For the first time, a federal disability rights law has been interpreted to give legal protection to transgender people against discrimination.  A Pennsylvania judge did so by giving a narrow reading to a phrase in that law that says it does not apply to individuals with “gender identity disorders.” U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Leeson,… Read More

A group of 15 states plus Washington, D.C., moved on Thursday to try to head off what they called a “death spiral” for the health insurance law still in operation from the Obama Administration.  They filed court papers to defend billions of dollars in subsidies that continue to be paid to health insurance companies to… Read More

In the second appeals court hearing in a week on President Trump’s order seeking to limit immigration from the Mideast, the search went on again among judges on Monday for a way to decide the controversy narrowly. Just as judges in Richmond, VA, a week ago seemed somewhat anxious about making a sweeping constitutional decision… Read More

With Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., cautioning lower courts and lawyers not to read much into it, the Supreme Court on Monday turned aside an attempt to revive one of the nation’s strictest sets of voting restrictions, including a photo ID requirement.  A federal appeals court had struck down the 2013 North Carolina state… Read More

Justice Department lawyers seeking to defend President Trump restrictions on immigration have created an awkward dilemma for themselves.  The difficulty of that position is now playing out in the Detroit federal courtroom of District Judge Victoria A, Roberts, because it could force the government to hand over documents that help prove that the immigration policy… Read More

 Commentary A constitutional crisis in America happens with a deeply disturbing shift in the great tectonic plates of government, when the established order is shaken to its core.  It can happen in a flash with an attack on Pearl Harbor or on the World Trade Center.  Or it can come gradually, fully recognized only after… Read More

A government lawyer met considerable skepticism as he tried to persuade a federal appeals court on Monday to strictly separate what Candidate Trump and President Trump said about keeping Muslims out of the United States. At the same time, a lawyer for the challengers to Trump’s temporary ban on entrants from six Muslim-majority Mideast nations… Read More

Two major new appeals to the Supreme Court, raising fundamental issues about the government’s power to use Guantanamo military courts to try war crimes, have been bogged down for weeks in difficulties over getting security clearance for documents in one of the cases. Last week, all of this got sorted out, and the two cases… Read More

At the suggestion of a federal judwednesday ge, lawyers on both sides of the main court battle over President Trump’s order to cut off federal funds for “sanctuary cities” are working together on a way to keep that approach on hold for at least a month.  Discussions on how to phrase such an agreement were… Read More

A divided Supreme Court ruled on Monday, more clearly than it had done before, that city government may sue home loan companies for racial discrimination against minority buyers. However, it put a new and strict limit on that right, saying that a city must offer direct proof that the local government itself had actually been… Read More