You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. The Federal Judicial Center presents Supreme Court 2000-2001, The Term and Review, an FJTN program for judges, staff attorneys and law clerks. Now from the television studios of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C., your moderator, Russell Wheeler. Welcome to the Federal Judicial Center's fifth annual review of the Supreme Court's October term. We'll analyze the courts holding in 45 of this term's cases, cases that we think are most likely to affect litigation in the federal courts. We'll look first at civil rights, civil liberties and elections, second at criminal law and procedure, sentencing and incarceration, prisoner litigation and alien rights, and third at separation of powers, federalism, habeas corpus and commercial litigation. Each part will last about 35 minutes. We'll summarize the holdings and for some cases we'll suggest and occasionally disagree about the decisions likely impact. Our goal is an overview of the term, not detailed analyses of individual cases. What was most important about the term? It's hard to say at this point, but there were some areas of special interest, elections for example, commercial arbitration, search and seizure and habeas corpus, habeas corpus generally and specifically as to aliens rights. Another aspect of the term was a number of cases dealing with the relation of law and technology. For example, cellular phones make it easier to communicate and easier to intercept communications. Even if it all does the First Amendment protect press dissemination of illegally intercepted material. Technology such as optical scanning, while expensive, may provide election officials a more accurate count of votes than traditional methods. Does the use of more sophisticated technology and only part of a jurisdiction violate the Equal Protection Clause? Heat sensing technology gives people on the outside of a building some idea of what's going on inside. When police use that technology on a house, do they need a warrant? Electronic databases permit easy dissemination of articles that appeared previously in newspapers and magazines to publishers and fringe authors' copyrights by placing them without permission in online or CD-ROM databases. And finally, does the use of an electric cart by a handicapped golfer fundamentally alter the game of golf? Over the next two hours, we'll describe these cases and others as well as try to put the term into some context. We've made two changes in this year's program. First, for some of the cases, we produce brief video summaries narrated by the Center's Robin Rowland. Please use the one-page evaluation form in your written materials to let us know what you think of these summaries, as well as any other aspect of the program. Your comments help us identify ways to improve next year's edition. Second, in response to your comments on last year's program, your materials have summaries of all 85 of this term's cases that were decided with full opinion or at least with a substantive purcurium opinion. The 45 cases that we'll discuss are listed first. In the order, we'll discuss them. The materials also include brief biographies of the three law professors who will summarize and comment on the cases. Senator Evan Sen Lee of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, helped us prepare for this program but was ill and unable to join us. Let's turn now to part one. We'll start with four cases involving the First Amendment's religion and speech clauses and one involving the Fifth Amendment's taking clause. Here to discuss them are Irwin Chemerinsky of the University of Southern California School of Law and Ernest Young of the University of Texas School of Law. This is a real potpourri of First Amendment cases. There was one religion case that Steve and Darlene Fournier brought in Milford, New York. They started a good news club, it's a whole network of clubs around the world for young children and wanted to use the school building to meet. Although the school had a policy, like in other groups that provided moral instruction to meet there, they denied the good news club access to the school. What was unexpected or what was expected in this decision? There wasn't necessarily anything that surprising but important I think. The majority plainly thought this case was a rerun of Lambs Chapel in 1993 decision which held that when a public school opens up its facilities to private groups after hours they can't exclude religious groups. What's important in the good news case is that the majority saw two potentially distinguishing characteristics as unimportant. First of all, the club's activities involved not just religious discussion of secular issues but also religious worship unlike Lambs Chapel. Then second, the children here were much younger and therefore much more impressionable than the children involved in the court's previous cases. The first point suggests a kind of a continuing effort by the court to bring its religious speech cases more into line with its free speech jurisprudence generally. Stephen's argues in dissent and good news for instance that the Constitution should distinguish between impermissible religious worship or religious proselytization on the one hand and permissible religious discussion on the other hand but it's hard to imagine that the court would tolerate that kind of fine distinction in any other non-religious free speech context. The second point suggests that the court's insistence that public school is special for establishment clause purposes because of the presence of young children but that insistence may be weakening and that would be an important development to the extent that the court's public school prayer cases are based on that distinction. Well, thanks, Ernie. Ernie, let me pick up on a point there. Given the facts in this case, and they're not real clear, but given the facts in this case what would it take for a program not to survive establishment clause? You had kids as Ernie said are young six to twelve. They met in the school more than just intellectual discussion of religion and they not only met in the school but their meetings bunted right up against the end of the school day so what would not survive? I think there's still the basis for an as applied challenge to religious groups use of school facilities particularly if there's some evidence of school coercion or government symbolic endorsement of religion. Some factors that might distinguish this case be the basis for an as applied challenge or as if teachers participate in the program. The announcements are made over the school public address system. If, for example, it's held during the school day rather than after school is in this case. One problem though is that given the nature of the court's endorsement test, it may be hard for any restriction on religious speech to survive near a tailoring. After all, the school can always put a disclaimer up that they're not backing the religious speech and that may always be the least restrictive alternative. But it's uncertain this area whether that would be enough. There's never been a Supreme Court case dealing with those kinds of alternatives would make it permissible under the First Amendment. If otherwise it would be unconstitutional. So we'll see more litigation there. Definitely. Let me stay with you Erwin and refer to one of the cases we mentioned in the introduction. This is the case that Gloria Bartnicki and Anthony Cain brought against a radio broadcaster. They had some cell phone conversations about union disputes they were involved in. They were two union officials. Talked about blowing up a porch. Well, somebody got a copy of this conversation and gave it to Fred Voper. He played it on the radio. They sued him under the civil damage provisions of federal and state law. And Justice Stevens in an opinion had some sympathy for the notion of privacy for these conversations, but he said the First Amendment overwrote it at least here. He emphasized two factors. One is that the tape concerned a matter of public importance. And second, that the media played no role in the illegal interception or recording of the conversation. Justice Breyer wrote a separate concurring opinion joined by Justice O'Connor emphasizing this is a very narrow decision because it did concern a matter of public importance and because the media done nothing illegal in intercepting recording the conversation. The Supreme Court in past cases, like Cox Broadcasting v. Cohn in 1975, Blood of Starvers, BGF in 1989, it said the media can't be held liable if it lawfully obtains information and then truthfully reports it. But those cases involved the media gaining information from government records. I think this case is significant because the information came from non-government sources and there was some illegal activity, just not by the media. Given what you said, is there a message to the press here, or at least the overly aggressive press? I mean, what would happen to Voper himself at Interceptor to the Communication? I think the clear implication from Justice Stevens' decision is if the media participates in illegal interception or recording, then they don't get First Amendment protection. First Amendment protection depends on it being both a matter of public importance and the media not doing anything illegal in the interception or recording. Okay, thanks very much, Erwin. Ernie, another kind of free speech case involved the Legal Services Corporation this term. Congress has placed a variety of restrictions on grantees of legal service corporation funds, no-class actions, for example. It's also told them, and that's an issue in this Falesco's case, can't