11 ms·

No constitutional right to clean water, federal court finds

135 points by measurablefunc 9d ago

washelterskelte 9d ago
Government officials allowing this to happen should be sentenced to acute lead poisoning.
- fwip 9d ago
  Good chance that's how they got this way.
  - rbanffy 9d ago
    Perhaps the dosage is still too low.
    - washelterskelte 9d ago
      And the delta-v.
helsinkiandrew 9d ago
> alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water. Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights?
- etchalon 9d ago
  Turns out, if the government does it, no.
- zamadatix 9d ago
  Dependence on "interpretation of the day" of the US Constitution seems to have overtaken regular maintenance of the law in a lot of high profile issues for the last many decades.
  - dathinab 9d ago
    from an external POV it looks a lot like: - the US law making process is fundamental and deeply broken to a point of it feels comparable to the Weimar Republic (the Germany between WW1 and Hitler taking over, around it's end it was pretty much dysfunctional when it comes to passing laws) - instead things which should be law changes, and should be pursued bipartisan, are squeezed into other things. Like the budged bill, wider interpretations(1) of the existing law etc. - or bundled into absurdly large bills covering docents of things which should not be one bill (which is very un-democratic and likely harmful for the US citizens. It allows corrupt politicians to forces less corrupt ones to vote for bad laws, because they are bundled with very essential needed changes, it also has shown to pose a very realistic risk of "sneaking" in something bad etc.) - other cases often get stuck or even for topics which should be bipartisan held hostage to push some other goals - with the current president this seems to have gotten even worse as he and the people close to him have attacked changes otherwise pursued by a wider bipartisan support. So even iff you can onboard both sides it might not mean enough in this legislation. But while I'm pretty sure I have seen such cases I can't remember details, so take with a grain of salt. - to add in on top of all of that: Consumer and environmental protection in the US has always been a bit weak, a bit too slow, and often lacking precautionary approaches (most thing being reactive to enough people suffering harm, even if it was clear for a long time that idk. a product isn't safe or similar). And in some aspects this has been further crippled by the current administration, but idk. if such aspects apply here. That means even iff the current state is caused by a crime, it likely will take years to make stop the criminal from committing it. If it's seen as a breach of constitution things likely would move faster, and corrupt local governments have a much harder time undermining it. --- (^1): Which isn't always bad, some degree of "vagueness" to handle the complexity of constant changing IRL is often desirable (as a dump example you also would make a law to forbid killing, instead of a law which explicitly lists and forbids every imaginable way you might kill someone). But what I mean goes far beyond that. In general some recognition of "basic human right" on a constitutional level should be something any citizen should ask their country to have. And I mean that independent of the international human rights court and the specific interpretation of human rights common with it. Not recognizing it is one thing, but insistently not recognizing any form of human rights is another, IMHO pretty evil, thing.
- georgemcbay 9d ago
  > Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights? The legality of poisoning people with toxic water in the US seems to depend upon how black they are (based on clear patterns of where this is allowed to happen).
- Zigurd 9d ago
  It seems nonsensical that the government could have the power to lie to and defraud the people while poisoning them. That just renders other rights meaningless.
  - dnautics 9d ago
    sure, but that's not the 14th amendment. Maybe the guarantee clause. It MIGHT touch the 14th amendment via incorporation. That's not what the attorneys argued.
    - ceejayoz 9d ago
      > nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law Surely intentional lead poisoning counts?
- flufluflufluffy 9d ago
  If there was documented, provable harm done to the residents from the lead poisoning (not saying there isn’t, I just don’t know), they could surely win a civil case claiming negligence by the city and/or water treatment facilities/etc… There may also be laws or regulations in Jackson or Mississippi that were broken. Perhaps there aren’t, but there maybe should be. Which are all points brought up by Engelhardt: > The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing. Rather, the remedy for Plaintiffs’ injuries lies in pursuing tort claims, electing representatives who will better manage the public-water system, and petitioning their representatives for other remedies. And Plaintiffs have not been left to go at it alone. The State of Mississippi and federal government have worked for years, and continue today, to improve the City of Jackson’s drinking water quality through regulations, investigations, and compliance plans. These already-established-and-undertaken avenues are the proper course for rectifying the lead contamination. We will not expand the Fourteenth Amendment to create novel theories of constitutional liability. And now people who don’t take the time to actually read, or just can’t understand, are gonna be yelling and screaming about how the courts are corrupt, etc… (some courts may very well be corrupt! But this would not be a good example why).
  - newswasboring 9d ago
    > If there was documented, provable harm done to the residents from the lead poisoning (not saying there isn’t, I just don’t know), they could surely win a civil case claiming negligence by the city and/or water treatment facilities/etc I would never understand this system. So to get repatriation on damage done a citizen has to mount an entire legal initiative. Even if the guilt is already proved. It just feels like a system where departments of government will only sue to fill their own budget next year.
- carefulfungi 9d ago
  In the sense that the law is expansive... probably? But... There is a federal law requiring government officials provide "honest services" (the searchable phrase to learn more). The supreme court ruled it was too vague to be constitutional and restricted its enforcement to outright bribery (more or less). In the US, the executive branch can lie to you. Deception is a common law enforcement tool, as an example. The military / CIA actively use false news and propaganda. Unless an official is under oath, consider they might be intentionally deceiving you. (And even then...)
  - paulryanrogers 9d ago
    I thought the government's use of deception was limited to only circumstances necessary to protect people from harm, not to inflict harm upon them.
cocacola1 9d ago
