White House letter defending Estrada nomination [White House] News
White House letter defending Estrada nomination [White House]

Letter from White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, February 12, 2003 [denying their request for additional information on US DC Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Miguel Estrada and urging them to end the filibuster and allow a vote on the nomination]. Read the full text of the letter here [PDF]. Reported on JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

President Johnson signed law against burning draft cards

On August 31, 1965, President Johnson signed a law making the burning of draft cards a federal offense subject to a five-year prison sentence and $1000 fine. In response to the law and in protest of the war in Vietnam, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States on October 15, 1965. The constitutionality of the federal law was upheld in 1968 by the US Supreme Court in US v. O'Brien.

Gdansk Agreement reached

On August 31, 1980, the communist government of Poland and labor leaders settled the Gdansk Agreement. The accord settled a summer of labor strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. With the Agreement, Poland became the first communist country to allow the creation of an independent labor union, which was called Solidarity. Solidarity then became the driving force that ended communism in Poland.
Learn more about the history of Solidarity.