represent welfare clients to the extent that representing them would involve advocating a change in the law. Now, would you tell us what the court decided about this case and whether this is really about free speech or is this about the independent judicial process and independent bar? Well, the court held that the restriction on challenges to welfare reform are unconstitutional. The case could have been about viewpoint discrimination, but it wound up being about the special status of lawyers. It's fairly well settled that the government may discriminate on the basis of viewpoint when it's promulgating its own message, as in Russ versus Sullivan, for instance. But here, the LSC program was designed to facilitate private speech of indigent clients. So the fact that this particular restriction affected only one side of the welfare debate could have been dispositive. Now, what makes the case a little bit confusing is that the court threw in some extra language about to the effect that here the government seeks to take an existing medium of expression, courts and lawyers, and distort it in ways that distort its usual functioning. The idea seems to be that when government chooses to subsidize speech through particular kinds of persons or institutions, courts, lawyers, or public universities, for instance, the government is not free to restrict the speech that is subsidized to a more narrow range of subjects or topics in a way that it might otherwise be using other medium. But it's hard to say why that would be true or how far that principle goes. To what extent can this case be limited to challenges to welfare regulations? There are other restrictions, and with those received legal service money can do, they can't bring class action suits, they can't challenge abortion laws, they can't represent aliens. Are these regulations also now vulnerable? It really depends on how important the viewpoint discrimination aspect of the case really was to the court. Those other restrictions on LSC grantees tend to be more defensively viewpoint neutral. Ernie, we'll come back to you in a little while to talk about this next case involving the Laurel Art Tobacco suit, because there's a preemption aspect of it, and we'll get to that in part three. But Erwin, I want to ask you now about the portions of these regulations issued by the Massachusetts Attorney General governing not only the sale but the advertising of tobacco that were not preempted by federal law. There's some commercial speech lessons here for federal judges. I think there's several. The Supreme Court struck down the restriction on cigar and smokeless tobacco advertising as violating the First Amendment. And I think there's three important lessons for federal courts here. One is the Supreme Court clearly said that the central huts and test is to be used when federal courts consider First Amendment challenges to government regulation of commercial speech. Second, I think the court has made clear that it's not going to allow the government to regulate advertising as a way of discouraging what's perceived as harmful behavior. In the last few years, we've seen cases before the court where they struck down restriction on liquor ads, gambling ads, and now tobacco ads. It seems the court's clearly saying the government can't try to control behavior by restricting advertising. And third, I think the court made clear here that the government can't regulate speech for adults so as to protect children. I think this can be important especially as courts consider restrictions on sexual speech. Okay, a variety of implications then. Erwin, let's move from the First Amendment to the Fifth Amendment in a case which got a fair amount of attention. Anthony Palazzola came into a title to some coastal lands in Rhode Island. He had been the sole shareholder in a corporation that failed. When he took title, there were in place in Rhode Island regulations on the wetlands. He tried to have them developed and the Rhode Island authority said, no, citing these regulations. And he said, well, that's a taking. The Rhode Island Supreme Court, the Rhode Island Supreme Court said, it's not a taking. They were in place when you got title. The Supreme Court didn't see it that way. What's for federal judges anyway, the impact here? I think the impact is this lessens the tools that federal judges have to be able to dismiss takings claims. There were three distinct parts to the court's holding here. First, the court found that the claim was right for review. The Supreme Court reaffirmed that in order for a takings claim to be right, there's to first be a ruling by the state administrative agency. Now, in this case, Palazzola had never applied for a permit for this specific development. But the Supreme Court said, because there was no doubt as to how the agency would rule, it was still right for review. The court said it was no doubt in light of the language of the regulations and the past disposition requests. Second, and I think most important, the court said, that a person can bring a takings class challenge even if the regulations were in place at the time of the acquisition of the property. Justice Kennedy said, there's no expiration date on the takings clause. But third, the court here found that there wasn't evidence of a taking. A regulatory taking generally requires a showing that there's no reasonable, economically viable use of the property left. The court said he still had use of the property, an 18-parcel aspect of it worth $200,000. And the court said he thus couldn't show, on these facts, a regulatory taking. You suspect it'll be in environmental areas, though, that we see most of the impact of this decision? Definitely. And I think what you're going to see is that landowners bring many more challenges to environmental regulations based on this case. And again, I think the real significance is people could even buy a piece of property with the whole purpose of challenging regulations, particularly environmental regulations. So in creating litigation strategies for various public interest groups? Absolutely. Thanks very much, Erwin. Thank you, Ernie. And we'll be back in a moment to consider some civil rights cases. Now we'll turn to six cases involving application of various civil rights statutes to discuss them are Lori Levinson of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and Ernie Young. And Ernie, we'll start with you. And the case from Tennessee, you were mentioning that in most states, lies in Tennessee, there's an athletic association that regulates interschlastic competition among public and private schools. Brentwood Academy sued the Tennessee Secondary Athletic Association over a fine, sued them under Section 1983. And the association said, well, hold on. We're not a state actor here. The court held otherwise. What do they add to the criteria for defining state action in this Brentwood case? State action has always been a pretty flexible concept. Here, the majority applies what the dissent says is an even newer and more flexible version of that. And that's the entwinement approach. Basically, entwinement is about looking at as many factors as you can that suggest a relationship between the state and the actor. Here, the key factors are that the public schools make up 84% of the association's membership. The association is run by public school officials who are serving in their official capacity. State board of education officials serve on the association's board. The association employees are even eligible for membership in the state teacher retirement system. Entwinement also seems to be something of a balancing test and that the court also inquires whether there are special factors that would make it unfair to find that the association is a state actor. Here, they don't find any such factors. The implications are that the state action doctrine may be even looser than it was before. The approach seems to be now think of every fact that suggests state action, every fact that might suggest against state action, and then roll the dice. And they rolled it here in favor of Brentwood. They did. Thanks. Laurie, we thought we'd have a state action case in this suit by G.G. Sprinkler's against Arthur Lujan, the California Labor Commissioner. This involves the state wage prevailing laws, prevailing wage laws for public works contracts in which the primary contractor payments can be withheld if they don't pay prevailing wages. And the primary contractor can withhold from the subcontractor. And we thought we might learn whether or not that withholding without a hearing by the primary contractor was actionable state action, as it were. But that's not where the case came out. That's right. The court did not focus on the state action question. What the court focused on was the due process question and said there was enough due process here. Because in fact, the subcontractors, even if they didn't get a hearing before the payments were withheld, they had the normal state judicial process to use. And the court emphasized that due process is not an inflexible concept. Using the judicial process was enough to satisfy due process. And so that case wasn't too much trouble for the court. Not at all. Another case from California, again, was nine to nothing. This involved this, came out of an incident when Vice President Gore was speaking at the Presidio. And Donald Saucer, a military policeman, arrested Elliot Katz. And Katz said he roughed him up and brought a Bivens action. Saucer responded that this should go off on summary judgment because I have qualified immunity. Now, what's the instruction that Justice Kennedy's opinion gives to the district courts in that sort of circumstance? What the court said is on the issue of qualified immunity in excessive force cases, it is not the same question, that it is a two-step process. Because in fact, if the defendant has qualified immunity, he should never have to stand trial in the first place. Even though both issues deal with the question of whether there was a reasonable use of force. So what the court said is that the first thing the district court has to look at is the qualified immunity on the summary judgment motion. And to do so, the court has to look at whether the law was settled at the time on the issue. If the law was not settled, then there's a good argument that there was qualified immunity and this issue never gets to the jury. Can you give us an example how this might play out? Yes, it is helpful to think of an example.  