Finding that the Trump Administration had no legal authority to create sweeping exemptions to the birth-control mandate under the Affordable Care Act, and ruling that the new rules potentially could cause “enormous and irreversible harm” to women across the nation, a federal trial judge on Friday temporarily barred the enforcement of the rules anywhere in… Read More

The Trump Administration notified a federal appeals court Tuesday that it continues to support the plea of a controversial former Arizona sheriff that he should have his criminal contempt-of-court conviction erased.  It will argue, as it did previously in a federal trial court, that President Trump’s pardon in August of ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio should have… Read More

Still insisting that the Pentagon will not be ready to accept transgender recruits into the military on January 1, even though that process was put in motion one day ago, the Trump Administration moved to a higher federal court late on Monday to seek a postponement. In a filing at the U.S. Court of Appeals… Read More

In three weeks, transgender individuals seeking to enlist in U.S. military forces may start joining up.  The Pentagon made that announcement Monday within hours after a federal judge refused the Trump Administration’s request to put such enlistments on hold. U.S. District Judge Kolleen Kollar-Kotelly, remarking that the Pentagon has had nearly a year and a… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday acted – probably because of procedural reasons – to leave undecided at least for now the spreading controversy over whether federal civil rights laws give protection to workers and students who are gay, lesbian or transgender. Without offering any explanation – and, significantly, without any noted dissents – the Justices… Read More

Siding with the Trump Administration and splitting 5-to-4, the Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a federal trial judge from requiring government lawyers to hand over all documents bearing on the decision to end the “DACA” program for younger undocumented immigrants — formally the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The unsigned order, containing no explanation… Read More

In a surprise move, the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon expanded its review of challenges to the decades-old practice of drawing election boundaries to benefit the candidates of the party in power.  It did so by taking on a claim by seven Maryland voters that their state legislature deliberately fashioned a congressional district that long… Read More

In a move that could tip the balance in the Supreme Court against labor unions representing public employees, the Trump Administration has added the federal government’s powerful voice to a long-running constitutional attack on fees charged to workers who do not belong to those unions. In a brief filed Wednesday evening, the Administration’s top advocate… Read More

In a highly unusual filing, a federal judge in San Francisco told the Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon that there is no clear legal rule that he violated when he ordered the Trump Administration to disclose more fully how it made the decision to end the “DACA” program that protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation.  The… Read More

Over the years, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has become the Supreme Court’s most energetic defender of gay rights, one of its true devotees to free speech,   and a sympathetic defender of religious believers.  Now, a lengthy hearing before the Justices on Tuesday showed, he has to find a way to reconcile all three. After 88… Read More