Acting in the face of the reality that the Supreme Court might soon take away her power to act, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday ordered the Trump Administration to stop interfering with the right of pregnant teenagers being held in immigration detention centers to make their own decisions whether to seek an… Read More

A successful and deliberate effort by Maryland’s Democratic leaders to take a congressional seat away from Republicans might be just the kind of “partisan gerrymander” that the Supreme Court could now be ready to rule unconstitutional.   But would that clarify anything about how much partisanship in drawing new election maps is too much? That is… Read More

Answering a constitutional question that the Supreme Court left open nearly 21 years ago in a case against President Bill Clinton, a state trial judge in New York ruled Tuesday that President Trump does not have immunity to being sued in state court on claims related to sexual misconduct that did not involve official acts…. Read More

In the space of about three hours on Monday, the intense, months-long battle over partisan gerrymandering in Pennsylvania elections this year for 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives reached a pause, one that may well end it altogether. A brief ruling by the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and a 24-page decision by… Read More

In a unanimous ruling Monday afternoon, a three-judge federal court in Harrisburg, PA, threw out a challenge by Pennsylvania Republican officials and members of Congress to the use this year of a new map for the election of the state’s 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. That ruling, offering no view on the… Read More

The political calendar for electing 18 members of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania will continue to unfold over the weekend, but no one in the state – not candidates, not voters signing candidate petitions, not state officials – know if they are doing it right.  The reason they don’t know is that the U.S…. Read More

The Trump Administration’s effort to close down the “DACA” program is now on a slightly faster schedule in a lower appeals court, but the plan may be too tight to get the case to the Supreme Court for any action during the current term.   In a new order issued Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals… Read More

The Trump Administration wants the controversy over the “DACA” program for younger undocumented immigrants to be back at the Supreme Court in time for initial action before the Justices’ summer recess.  If the Justices agreed by late June to hear the case, it would mean it would be ready for an early hearing this Fall…. Read More

Even as the Supreme Court takes more time than expected to decide its part in the constitutional controversy over how voting is to be done this year for the 18 House of Representatives members from Pennsylvania, a federal trial court in Harrisburg, PA, is pondering a complex question of states’ rights that could end the… Read More

The high-profile constitutional fight in Pennsylvania over voting for Congress this year will remain in limbo at least for the next few days, with no action at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and a lengthy hearing but no decision in a federal court in Harrisburg, PA, on Friday.   The Supreme Court closed for the… Read More