In many jurisdictions, the question of whether officers can use dogs and the dog bites for their law enforcement purposes is not well-settled. In such a case, you can imagine that you could have a case that went to the jury and the jury would say that's an excessive use of force. What the court here is saying is that maybe that case should never get to the jury. That before that, the district court has to decide, well, was the law on dog bites in that jurisdiction well-settled? If it wasn't, there's qualified immunity. It doesn't go to the jury. Okay, thanks very much. Let's pick up another case, one that could have far-reaching consequences. This is the suit by some residents in Alabama, Martha Sandoval and others against the state for administering driver's license tests in English only. And the suit that they brought against the Alabama authorities was brought under section 602 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, clearly an implied right of action in the case here of disparate impact discrimination. Let's establish how the court disposed of the claim first, then we'll talk about the implications. Well, what the court said is that there was no implied right of action for the private individual for the disparate impact. Even though the court acknowledged that it had previously said for intentional discrimination, there might be a private cause of action. Here the court said that because Congress had not expressly created that private cause of action, there wasn't such a cause of action. The court said perhaps there are remedies by shutting down the funding for the institution, or maybe left open the question whether there's a possible 1983 action in these cases. But because there was no express Congress authorization for a private cause of action, that did not exist. And so the implications for district judges that they're gonna be seeing cases in other grounds. I think that's right. One other possible implication is that the majority opinion pretty strongly suggests that the underlying regulations themselves may not be valid under the statutory scheme that Congress has established. The majority notes, for instance, that these regulations are in considerable tension with Bakke and other cases that say section 601 itself forecloses only intentional discrimination. So it's not hard to imagine that other shoe dropping fairly soon. I think this case is also part of a fairly consistent trend by the court in recent years of tightening up on private rights of action in general. Well, let's stay on that same subject of private litigants enforcing civil rights statutes and turn to this case of Buckhannon, board in care home versus West Virginia. As you know, lawyers for the home brought an action under the Age Discrimination Act because West Virginia laws required that residents of these homes be able to get out on their own steam, and they couldn't do that here. So they threatened to deny certification to the home. Lawyers brought suit. The West Virginia legislature, before the District Court could act, changed the law. They repealed the statute. The attorneys sought attorney's fees that were under the fee shifting provision of the ADA. But in the Fourth Circuit anyway, it wasn't available. And it turns out from the Supreme Court, it's not available to others. That's right. The court held that the plain meaning of prevailing parties in the statute is that they get a court ordered resolution of the case, either a litigated judgment or a court endorsed consent decree. The court relied in part on Black's Law Dictionary, which used prevailing parties in that sense, but it also picked up the definition of prevailing parties in other related statutes. The important thing is that the court rejected the catalyst theory, which is that a plain, maybe a prevailing party, if he achieves the desired result, because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in conduct by the defendant, whether or not there's a litigated judgment. And there was discussion in the majority opinion. There was discussion in a lot of commentary about this case, about its impact on litigation strategies now that the catalyst theory isn't available anymore. Do you have any comment on that? Well, that is certainly a central concern of the opinions. The majority thinks that the catalyst theory may actually create a disincentive for defendants to settle. If you want to avoid fees liability, you have to fight to the bitter end, even if you want to change your conduct afterwards, because that's the only way to avoid paying for the lawyers. The dissenters, on the other hand, worry that defendants will have an incentive when they see that they're about to lose to change their conduct at the last minute, moot out the case, and therefore, cheat the plaintiff of the fees. The majority says not to worry about that, because for one thing, if you have a damages claim in the case, then the case won't become moot. There's also something called the voluntary cessation doctrine, that if the defendant is free to go back to his old mischievous ways, then the case won't be moot either. So it's unlikely that this tactic would be too successful. But there obviously is going to be speculation about what tactics to use. Absolutely. Thanks, Ernie. Lori, we all know the case of PGA versus Martin. Casey Martin clearly couldn't walk a golf course. He's a professional golfer, and needed an electric cart, and sued the PGA Tour under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Was this a narrow case, a broad case? What do we know about the ADA after this case? It was actually a very narrow holding by the court with regard to Casey Martin's situation. What we know is that the court said, look, golf courses are public accommodations covered by the ADA. The court really didn't have to decide the bigger question of client or customer since they found that Casey Martin, who paid to participate, did qualify. And it was also agreed upon that it was reasonable and necessary for him to have this type of accommodation, because even by using the cart, he didn't have an undue advantage over the other golfers. What we really learned was what the court's attitude was with regard to the fundamental nature of the game of golf, which the court said was not the fatigue factor, it was walking, not that, walking the course, but in fact, making the shots. And Justice Stevens had a certain amount of fun with the opinion, you think? That's right. Thanks very much, Lori, and thank you, Ernie. Next, we'll take up this term's cases involving elections and voting rights. The court's election cases, particularly those involving the presidential election, we're a big part of this term's news. We've prepared a brief video segment about four cases. Let's take a look at that, and then Erwin Chemerinsky and Ernie Young will have some comments. For the last several years, elections have been in the news and before the court. What did the court do this term and what's on the horizon? In this segment, we'll look at four aspects of elections, term limits and cook fee gray-like, campaign finance and FEC, the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, redistricting and hunt fee chromarty. And finally, whether last year's presidential dispute in Bush v. Gore created new equal protection standards for election procedures. First, term limits. Or more accurately, what may states do to try to limit the term served by members of Congress? In 1995, in U.S. term limits v. Thornton, the court threw out an Arkansas constitutional provision that said people who had served three terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives or two terms as a member of the United States Senate are not eligible to appear on the ballot. The court said that the power to add qualifications is not reserved to the states by the 10th Amendment. The decision this term, cook fee gray-like, involved a Missouri constitutional provision to try to encourage the election of term limit proponents. It directed the ballots to say next to certain candidates' names that they disregarded voters' instruction on term limits. Missouri said it was exercising its right under the 10th Amendment to instruct its legislators and its right to regulate the conduct of elections. But the Supreme Court said any authority to regulate federal elections had to be delegated to rather than reserved by the states. This authority is to regulate the times, places and manner for electing federal legislators. The requirements imposed by Missouri went well beyond those mechanical regulations. Next, campaign finance laws. The issue in FEC, the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, can Congress, under the First Amendment, limit political parties' campaign expenditures that are coordinated with a candidate's congressional campaign. The key precedent here is the 1976 Buckley v. Velaio decision, which the court essentially confirmed last term