SCOTUS Marshal's Investigation Inconclusive on Dobbs Leaker's Identity
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that after months of looking into the source of the leaked opinion in the landmark abortion ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, there is no identifiable suspect.
Read moreBREAKING: The Supreme Court says it has been unable to identify "by a preponderance of the evidence" who leaked the Dobbs opinion last year.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 19, 2023
A statement from the court, along with a report on the leak investigation, is posted here: https://t.co/cVMLKkbCb9
Another Baseless Attack by the Left on Justice Thomas
"Lefty legal commentator" Mark Stern has attacked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yet again. This time, he has misconstrued a picture of Justice Thomas with former U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker as proof of Justice Thomas' alleged "interest in politics." Mark Paoletta explains:
In April, Justice Thomas hosted a reception at the Supreme Court for recent inductees into the Horatio Alger Association. This organization has awarded $235 million in scholarships to more than 35,000 at-risk students. Herschel Walker was one of many inductees this year, so he attended the event too.
Read moreICYMI: SCOTUS Blocks Biden Admin from Lifting Title 42
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a lower court's ruling to keep the pandemic-era Title 42 immigration policy in place which many see as the only thing stopping the crisis out our southern border from becoming even more out of control than it already is. National Review reported:
In a filing, Chief Justice Roberts stayed the lower court order that ended the pandemic-era policy, which had allowed the administration to expel illegal immigrants as a means to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Roberts gave the DOJ until Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. to file a response to the states petitioning to maintain Title 42.
Read more"Independent State Legislature Theory" Has Day in Court
This morning, the United States Supreme Court heard three hours of oral argument in Moore v. Harper, a highly-charged redistricting case out of North Carolina.
How highly charged? Well, mainstream media and voting rights groups have called it the case that "threatens" to "upend democracy." But a quick look at today's arguments shows a different story.
Read moreI'll be following today's oral argument in #MooreVHarper and will do tweet thread here. For overview of issues, see my three posts: https://t.co/7dW0ukyXO9https://t.co/ln1GLw7LGjhttps://t.co/H9vISnCSBX
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) December 7, 2022
SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments in Landmark Affirmative Action Cases
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina ("the UNC case") and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College ("the Harvard case"), which, together, are expected to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that the use of affirmative action policies in college admissions is unconstitutional.
Read moreHappening now: about 100 people, mostly Asian, are gathered in front of the Supreme Court to rally against affirmative action, one day before hearings begin in the Harvard/UNC cases. They are holding signs like: “I am Asian American, I have a dream too” pic.twitter.com/J6f4FKzian
— Amy Qin (@amyyqin) October 30, 2022
When Will the Attacks on SCOTUS End?
Leftists have been waging an endless war on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, often resorting to attacking the spouses of Conservative Supreme Court Justices—especially Ginni Thomas, wife to Justice Clarence Thomas. But this time, the attacks were broadened to include not only the spouses of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett but also liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. A September article appearing in Politico posits that conflict of interest disclosure requirements for the Justices' spouses are far too lenient, "fanning fears of outside influences."
Read moreDemocrats Lose Again at SCOTUS, Downplay Loss
Straight from the Democrat playbook: if you can’t beat ‘em, just ignore the fact that you lost.
Today, the Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit’s horrible ruling in Ritter v. Migliori and along with it took the air out of the sails of Democrats who continue to cry wolf over commonsense election procedures. But after the loss, of course, Democrat consigliere Marc Elias and other Democrats attempted to soften the blow.
Read moreThe Left’s Continuing Assault on the Supreme Court
The liberal mainstream media is using the opening of the Supreme Court’s term this year as an excuse to attack its conservative members in an attempt to undermine its legitimacy. As Mark Paoletta writes in the Wall Street Journal:
The ascendant originalist approach at the court is more faithful to the Constitution, but it is less welcoming to the liberal policy-making many have come to expect from the court since the Warren era. Expect to see many more baseless attacks on the court’s conservative members in the future.
As Peter Roff points out this effort has been somewhat successful in swaying surface level public opinion polls of the Court.
The undermining of the court’s legitimacy is part of the political process, not the legal and certainly not the democratic one. Everything from the references to its poll numbers to the way the current majority is described – conservative, far-right, hard right – rather than originalist, constitutionalist or even as justices favoring a narrow interpretation of the Constitution’s meaning rather than an expansive one – are all notes in the same song. Progressives want to restore the court’s position as the final word on liberal causes it’s been since FDR and are not especially concerned about how they do it. They reject the idea it should function as the referee in disputes between the branches of the federal government, the states and, on occasion, the people.
Read moreSCOTUS Wraps Up First Week of 2022-2023 Term
The Supreme Court has officially wrapped up its first week of oral arguments for the 2022-2023 term. Two cases cases that especially stand out are Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency and Merrill v. Milligan. The Sackett oral arguments seemed to suggest that the Court may be heading towards changing the standard used for determining whether the federal government has regulatory jurisdiction over an issue:
If oral argument was any indication, the justices recognize the need for greater regulatory certainty, but also recognize the difficulty in drawing a clear line to demarcate where "waters of the United States" end and non-federal waters or lands begin. Much of the argument focused on precisely this question, causing the justices to explore the meaning of the word "adjacent," as the Court previously upheld the EPA and Army Corps' authority over wetlands adjacent to navigable waters in United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, perhaps the high-water mark of Court acquiescence to broad assertions of federal regulatory power under the CWA. Accordingly, the justices considered whether "adjacent wetlands" must be physically connected to navigable waters, must be neighboring to such waters, or must merely be nearby, and most seemed unconvinced with the answers they received from the advocates.
Read moreArguments Heard in First Cases of 2022-2023 SCOTUS Term
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court kicked off its 2022-2023 term by hearing oral arguments for two cases. The first case before the Court was Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, which considers:
Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit set forth the proper test for determining whether wetlands are "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1362(7).
Read more