ICYMI: Gun Rights Are on Trial in 2021

One of the most important constitutional issues that has been raised since Joe Biden took office is the state of the Second Amendment in the United States. On April 8th, he announced his gun control agenda to be implemented through executive orders:

Biden is asking the Justice Department (DOJ) to propose within a month a rule to stop "ghost guns," which are "kits" people can buy legally to assemble a functioning firearm that does not have a serial number. 

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Justice Thomas' Increased Participation a "Lemonade Out of Lemons Situation"

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every level of the legal system all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. Since last year, the Court has been conducting oral arguments via telephone. One byproduct of this change is that Justice Clarence Thomas has been a more active questioner than he has ever been since joining the Court. The New York Times reports

Justice Clarence Thomas, who once went a decade without asking a question from the Supreme Court bench, is about to complete a term in which he was an active participant in every single argument.

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Left Responds to Scott's Message of Hope and Unity with Racist Attacks

By now you've probably heard that South Carolina Senator Tim Scott knocked the Republican response to Joe Biden's first congressional address out of the park. One of the most poignant moments of the Senator's remarks came when he directly called out the left for their racist attacks against him:

“I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called Uncle Tom and the N-word by progressives, by liberals,” Scott said. “Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privileged because a relative owned land generations before my time.”

Unfortunately, leftists doubled down on their disgusting, racist attacks after the speech.

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Is the DC Statehood Ruse a Desperate Effort to Counter Census Data?

On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau released updated population data from the 2020 Census. This data determines how many seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and consequently, how many electoral votes each state will have beginning with the next Congress. Fox News reports:

Texas will gain two seats, the most out of any U.S. state. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one seat. . .

On the other hand, seven states, including California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, were set to lose one seat in the chamber each.

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Hearing Shows Liberal Dark Money Influence on Democrat Judicial Nominees

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee hosted its first set of judicial confirmation hearings since Joe Biden took office. The first panel featured the nominations of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to be United States Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit.

The most high-profile nomination considered during the first panel was that of Ketanji Brown Jackson. As RNLA previously noted, Judge Jackson has appeared on liberal dark money group Demand Justice's Supreme Court short list. The group is also supporting her nomination to the D.C. Circuit.

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In Latest Attack on the Court, Senator Whitehouse Goes After Amicus Briefs

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights held a hearing entitled, "Supreme Court Fact-Finding and the Distortion of American Democracy." The two witnesses called by the Republican members of the Committee were Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher and the Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro. As Shapiro pointed out during the hearing and in his prepared remarks, the title of the hearing itself is overblown:

I actually think that the hearing title is a bit loaded: first, because the Supreme Court doesn’t generally engage in fact-finding in the way trial courts do, but rather applies the law to novel facts, as any appellate court is supposed to; and second, because however much one thinks American democracy is “distorted,” the Supreme Court, a reactive institution, is hardly at fault. Indeed, the court is the most respected government institution other than police and the military, so hand-wringing over its role in governance—or broader questioning of its legitimacy—principally arises when the justices rule in ways that disagree with progressive orthodoxy or, more broadly, when progressives are frustrated that there’s a major institution they don’t control. The chairman himself filed a brief in last year’s Second Amendment case admonishing the Court to “heal itself before the public demands it be restructured in order to reduce the influence of politics.”

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Elections "Make or Break" at the Local Level

The Left continues to incessantly attack newly-signed election laws in Georgia and Iowa which fall well within the mainstream. Despite this seeming obsession with state election reforms, they routinely ignore one the most important components of the new laws—they hold local election officials accountable for their election administration failures. As the RNC's Chief Counsel, Justin Riemer, explained in a recent op-ed, how elections are managed at the local level "make or break" them: 

[L]ess discussed are parts of the laws that hold to account and punish poor local election management practices.

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House Democrats Push Divisive Rhetoric Against Popular Voter ID

For the second time in a week, congressional Democrats held a hearing on Thursday to propagate their narrative that state election law reforms are a new wave of systematic voter discrimination. This time, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing entitled, "Oversight of the Voting Rights Act: The Evolving Landscape of Voting Discrimination." The hearing primarily focused on the issue of voter ID with the Democrat members of the Committee and their witnesses insisting that support for voter ID by Republicans was an attempt to suppress votes. But Mark Robinson, the first Black Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, repeatedly debunked that myth:

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Graham, Cruz, Blackburn: Court-Packing would End the Rule of Law

Although in the past President Biden described court-packing as a “bonehead idea," he and his liberal allies are now calling for this complete power grab.

Six out of the nine SCOTUS justices were appointed by Republicans; therefore, Democrats want to add more seats, so they can outnumber conservatives. They are shamelessly attempting to change the rules to get what they want.

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Despite "Trail of Radical Claims and Hasty Backtracks," Gupta Confirmed

Vanita Gupta has been confirmed to be Associate Attorney General by a mostly party-line vote. She remains one of the most controversial nominations made by the Biden Administration so far. Presidents are entitled to nominate qualified individuals to fill political positions, but as Republican Leader Mitch McConnell explained on the Senate floor earlier today, Gupta falls outside of the mainstream:

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