in Nixon v. Shrink, Missouri government PAC. Congress can limit the amount people can contribute to a political campaign. That's not a First Amendment violation because there are other ways for a person to express her political views. But Congress cannot set ceilings on the amount people spend on political campaigns themselves. That restricts the ability of candidates, citizens and associations to engage in protected political expression. This term in the Colorado case, the court reaffirmed its holdings in Buckley and Shrink, Missouri government PAC. Expenditures coordinated with a campaign, even expenditures by political parties, are to be treated as contributions. Thus, the court upheld Congress's limits on party spending that is coordinated with a candidate's campaign. If a party has the right to make unlimited coordinated expenditures, a candidate's supporters could contribute to the party to finance coordinated spending for that candidate. This, said the court, would increase the risk of bypassing the valid contribution limits that Buckley upheld. Third, redistricting. When legislatures draw boundaries, what's permissible under the Equal Protection Clause and the 1965 Voting Rights Act? Shaw v. Reno in 1993 involved a challenge to North Carolina's 12th Federal Legislative District. The court said that if a district can rationally be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting, it is unconstitutional. Such racial gerrymandering may exacerbate the very patterned of racial block voting that majority minority districting is sometimes said to counteract. The 12th District came back to the court three more times, including this term in Hunt v. Chromarty. Throughout the controversy over the 12th District, the question the courts have asked, how to distinguish redistricting based on politics, which is constitutional, from redistricting based on race, which is not. Furthermore, in its amicus brief, the government reminded the court that this was its final opportunity to clarify the legal standards governing a racial gerrymandering claim before state legislatures begin the redistricting process based on the 2000 census. In Hunt, the court upheld the redrawn 12th District. Justice Breyer said for the five justice majority that the attacking party has not successfully shown that race, rather than politics, predominantly accounts for the results. The court pointed out, for example, that in North Carolina race correlates closely with political behavior. African-Americans there vote overwhelmingly democratic. The fact finder must be careful before assuming that a heavily black district reflects primarily racial, as opposed to political party considerations. The fourth question for this segment, did the court's decision resolving last year's presidential election turmoil create a new legal standard for judging election procedures? The Supreme Court said last December that a partial manual recount of presidential ballots in Florida cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work. But the percurium opinion stressed that the decision was limited to the present circumstances for the problem of equal protection and election processes generally presents many complexities. Nevertheless, some commentators insist the court has opened up new grounds for challenging elections, which are almost certain to come under increased scrutiny in light of the last election. Voting methods in five states are already under court challenge based on Bush v. Gore. To provide some perspective on the likely impact of these cases are Ernie Young and Erwin Chemerinsky. Erwin, we're gonna spend most of our time on the reapportionment case in Bush v. Gore, but the FEC case, although it's pretty dispositive as to the federal law, probably provides guidance also to judges dealing with state and local finance laws, campaign finance laws. What is the guidance? Many state and local governments have laws regulating spending in state and local elections, and there are already many challenges pending in federal courts and more likely. I think this case does provide a framework for courts to use in evaluating these challenges. The case clearly says that contribution limits generally are allowed, though there's still an open question so that some contribution limits might be so restrictive as to violate the First Amendment. Expenditure limits, though, generally are not allowed, but this court says in this case that coordinated expenditures can be restricted even if they're by political parties. So that's what to use in evaluating state and local. That's right. Thanks a lot. Now let's go to the reapportionment case. If the 1990s are any guide, we are on the cusp of another upsurge in voting rights and redistricting cases after the 2000 census. There's a chart on the screen we can look at that shows that in 1992, almost a quarter of the 2000 cases filed in that decade came in 1992, so presumably 2002 is gonna be the year. What is the guidance for federal judges from Cromarty facing this upsurge in cases? Justice Breyer's majority opinion clearly says that the government may use political factors in drawing election districts. For example, it could create a majority black district, create a safe seat for an incumbent, or create a majority black district, so it could create a majority democratic district. However, the government cannot use race as the predominant factor in drawing election district lines, such as making it easier to elect a minority representative. It's interesting here that the district court had found as a matter of fact that race was the predominant motivating factor. The Supreme Court overturned the three judge panel's fact finding is quote clearly erroneous, something the Supreme Court really does. Let me ask you this question, getting back to the litigation that the courts will be facing. It's not only a matter of one person, one vote, and avoiding districts based on racial lines, as you just described, but there are other standards that courts have to observe, just refresh us to what those are. Is you referred to, there are constitutional limits in districting based on equal protection, one person, one vote, that race can't be the predominant factor in drawing district lines. Additionally, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as amended in 1982 also create requirements. Under those laws, and particularly in 1982 amendment, any practice in drawing district lines that has a disproportionate racial impact can be challenged, and under the standards of Thornburg versus Jengles, districts have to be compact, they have to be contiguous, and the like. Okay, thanks very much. Ernie, let's turn to Bush v. Gore, and we're not going to revisit all the events of last December, but as the piece pointed out, the video piece pointed out, the court based its refusal of the standardless manual recounts in Florida to continue because of an equal protection problem, but then it tried to cabin the decision, the opinion just reading once more. Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances for the problems of equal protection and election processes, generally presents many complexities. Can this holding be limited to what happened last December? Well, I don't think it's going to be limited just to what happened last December, but the court is going slowly here and properly so. I think at the least, if the court orders a statewide manual recount in say a gubernatorial election or a senatorial election, then the uniform counting standards that are required by Bush v. Gore are going to apply. And if, for one of those elections, if some of the jurisdictions have electronic voting machines and others have punch cards, is that going to be coming in an issue? I think that's a terribly interesting question because that's something that particular political groups have a real incentive to challenge. Those kinds of disparities in the vote counting methods tend to track various socioeconomic and even racial lines. And so there's a big incentive, a big ability to perceive who would benefit from striking something like that down. And the crucial question is going to be what sort of state interest is going to count as sufficient to justify that sort of disparities? I think Bush v. Gore rules out one possibility, which would be simply that the interest in local control of the decision is itself enough to justify doing it differently in different localities. But there are other possible interests in primarily costs. And the question is whether the cost of replacing all the voting machines would itself be enough to justify staying with what you have. I think an important threshold question in dealing with those challenges would be what level of scrutiny is to be used? Is it rational basis or strict scrutiny? The Supreme Court didn't say but the district courts and courts of appeals are going to have to decide that in resolving the issues. If it's rational basis review, then saving money is sufficient. But if it's strict scrutiny, the Supreme Court has always said efficiency in saving money aren't enough to meet that rigid test. And we'll watch how that comes out. Thanks very much, Irwin. And thank you, Ernie. I should mention that the Senate is developing some materials to help judges faced with redistricting cases, including explanations of some of the statistical evidence likely to be offered. We hope to have those materials ready sometime this fall. That concludes the first part of this review of the Supreme Court's October term, 2000. After a short break, we'll take up some of this term's decisions involving criminal law, criminal procedure, sentencing and prisoner litigation, and three decisions involving the rights of aliens.


