right is a fundamental right, which we'll assume the right to keep and bear arms is, then the court applies "Strict Scrutiny" to any law that restricts the right to own a gun. In applying Strict Scrutiny the court will look at how serious or severe the impingement on the right is and balance that against how important the state interest in the law is. I talk like this a lot, which is why I'm rarely invited to parties.

In the case of one-gun-per-month, the restriction is extremely slight. Again, you and Martha...24 guns a year every year. Lots and lots of guns. If you are a licensed collector, you can buy more and take Peru back from the other couple who invaded it first!! On the other hand, the state's interest in preventing drug-addled, insane juveniles from randomly shooting people is pretty substantial. In fact, if you are being shot at, you are likely to say "Holy Crap, that state interest is REALLY substantial!!" So given the normal constitutional balancing test, one-gun-a-month is very likely to survive.

The court actually applying that test, or even articulating a new test is good news because currently, I get a ton of e-mails telling me that one-gun-a-month and other such bills are "unconstitutional." And the Supreme Court's jurisprudence so far allows them to do this. That's because in the Heller case, which for the first time in 230 years or so found an individual right to bear arms, specifically said that they were not saying what level of scrutiny should be applied to gun laws or how. (Heller dealt with DC's law. Since DC is a federal city, a second case is required to determine if the right to carry a gun applies to the states.)

So while it is inevitable that the court will rule 5-4 that Heller also applies to the States, the court will be forced to at least articulate some methodology for testing state gun laws in the future. The court says the right is absolute. But that would mean that meth addicts could carry machine-guns into elementary schools. I think that this might be a bit much even for Scalia. Thus, there must be some balancing test and almost anyone they could conjure up would make most gun control laws short of total confiscation of all guns constitutional.

This would do two good things. Those who oppose even the most reasonable gun laws could no longer say such laws are unconstitutional, and they could no longer say that our real agenda is taking away all guns from everyone because that would be unconstitutional. This would save lives and enable Ted Nugent to calmly rest his head on his pillow, which is stuffed with large, powerful guns.