This seems to fall under the whole “promote the general welfare” part of the Preamble of the Constitution, though perhaps the court is unaware of it.
- ndriscoll 9d ago
  That sentence just says why we're making a national government (i.e. giving up some of our rights). It does not create some unlimited requirement for governments (especially state) to do whatever they can to promote general welfare, whatever that means. It doesn't even grant unlimited authority to do so. Or really say anything at all except state a very general purpose for why a national government is a sensible thing to have. > We the People... in order to... [do establish] this Constitution
  - cocacola1 9d ago
    I disagree. The Preamble explicitly states that the Constitution is for these six things. "in Order to" makes it clear what the ends of the document are, and what they’re meant to serve. That it doesn’t confer unlimited power is orthodox constitutional law. But the Preamble explicitly states the constitutional purposes that should guide the interpretation and exercise of the powers enumerated. And it doesn’t follow that the purposes it states are legally meaningless. The’re part of the constitutional text and inform how the powers actually conferred by the Constitution are construed. As Story commented: “One of the best established rules of interpretation, one, which common sense and reason forbid us to overlook, is, that when the object of a power is clearly defined by its terms, or avowed in the context, it ought to be construed, so as to obtain the object, and not to defeat it. The circumstance, that so construed the power may be abused, is no answer. All powers may be abused; but are they then to be abridged by those, who are to administer them, or denied to have any operation? If the people frame a constitution, the rulers are to obey it. Neither rulers, nor any other functionaries, much less any private persons, have a right to cripple it, because it is according to their own views inconvenient, or dangerous, unwise or impolitic, of narrow limits, or of wide influence.”
    - pdonis 9d ago
bix6 9d ago
> Rather, he said residents should take other paths to redress, including electing better representatives and petitioning the government for remedies. Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen?
- GolfPopper 9d ago
  >Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen? The polite answer to that is JFK's line, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
- tzs 9d ago
  The article left off part of part of what the court said, which was (emphasis added): > Rather, the remedy for Plaintiffs’ injuries lies in pursuing tort claims, electing representatives who will better manage the public-water system, and petitioning their representatives for other remedies. Suing the government is indeed one of the things the court said they could do. They just can't sue alleging a violation of the particular federal statute they used in this suit.
  - ceejayoz 9d ago
    > pursuing tort claims Which certainly won't get thrown out over qualified immunity. (And if they win a case against the city, it's coming out of their own pockets!)
    - tzs 9d ago
      At most that will just get it dismissed against some individual plaintiffs. It won't affect their case against the city and any companies such as the engineering firm that was a defendant in this particular lawsuit.
      - ceejayoz 9d ago
        > It won't affect their case against the city… Which again, if they win, they pay for! It'll come out of their taxes, which the city will either have to raise, or cut costs somewhere to pay for. The people responsible will be neither criminally nor civilly liable, leaving zero disincentive to others.
mathisfun123 9d ago
People don't read enough court decisions. Did you know you don't have a constitutional right to be protected by the police either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzale... > the Court ruled, 7–2, that a town and its police department could not be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for refusing to enforce a restraining order, even though the refusal led to the murders of a woman's three children by her estranged husband
- JuniperMesos 9d ago
  If that court had ruled differently, people would absolutely be using that precedent to sue towns and police departments for not delivering illegal immigrants who came to the attention of the police department to ICE for deportation, if that illegal immigrant later killed someone.
  - rbanffy 9d ago
    That would actually make sense. It’s the police’s job to “serve and protect” and, if there was a likelihood a person would commit a crime and, knowing that, the police refused to act to prevent harm to the population, the police force should be held accountable for that.
Avicebron 9d ago
> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.
- db48x 9d ago
  I completely disagree. Not everything can be included in the Constitution. We have ordinary laws to address things like this.
  - Avicebron 9d ago
    Never once tried to argue that it should be included in the Constitution. I suppose one of those "other laws" will cover when the government deliberately gives people lead poisoning? I wonder why they didn't go with that one...
    - db48x 9d ago
      You literally just did.
    - Dylan16807 9d ago
      You said it was absurd for the judge to rule it wasn't in the constitution, and advocated for a "spirit of the law" court. If that court's going to find any differently, don't they need to say it's part of the spirit of the constitution? That counts as including.
  - anigbrowl 9d ago
    And then entities litigate to have those laws overturned on highly abstract theoretical grounds, alleging that they violate the framers' intent in drafting the Constitution, or exceed enumerated powers or whatever.
  - eclipticplane 9d ago
    What ordinary law requires officials to issue truthful statements? We're living in the era of unrestrained executive power.
ceejayoz 9d ago
> In the majority decision, Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while the deprivation of clean water was “grievous,” it did “not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” “We are skeptical that the right to not be harmed by lead-contaminated water fits within the right to bodily integrity, and Plaintiffs point us to no historical tradition or Supreme Court precedent convincing us,” he wrote. The Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It's the Fifth Circuit, so I'm not shocked they haven't heard of it. I strongly suspect the Fifth Circuit would considered their bodily integrity to have been impinged upon if someone snuck lead into their drinks.
- Zigurd 9d ago
  A lot of people also forget that the Bill of Rights is a list of thou shalt nots addressed to the government. In other words it doesn't just claim to not be a list of everyone's rights, it is structured and written to not be such a list.
- tzs 9d ago
