Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

The long-running dispute over the constitutionality of the massive federal health insurance law – the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” – headed into a new, and even more uncertain, phase on Wednesday after a federal appeals court issued a eagerly-awaited ruling.   Dividing 2-to-1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found unconstitutional a… Read More

Setting itself a constitutional task that could have a huge impact on presidential politics in 2020, the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon agreed to rule on three appeals by President Trump seeking to deny access by congressional and state investigators to his personal and business records, including tax returns. The decisions in the three cases… Read More

Two new court decisions – both historic, but both leaving a good deal of uncertainty – emerged Monday in constitutional controversies arising out of Congress’s investigations of President Trump and his senior White House aides.  It will take months for the full impact of both rulings to become clear, so these disputes will still be… Read More

UPDATE Monday morning, 11/25/19:  The Supreme Court took no action, among its regular orders list, on either of the cases involving President Trump’s tax returns.  That does not rule out an order or orders at any time, later Monday or later in the week. ——————— The historic, months-long constitutional battle growing out of official investigations… Read More

President Trump’s lawyers plan, within the next ten days, to go to the Supreme Court with a plea to rule – before the Justices’ current term ends this summer – that no court has power to order that his personal and business tax returns be handed over to a state criminal investigation. That appeal follows… Read More

Lawyers for President Trump and a state prosecutor in New York have reached an agreement to put before the Supreme Court in its current term the historic constitutional dispute over disclosure of the President’s tax returns.  The two sides notified the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City on Monday… Read More

Returning to an abortion rights issue that it had decided earlier but with a bench that is now changed, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear new appeals on states’ power to limit the activities of doctors who terminate women’s pregnancies. The case has the potential to bring about a major shift in the… Read More

In a stinging rebuke of Britain’s new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and a strong exertion of its own power, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously nullified a government order to shut down Parliament for five weeks this month and next. “The effect [of the suspension] upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme,”… Read More

The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court will announce Tuesday morning its ruling on the legality of the order to shut down Parliament for five weeks this month.   One of the most important constitutional decisions in Britain’s modern history, the ruling will be orally announced on live television at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday (London time; 5:30 a.m. on… Read More

At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday (that’s London time; 5:30 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast), Britain’s highest court opens three days of televised hearings on Brexit in a historic constitutional test of the 700-year-old UK Parliament’s role as the most powerful entity in that country’s government. The fundamental issue at the core of 12 hours of… Read More