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PHOENIX, Ariz. (PRWEB) March 30, 2006 –

Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, has moved to take on the Deficit Reduction Act with its own lawsuit, following the first lawsuit filed in February by an Alabama elder law attorney.

Filed on March 21, Public Citizen’s lawsuit challenges the bill’s legal constitutionality, as does the lawsuit filed by Jim Zeigler of Alabama.

Controversy has surrounded the bill since before it was signed into law Feb. 8 by President Bush. The bill includes major cuts to federal programs, with approximately $ 12.7 billion in cuts to federal student loans as well as cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

The legal constitutionality of the bill is being challenged due to a clerical error that occurred after approval of the bill and when it was sent to the House. A Senate clerk mistakenly changed wording in the House version. In effect, the Senate version was passed with wording stating that a Medicare provision would pay for rental of 13 months of certain durable medical equipment; the House version stated 36 months. Because of the error, many argue the bill is not law as, according to the Constitution, both the Senate and the House must sign identical versions before a bill is signed into law by the president.

Adina Rosenbaum, a staff attorney at Washington-based Public Citizen, said, “What we’ve asked for is for the law to be declared unconstitutional.” Public Citizen works on issues such as openness and democratic accountability in government, and effective, safe affordable healthcare.

According to Rosenbaum, although Zeigler and Public Citizen filed lawsuits in different courts, “What we’re asking for is the same thing [as Zeigler].”

“The ways we’ve been injured by the law are different,” Rosenbaum said. “The provisions that affect us and the provisions that affect him [Zeigler] are different, but in the end, he’s also asking for the law to be declared unconstitutional because it didn’t pass the House and Senate in the same version.”

As the Deficit Reduction Act is “a law that affects millions of people,” she said, it would not be surprising for others to follow and challenge the bill.

Zeigler said that many people and businesses have been affected by the bill and expects more lawsuits. He added that student loan companies could join in as some have made inquiries.

NOTE: Zeigler’s lawsuit is Civil Action: 2006-80 and was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Public Citizen case is: Case No. 06-00523, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

About NextStudent

NextStudent, http://www.nextstudent.com/, listed at No. 15 on the Top 100 Consolidating Lenders for fiscal year 2004, is dedicated to helping students and their families find affordable ways to pay for college. NextStudent offers one-on-one education finance counseling and has a portfolio of highly competitive education lending products and services including an online scholarship search engine, low and no-cost federal student loans, parent loans, private loans, student loan consolidation programs, student loan reconsolidation programs and college savings plans.

The NextStudent Scholarship Search Engine, one of the nation’s oldest and largest scholarship search engines, is updated daily, available free of charge, completely private – and represents more than 800,000 scholarships worth $ 2.8 billion.

For more information about NextStudent and its student loan reconsolidation program, please visit the company’s Web site at http://www.nextstudent.com/.

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Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) May 5, 2006

Following other lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, S. 1932, Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-MI, has brought forth his own lawsuit to declare the legislation unconstitutional and not law. Rep. George Miller, D-CA, and 10 other members of Congress joined Conyers in the lawsuit that was filed April 28.

The filing of Conyers’ lawsuit follows, among others, Mobile, AL, elder law attorney Jim Zeigler’s suit filed Feb.13 (Civil Action: 2006-80), and the filing March 21 by Washington-based Public Citizen (Case No. 06-00523), a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. Both Zeigler and Public Citizen filed suit on the same grounds as did Conyers.

Directly following the Feb. 8 signing of the Deficit Reduction Act into law by President Bush, Democrats have disputed the constitutionality of the bill. Democrats said the House and Senate failed to sign the same version of the legislation. The version passed by the House included 36 months of funding for durable medical equipment, and the Senate passed a version that included funding for 13 months. Democrats are calling foul as identical versions of a bill must be signed before the president can sign a bill into law.

Conyers, House Judiciary Committee ranking member, in an April 27 press statement from his office said, “Once again the Administration is playing fast and loose with the Constitution. Anyone who has passed the sixth grade knows that before a bill can become a law, both Houses of Congress must approve it. That the Bush Administration is now saying otherwise underscores the Constitutional crisis we are facing in this country. Over 200 years of legal precedent dictate that such discrepancies can be handled through simply refiling the paperwork, or re-voting the whole bill. Because the bill cuts billions of dollars to the Nation’s most needy, the Republican leadership prevented a re-vote at all costs.”

The lawsuit, case No. 2:06-CV-11972, was filed in the Eastern District Court of Michigan. Democratic aides said that those named in the suit include President Bush, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and others behind the Deficit Reduction Act’s required budget cuts.

Conyers’ press release included quotes from some of the other Congress members in the lawsuit, including Miller. “Republican leaders were in such a rush to ram this bill through Congress and get the President to sign it that they violated the Constitution in the process,” said Miller, ranking member, House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “And they were in a rush because this was a very, very bad bill. They wanted to spend as little time as possible having to explain their backwards priorities — like cutting $ 12 billion from financial aid programs for college students — to their constituents.”