  I'm not sure why you think the Ninth Amendment is relevant here. It just establishes that there are rights not listed in the Constitution. It provides no help whatsoever in determine what those rights are. If you want to know more on how that is done you want to look into "Substantive Due Process". There are a couple approaches that courts might use. One is looking to see if the alleged right is deeply rooted in history and tradition and implicit in the idea of ordered liberty. Another is the so-called "penumbras and emanations" test where they look at existing rights and infer some broader unlisted right that is needed to make the listed rights meaningful.
  - ceejayoz 9d ago
    > It just establishes that there are rights not listed in the Constitution. It provides no help whatsoever in determine what those rights are. The opinion is asserting a government intentionally allowing lead poisoning does "not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right". That's an assertion that no such right exists. > One is looking to see if the alleged right is deeply rooted in history and tradition and implicit in the idea of ordered liberty. Hilariously, the "deeply rooted in history and tradition" test is, itself, not rooted in history and tradition. It was established in 2022!
tamimio 9d ago
US residents are only allowed to buy and drink brawndo (TM), for safe and clean consumption, they can even use it to irrigate the crops because it has electrolytes!!
- rbanffy 9d ago
  It’s what your body craves.
0utcast 9d ago
[dead]
tzs 9d ago
The court ruling is here [1]. While this article is way better than the one from yesterday, it does have some big problems. Better to just take a look at the ruling itself. Note that it contains two opinions. First is the majority opinion, joined be 10 judges on the 15 judge panel. Then is an opinion joined by 5 judges that dissents in part and concurs in part. [1] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pdf https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd...
_--__--__ 9d ago
This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments. Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty reasoning like that because people were wronged by the government.
- ceejayoz 9d ago
  That'd require them explaining why "the 14th Amendment predates germ theory" is a reasonable argument but not "the Second Amendment predates machine guns".
  - giantg2 9d ago
    Germ theory really started around 1860 and the 14th amendment was 1868. Seems they both coexisted.
    - chrisux 9d ago
      They didn't have the internet back then bro, information moved much slower. Governments (USA Included) tend to move much slower than tech. Germ Theory starting -only- 8 years prior doesn't really mean much here...
      - giantg2 9d ago
        Things taking a year or two was normal, but 8 years is plenty of time. There were long distance publications in many areas of the world even earlier in time. You can look at how every back in the 1700s Benjamin Franklin had a newspaper across the US and routinely corresponded with Europe.
    - eddythompson80 9d ago
      Germ theory originated in Europe and it took a couple of decades before the knowledge transfer made it to the US and started getting accepted. It took a while for it to be come generally accepted in Europe too. I'm hazy on the exact dates, but even accepting the 1860 date, it's far too close to 1868 to assume politicians and the general public in the US (or even in Europe in 8 years) would have passed a constitutional amendment with full acceptance or understanding of germ theory.
tyjen 9d ago
Constitutional right? No. But, it's an abject failure of the local government overseeing the infrastructure to fix or solicit help to fix. Jackson, MS government failed. Targeting them on the grounds of a constitutional violation seems like borderline legal malpractice, but probably an unfortunate standard time wasting legal protocol, for lawyers to suggest this was a viable route to begin with.
- paulryanrogers 9d ago
  Perhaps. Yet with this administration it seems victory in lower courts is hollow until challenged up to the Supreme Court. Which lately rules overwhelming in their favor. And in rare circumstances where the admin is rebuffed, like tariffs, they just work around it.
chermi 9d ago
Yes? Why would there be? This is a nation built on negative rights. If you pay taxes/fees to some institution for a service and the the institution fails to provide it, that's already covered by some contract law, no? I know this will be read as me saying they shouldn't have clean water. What I'm saying is that declaring a positive right is not an effective approach to satisfying that right in this country, or anywhere that I'm aware. But especially this country. If I was in that jurisdiction I would be kind of insulted if this was presented as a reasonable approach to secure clean water.
- giantg2 9d ago
  It should just be criminal reckless endangerment since they knowingly provided unsafe water.
  - chermi 9d ago
    [flagged]
    - giantg2 9d ago
      I didn't. You shouldn't be claiming a specific person down voted you because the system doesn't capture attribution.
      - chermi 9d ago
        Fair my bad
- ceejayoz 9d ago
  > This is a nation built on negative rights. I have a positive right to legal counsel, and trial by jury. We have, over the years, extended that to access to education and a wide variety of other items. The Ninth Amendment exists in the Bill of Rights specifically to combat this misconception that the Constitution is an exhaustive list of the rights you possess.
jl6 9d ago
At the risk of an analogy, this is like finding that the Linux kernel provides no guarantee that a process won’t contain buffer overflow vulnerabilities. While buffer overflows are bad, and it would be a good idea to try to prevent them, enforcing against them at the kernel level would be a far-reaching prospect with many consequences, intended and unintended. The judge is opining that other layers of protection are available.
dguest 9d ago
It's interesting how a lot of newer countries just put the right to water directly in the constitution. South Africa says some stuff about the government having an obligation toward "progressive realization" of the goal [1], whereas Slovenia just straight says water is a right [2]. [1]: https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#27 https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rig... [2]: https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/128406 https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/12...
- fakedang 9d ago
  The problem with the US is Americans treating their Constitution like some kind of Bible, untouchable and beyond reproach, when in reality it should have been a constantly evolving document. South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world on paper because the authors very recently had to reconcile with and forgo their apartheid past. And they had a number of templates to adapt from, including the US, France, Germany, India, etc. Older countries tend to have shittier constitutions.
  - rassimmoc 9d ago
    Oh, I think GOP is nicely evolving US constitution with a little help from supreme court
  - wahern 9d ago
