First of two articles With civil rights facing new risks in a deeply conservative Supreme Court, President Biden on Tuesday is scheduled to take a step to provide new – but limited – legal protection for same-sex marriage. Acting quickly in direct response to the possibility that the Court could put an end to the… Read More

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court faces a reckoning: will it find constitutional virtue in a political theory that Donald Trump and his allies used in their failed attempt to overthrow the 2020 election?  How it decides this historic case may well affect its reputation at a time when its popularity is sagging in opinion polls. The… Read More

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court takes a new look at an old law – an 1863 law, passed at President Abraham Lincoln’s request, that gives “whistleblowers” an incentive to help the federal government deal with waste and abuse in federal spending.  A second hearing tomorrow focuses on a wife’s duty to help pay family debts,… Read More

On Monday, starting a new week of hearings, the Supreme Court will revisit the culture wars, this time in a case testing business firms’ right to refuse to deal with same-sex couples in making their wedding plans.  The refusal in this case was based on the business owner’s religious views, but the Court, without explaining… Read More

A federal appeals court on Thursday unanimously ordered a federal trial judge in Florida to stop interfering with the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of how 200,000 pages of government documents – many of them highly secret — wound up at former President Donald Trump’s private resort, Mar-a-Lago. A recurring them throughout the 21-page ruling was… Read More

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court’s single hearing will focus on a case that is quite narrow but is unfolding against a broad historical background on Congress’s power to control the work of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.  Some critics now want to use that power to rein in an unpopular Court. The Court… Read More

In Tuesday’s single hearing, the Supreme Court will have a historic encounter with United States policy on immigration.  The hearing will be in the language of legal decorum, but not far in the background will be a dark theory of xenophobia – the bitter resentment of foreigners among us. The Court will broadcast “live” the… Read More

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court returns to the bench for a new round of hearings.  Up first are two hearings on the troubling but all-too-familiar topic: public corruption.  The two cases were decided on the same day in a lower court and raise closely related issues. The Court will broadcast “live” the audio (no video) of… Read More

Last of three parts on Moore v. Harper It may appear to be mere chance that the Supreme Court has before it the cases that it most wants to decide; the selection of cases is a kind of lottery: lawyers decide what to file, and the Court picks and chooses what to review.  Since 1929,… Read More

Second of three parts on Moore v. Harper The dominant mode of constitutional interpretation now applied by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is finding meaning of the basic document in American history and tradition.  That, however, does not involve an open-ended inquiry into the past: it is said to be focused on the meaning that… Read More