Best I Read in the Past Week (Links for 3.30.315)

From the various stories I read in the past week, the best...

1. Imagine if Lawmakers tried to unite Indiana - Much of what I read in the past week dealt with Indiana's signing into law their version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  It appealed to me on many different levels.  The cases that resulted in the passage of the federal RFRA in 1993 initially peaked my interest in constitutional law matters during a class in college; and their subsequent treatment by the courts, the resulting legislation at the federal level due to that treatment, as well as at the State level, has been relevant in my practice of law several times.  Due to that, I'm well aware of the language that is in the bill, what has been portrayed accurately and inaccurately about it, as well as what its possible impacts are.  The political impact of it this past week, with the national reaction and fall out, is something that I'm not completely surprised about, though I am surprised that our Governor and others are surprised.  Social opinions and mores have changed drastically in the past ten years, and its almost like they weren't paying attention.  Anyway, of everything I read the past week about this issue or related to this issue, I liked this Tully piece the best, because it speaks, I think, to the ultimate problem with a super-majority for one party, such as we have in Indiana.  Some hard, critical inquiry was not done before passing this bill to gauge what the reaction will be.  As a result, the State has looked very bad this past week, and is looking at losing business at a time when we all wish to continue economic recovery.  Too much of our politics is divisive, and this was no different.  I, like Tully, wonder how things could be different.

2. Why Reconstruction Matters - This opinion piece from the New York Times on the Reconstruction period of U.S. history immediately following the American Civil War was thought provoking.  Reconstruction is not a "popular" time in our history to study - we leap from the Civil War to WWI/Depression/WWII without a whole lot of thought; which I think is a shame, because, as the article suggests, the period is fascinating about what it can teach us.  As the article notes, Reconstruction established the principle in the U.S. of birthright citizenship, which is still rare in today's world, and impacts our current discussion of immigration.  I also particularly liked this thought, speaking to President Andrew Johnson's veto of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and how we view "reverse discrimination" today: ". . . in the idea that expanding the rights of nonwhites somehow punishes the white majority, the ghost of Andrew Johnson still haunts our discussions of race."

3.  A Baseball Story - This is a piece by Joe Posnanski.  Posnanski I think is one of the best sports writers today, particularly when it comes to baseball.  Anything he writes about baseball, I try to read. He's that good.  This story is about Bobby Bragan and Jackie Robinson, back to the integration of Major League Baseball.  I've long thought that Jackie Robinson, and those ancillary to his triumph in integrating baseball get the shaft when it comes to discussing civil rights, because it happened in sports.  Yet Robinson integrated baseball 7 years before the Brown decision that abolished the "separate but equal" doctrine, 8 years before Rosa Parks threw the Civil Rights movement into the national spotlight.  In any event, Posnanski tells this story wonderfully, and for whatever reason, it makes me happy that the baseball season is to begin.