Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

The Supreme Court on Friday broadened the scope of its review of the legality of adding a question about citizenship to next year’s census, telling lawyers to add their views on whether that move would be unconstitutional. The case up to now has been only a test of whether asking everyone in America about their… Read More

Without waiting for the courts to decide if it can do so legally, the Trump Administration has issued orders to put into effect next month its strict new limitations on service in the military by transgender individuals. The policy will affect those already in uniform as well as those seeking to enlist. On Tuesday night,… Read More

(Later on Friday, the Trump Administration filed a document with the federal judge in Washington, D.C.., explaining why it understood that it was no longer barred from carrying out the policy.  That filing can be read here.  Transgender rights groups plan to challenge that point.) Taking the position that it is now legally free to… Read More

Moving to protect its constitutional power over the nation’s purse, the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening voted by a large majority to reject President Trump’s move to defy Congress’s refusal to provide extra money to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall that he intends to move ahead with on his own. The vote was… Read More

Three years after Congress most recently refused to make women eligible to be drafted into the military, a federal judge in Houston ruled on Friday that the registration system unconstitutionally discriminates against men. Changes in military service for women, the judge decided, have ended the binding effect of a four-decades-old ruling by the Supreme Court… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday set a hearing for Tuesday, April 23, on the controversy over the Trump Administration’s plan to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census.  By placing that case in a 10 a.m. slot and by not having an argument in the 11 a.m. slot, the Justices gave themselves the… Read More

Arguing that President Trump is pushing the nation “toward a constitutional crisis of his own making,” a group of 16 states asked a federal court in California on Monday night to block the federal government from building a wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico unless Congress explicitly approves money to pay for… Read More

Moving with unusual speed, the Supreme Court on Monday set the stage for acting soon – probably on Friday – on the constitutional controversy over asking everyone living in America about their citizenship, as part of the 2020 census. At issue at this point is whether the Justices will take up directly, without waiting for… Read More

Over the dissents of four Justices, the Supreme Court on Thursday night temporarily barred the state of Louisiana from enforcing a law that has the potential for making abortion unavailable to many and perhaps most women in the state.   The vote was not a final ruling that the law is unconstitutional, but only a temporary… Read More

An attempt by the state of Maryland to get a federal judge to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), in order to offset another federal judge’s earlier decision to strike down the entire law, faltered on Friday. The new decision by U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander of Baltimore found that Maryland’s… Read More