the objects that we have built. I will show a few images later. But going back to this image, and also looking at, I'm not looking at the comments, but there were a couple of comments, and these comments were quite interesting, so I don't wanna get into these comments. But if someone wants to discuss them with me, I think please come and talk to me later. But I think one comment, and thanks to Sayani, I think that I would like to take out of this discussion. I didn't participate in it, was to kind of celebrate diversity. And I think that that's kind of something that I really would like to push. I'm trying to push that here in La Salle. It works sometimes, sometimes it doesn't. But to work with people from different disciplines. I think that can be quite refreshing. It can be very frustrating. But I think it's just a different, you just get different points of views, how people from different disciplines work, look at things and kind of interpret them. Okay, so that's the starting point for my talk now. And I would like to go back like two years, 2014, when basically whatever is in this little box here, that's the thing, that's the thing. It didn't burn the house down, it's still working. And it started 2014 when we were asked to do a light installation for an opening at our second campus, Winstead, which is down at Newton. And we were asked to, we, that's our students and colleagues of mine, to do a light installation because we have a big green patch there. And for the opening, we proposed light installation to be set up there. So it all started with these little cubes, small-scale model, Naderino, a TSE LED driver and some LED modules. And this is kind of what came out of it then after like two or three months of work. An installation work made out of Maranti wood boxes, one by one by one boxes. There are 81 of those. They're all custom-built, hand-built, by DIA and the students. And then they are equipped with these LED tubes that you buy in Simlin, a very nice lady at level two. E-Scan. In this little box here in the center. So that was the control unit of it. What is inside? Well, there's an Naderino inside. For us, I think it's just the easiest way to work and prototype and develop these projects. A TSE 16 channel LED driver, some MOSFETs, a lot of wires, and then these LEDs. During the opening, I think a lot of people kind of misunderstood the idea of the work, so they came up and of course you said to take a lot of selfies and climb these boxes, which was a little bit scary to us, but it worked. And I think that's also a very inspiring moment when the audience kind of takes over your work. So it's not like, okay, there's a painting on the wall, don't touch it. But when the audience kind of approaches your work and kind of interprets the purpose of it, it makes it a little space. Sorry? What have you intended? It was a light installation, the lights, they oscillate in different phases, in different modes. And there's a, I don't have a video of it, unfortunately, but I have videos later. Sometimes it kind of pulses, so it's kind of in resting mode. Sometimes it starts to flicker. And it just wants to be there and participate and entertain people. Of course it also had to be in big because the whole patch is so big. So a lot of work in the end went into building these boxes. We also have massive rain and it kind of sustained that rain. So we can make it waterproof. And eventually I thought it was a good experience. Yes, definitely was a good outcome. I would have made some things differently. Those are mostly aesthetical decisions that I would refine. But in the end, it worked out really well. The collaboration worked out really well. Students learned something and everyone was happy at the end of the event. So moving on from there, there's the circuit. The circuit wasn't packed into a box and then kind of stored in a shelf. I invited other people to come and collaborate with me. In this case, it was Bunny Haikar, who's a local musician, multimedia artist. So he does a lot of things for it to do art science lady vent at the Art Science Museum. And again, I brought this little box here down here. We set up this whole installation or this began a duration installation performance. We set it up for the... Well, we came into the room all empty. We set up all the boxes within these three hours. We did our performance. We packed everything and after three hours, the room was empty again. Modularity and I think for me, a very important element of my work because I don't permanently install my work. I bring my work to different places. You will see more spaces and places later. So modularity, packing things, putting them together very quickly is kind of very important to me. Moving on to the next project. So I'm doing a lot of projects here. A research project with a colleague of mine, Brian O'Reilly, he's a musician and I was talking to Sayang earlier. So we proposed this research project which is about interconnecting musical and artistic interfaces. MIDI software that use OC, software that uses WebSocket and Arduino's, of course, using serial communication to bring them all together and talk to each other.  So super-collider generating some tones, standing it over, I think in this case, this machine, serial communication to our suitcase and then lighting up the lights. Come in. Cheers for takeout last. Yeah, there's still a lot of empty seats. Just leave it open. Otherwise people will not put something up. And then another version. So from the light installation out, this object kind of also starts to speak in this case. This tone generator language. It's more aggressive. And this then resulted amongst other objects and other interfaces, other musical instruments, again, in a performance piece that we showed here in the performance space downstairs. So work I think is always very hands-on. It always needs to work. So if it doesn't work, the audience will be very upset. We will be upset as well. So I think making things work is really important to us. So it can't fail. And maybe just run through that installation. So there's a lot of software pieces, screen-based works, analog synthesizers, again, the lights and the box. And so on. So again, we develop everything here from scratch, all in-house productions. Of course, we make a lot of use of open-source software, open-source hardware. So moving on, so now the lights can make light. They can speak, make sound. The next step for us then was to integrate them into performances in this case. A theater play, improvised theater play with acting students here from La Salle, where the props kind of became the architecture of the space. The next project, the following year, the lights then were used in collaboration with dancers, dance students, who again have a completely different view of what this is. How to interact with it, how to work with it. What does it mean when the light is blinking very fast? What does it mean when it pulses? How do I respond to it? So how do I interact with this thing? Just a few images. The next project I brought into the gallery downstairs, so the idea of that exhibition was to set up that structure, again with these light fixtures within timeframe of two weeks, invite students to come up with that particular structure, work with me, introduce them to the electronics parts. Again, it was for kind of this playful activity of getting students involved and then bringing technology into an artistic environment. That was earlier this year, 2016, in the gallery downstairs. And then just recently, the exhibition, the duration of performance at the National Museum. I don't have the footage yet, so I think the only thing I have is here, the tower, which was equipped with these light fixtures. That's the resting mold of the tower, while we were not there and performing, we just like resting, we can't blink a little bit to catch attraction. Yeah, most of the lights are basically based on this little thing, which you see in the seatcase. I mean, it doesn't look very pretty to an engineer, I guess, but I think this is how we work best. That's what we... That's the easiest method for us to make things work. We tried perfboards and so on, soldering everything. There's a little mistake in there. We are screwed, had to do it everything from scratch, so that's something we don't really like because we're always working at the edge of time. But nevertheless, now having an engineer come in here and finding this really, oh my goodness, you can't do this. I think that's great, but even greater would be then to take up the challenge and come up here and say, look, I'm gonna build you a PCB board, all right?  And really, if someone is up for making this work as a PCB design board, please contact me and come up to me. But having shown all these images, two years, endless, not endless, but maybe eight, 10 performances, this thing has worked quite well. We haven't burned down anything. So it works, it works for us. It does what it's supposed to do and that's important. And yeah, that actually is more important to us. I think for an engineer again, and I think that the question I was very surprised didn't pop up in that discussion. What does this box actually do? And none of this box, what does it do, right? There was no question, what does it do? There was only comments about what it is. And that's for me very surprising because for me, it's always like, what do things do? Yeah, it's not going into the detail, but yeah, what do you make out of it? And maybe there's also something through collaboration that could be explored, I guess is the right word. And I think that's why I would like to build some bridges between the arts and the engineering community. And I'm always up for that, to have people come in. In the beginning, I think it will not be easy, right? Conflicts or people don't like what you're saying or what you're doing and how you're doing things. But I think over time, and I have experienced that in other projects, for example, with dance, things kind of normalize and kind of go into new directions. And that's where things become quite interesting and exciting. It takes time, but I'm very open to have discussions of working with engineers and bringing them in, or I'm going out and kind of joining you on whatever journey there is. That's about it. And it's 16 minutes, all right. Yeah, that's about it, what I wanted to talk about and tell you guys. Questions, I don't know. Is the questions now or questions later? Usually, we don't have questions. Now, everyone is speechless. But I guess for the host. No, no, it's fine, but... Maybe one question for Andreas, just one. Yes, please. Was there the only circuitry there is? No, there's a lot more. Because I'm wondering how it's functioning in the 3-day days. You see, it's not only are you using like 4 or 4 P2s. Man, I can make this work later. I can make it work now. Oh, I know. We have 5 minutes for this, huh? There will be. There will be time. I have to go near the top of the table. Okay, I'm setting this. How many minutes to learn the work? You only need to level 6, okay? I'm going to do the right part. I'll show you the face, the arms, the little parts are right in the master class. Tommy. I'm going to answer this last question. I'm going to answer the rest of the questions. Thank you. Oh, just a moment. All right, so while Andreas is setting up, anybody has any complimentary competitions to announce? Like, there's a hardware hackathon happening, or any hardware competitions happening? All right, so anybody who wants to hire a hardware or electrical engineer, electronics engineers, artists, nobody wants to hire. Okay, anybody is looking for a job? I'm looking for a post-sign. Okay, what are you looking for? Post-sign engineer. You want a job? No, I'm looking for a job. Oh, he is looking for a post-sign engineer. It's software engineering. Just tell you what we're looking for. Just tell you what we're looking for, right? Yes, which one? Right. I'm also looking for a white light. Okay, sure. If there are web developers here, talk to me. Hi, you want to look for a job, or are you hiring? I'm looking for a job. Okay, what's your skills at FPG there? Post-signal. Post-signal is programming. So if you are looking for brilliant people to talk to me, help. I mean, it's blinking, so I'm going to check it out. What's going to work? It's the start of DemoWorks. Yeah. Sorry? Actually, I'm saving. Sorry? It's the other one, it's DemoWorks. It does, right? I need to work without a PCD with breadboards. It's fine. But again, I need... It would be great to have a PCD with breadboards. Yes, no breadboard changing. I love breadboards. Really, I do. That's my material. But the right place. So how many of these LED's can you put? To this one, 16. So they run off, it's the one-on-pair LED strips. And it's 12-wide. 12-wide. OK. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so hopefully we got a different...


