Adam Serwer of Mother Jones suggests we look at Chief Justice Roberts’ long history with it. Memos that Roberts wrote as a lawyer in President Reagan’s Justice Department during the 1980s show that he was deeply involved in efforts to curtail the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act, the hard-won landmark 1965 law that is …
Yesterday Justice Scalia had no problem concurring with a decision overturning Section IV of the Voting Rights Act, a law which was overwhelmingly renewed by the Congress in 2006. That year the vote was 98-0 in the Senate and 390-33 in the House. Here’s Scalia writing
In light of the Court’s decision to gut Title IV of the Voting Rights Act, one can only conclude that to the Court we live in glorious times where ethnic and racial differences between Americans have all dissolved and we’re all one big happy family. Any previous differences have been resolved and no more effort …
Once again, SCOTUSBlog has one of the most comprehensive sets of links I’ve seen to discussion of today’s events at the Supreme Court. From all I’ve heard, no one would be surprised if the Defense of Marriage Act is ruled unconstitutional, either on states’ rights grounds (Kennedy) or on equal protection grounds (Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginzburg, …
Here’s the best roundup of reactions in the legal fraternity and on a selection of media blogs/columns. It hadn’t occurred to me till today, but there’s apparently a very real possibility that the Court could decide it doesn’t want to decide this at all just yet. From the “Plain English” summation of the arguments at …
(click here to view) David HorseyLos Angeles TimesMar 1, 2013 EditorialCartoonists.com
Call it irony, call it aggravation, call it rage. Call it what you like, but notice the obvious conclusion one can draw from the DC Circuit Court’s denial of Presidential recess powers except between sessions of Congress (essentially between December and January of every other year): . . . if the DC panel’s opinion is …
Okay, I thought nothing could beat Meredith Vieira’s and Matt Lauer’s ignorance of Tim Berners-Lee’s identity for sheer foolishness this weekend, but then I read that Associate Justice Anthony Scalia would be willing to accept hand-held rocket launchers as “arms” in a Second Amendment case if somebody sued for his right to carry the things. …
While I’m very glad I was wrong about the outcome, I’m still surprised that four Justices felt that the entire Affordable Care Act should be overturned. Not just the mandate but the entire thing. That implies they (Kennedy, Alito, Scalia and Thomas) feel all federal authority is up for grabs. In their argument that the …
Jonathan Bernstein at WaPo’s The Plum Line: What happens at the Supreme Court tomorrow is not being overhyped: it really is that important. [snip] The Court’s decision will matter, substantively, in two ways. First, depending on what the Court says, either millions of people will soon be able to get health insurance, or they won’t. …