Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

In a unanimous ruling Monday afternoon, a three-judge federal court in Harrisburg, PA, threw out a challenge by Pennsylvania Republican officials and members of Congress to the use this year of a new map for the election of the state’s 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. That ruling, offering no view on the… Read More

The political calendar for electing 18 members of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania will continue to unfold over the weekend, but no one in the state – not candidates, not voters signing candidate petitions, not state officials – know if they are doing it right.  The reason they don’t know is that the U.S…. Read More

The Trump Administration’s effort to close down the “DACA” program is now on a slightly faster schedule in a lower appeals court, but the plan may be too tight to get the case to the Supreme Court for any action during the current term.   In a new order issued Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals… Read More

The Trump Administration wants the controversy over the “DACA” program for younger undocumented immigrants to be back at the Supreme Court in time for initial action before the Justices’ summer recess.  If the Justices agreed by late June to hear the case, it would mean it would be ready for an early hearing this Fall…. Read More

Even as the Supreme Court takes more time than expected to decide its part in the constitutional controversy over how voting is to be done this year for the 18 House of Representatives members from Pennsylvania, a federal trial court in Harrisburg, PA, is pondering a complex question of states’ rights that could end the… Read More

The high-profile constitutional fight in Pennsylvania over voting for Congress this year will remain in limbo at least for the next few days, with no action at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and a lengthy hearing but no decision in a federal court in Harrisburg, PA, on Friday.   The Supreme Court closed for the… Read More

Two prominent leaders in Republican politics have urged the Supreme Court to consider the Pennsylvania redistricting case as a part of this year’s intense political battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives – an issue outside the constitutional issues at stake. The frankly political assessment of the case’s potential impact was laid out… Read More

A group of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania told a federal court on Friday that, if it barred the use of a congressional election map drawn up by the state’s Supreme Court, candidates seeking all 18 of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives would have to run statewide rather than in 18 separate… Read More

The Trump Administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to turn down a request that it move swiftly to review a second case testing the White House order limiting immigration from six Muslim-majority nations.  In a brief filing submitted one day before it was due, Administration lawyers argued that adding a new case would complicate… Read More

In a second significant setback this week for the Trump Administration on its immigration policy, a federal judge in Los Angeles has barred government officials from taking away legal protection of “DACA” immigrants without using a fair procedure.  The judge’s ruling Monday night in favor of those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals… Read More