Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court takes a new look at the 110-year-old Sixteenth Amendment – the grant of power to Congress to impose a tax on income.  The Court is focusing on when a gain is actually income subject to tax. Today’s hearing:  Moore v. United States The Constitution and the power to tax:  One… Read More

(Note: Information on how to listen to this hearing today is at the end of the report.) On Monday, the Supreme Court examines a $40,000,000,000 (trillion) fight over legal blame for the quarter-century-long epidemic of drug addiction and deaths due to opioid overdose.  The federal government took the case to the Court to try to… Read More

(Note to readers:  These Supreme Court reports are now appearing on the day of the hearing of the case being discussed.  Information on how to listen to today’s hearing is at the end of the report.) For more than a century, conservative activists have been waging an energetic campaign to dismantle or at least to… Read More

(Note to readers:  These Supreme Court reports are now appearing on the day of the hearing of the case being discussed.  Information on how to listen to hearings is at the end of the report.) The Supreme Court on Tuesday examines the ancient right not to be put on trial more than once for the… Read More

(Note to readers: This Supreme Court series will continue with discussion of each of the cases being heard by the Court.  With this one and others following, we switch to publishing on the day of the hearing, when interest peaks.  Information on how to listen to hearings will be at the end of each report.)… Read More

The historic court case in Colorado on the future of Donald Trump’s run for President is on a fast track, but will it be decided soon enough?  Among several cases around the country on the question, this one appears most likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court first. Just three days after a lower state… Read More

The decades-long effort by conservative activists to narrow federal voting rights for minorities won another major victory on Monday, in an Arkansas case that is certain to be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 2-to-1 ruling, a federal appeals court based in St. Louis decided that voters have no right to sue to… Read More

Donald Crump, as a presidential candidate, is listed as a promoter of insurrection in 154 damning facts in a Colorado state judge’s opinion, issued last Friday.  And yet, his candidacy escaped a constitutional ban and, for now, he is set to appear on that state’s primary election ballot next March 5. How could that be? … Read More

In a significant setback for the multi-state campaign to bar Donald Trump from again seeking the Presidency, a state judge in Colorado ruled on Friday that he is not covered by a constitutional ban. That ruling has added importance because it came after the first full trial in any court on the constitutional dispute surrounding… Read More

For the second time in a week, a state court – this time in Michigan – has ruled that former President Donald J. Trump cannot be kept off the ballot when that state’s voters cast ballots in the primary election there next year.  That election is set for February 27. Challengers to Trump’s eligibility to… Read More