    The writers of the US constitution were well aware of how to enumerate positive rights, as they were common in the state constitutions, as well in many European countries' declarations of rights in restraint of monarchs. Many of them resisted this, especially James Madison, who called them mere parchment barriers and ineffective, even counterproductive. Madison's side mostly held sway, where the US constitution focused on the structure of government. The anti-federalists and other factions were the ones who pushed for enumerated positive rights, and they won only some concessions, like the Bill of Rights, which Madison and others worked to limit, such as phrasing some of them in negative terms. You can disagree with Madison, but he certainly wasn't ignorant about these questions. He just felt positive rights were better secured through dynamic legislative processes within a stable and responsive democratic framework. The hard part is trying to maintain a responsive democracy. Without that positive rights are empty promises, anyhow, as they often are in these newer constitutions. One of the problems with making promises you can't keep is it delegitimizes government, which furthers the normalization of corruption and unlawfulness.
light_hue_1 9d ago
As usual a split decision along party lines. The entire US judicial system has lost its mind. It's clear at this point that judges pick the outcome they want then find ways to interpret the case, precedent, etc. to fit. You can see it in the dissent here. https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pdf https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd... Hard to see where we go from here as a society where arbitrary laws that bind us all are essentially written on the fly by whatever judges happen to be in the Supreme Court, circuit courts, state courts, etc. How is it possible to have a democracy under these conditions?
- _DeadFred_ 9d ago
  [dead]
- rbanffy 9d ago
  > How is it possible to have a democracy under these conditions? You’d need more luck than what seems to be available. Since one side is blatantly criminal and the other is somehow less criminal, electing successive governments from the less criminal side would be the best possible course.
bryanrasmussen 9d ago
well first off, nobody asked for a constitutional right to clean water, what the court said was that not providing clean water did not violate rights to bodily integrity under due process. Furthermore they said lying and saying the water was clean was fine because "there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”" which is a stupid statement because everybody knows there is no such constitutional right, the question would be if not giving truthful information during a health crisis could violate some constitutional right. I would have dug to see if they told somebody with money and power, hey don't drink that water because then that would violate equal protections (or at least that's what I would argue), but since nobody went there maybe it's not quite as sure a proposition as I would suppose.
bradley13 9d ago
Correct. You may demand clean water from your local government, in return for taxes, but it isn't any sort of basic right. And certainly is not mentioned in the US Constitution. Much like food or medical care: fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people. Otherwise you can demand that work, which imposes on their rights.
- rbanffy 9d ago
  > fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people It is the government’s responsibility to ensure the people who provide those services are hired and paid. Nobody is demanding anyone to work for free or to be forced to work on something they don’t want. At some point, we might get there and mechanisms to compel society to work enough so that society doesn’t collapse will be considered some sort of civic duty.
- iamEAP 9d ago
  Access to clean water may not be enshrined in the US constitution, but it’s not accurate to say it’s not “any sort of basic right.” It’s enshrined explicitly as such in a variety of UN documents and EU laws and instruments. I wish more of my fellow Americans had a better idea of what fundamental rights the US has chosen not integrate into domestic law over the past 8 or so decades.
  - rbanffy 9d ago
    I might be mistaken, but when an international treaty is ratified, it has the same weight as a constitutional amendment. I’m sure the US ratified something around those lines.
    - iamEAP 9d ago
      It is unfortunately not that straightforward in the case of the US. For example, the ICCPR was ratified by the US, but declared “not self-executing.” The ICESCR was never ratified.
      - 8d ago
Frieren 9d ago
As a not American, why does freedom of speech include corporations giving money that are not citizens nor talking. But even that Congress has the power to spend "to provide for the common defence and general welfare" given by the constitution it still not a right to receive any of that. I have a feeling that there is a interpretation bias in favor of corporations over human life.
- delecti 9d ago
  I think the first amendment quite reasonably protects people making donations to political causes. The "speech" protections aren't limited to literal vocalizations, but also applause, writing, displaying signs, etc. And it also protects assembly, and donating to a political organization is a reasonable part of joining or supporting a cause. It does not have to protect corporations making those same donations; congress could remove donations from the list of powers granted to a corporation, and there's an effort in some states to do just that (it'll be on the ballot this fall in Montana). As for the second point, congress has that power, but not an obligation to do so. Congress could pass a law aimed at ensuring access to clean water, but not every law congress could pass has been passed. If congress passed such a law, a plain reading of that sentence would support the law being constitutional.
  - rbanffy 9d ago
    > it'll be on the ballot this fall in Montana There are reasons to be optimistic.
  - rassimmoc 9d ago
    Not from US and not a lawyer, but for me it makes sense for 'speech' to include writing, signs, etc... But not money. I think it should only include what every person has same of as every other person. We all can communicate, write, display signs,.... But not everyone can donate millions/billions
    - db48x 9d ago
      Take heart in the fact that spending more money does not guarantee a win. The Harris campaign spent over a billion dollars in 2024 and she lost badly. She spent more than 2.5× as much as Trump.
GarnetFloride 9d ago
are you kidding me? It's right in the preamble "promote the general welfare" if clean water does not count, then neither should all the other BS they've argued into existence over that phrase should either.
ChrisArchitect 9d ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49584637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49584637
engineerDave 9d ago
Next up. Air.
engineerDave 9d ago
Next up. Air. They wont be happy until they've taken everything from us.
maxv2 9d ago
[dead]