It has been around for a very short time to get questions and we'll start with question number one from Bob Doris. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government whether it is aware of energy company practices that exacerbate fuel poverty and indeasto nuclearwaves that is vulnerable household's seeking to reconnect for supplies following disconnections. Minister, Paul Wheelhouse, The Scottish Government is concerned that the UK government has failed to цer 우� per energy market that serves all Scottish households fairly, particularly in vulnerable circumstances. Ofgem's latest data shows that there were no disconnections in Scotland in 2017, which is welcome. However, those data do not capture the daily reality of self-disconnection faced by fuel poor, indeated and vulnerable households. Self-disconnection data are not currently reported on and we continue to call for Ofgem to further investigate the hidden impact of self-disconnection in line with the refresh of its consumer vulnerability strategy. Bob Doris. It's like the minister for that answer and I raised concerns before Christmas of the issue of unreasonable barriers for households in the Winford estate in my constituency to get reconnected to their heating and hot water supply. In my office work with the citizens advice and the Scottish and Southern energy to secure 33 households got reconnected by Christmas Eve. However, dozens of homes remain disconnected and significant concerns remain about prohibitive reconnection charges, unreasonable repayment schedules and how energy companies are defining vulnerable households, for instance not including families with children. Can I ask the minister that, whilst I appreciate the reserved nature of energy, fuel poverty is very much this Parliament's concern? Can I therefore ask the minister to meet with myself to see how we can support vulnerable households in such situations? Minister. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I should start out by congratulating Mr Doris on the work that he's done to help those 33 households before Christmas. I commend him and, indeed, my colleagues such as Christina McKelver, who's done an enormous amount of work around providing support to vulnerable customers at risk of disconnection for their supplies. Bob Doris is right to raise this issue. Scotland's vulnerable energy consumers remain a very high priority for this Government. He's right to say that fuel poverty is a key priority for the Government. That's why, in 2016, we called the Summit of Energy companies to discuss action towards addressing fuel poverty and the extra costs that low-income families face. In January of last year, the second energy summit met and challenged energy suppliers and consumer groups to work collaboratively towards improved consumer outcomes, in line with our ambition to eradicate fuel poverty. That work remains a high priority as we develop our Scottish energy consumer vision and action plan. The energy companies have been supportive today in the work that we're trying to do in that respect, so I'd be very happy to meet Mr Doris to tell him more about the work that we are already doing, but I'm keen to hear from him the experience of his constituents about reconnection charges and to understand the impacts that it's having on families in his area. Alexander Burnett, thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm noting my register of interest in renewable energy. Can I ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to close the gap on fuel poverty between urban and rural housing? Mr Burnett raised the fair point. Clearly, in the debates that we've had around energy-efficient Scotland on fuel poverty, the Government has acknowledged the additional factors that sometimes impact on rural households. Clearly, in many cases, they have the greatest exposure in terms of their properties and therefore have a higher need to heat their properties. Of course, the fuels that they use can often be more expensive than those customers who are able to access gas through the main system. We very much are taking forward the thoughts around rural and island communities in the work that we're doing in support of energy-efficient Scotland. My colleague Kevin Stewart, who is leading for the Government on fuel poverty, is also very much involved in that work. Indeed, Mr Stewart has joined us in the chamber, and I'm sure that we're keen to hear from members about how they feel that we can best tackle fuel poverty in rural areas. Finlay Carson, cabinet secretary, Jeane Freeman. The staffing of ambulances is an operational matter for the Scottish Ambulance Service, however we expect a service to ensure that all ambulance resources are staffed appropriately to meet patient needs. Over a decade ago, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, warned against single-crew call-outs while she was health secretary. She said at the time, and I quote, "...the policy of the Scottish Government is clear. Traditional accident and emergency ambulances should be double-crewed with at least one member of the crew being a paramedic and less in exceptional circumstances. This is not happening in Dumfries and Galloway, but in some instances ambulance crews are manned solely by technicians, potentially putting patients at risk." Is this yet another example that, even after 11 years in power, this Government is failing to deliver on its policy commitments? Will the cabinet secretary commit to urgently address this worrying situation? Let me start by saying that no, it absolutely is not an example, because the fact of the matter is that Scottish ambulances are not routinely single-crewed, although there can be exceptional circumstances where that happens. A percentage of shifts covered by a single-crewed ambulance in the south-west region for the period of July to September 2018 was 2 per cent against a national average of 2.3 per cent. I think that those percentages not only demonstrate the impact of the delivery of that policy in Mr Carson's region but also across the country. The Ambulance Service has an action plan. It would be helpful, Presiding Officer, if I address the question that we heard through the microphone system, as opposed to the one that I am hearing in my ear. The Ambulance Service has an action plan to reduce instances of single-crewing wherever possible. That is being monitored by us through regular update reports. However, none of our emergency workers should have to worry about their own safety as they carry out their work in the emergency workers act includes penalties of up to 12 months imprisonment, £10,000 fine or both, to be imposed following convictions for offences against ambulance staff. Stuart McMillan, I am grateful that the cabinet secretary could provide me on her position on ensuring that there is enough ambulance provision to cover Inverclyde when ambulances are taking patients to the Queen Elizabeth university hospital. I am grateful to Mr McMillan for that question. It is very important when ambulances are away from their local area, taking patients to hospital, that sufficient resource remains in the area to meet the needs of local communities. That is a matter that has been raised with me elsewhere and that I am continuing to discuss with the Scottish Ambulance Service in terms of how they are rolling out their test of change, which most recently has been introduced to cover the Elgin to Aberdeen corridor. In order to ensure that this cover, SAS should undertake a practice of backfilling using resources from other stations where appropriate, and they also use tactical deployment points where ambulances are stationed at specific points throughout the country and not just based at their station to ensure that coverage is as wide as possible. However, this and other matters remain a subject of on-going discussion between me and the Scottish Ambulance Service to ensure that the resources that are there and we have made additional resources available to that service are deployed appropriately to suit both the patient and the geographical demands of our country. 3. John Mason To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the citizens' basic income pilot schemes. Following our commitment to explore a citizen's basic income scheme, we have made available a grant worth £250,000 for local authorities to scope out the feasibility of small pilots. Glasgow, Edinburgh Fife and North Ayrshire made a successful collective bid in March 2018. A steering group composed of the four local authorities and NHS Health Scotland, with the support from the Scottish Government, have begun research into the feasibility of a pilot. John Mason I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. I am just wondering if it is really possible to do a full pilot scheme if the DWP is not involved and if we do not have control over their functions, because clearly, for a lot of people, their income is coming from the DWP. John Mason Any decision to proceed with a pilot will be subject to the findings of the steering group's feasibility study, and that will set out the full details of the ethical, legislative, financial and the practical implementation of a pilot on the ground. The member is absolutely right to raise that, because a pilot scheme would not be viable without full powers over tax and social security or at the very least full co-operation of the UK Government. We are in contact with the DWP about this, and engagement is on going, and we will endeavour to keep the member updated on the progress on this. Question 4 has been withdrawn. Question 5, Graham Simpson. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met NHS Lanarkshire and what was discussed. Cabinet Secretary, Jeane Freeman. Ministers and Scottish Government officials regularly meet representatives of all health boards, including NHS Lanarkshire, to discuss matters of importance to local people. I last met the chair of the health board on 10 December, and we will meet her again this coming Monday. Graham Simpson The number of GP practices has fallen by 10 per cent in Lanarkshire since 2007. