A federal appeals court, in a decision that may be mostly symbolic, ruled on Thursday that the National Security Agency does not have the authority to carry on its massive electronic sweeping-up of telephone data — authority that has been used for at least nine years but that is now due to expire at the start of… Read More
May 4 2015
Compensation for wartime wrongs?
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, borrowing an idea from the belated government effort to make up for holding loyal Japanese-Americans in prison camps during World War II, on Monday proposed a similar approach to wrongs committed by government officials in carrying out the “war on terrorism.”
Apr 26 2015
Same-sex marriage: The decisive questions
This post also appears on scotusblog.com Twenty-two months ago, the Supreme Court — perhaps not fully realizing that it was doing so — set off a constitutional revolution. In a decision that spoke somewhat tentatively about an “evolving understanding of the meaning of equality,” the Court in United States v. Windsor saw in that understanding… Read More
Apr 14 2015
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part II, The states’ views
This post also appears on scotusblog.com This is the second post in a four-part series on the written arguments that have been filed in the same-sex marriage cases at the Supreme Court. This post covers the briefs of the four states in defense of their state bans. America’s state governments have never seen anything like… Read More
Apr 13 2015
Preview on same-sex marriage — Part I, The couples’ views
This post also appears on scotusblog.com This is the first post in a four-part series on the written arguments that have been filed in the same-sex marriage cases at the Supreme Court. This post covers the briefs of the couples who are challenging the state bans. Later posts in this series will cover the state governments’… Read More
Apr 9 2015
Federal judge threatens to end new immigration policy
NOTE TO READERS: The following post catches up with developments while the writer was necessarily away from work this week. The federal judge in Texas who is handling the claim of 26 states that the Obama administraiton’s new deferred-deportation policy is illegal threatened this week to strike down that policy altogether, even without holding a full trial.
Apr 2 2015
Who has a right to speak up in the Supreme Court?
Reprinted from Constitution Daily, the post of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The post is by Lyle Denniston Staging a verbal protest inside the Supreme Court’s chamber when the Justices are in session is not, constitutionally speaking, as serious an offense as shouting fire in a crowded theater – the classic illustration that the… Read More
Mar 31 2015
Lawyers for same-sex marriage plea named
This post also appears on scotusblog.com. Lyle Denniston is the author. Under gentle pressure from the Supreme Court not to split up the argument on single questions, the legal teams supporting same-sex marriage have settled on one lawyer to present each issue. The teams thus have abandoned their earlier request to let four lawyers appear… Read More
Mar 26 2015
Is the Supreme Court promoting race bias in election districting?
Reprinted from Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. This post is by Lyle Denniston. No one doubts that, at least since the 14th Amendment was put into the Constitution in 1868, states have been forbidden to discriminate on the basis of race in public policy. In modern times, however, America… Read More
Mar 24 2015
Have voter ID laws survived a new round of challenges?
Reprinted from Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Post by Lyle Denniston. Few constitutional issues over the right to vote divide the nation’s two dominant political parties more deeply than the question of whether elections would be fairer if every voter had to show a photo ID before casting a… Read More