Government officials allowing this to happen should be sentenced to acute lead poisoning.

fwip 9d ago
Good chance that's how they got this way.
- rbanffy 9d ago
  Perhaps the dosage is still too low.
  - washelterskelte 9d ago
    And the delta-v.

> alleged that the city knowingly allowed residents to drink unsafe water. Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights?

etchalon 9d ago
Turns out, if the government does it, no.
zamadatix 9d ago
Dependence on "interpretation of the day" of the US Constitution seems to have overtaken regular maintenance of the law in a lot of high profile issues for the last many decades.
- dathinab 9d ago
  from an external POV it looks a lot like: - the US law making process is fundamental and deeply broken to a point of it feels comparable to the Weimar Republic (the Germany between WW1 and Hitler taking over, around it's end it was pretty much dysfunctional when it comes to passing laws) - instead things which should be law changes, and should be pursued bipartisan, are squeezed into other things. Like the budged bill, wider interpretations(1) of the existing law etc. - or bundled into absurdly large bills covering docents of things which should not be one bill (which is very un-democratic and likely harmful for the US citizens. It allows corrupt politicians to forces less corrupt ones to vote for bad laws, because they are bundled with very essential needed changes, it also has shown to pose a very realistic risk of "sneaking" in something bad etc.) - other cases often get stuck or even for topics which should be bipartisan held hostage to push some other goals - with the current president this seems to have gotten even worse as he and the people close to him have attacked changes otherwise pursued by a wider bipartisan support. So even iff you can onboard both sides it might not mean enough in this legislation. But while I'm pretty sure I have seen such cases I can't remember details, so take with a grain of salt. - to add in on top of all of that: Consumer and environmental protection in the US has always been a bit weak, a bit too slow, and often lacking precautionary approaches (most thing being reactive to enough people suffering harm, even if it was clear for a long time that idk. a product isn't safe or similar). And in some aspects this has been further crippled by the current administration, but idk. if such aspects apply here. That means even iff the current state is caused by a crime, it likely will take years to make stop the criminal from committing it. If it's seen as a breach of constitution things likely would move faster, and corrupt local governments have a much harder time undermining it. --- (^1): Which isn't always bad, some degree of "vagueness" to handle the complexity of constant changing IRL is often desirable (as a dump example you also would make a law to forbid killing, instead of a law which explicitly lists and forbids every imaginable way you might kill someone). But what I mean goes far beyond that. In general some recognition of "basic human right" on a constitutional level should be something any citizen should ask their country to have. And I mean that independent of the international human rights court and the specific interpretation of human rights common with it. Not recognizing it is one thing, but insistently not recognizing any form of human rights is another, IMHO pretty evil, thing.
georgemcbay 9d ago
> Surely knowingly letting people drink lead contaminated water breaks other laws rather than their constitutional rights? The legality of poisoning people with toxic water in the US seems to depend upon how black they are (based on clear patterns of where this is allowed to happen).
Zigurd 9d ago
It seems nonsensical that the government could have the power to lie to and defraud the people while poisoning them. That just renders other rights meaningless.
- dnautics 9d ago
  sure, but that's not the 14th amendment. Maybe the guarantee clause. It MIGHT touch the 14th amendment via incorporation. That's not what the attorneys argued.
  - ceejayoz 9d ago
    > nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law Surely intentional lead poisoning counts?
flufluflufluffy 9d ago
If there was documented, provable harm done to the residents from the lead poisoning (not saying there isn’t, I just don’t know), they could surely win a civil case claiming negligence by the city and/or water treatment facilities/etc… There may also be laws or regulations in Jackson or Mississippi that were broken. Perhaps there aren’t, but there maybe should be. Which are all points brought up by Engelhardt: > The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing. Rather, the remedy for Plaintiffs’ injuries lies in pursuing tort claims, electing representatives who will better manage the public-water system, and petitioning their representatives for other remedies. And Plaintiffs have not been left to go at it alone. The State of Mississippi and federal government have worked for years, and continue today, to improve the City of Jackson’s drinking water quality through regulations, investigations, and compliance plans. These already-established-and-undertaken avenues are the proper course for rectifying the lead contamination. We will not expand the Fourteenth Amendment to create novel theories of constitutional liability. And now people who don’t take the time to actually read, or just can’t understand, are gonna be yelling and screaming about how the courts are corrupt, etc… (some courts may very well be corrupt! But this would not be a good example why).
- newswasboring 9d ago
  > If there was documented, provable harm done to the residents from the lead poisoning (not saying there isn’t, I just don’t know), they could surely win a civil case claiming negligence by the city and/or water treatment facilities/etc I would never understand this system. So to get repatriation on damage done a citizen has to mount an entire legal initiative. Even if the guilt is already proved. It just feels like a system where departments of government will only sue to fill their own budget next year.
carefulfungi 9d ago
In the sense that the law is expansive... probably? But... There is a federal law requiring government officials provide "honest services" (the searchable phrase to learn more). The supreme court ruled it was too vague to be constitutional and restricted its enforcement to outright bribery (more or less). In the US, the executive branch can lie to you. Deception is a common law enforcement tool, as an example. The military / CIA actively use false news and propaganda. Unless an official is under oath, consider they might be intentionally deceiving you. (And even then...)
- paulryanrogers 9d ago
  I thought the government's use of deception was limited to only circumstances necessary to protect people from harm, not to inflict harm upon them.

cocacola1 9d ago

This seems to fall under the whole “promote the general welfare” part of the Preamble of the Constitution, though perhaps the court is unaware of it.

