Signaling that the Supreme Court may be willing to take up the first significant test case on transgender rights, the Justices split 5-to-3 on Wednesday in blocking a lower court ruling on access of students to high school restrooms. The Court’s order is here.
Aug 2 2016
Can only a jury impose the death penalty?
Analysis Reading a Supreme Court ruling of last January in a widely expansive way, a divided Delaware Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down that state’s death penalty law. It ruled that the Supreme Court’s most recent ruling on death sentencing requires that the ultimate choice of life or death can only be made by a jury,… Read More
Aug 2 2016
Would Tom Brady have won in the Supreme Court?
This post also appears on Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center. The New England Patriots professional football team opened this year’s pre-season training camp this week in Foxborough, Mass., with one lingering issue settled: their star quarterback, Tom Brady, is not going to ask the Supreme Court to give him legal permission… Read More
Jul 13 2016
Transgender rights dispute reaches Court
This post also appears today on Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. A public school board in Virginia, arguing that no one ever thought that separate restrooms for the sexes would be illegal, asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to delay a court order that it must provide equal access… Read More
Jul 1 2016
U.S. seeks to restore Amtrak’s powers
The Obama administration this week began a new effort in a federal appeals court to revive the power of Amtrak — the operator of the nation’s rail passenger service — to help set and enforce rules to help make sure that its trains run on time.
Jun 30 2016
New transgender rights plea to the Court
Expecting a new round of protests from parents and students when school opens in September, a Virginia school board plans to ask the Supreme Court shortly to allow it to enforce its existing policy on access to bathrooms at its high school in the midst of a transgender rights controversy.
Jan 6 2016
A move to stop same-sex marriage in Alabama
The often-controversial chief justice of Alabama, Roy S. Moore, attempted on Wednesday to stop same-sex marriage licensing throughout the state — although a federal judge’s order directly contradicts his move, and the state Supreme Court has yet to sort out its own views on the issue. Moore issued a four-page “administrative order” in his capacity… Read More
Jan 4 2016
Hawaiians defend against contempt plea
A group of Hawaiians seeking to create a new tribal nation inside the state moved on Monday to head off a contempt order in the Supreme Court. They have done nothing to violate a Supreme Court order a month ago that blocked an election to select delegates to a convention to write a constitution, the group… Read More
Nov 20 2015
Test of immigration policy reaches the Court
Acting swiftly to try to get a Supreme Court decision by next summer, the Obama administration on Friday filed the opening papers in United States v. Texas — the epic battle over who controls U.S. immigration policy. The appeal was filed just eleven days after a federal appeals court had blocked enforcement of the policy, which… Read More
Jul 7 2015
Ban on contractors’ political donations upheld
Finding that the problem of corruption in government contracting is still a major civic scandal, a unanimous federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a new constitutional challenge to the seventy-five-year-old ban on political contributions by individuals who are hired under contract to do work for federal agencies — an increasing way that federal agency tasks… Read More