About NextStudent

NextStudent, http://www.nextstudent.com/ , listed at No. 17 on the Top 100 Consolidating Lenders for fiscal year 2005, is dedicated to helping students and their families find affordable ways to pay for college. NextStudent offers one-on-one education finance counseling and has a portfolio of highly competitive education lending products and services including an online scholarship search engine, low and no-cost federal student loans, parent loans, private loans, student loan consolidation programs and college savings plans.

The NextStudent Scholarship Search Engine, one of the nation’s oldest and largest scholarship search engines, is updated daily, available free of charge, completely private – and represents 2.4 million scholarships worth $ 3.4 billion.

For more information about NextStudent and its student loan programs, please visit the company’s Web site at http://www.nextstudent.com/.

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More Lawsuit Press Releases

New common opinion survey findings from the Insurance Research Council (IRC) bespeak that a majority of Americans believe that espousing fresh laws letting people to litigate their personal auto insurance company for correctional damages, in addition to having benefits for their seen to it claim losses, is not an acceptable idea. Twenty-six percent of those appraised stated that allowing much lawsuits was a beggarly idea, and 31 percent stated it was only an antimonopoly idea

A first-party bad-faith lawsuit is one where a person sues their own insurance company because they believe the company acted in “bad faith” in the settlement of their claim. Only a few states let individuals to litigate their personal insurance company in this manner, although several states have recently debated, and passed up, legislation authorising first-party bad-faith lawsuits

The survey also asked whether respondents would be willing to pay more for insurance in order to allow first-party bad-faith lawsuits. (Allowing first-party bad-faith lawsuits increases claim costs and, ultimately, the cost of insurance coverage.) Forty-seven percent stated they were “not at all willing” to pay more and 24 percent stated they were “not very willing” to pay more. Even among those who thought that letting first-party bad-faith lawsuits was an acceptable or a superior idea, one-half (51 percent) said they were grudging to pay more for insurance in order to let the lawsuits

“These findings indicate a substantial lack of public support for legislation that would generate more lawsuits and higher costs for insurance consumers,” said Elizabeth Sprinkel, Senior Vice President of the IRC

The report, “Public Attitude Monitor 2010: First-Party Bad-Faith Legislation,” is established on telephone interviews with 1,614 adults comprehensive carried on December 15, 2009, through January 6, 2010, by Harris Interactive on behalf of the IRC. For more slotted information on the study’s methodology and findings, contact David Corum by phone at (484) 831-9046 or by email at corum(at)cpcuiia(dot)org. Copies of the study are accessible at $ 65, for an electronic version, or $ 80 each, for an impressed copy. Visit IRC’s Web site for more information

NOTE TO EDITORS: The Insurance Research Council is a division of the American Institute For Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (The Institutes). The Institutes are the leader in handing over proven knowledge solutions that drive muscular business results for the risk management and property-casualty insurance industry. The Institutes’’ knowledge solutions admit the CPCU designation program; tie in designation programs in areas much as claims, risk management, underwriting, and reinsurance; first and foundation programs; online courses; research; custom solutions; assessment tools; and going on education (CE) courses for licenced insurance professionals and adjusters through its CEU.com business unit

The IRC provides timely and reliable research to all parties involved in public policy issues affecting insurance companies and their customers. The IRC does not lobby or advocate legislative positions. It is backed up by leading property-casualty insurance organizations

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Guidant Corp., recently acquired by Boston Scientific, faces over a hundred lawsuits involving their imperfect heart pacemakers and engrafted defibrillators.

Thousands of U.S. consumers with an engrafted Guidant heart device have had the device surgically taken away after Guidant denoted a retrieve of more than 100,000 pacemakers and Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICD). The recall was motivated by FDA involvement and reports of several deaths allegedly tied in to device failure

Guidant recently acknowledged to making changes to their democratic Ventak Prizm 2 engrafted defibrillator in 2002. Since these changes were not O.K. by the FDA, Guidant may have went against a northern law by fabricating and commercializing an unO.K. medical device. The federal government is also looking into claims that Guidant was alive of a device malfunction as aboriginal as 2002 but did not watchful the common until 2005

Consumers can take action to retrieve justice and compensation through a class action lawsuit. To larn more about an accomplishable Guidant Defibrillator ICD lawsuit, visit: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/guidant_defective_defibrillator_class_action?ref=pr

To learn more about a possible Guidant Pacemaker lawsuit, visit: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/guidant_pacemaker?ref=pr

About Online Legal Marketing (OLM) and www.lawyersandsettlements.com:

LawyersandSettlements.com offers an across-the-board website with up-to-date court-ordered news, class action lawsuits, ad hominem injury cases, settlement details, product recalls, and more. Consumers can have loose case evaluations.

Visit us at:

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/

Contact us at:

1-866-886-5529

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