US Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has decided Tuesday that state legislatures do not have untrammeled power to draw congressional districts and must adhere to their own constitutions, which state supreme courts can adjudicate. As such, independent state legislature theory — which the North Carolina state legislature utilized to bring its case before the court — is not a viable legal theory. The decision in Moore v. Harper was 6-3, with Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch taking up the dissent.  The court wrote in its thirty-page decision that, contrary to independent state legislature theory, “The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections.

The Supreme Court is entering the home stretch of its session, with just days left before it goes into recess for the summer. Some of the most significant decisions have yet to be issued, teeing up a big week. Here is what some of those cases are. Moore v. Harper This case tackles whether a state’s supreme court can rule on gerrymandering cases. The plaintiffs are testing the independent state legislature theory, which argues that state legislatures have the prerogative in redistricting, and that state supreme courts cannot get involved in the process. North Carolina’s supreme court has since switched its original decision against the state legislature, meaning that the US Supreme Court might drop the case instead of issuing a decision. Students for Fair Admissions v.

We have all seen a sign, usually in a mom-and-pop business, declaring, “We reserve the right to refuse service to you.” In a free society, it is hard to argue with this assertion. Shouldn’t a business owner, landlord, or proprietor have the right to decide whom to serve to and whom to decline to serve? This is the essence of the freedom of association, which includes the reciprocal right to refrain from association. Or does it? In Colorado, cake artist Jack Phillips was threatened with draconian legal penalties for declining to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to his religious objections to such unions. In 2017, the Supreme Court granted Phillips a reprieve from his ordeal, but the litigation continues.

From 1969 to today, presidents have appointed eighteen men and women to the U.S. Supreme Court. Of those eighteen justices, Republican presidents have seated fourteen justices to just four justices making it to the highest court under Democratic presidents. All four of those justices are still serving, with Bill Clinton naming 87-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 81-year-old Stephen Breyer and Barack Obama appointing Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Theoretically, that means that conservatives should hold a 5-4 majority on the court. Theory, however, rarely applies in the swamp that is Washington, D.C. Despite appointing nearly 78 percent of justices over the last 51 years, conservatives have watched as the Supreme Court established or upheld liberal precedents such as Roe v.

‘There’ll be another woman.’ A friend of mine who has been in political journalism much longer than I have told me this weekend to expect another accuser against Brett Kavanaugh to come forward — and sure enough, the New Yorker on Sunday revealed one. Deborah Ramirez alleges that when they were students at Yale, a drunken Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party and touched her with his penis. As yet, however, Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer write, ‘The New Yorker has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party.

I believe that Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth when she claims that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a house party in the early 1980s, when she was 15 and he was 17. I believe her husband, Russell Ford, who has told the Washington Post that in 2012 his wife had recounted her experience during a couples’ therapy session, and named Kavanaugh. And I believe the story that Kavanaugh’s friend Amy Chua advised her female students that if they wanted to win a clerkship with him, they should dress like a model. All of which this leads me to conclude that Kavanaugh is not right for a seat on the Supreme Court. As Roger has written, the Democrats are doing everything they can to exploit Ford’s accusation for political ends.

Is Christine Blasey Ford stealing a page from Trump? She’s just pulled the kind of power move that Trump himself likes to make in dealing with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Told that she must respond by 10 a.m. Friday about whether or not she will show up, Blasey has now declared that she can’t appear to testify on Monday but would like to later in the week. A letter from her attorney to the committee states, ‘As you are aware, she’s been receiving death threats which have been reported to the FBI and she and her family have been forced out of their home. She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety.