Tag: U.S. Supreme Court

The High Court Takes on School Choice

A decision in the case has seismic implications not just for schools and the Constitution but for the Trump administration’s No. 1 education priority.

WHEN THE SUPREME COURT hears oral arguments Wednesday concerning a decision by Montana’s Supreme Court to halt the operation of a tax credit scholarship program, the justices will face a debate that’s been roiling the nation for 200 years – namely, whether public funds can flow to religious schools.

A decision either way is set to have seismic implications, not just for states and their public school systems but also for the fate of the Trump administration’s No.1 education priority: a $5 billion tax credit scholarship. It could also serve to cement the president in the good graces of his important evangelical Christian base ahead of the 2020 election, or not.

“If this decision goes in a certain way it will be a virtual earthquake in terms of religious liberty and public education in this country,” says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Continue reading.

Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Trump Really Can Get Away With Murder

Our Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s claim that if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue police could not investigate him. Yes, these are crazy times.

In fighting a New York City investigation into whether Trump is a serial tax cheat, one of his lawyers argued in October that should he murder someone the authorities could not even collect evidence. However, lawyer George Consovoy added, Trump could be prosecuted after he leaves office.

Technically, the high court said Friday that it will take up whether Trump’s tax returns and supporting financial records must be turned over to three different investigations. Continue reading

The Supreme Court gives free speech to fake doctors, but not real ones

Washington Post logoThe Supreme Court this week declined to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s decision in EMW Women’s Surgical Center v. Meier; this had the practical effect of upholding a Kentucky law requiring abortion service providers to, among other things, perform an ultrasound and play a fetal heartbeat recording to a woman seeking an abortion.

Things were different, however, when antiabortion advocates last year challenged a California law requiring crisis pregnancy centers — established, the law said, specifically to dissuade women from having abortions — to post truthful information about the limits of their services and the availability of state-sponsored family-planning services. The Supreme Court viewed that law as an impermissible form of forced speech and held, 5 to 4, that it violated the First Amendment.

In the California case, NIFLA v. Becerra, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that California could not coerce speech from the activists who run and work at the antiabortion centers. The majority held that the law “impose[d] a government-scripted, speaker-based disclosure requirement” in violation of the First Amendment.

Supreme Court will take up Trump’s broad claims of protection from investigation Add to list

Washington Post logoThe Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether President Trump may shield disclosure of his financial information from congressional committees and a New York prosecutor, raising the prospect of a landmark election-year ruling on a president’s immunity from investigation while he is in office.

Trump asked the court to accept the cases, and they will be heard in March, with a ruling before the court’s session ends in late June. It means that whatever the outcome of Trump’s separate impeachment proceedings, the controversies over investigations into Trump’s conduct will continue into the heart of the presidential election campaign.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and three Democratic-led congressional committees have won lower-court decisions granting them access to a broad range of Trump’s financial records relating to him personally, his family and his businesses. The court on Friday said it would consider all three cases.

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House urges Supreme Court to enforce subpoenas for Trump’s financial records

Delay in subpoenas would be deprive Congress information it needs to secure elections, court filing says

The House cited 2020 election security concerns Wednesday when it urged the Supreme Court not to delay the enforcement of congressional subpoenas for financial records of President Donald Trump and his business from Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Corporation.

Any harm to Trump for allowing the enforcement of the House Financial Services and Intelligence committees would be less severe than Congress not getting information it needs to protect the elections from foreign influence, House attorneys argued in a Supreme Court filing.

The House said a delay in the subpoenas would be deprive “the peoples’ representatives of information they need to secure the nation’s 2020 elections from foreign influence and otherwise exercise their constitutional responsibilities wisely before their time for doing so expires.”

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Supreme Court halts subpoena to Deutsche Bank for Trump records

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court on Friday granted President Trump‘s emergency request to temporarily block a congressional subpoena for his financial records from Deutsche Bank.

The court’s order came just hours after the president’s legal team asked for a temporary stay of an appellate court decision ordering Deutsche Bank to comply with subpoenas from the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees for a broad range of documents concerning Trump’s finances and his businesses.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who oversees the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an administrative stay of that court’s decision that will be in effect until Dec. 13 while the court deliberates on whether to grant a longer stay and to give Trump’s lawyers time to prepare a formal appeal.

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Supreme Court won’t let Justice Dept. immediately resume federal executions after hiatus

Washington Post logoThe Supreme Court on Friday refused to let the Justice Department immediately resume federal executions, denying the government’s request to bypass a lower-court ruling that the department likely exceeded its powers by adopting a new lethal injection protocol.

The order denying the stay will allow a federal appeals court to review the ruling blocking the executions.

No dissents were recorded, but three justices — Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — included a statement saying they respected the decision while urging the appeals court to move quickly in deciding the case.

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Trump asks Supreme Court to shield financial records from House Democrats

The Hill logoPresident Trump has asked the Supreme Court to shield his financial records from the Democratic-led House Oversight and Reform Committee, in the latest case to bring questions over separation of powers to the justices.

The case marks the second time Trump has appealed to the high court to prevent the disclosure of financial documents and sets the stage for a potentially groundbreaking ruling on the extent of congressional oversight authority and presidential power.

In their Wednesday petition to the court, filed ahead of a Thursday deadline, Trump’s personal attorneys warned the justices that a lower court ruling in favor of the Democratic lawmakers would set a dangerous precedent if allowed to stand.

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How Citizens United corrupted the US Supreme Court and guaranteed Republicans will never turn on Trump

AlterNet logoThere is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1976 (Buckley v. Valeo) and 1978 (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti), the Supreme Court ruled that when corporations and billionaires purchase their very own politicians, it is constitutionally protected “free speech” rather than “bribery,” which is how we defined it from the beginning of our republic until 1976. In 2010, the Supreme Court doubled down on its betrayal of American democracy with its Citizens United decision.

After those twin decisions in the 1970s, money from corporations and the morbidly rich began to flow into the coffers of the Republican Party, hoisting Ronald Reagan into the White House. (Democrats were then still largely funded by unions, and thus not so easily up for sale.)

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Supreme Court poised to hear first major gun case in a decade

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a potentially landmark Second Amendment case, the first time in roughly a decade that the justices will consider gun rights.

At issue is a New York City handgun regulation that put tight limits on licensed gun owners’ ability to transport firearms outside the home. The case presents the justices an opportunity to go further than ever before in defining the scope of the individual right to bear arms.

“The big question is whether the conservative justices want to use this case — which features an arguably extreme and silly form of gun control — as a vehicle for expanding Second Amendment rights and further constricting governmental options for meaningful gun control,” said Carl Bogus, a law professor and Second Amendment expert at Roger Williams University.

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