ndriscoll 9d ago
That sentence just says why we're making a national government (i.e. giving up some of our rights). It does not create some unlimited requirement for governments (especially state) to do whatever they can to promote general welfare, whatever that means. It doesn't even grant unlimited authority to do so. Or really say anything at all except state a very general purpose for why a national government is a sensible thing to have. > We the People... in order to... [do establish] this Constitution
- cocacola1 9d ago
  I disagree. The Preamble explicitly states that the Constitution is for these six things. "in Order to" makes it clear what the ends of the document are, and what they’re meant to serve. That it doesn’t confer unlimited power is orthodox constitutional law. But the Preamble explicitly states the constitutional purposes that should guide the interpretation and exercise of the powers enumerated. And it doesn’t follow that the purposes it states are legally meaningless. The’re part of the constitutional text and inform how the powers actually conferred by the Constitution are construed. As Story commented: “One of the best established rules of interpretation, one, which common sense and reason forbid us to overlook, is, that when the object of a power is clearly defined by its terms, or avowed in the context, it ought to be construed, so as to obtain the object, and not to defeat it. The circumstance, that so construed the power may be abused, is no answer. All powers may be abused; but are they then to be abridged by those, who are to administer them, or denied to have any operation? If the people frame a constitution, the rulers are to obey it. Neither rulers, nor any other functionaries, much less any private persons, have a right to cripple it, because it is according to their own views inconvenient, or dangerous, unwise or impolitic, of narrow limits, or of wide influence.”
  - pdonis 9d ago

bix6 9d ago

> Rather, he said residents should take other paths to redress, including electing better representatives and petitioning the government for remedies. Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen?

GolfPopper 9d ago
>Is suing the government not essentially a petition for remedies? How else do you get the gov to listen? The polite answer to that is JFK's line, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
tzs 9d ago
The article left off part of part of what the court said, which was (emphasis added): > Rather, the remedy for Plaintiffs’ injuries lies in pursuing tort claims, electing representatives who will better manage the public-water system, and petitioning their representatives for other remedies. Suing the government is indeed one of the things the court said they could do. They just can't sue alleging a violation of the particular federal statute they used in this suit.
- ceejayoz 9d ago
  > pursuing tort claims Which certainly won't get thrown out over qualified immunity. (And if they win a case against the city, it's coming out of their own pockets!)
  - tzs 9d ago
    At most that will just get it dismissed against some individual plaintiffs. It won't affect their case against the city and any companies such as the engineering firm that was a defendant in this particular lawsuit.
    - ceejayoz 9d ago
      > It won't affect their case against the city… Which again, if they win, they pay for! It'll come out of their taxes, which the city will either have to raise, or cut costs somewhere to pay for. The people responsible will be neither criminally nor civilly liable, leaving zero disincentive to others.

mathisfun123 9d ago

People don't read enough court decisions. Did you know you don't have a constitutional right to be protected by the police either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzale... > the Court ruled, 7–2, that a town and its police department could not be sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for refusing to enforce a restraining order, even though the refusal led to the murders of a woman's three children by her estranged husband

JuniperMesos 9d ago
If that court had ruled differently, people would absolutely be using that precedent to sue towns and police departments for not delivering illegal immigrants who came to the attention of the police department to ICE for deportation, if that illegal immigrant later killed someone.
- rbanffy 9d ago
  That would actually make sense. It’s the police’s job to “serve and protect” and, if there was a likelihood a person would commit a crime and, knowing that, the police refused to act to prevent harm to the population, the police force should be held accountable for that.

Avicebron 9d ago

> He [judge] also said there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” We should have "spirit of the law" courts. This is absurd.

db48x 9d ago
I completely disagree. Not everything can be included in the Constitution. We have ordinary laws to address things like this.
- Avicebron 9d ago
  Never once tried to argue that it should be included in the Constitution. I suppose one of those "other laws" will cover when the government deliberately gives people lead poisoning? I wonder why they didn't go with that one...
  - db48x 9d ago
    You literally just did.
  - Dylan16807 9d ago
    You said it was absurd for the judge to rule it wasn't in the constitution, and advocated for a "spirit of the law" court. If that court's going to find any differently, don't they need to say it's part of the spirit of the constitution? That counts as including.
- anigbrowl 9d ago
  And then entities litigate to have those laws overturned on highly abstract theoretical grounds, alleging that they violate the framers' intent in drafting the Constitution, or exceed enumerated powers or whatever.
- eclipticplane 9d ago
  What ordinary law requires officials to issue truthful statements? We're living in the era of unrestrained executive power.

ceejayoz 9d ago

> In the majority decision, Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that while the deprivation of clean water was “grievous,” it did “not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” “We are skeptical that the right to not be harmed by lead-contaminated water fits within the right to bodily integrity, and Plaintiffs point us to no historical tradition or Supreme Court precedent convincing us,” he wrote. The Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It's the Fifth Circuit, so I'm not shocked they haven't heard of it. I strongly suspect the Fifth Circuit would considered their bodily integrity to have been impinged upon if someone snuck lead into their drinks.

