Interpreting the Supreme Court’s two-year-old decision in favor of same-sex marriage as settling only one thing — a basic right to marry, the Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Justices left open a wide array of questions about what public benefits go with such marriages. The state court, Texas’s highest court for civil… Read More

Ten of the states that had succeeded in a sweeping challenge to President Obama’s 2014 order that would have delayed deportation of more than 4 million undocumented immigrants acted on Thursday to force an end to a similar 2012 Obama order to protect about 1 million younger immigrants.   If that is not done by September… Read More

(UPDATED Thursday 4:06 pm: The Native Americans who challenged  the trademarks, in a letter Thursday to the Fourth Circuit Court, joined in the proposal that the case be ended with a ruling for the Washington team’s owner. ———————- Conceding what had seemed to have become inevitable, the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on… Read More

Private schools operated by religious organizations gained new hope from the Supreme Court on Tuesday that they could be able to gain access to some forms of government financial support. Among a series of orders that the Justices issued at the close of its current term, the court returned four cases to state courts to… Read More

Amid a sharp disagreement among the Justices about whether it was setting a broad new precedent giving churches access to government money, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that religious organizations cannot be denied equal access to neutral public benefits. While the main opinion insisted that the outcome was “unremarkable in light of our prior… Read More

The Supreme Court handed President Trump a broad, though temporary, victory on Monday for his controversial move to limit immigration of foreign nationals, including refugees. His Administration can begin immediately to enforce those restrictions, with what appear to be only a few exceptions. The President’s March 6 executive order had flatly excluded the entry, for… Read More

With the prospect of a headline-making finish, the Supreme Court will close its current term with two days of drama on Monday and Tuesday.  The most significant issue before it is the fate of President Trump’s controversial executive order putting limits on immigration of foreign nationals, including refugees. But the end-of-term business may also produce… Read More

Lawyers for the pro football team in the nation’s capital on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court to move promptly to clear the team’s right to federal legal protection for its name, the “Redskins.”  In a brief letter filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the team contended that the Supreme… Read More

Setting the stage for the Supreme Court to make up its mind quickly about President Trump’s controversial curb on immigration, Administration lawyers submitted their final written arguments at midday Wednesday.  In a new legal point, they sought to rely on a two-day-old ruling by the Justices to support their claim for vast power for the… Read More

Lawyers for the state of Hawaii argued in a Supreme Court filing Tuesday that President Trump himself has undercut his own argument that his efforts to delay immigration are needed to protect national security – the main public rationale for the disputed White House executive order. In the next-to-last filing scheduled to be made before… Read More