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what she is doing about this? Cabinet Secretary I hope that Mr Simpson is aware of our primary care reform plan, which incorporates the new GP contract and other measures. That primary care reform plan has significant additional resource planned for it in the current draft budget, so I would look for his support to that budget for that additional resource. What that does is look at how we deliver on the GP contract, in particular the areas around multi-skilling, on the GP clusters in order to ensure that the provision is appropriate across local areas, taking account of geography and elsewhere. I have had discussions with colleagues on the demands and issues for rural practices, making sure that that develops in a way that fulfills our need and the need of local people to ensure that individuals receive the right care from their right professional at the right time. That, alongside the significant additional resource, again in the draft budget and again I look for that support in increasing GP training, the numbers of our undergraduate medical students supporting the continuation of ScotGem and the continuation of the specific measures that we have introduced in order to encourage GPs into more remote and rural areas. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the announcement by the DWP that the two-child limit on universal credit payments will be partially rolled back. Although the UK Government's decision not to extend the two-child cap and rape clause will be welcome news for a small number of Scottish families, it changes nothing for families with third or subsequent children born after April 2017. Tens of thousands of families will still feel the negative impact of the two-child limit in the longer term, which effectively creates a two-tier system. Critically, it does nothing to remove the rape clause, which is a dehumanising and appalling abuse of both the child and parents' human rights. The Scottish Government has long called in the UK Government to end the two-child limit and, within it, the abhorrent rape clause will continue to do so. Bill Kidd. I welcome the cabinet secretary's answer. Can the cabinet secretary tell the chamber how many people have been impacted and will be impacted by the two-child cap, what amount of money they will lose and what difference this partial rollback will make? DWP statistics show that, in the first year of the two-child limit, 3,800 Scottish families did not receive entitlement for the third or subsequent child. Analysts have estimated that up to 40,000 households across Scotland will ultimately still be affected by the two-child limit, resulting in a reduction in welfare spending in Scotland of around £120 million by 2020-2021, when the policy is fully implemented and you see fully rolled out. Early analysis shows that less than 1,000 families will be impacted by the recent announcement by the UK Government.  Michelle Ballantyne To ask the minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the new required qualifications for childcare practitioners. There is a significant body of evidence and analysis, not least the 2017 Health Scotland evidence review, childcare quality and children's outcomes, that links having well-qualified, high-quality workforce to improving outcomes for children. That is why the national standard for early learning and childcare providers, provided and published jointly with COSLA in December, requires that all staff, included in adult to child ratios, must have either obtained or be working towards the benchmark qualification for their role. For the first time, they will be in requirement on childminders to be qualified or to be working towards a qualification to the same level as other ELC practitioners. All registered staff delivering funded entitlement will from August 2020 have at least started to work towards their qualification, rather than waiting until the end of the full five-year registration period in which to secure the relevant qualification, which we believe will further enhance the quality of ELC. Michelle Ballantyne I thank the minister for that answer, but does she recognise that there are a significant number of managers, particularly older managers, who already run successful high-quality private nurseries, that may now be forced out of their careers because undertaking a level 9 qualification at such a late point in their careers is neither desirable nor feasible. The Scottish Government knows that we need a high number of experienced managers for the expansion of 1140 hours to succeed. Will the Government commit to reviewing whether or not an exception should be made for the demand for a level 9 qualification for an individual that is already in post and where an inspection process has already provided insurance on the quality of the services being delivered? Michelle Ballantyne Let me just reiterate, as I said in my first answer. There are very few changes in this, since the registration of the ELC workforce is regulated by the SSC. Since 2011, the all-registered ELC managers and lead practitioners must either hold the SCQF level 9 benchmark qualification or agree that their registration is subject to a comment, that they secure that within their first period of registration. The requirement for the staff to obtain those qualifications has not changed as a result of the national standard. Elaine Smith Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I ask the minister if those new childcare qualifications include training and tackling poverty? That is particularly relevant this week with the Sunday Mail revelation that the staff in Broomloin Nursery and Governor feeding children and their parents with donations from local businesses. Although compassionate staff are of course to be commended for taking direct action, surely the minister will agree that such poverty is unacceptable in our rich country? What exactly is the Scottish Government going to do about the shocking situation? I absolutely agree that that is an unacceptable situation. You will know that this is a particular passion of mine that we live in the sixth richest country in the world and have the hungriest children in Europe, which is largely down to the UK Government's welfare system. Tom Arthur To ask the Scottish Government how the proposals in the draft budget aim to support communities in the Renfisher South constituency. The Scottish Government is committed to delivering inclusive economic growth across all of Scotland. In 2019-20, the Scottish budget sets out a continued commitment to invest in regeneration activity to stimulate sustainable and inclusive growth and to empower and improve the wellbeing of people and communities. Tom Arthur I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for that answer. Recent years have seen a significant investment with new housing in Johnston, new council housing in Barhead for the first time in the generation and the regeneration of Barhead's town centre. Can the cabinet secretary set out how the budget will continue to support housing and the regeneration and improvement to our town centres? There is more investment to come specifically on town centres as part of the draft budget. There is a proposal for £50 million. I will work on the distribution and allocation in partnership with COSLA and on housing. We will continue that tracked record of delivery in 2019-20. The affordable housing supply programme has confirmed a resource planning assumption of £15.6 million for Renfisher. The council strategic housing investment plan indicates that 286 new homes will be completed in 2019-20, with south starts planned for a further £839 million. For completeness, for East Renfisher, a resource planning assumption of £5.9 million has been confirmed. That will allow that council to complete the 22 new homes and, in 2019-20, will have side starts of a further £134 million. That is the Scottish Government working in partnership with local authorities to regenerate our town centres and deliver the housing that Scotland needs. 9. Willie Coffey To ask the Scottish Government what its position is in whether non-looked-after kinship carers should receive the same level of financial support that foster carers and looked-after kinship carers receive when looking after children who have experienced family break-ups or the death of a parent. Kinship carers of non-looked-after children can receive the same level of financial support as foster carers when there is a kinship carer order in place under section 11 of the Children in Scotland act. We are aware that kinship carers are not always right in some individual cases, and the member has raised a number of issues with the minister over some time, and I am thankful for that. We continue to be conscious of those issues and consider how best to make sure that kinship carers get the support that they need. Willie Coffey Minister, for that answer, I have constituents who are kinship carers have been voluntarily taken in, for example, their grandchildren. They do not meet the criteria for kinship carer allowance, which seems only to be payable if there is a risk element involved and so are struggling financially. Will the minister consider reviewing the criteria for the kinship carer allowance to make it available for non-looked-after kinship carer cases? The agreement on kinship carer allowance does not apply to all kinship carers. As you state, that has raised concerns among those who do not meet the eligibility criteria. The Scottish Government provides clear guidance on how local authorities should assess whether a child is at risk of becoming looked after. Obviously, as with all such guidance, we will keep those matters under constant review. Because each kinship carer's circumstances are unique, the Scottish Government funds Citizens Advice Scotland to provide a specialised advice for kinship carers, along with signposting to local support services, support and financial and legal matters. We have worked with and will continue to work with our social security colleagues, including those in Westminster, to ensure that kinship carers can access a variety of benefits to alleviate the additional costs for caring for their families' children.


