Moore v. Harper is a case before the Supreme Court that legal experts agree could upend American democracy. In this case, conservative lawyers are asking the court to give state legislatures absolute power over state and federal elections. (See story here.) This is a prescription for minority rule. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’
December 5th, 2022 - 4:47 pm § in Law and Courts, Racism
Justices Alito puts KKK robes on black kids and laughs
A bizarre scene unfolded in the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, December 5, 2022. Lawyers were arguing over whether a Colorado graphic designer has a religious right to refuse service to gay couples (spoiler alert: she’ll win). Justice Jackson, who’s black, asked the designer’s attor[...]
November 9th, 2022 - 9:50 pm § in Law and Courts, Republicans
Supreme Court case threatens Medicaid patients’ rights
The Supreme Court allows Texas to empower complete strangers — legal vigilantes — to sue anyone, even a taxi driver, who helps a woman get an abortion. Now conservative justices obsessively hung up on states’ rights, and eager to overturn precedents, are considering a case pushed b[...]
November 6th, 2022 - 5:58 pm § in Law and Courts
Native American adoption preference isn’t racism
If the U.S. accuses China of forced assimilation of the Uyghur people, they can say “you did it too,” and they’d be right. Early 20th century attempts to force Native Americans to become “white” are a dark chapter in American history. “Assimilation” was a di[...]
October 23rd, 2022 - 7:09 pm § in Law and Courts, Racism
Why a genuinely “originalist” Supreme Court would uphold affirmative action
The Supreme Court’s conservatives claim to be “originalists,” a doctrine which holds that the Constitution means what its authors intended. This term, the court will revisit affirmative action, and lawyers opposed to the practice will argue the 14th Amendment requires college admis[...]
October 10th, 2022 - 10:20 am § in Law and Courts
Pig pen fight
I’ll bet you want to spend your Monday reading about the “dormant Commerce Clause.” Your wish is my command. Let’s start with history. Before the Constitution, “economic Balkanization … plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Arti[...]
The Supreme Court goes on trial
The Supreme Court’s new term begins tomorrow. And with recent polls showing three-fourths of Americans distrusting the court (see, e.g., story here), it’s the court itself that’s on trial this term. Several things contributed to the Supreme Court’s nosedive, most of them the [...]
Who is Ginni Thomas fooling?
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas is the wife of Clarence Thomas, a rightwing Supreme Court justice, and a lawyer herself (see her bio here). She’s also a rightwing political activist and election denier. She was more than a cheerleader for Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 electio[...]
September 26th, 2022 - 6:06 pm § in Democrats, Donald Trump, Hypocrisy, Law and Courts, Politics, Republicans
Why Sinema is wrong about the filibuster
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) thinks “the Senate should reinstate the 60-vote threshold for all judicial and executive branch nominees,” The Hill reported (here) on Monday, September 26, 2022. She made that remark during a Q&A following a speech at the University of Louisville’s M[...]