On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an important ruling regarding the interpretation of the definition of "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency that stopped unconstitutional overreach by the federal government in its tracks. National Review explained:

In Sackett, the EPA argued that the Court should defer to the agency’s “broad and unqualified” reading of WOTUS, such that it might cover all the water in the country. The only limiting principle is a “nexus” test nowhere found in the statute, requiring an assessment of aggregate effects of all “similarly situated” waters on the local ecosystem of a body of water that is or could be navigable. Whatever that is, it is not law. All nine justices were unanimous in rejecting the EPA’s “nexus” test. The Court thus finally ruled in favor of property owners who had been fighting the agency for 19 years over whether they could move dirt and rock onto water that was on the opposite side of a road from a non-navigable creek that feeds into a once-navigable lake, on the theory that the aggregate effect of the Sacketts’ body of water when combined with an unconnected fen would harm the lake.

Yesterday’s Senate Judiciary “Supreme Court Ethics Reform” hearing had three Senators who took the spotlight, representing the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

The good was Republican Senator John Kennedy who totally destroyed Democrat witness Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center. 

Senator Kennedy slams the biased Twitter posts of a key witness, who called some justices "politicians in robes who thrive in a system where access and influence are for sale" and said Chief Justice John Roberts was "a disgrace." pic.twitter.com/6DLEXqf1oW

— The Article III Project (A3P) (@Article3Project) May 2, 2023

Justice Kavanaugh’s would-be assassin is in part the result of a problem created by Democrats who have called for violence against the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices for their support for overruling Roe v. Wade, which was confirmed by the recent Dobbs draft opinion leak.

But worse yet, Democrats not only refuse to condemn the would-be assassin’s actions and other violence against the justices, they are intentionally blocking legislation that would provide the justices clearly needed protection. As Republican Leader Mitch McConnell stated:  

This is exactly why the Senate passed legislation very shortly after the leak to enhance the police protection for the Justices and their families. This is commonsense, noncontroversial legislation that passed this chamber unanimously. 

But House Democrats have spent weeks blocking it. The House Democratic majority has refused to take it up.  That needs to change. Right now. House Democrats must pass this bill and they must do it today. House Democrats need to stop their multi-week blockade against the Supreme Court security bill and pass it before the sun sets today.

The Senate debated the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act all day yesterday and well into the night. This is the latest effort by Democrats on Capitol Hill to take over election regulation, ensure Washington bureaucrats control election rules, violate donor privacy, infringe on First Amendment rights, fund campaigns with federal dollars, and entrench Democrat power for decades to come.

On Tuesday, the Senate officially began consideration of the Democrats' latest partisan power grab, the "Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act."

12 noon, Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Senate begins consideration of the House Message to accompany #HR5746, Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act https://t.co/7iScGvjuI5

— U.S. Senate Floor (@SenateFloor) January 18, 2022

On Thursday morning, the House passed Democrats' most radical piece of elections legislation yet, the "Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act,” along party lines. This legislation combines the "Freedom to Cheat Act" and H.R. 4 into one bill.

Since becoming Senate Majority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer has became an extremist and has seemingly lost touch with other Senators, including himself.  Then just Senator Schumer said in 2003:

"The bottom line is this. We are defending the Constitution, we are saying there should be some balance," Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a 2003 floor speech. "President Bush didn’t win by a landslide. This Senate is not 62 to 38, or 70 to 30. This country is narrowly divided, and that means when laws are made they move to the middle."

On Wednesday, Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer continued his campaign against the filibuster in the name of passing a federal takeover of elections. But Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are not buying Chuck Schumer's filibuster hysterics. Manchin expressed his continued hesitancy with making changes to the filibuster to a pool of reporters on Tuesday: "To being open to a rules change that would create a nuclear option, that's very, very difficult. That's a heavy lift… Anytime there's a carveout, you eat the whole turkey."

In a follow up to his "dear colleague" letter released yesterday, Senator Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to further discuss his plans to use changes in Senate filibuster rules to pass Democrat-backed elections legislation. In his remarks, Senator Schumer centered on the contention that the Left's radical elections proposals should be passed in response to the events of January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.

.@SenSchumer (D-NY): "Jan. 6, 2021, will be forever remembered as a day of enduring infamy, a permanent blemish in the story of American democracy, and the final bitter act of the worst president in modern times."

Watch: https://t.co/VzzzKGNJFK pic.twitter.com/9MLmBdxO2y

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 4, 2022

On Monday, Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer indicated that he would hold a vote in the next few weeks to change Senate filibuster rules. He is threatening these changes in the event that the chamber inevitably is unable to pass one of the radical pieces of election legislation proposed by Democrats in 2021. In his letter, Senator Schumer wrote:

We must adapt. The Senate must evolve, like it has many times before. The Senate was designed to evolve and has evolved many times in our history. As former Senator Robert Byrd famously said, Senate Rules “must be changed to reflect changed circumstances.” Put more plainly by Senator Byrd, “Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.”