This post also appears on scotusblog.com Without settling any legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate, the Supreme Court on Monday nevertheless cleared the way for the government to promptly provide no-cost access to contraceptives for employees and students of non-profit religious hospitals, charities, and colleges, while barring any penalties on those institutions… Read More
Feb 16 2016
The Court and the impact of a vacancy
This post also appears on Constitution Daily. Under the Constitution, there can be only “one Supreme Court” – the actual language in Article III – and that is understood to mean that the Justices cannot call in temporary help. With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the court very likely will finish its current term… Read More
Feb 14 2016
Commentary: Scalia in history — a first draft
This post also appears on scotusblog.com History will be kind to Justice Antonin Scalia — if the future fully appreciates his scholarship, his inventiveness in legal thinking, and his beguiling cleverness with words. It will not remember him well for his air of superiority, the sting of his rhetoric, his frequent disdain for collegiality, his… Read More
Aug 11 2015
Making same-sex marriage a reality: The final steps
Demonstrating that the Supreme Court may rule but may not always command, the process of making same-sex marriage available nationwide is still unfolding, some six weeks after the Justices decided in its favor. Political resistance is developing in many places, but the legal process is moving ahead — state by state — to make same-sex… Read More
Jun 1 2015
Internet threats still in legal limbo?
This post also appears on scotusblog.com The Supreme Court moved into the new realm of violent speech on the Internet with the aim of clarifying the legal risk. It insisted Monday that it had done so, at least part of the way, but two Justices argued that instead only confusion had resulted. It is not even… Read More
Jun 1 2015
New shield against religious bias
This post also appears on scotusblog.com A job applicant whose faith dictates a personal practice that may contradict a company’s workplace rules now has a better chance of getting hired, even if the management’s rule is entirely neutral about religion, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. If the management has even an inkling about the applicant’s religious views, it… Read More
May 18 2015
No new limit on police use of force
This post also appears on scotusblog.com Amid an emotional national debate over claims that police are too quick to use excessive force, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that officers have some leeway to fire their guns to subdue a mentally disturbed person who is violently threatening them. The Court did so in a narrow ruling… Read More
Apr 26 2015
Same-sex marriage: The decisive questions
This post also appears on scotusblog.com Twenty-two months ago, the Supreme Court — perhaps not fully realizing that it was doing so — set off a constitutional revolution. In a decision that spoke somewhat tentatively about an “evolving understanding of the meaning of equality,” the Court in United States v. Windsor saw in that understanding… Read More
Mar 24 2015
Have voter ID laws survived a new round of challenges?
Reprinted from Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Post by Lyle Denniston. Few constitutional issues over the right to vote divide the nation’s two dominant political parties more deeply than the question of whether elections would be fairer if every voter had to show a photo ID before casting a… Read More
Mar 4 2015
Setting the stage for private debate on health care
This post also appears on scotusblog.com One of the most important functions of oral argument in the Supreme Court is that it can strongly shape the next round: the private deliberations among the nine Justices as they start work on a decision. The much-awaited hearing Wednesday on the stiff new challenge to the Affordable Care Act… Read More
