Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court on Friday evening cleared the way for the Trump Administration to issue contracts and start building about 100 miles of 30-foot-high walls, brightly lit, along the U.S.-Mexico.  It acted without ruling that the government had the legal authority to do so. In a one-paragraph order, the Court put on hold… Read More

No idea is more central to the entire history of America’s constitutional government than the belief that the people are capable of governing themselves.   And equally durable is the belief that the people govern themselves best through representatives that they choose at free elections.  To those representatives, the people give their consent to being governed…. Read More

With government lawyers, under pressure from President Trump, looking for a new way to justify asking everyone in America about their citizenship next year, federal judges in two cities moved rapidly on Friday to consider issuing new orders to stop that addition to 2020 census forms. The hectic pace of recent days over this constitutional… Read More

Resisting efforts by the Trump Administration to take full control of the continuing controversy over the 2020 census, a federal trial judge in Maryland on Friday moved forward on a faster-than-usual schedule to decide whether the plan to ask everyone in America about their citizenship was motivated by racial bias. Wasting no time after Administration… Read More

Overruling two of his Cabinet departments, President Trump demanded on Wednesday that everyone in America be asked about their citizenship as part of the 2020 census. Less than 24 hours after his Administration had declared that the controversy was over, with census forms going to the printers without that question, the President used a tweet… Read More

In a decision that seems sure to have a significant impact on American politics over the coming decade, the Trump Administration decided on Tuesday to carry out the 2020 census without asking everyone in the nation about their citizenship. The question, if asked, was likely to reduce the political power of larger states in future… Read More

In a stark new illustration of the seemingly never-ending troubles of the system of war crimes courts at Guantanamo Bay, a federal civilian court on Tuesday nullified nearly 500 orders that had been issued by a military judge there because of ethical lapses. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals… Read More

The Pentagon on Tuesday afternoon gained clear and definite legal permission to impose significant new limitations on military service for transgender individuals, under a new policy that is set to formally begin in 17 days — on April 12.   With the legality of the new restrictions still not decisively settled in any federal court, the… Read More

The Trump Administration has now filed its request to the appeals court, the D.C. Circuit, to “take all appropriate steps” to enable the Pentagon to go ahead with enforcing its new transgender policy.  The request sought one of three alternatives: to clarify that a federal judge’s order barring the policy is no longer in effect,… Read More

The Trump Administration remains legally barred from putting into effect its strict new limits on transgender individuals continuing to serve in the military or enlisting anew, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled on Tuesday.   It will not be free to do so at least until March 29, the judge said.  Under normal court procedures,… Read More