Zigurd 9d ago
A lot of people also forget that the Bill of Rights is a list of thou shalt nots addressed to the government. In other words it doesn't just claim to not be a list of everyone's rights, it is structured and written to not be such a list.
tzs 9d ago
I'm not sure why you think the Ninth Amendment is relevant here. It just establishes that there are rights not listed in the Constitution. It provides no help whatsoever in determine what those rights are. If you want to know more on how that is done you want to look into "Substantive Due Process". There are a couple approaches that courts might use. One is looking to see if the alleged right is deeply rooted in history and tradition and implicit in the idea of ordered liberty. Another is the so-called "penumbras and emanations" test where they look at existing rights and infer some broader unlisted right that is needed to make the listed rights meaningful.
- ceejayoz 9d ago
  > It just establishes that there are rights not listed in the Constitution. It provides no help whatsoever in determine what those rights are. The opinion is asserting a government intentionally allowing lead poisoning does "not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right". That's an assertion that no such right exists. > One is looking to see if the alleged right is deeply rooted in history and tradition and implicit in the idea of ordered liberty. Hilariously, the "deeply rooted in history and tradition" test is, itself, not rooted in history and tradition. It was established in 2022!

tamimio 9d ago

US residents are only allowed to buy and drink brawndo (TM), for safe and clean consumption, they can even use it to irrigate the crops because it has electrolytes!!

rbanffy 9d ago
It’s what your body craves.

0utcast 9d ago

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tzs 9d ago

The court ruling is here [1]. While this article is way better than the one from yesterday, it does have some big problems. Better to just take a look at the ruling itself. Note that it contains two opinions. First is the majority opinion, joined be 10 judges on the 15 judge panel. Then is an opinion joined by 5 judges that dissents in part and concurs in part. [1] https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pdf https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd...

_--__--__ 9d ago

This ruling seems obviously correct to me? The plaintiffs claimed this was a 14th amendment issue, but at the time the 14th was added cholera outbreaks were still somewhat common in the US and there was no remote notion of safe drinking water provided universally by municipal governments. Hopefully there is some other legal redress under a different law or EPA regulation, but the courts can't just give in to faulty reasoning like that because people were wronged by the government.

ceejayoz 9d ago
That'd require them explaining why "the 14th Amendment predates germ theory" is a reasonable argument but not "the Second Amendment predates machine guns".
- giantg2 9d ago
  Germ theory really started around 1860 and the 14th amendment was 1868. Seems they both coexisted.
  - chrisux 9d ago
    They didn't have the internet back then bro, information moved much slower. Governments (USA Included) tend to move much slower than tech. Germ Theory starting -only- 8 years prior doesn't really mean much here...
    - giantg2 9d ago
      Things taking a year or two was normal, but 8 years is plenty of time. There were long distance publications in many areas of the world even earlier in time. You can look at how every back in the 1700s Benjamin Franklin had a newspaper across the US and routinely corresponded with Europe.
  - eddythompson80 9d ago
    Germ theory originated in Europe and it took a couple of decades before the knowledge transfer made it to the US and started getting accepted. It took a while for it to be come generally accepted in Europe too. I'm hazy on the exact dates, but even accepting the 1860 date, it's far too close to 1868 to assume politicians and the general public in the US (or even in Europe in 8 years) would have passed a constitutional amendment with full acceptance or understanding of germ theory.

tyjen 9d ago

Constitutional right? No. But, it's an abject failure of the local government overseeing the infrastructure to fix or solicit help to fix. Jackson, MS government failed. Targeting them on the grounds of a constitutional violation seems like borderline legal malpractice, but probably an unfortunate standard time wasting legal protocol, for lawyers to suggest this was a viable route to begin with.

paulryanrogers 9d ago
Perhaps. Yet with this administration it seems victory in lower courts is hollow until challenged up to the Supreme Court. Which lately rules overwhelming in their favor. And in rare circumstances where the admin is rebuffed, like tariffs, they just work around it.

chermi 9d ago

Yes? Why would there be? This is a nation built on negative rights. If you pay taxes/fees to some institution for a service and the the institution fails to provide it, that's already covered by some contract law, no? I know this will be read as me saying they shouldn't have clean water. What I'm saying is that declaring a positive right is not an effective approach to satisfying that right in this country, or anywhere that I'm aware. But especially this country. If I was in that jurisdiction I would be kind of insulted if this was presented as a reasonable approach to secure clean water.

giantg2 9d ago
It should just be criminal reckless endangerment since they knowingly provided unsafe water.
- chermi 9d ago
  [flagged]
  - giantg2 9d ago
    I didn't. You shouldn't be claiming a specific person down voted you because the system doesn't capture attribution.
    - chermi 9d ago
      Fair my bad
ceejayoz 9d ago
> This is a nation built on negative rights. I have a positive right to legal counsel, and trial by jury. We have, over the years, extended that to access to education and a wide variety of other items. The Ninth Amendment exists in the Bill of Rights specifically to combat this misconception that the Constitution is an exhaustive list of the rights you possess.

jl6 9d ago

At the risk of an analogy, this is like finding that the Linux kernel provides no guarantee that a process won’t contain buffer overflow vulnerabilities. While buffer overflows are bad, and it would be a good idea to try to prevent them, enforcing against them at the kernel level would be a far-reaching prospect with many consequences, intended and unintended. The judge is opining that other layers of protection are available.

dguest 9d ago

It's interesting how a lot of newer countries just put the right to water directly in the constitution. South Africa says some stuff about the government having an obligation toward "progressive realization" of the goal [1], whereas Slovenia just straight says water is a right [2]. [1]: https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#27 https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rig... [2]: https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/128406 https://www.uradni-list.si/glasilo-uradni-list-rs/vsebina/12...