Should you quit your job and start a business? Want my answer?  Don't do it! Please, for the love of God, do not quit your job and start a business. I'll tell you why. You know, bear with me for a second over here and hopefully you and I can come to an agreement over here.  You have mortgage, or rent, or whatever it may be. You've got all these different financial duties and obligations you have to hold on a month-to-month basis. Each of us have a different number. Second of all, the business that you want to start. Do you really believe that you're going to get positive net cash flow in your business that you can pay yourself from the get-go? I don't think so. Even venture capital-backed businesses, the average CEO salary depending on if it's like seed and serious A, B, and C, it's not that all fancy as people think it is, okay? So if you are in a current situation and you are thinking of starting a business and quitting your job, though, so the question is, what do you do then? Okay, this is what you do. Most people, for the most part, are working in corporate America. Big Fortune 500 companies, they work 40 hours a week or plus, but in that 8-hour shift they have on a day-to-day basis, how productive are you within those 8 hours? Maybe you're getting coffee half an hour here. Maybe you're surfing Facebook or Twitter. They're talking to your coworkers.  I don't know. But most likely what I've seen, I've never been in an environment, but what I've seen in my own two eyes, just going there and visiting, is people work probably 2 hours a day on productivity.  Work on your business. That's right. Use your Fortune 500 company position or big corporation position. And I know some of you may not be in that position. I'm just giving you some ideas over here. I'll give you some suggestions for those who aren't in that position. But use your current asset that you have, which is you getting paid for your position and all the free time you have to work on your business. Now, for the people who aren't in Fortune 500 companies who maybe don't have the luxuries of this big corporate behemoth behind them, basically what you need to do is you need to allocate your time correctly. So if you're working a 9 to 5 and your time is all taken up, for example, I have a couple of friends who are in the ER space, so ambulance and driving in an emergency response. They have no free time.  However, you do have maybe 3 hours, 4 hours after your shift to work. And this is where you have to be very strategic, prioritize what's more important for each day and get to work. The whole idea is you want to use your current time that you have and each person is different to work on your business. And eventually, when the business starts actually creating income and you have enough income and revenue of that business to pay you, but not just pay you a little bit, but to pay you almost equivalent, this is a little bit of a low equivalent of your current financial requirements per month. Then once you have that equilibrium, it can be a little bit off, then you can quit what you're doing and work full-time, because I've seen it way too many times where people will cut ties with what they're doing and then start the business. And then guess what?  That's not good, not good at all. Instead, you gotta be strategic, you gotta be patient. If you actually look at the norm of business, it's not the Zucks, it's not the Jeff Bezos, it's not the Elon Musk, it's individuals who are in their mid-40s who've gone through bankruptcy, twice who are running a medium-sized, multi-million dollar company, that's the norm. Those other guys, they're outliers, they're not even part of the 1%, they're like the 0.1%, okay? So please, don't just quit your job to start a business, be strategic about it. And second of all, talking about business, don't just start randomly, okay? I have a great system, a great model, and I wish I knew this earlier. Let's talk about e-commerce.  Beautiful feeling, it's heavy, it's nice, I can sell this pen. Now, the company's selling it already, it's making good, it's a successful company. Do some DDs, so do diligence, research this company. You can use a tool like similar web. Go to similarweb.com, plug in that company's web address. You can see how much traffic they get per month, you can see where the traffic comes from, okay? And that can tell you a little bit of information about them. Second of all, go to their website, screen capture everything. I mean everything, screen capture their homepage, their shopping cart, their benetment cart, screen capture their copywriting. You wanna basically document the process that company takes.  So once a pen comes to your house, what type of packaging do you use, what kind of a thank you card they have, then look at their email marketing.  Then, once you have the physical product in your head, here's a cool hack you can do. You can literally go to AliExpress, so not AliBaba but AliExpress, and you can find similar pens such as this. You can then re-chat those individuals in like Guangzhou or Shenzhen, and then basically you can make a deal, and this doesn't apply to the whole factory, you just sum, okay, keep that in mind. And this is what you can do. You can literally make a deal for dropshipping from their factory in China to your customers. The caveat is you won't make any money. Fuck, forget that. It's no risk when you think about that. Now you can validate whether you should actually invest money in this pen to buy maybe like a thousand pens to ship over here. And basically what you do on your shopping, on your webpage, which I highly recommend Shopify, it's like one click, but a bing, but a boom.  Invest in their stock, it's going to go up. Your name's for sure, trust me. So, let's say you find this factory in Guangzhou, they want to do the dropshipping, so basically what you do is you just, anytime someone buys a pen off your Shopify store, it will send a message to the factory or the representative in Guangzhou and we chat, then she or he would usually, she would then send over that pen towards your customer. They make all the profit, but like I said once again, who gives a shit? Now you're validating your idea. Imagine you get like a hundred customers in the first week for selling pens. Like shit, people want this, great. Now I depend. And you've done your due diligence. You have looked at the process of other successful companies. You screen capture their process. You've identified what makes them successful. And above all, what's most important, you're still working on your current job. You're not struggling like, oh my God, how am I going to make this week's mortgage? Or how am I going to pay for my groceries? Because too many people do it and too many people go to way too much debt. There you have it. There's my answer. Peace.


Our job, combat and employment thought process is to deploy with a small package of aircraft and a small package of airmen and be able to complete the mission with minimal support of people and equipment. Our primary focus on airmen here were the crew chiefs, weapons and avionics, folks to lunch and recover the jets. With the younger airmen at home station, we take our time to train them and get them through the process, but when they're in our deployed environment, things are a lot faster pace and I hope that they see that and they understand that and they can see, they can learn from that experience and not always rely on your tech sergeants and master sergeants to help them along the way that it's time to step up and get your job done.