fakedang 9d ago
The problem with the US is Americans treating their Constitution like some kind of Bible, untouchable and beyond reproach, when in reality it should have been a constantly evolving document. South Africa has one of the best constitutions in the world on paper because the authors very recently had to reconcile with and forgo their apartheid past. And they had a number of templates to adapt from, including the US, France, Germany, India, etc. Older countries tend to have shittier constitutions.
- rassimmoc 9d ago
  Oh, I think GOP is nicely evolving US constitution with a little help from supreme court
- wahern 9d ago
  The writers of the US constitution were well aware of how to enumerate positive rights, as they were common in the state constitutions, as well in many European countries' declarations of rights in restraint of monarchs. Many of them resisted this, especially James Madison, who called them mere parchment barriers and ineffective, even counterproductive. Madison's side mostly held sway, where the US constitution focused on the structure of government. The anti-federalists and other factions were the ones who pushed for enumerated positive rights, and they won only some concessions, like the Bill of Rights, which Madison and others worked to limit, such as phrasing some of them in negative terms. You can disagree with Madison, but he certainly wasn't ignorant about these questions. He just felt positive rights were better secured through dynamic legislative processes within a stable and responsive democratic framework. The hard part is trying to maintain a responsive democracy. Without that positive rights are empty promises, anyhow, as they often are in these newer constitutions. One of the problems with making promises you can't keep is it delegitimizes government, which furthers the normalization of corruption and unlawfulness.

light_hue_1 9d ago

As usual a split decision along party lines. The entire US judicial system has lost its mind. It's clear at this point that judges pick the outcome they want then find ways to interpret the case, precedent, etc. to fit. You can see it in the dissent here. https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pdf https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/24/24-60370-CV1.pd... Hard to see where we go from here as a society where arbitrary laws that bind us all are essentially written on the fly by whatever judges happen to be in the Supreme Court, circuit courts, state courts, etc. How is it possible to have a democracy under these conditions?

_DeadFred_ 9d ago
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rbanffy 9d ago
> How is it possible to have a democracy under these conditions? You’d need more luck than what seems to be available. Since one side is blatantly criminal and the other is somehow less criminal, electing successive governments from the less criminal side would be the best possible course.

bryanrasmussen 9d ago

well first off, nobody asked for a constitutional right to clean water, what the court said was that not providing clean water did not violate rights to bodily integrity under due process. Furthermore they said lying and saying the water was clean was fine because "there was no constitutional right to “truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.”" which is a stupid statement because everybody knows there is no such constitutional right, the question would be if not giving truthful information during a health crisis could violate some constitutional right. I would have dug to see if they told somebody with money and power, hey don't drink that water because then that would violate equal protections (or at least that's what I would argue), but since nobody went there maybe it's not quite as sure a proposition as I would suppose.

bradley13 9d ago

Correct. You may demand clean water from your local government, in return for taxes, but it isn't any sort of basic right. And certainly is not mentioned in the US Constitution. Much like food or medical care: fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people. Otherwise you can demand that work, which imposes on their rights.

rbanffy 9d ago
> fundamental rights can never depend on the work of other people It is the government’s responsibility to ensure the people who provide those services are hired and paid. Nobody is demanding anyone to work for free or to be forced to work on something they don’t want. At some point, we might get there and mechanisms to compel society to work enough so that society doesn’t collapse will be considered some sort of civic duty.
iamEAP 9d ago
Access to clean water may not be enshrined in the US constitution, but it’s not accurate to say it’s not “any sort of basic right.” It’s enshrined explicitly as such in a variety of UN documents and EU laws and instruments. I wish more of my fellow Americans had a better idea of what fundamental rights the US has chosen not integrate into domestic law over the past 8 or so decades.
- rbanffy 9d ago
  I might be mistaken, but when an international treaty is ratified, it has the same weight as a constitutional amendment. I’m sure the US ratified something around those lines.
  - iamEAP 9d ago
    It is unfortunately not that straightforward in the case of the US. For example, the ICCPR was ratified by the US, but declared “not self-executing.” The ICESCR was never ratified.
    - 8d ago

Frieren 9d ago

As a not American, why does freedom of speech include corporations giving money that are not citizens nor talking. But even that Congress has the power to spend "to provide for the common defence and general welfare" given by the constitution it still not a right to receive any of that. I have a feeling that there is a interpretation bias in favor of corporations over human life.

delecti 9d ago
I think the first amendment quite reasonably protects people making donations to political causes. The "speech" protections aren't limited to literal vocalizations, but also applause, writing, displaying signs, etc. And it also protects assembly, and donating to a political organization is a reasonable part of joining or supporting a cause. It does not have to protect corporations making those same donations; congress could remove donations from the list of powers granted to a corporation, and there's an effort in some states to do just that (it'll be on the ballot this fall in Montana). As for the second point, congress has that power, but not an obligation to do so. Congress could pass a law aimed at ensuring access to clean water, but not every law congress could pass has been passed. If congress passed such a law, a plain reading of that sentence would support the law being constitutional.
- rbanffy 9d ago
  > it'll be on the ballot this fall in Montana There are reasons to be optimistic.
- rassimmoc 9d ago
  Not from US and not a lawyer, but for me it makes sense for 'speech' to include writing, signs, etc... But not money. I think it should only include what every person has same of as every other person. We all can communicate, write, display signs,.... But not everyone can donate millions/billions
  - db48x 9d ago
    Take heart in the fact that spending more money does not guarantee a win. The Harris campaign spent over a billion dollars in 2024 and she lost badly. She spent more than 2.5× as much as Trump.

GarnetFloride 9d ago

are you kidding me? It's right in the preamble "promote the general welfare" if clean water does not count, then neither should all the other BS they've argued into existence over that phrase should either.

ChrisArchitect 9d ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49584637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49584637

engineerDave 9d ago

Next up. Air.

engineerDave 9d ago

Next up. Air. They wont be happy until they've taken everything from us.

maxv2 9d ago

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