Tag: U.S. Supreme Court

The serious political and health risks Republicans are taking in moving forward with the Barrett hearings

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Despite a coronavirus outbreak that has hospitalized the president, infected a host of his staff and Republican allies, and forced the Senate to pause all votes for two weeks, Senate Republicans are pushing forward with the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. There’s an in-person hearing scheduled for Oct. 12.

“We’re going to have a hearing for Amy Barrett, the nominee to the Supreme Court,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said over the weekend about the first, major step in the process. “It will be done safely — but I’ve got a job to do, and I’m pressing on.”

It’s obvious why Republicans want to plow through: They have a legacy-defining chance to tilt the Supreme Court for years to come, and their ability to do that gets more uncertain after the election. What if they lose the White House and Senate majority? Continue reading.

Clarence Thomas pens scathing attack suggesting Supreme Court should overturn same-sex marriage

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Obergefell v. Hodges was the landmark 2015 ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Two of the dissenters in that ruling were Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito — and now, Thomas and Alito are calling for that decision to be overturned. This comes at a time when there is a very real possibility that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a far-right social conservative nominated by President Donald Trump, will be replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In a petition, Thomas and Alito argue that Obergefell was an attack on religious freedom, saying, “The Court has created a problem that only it can fix. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ‘ruinous consequences for religious liberty.'”

Half a decade ago, the majority in Obergefell v. Hodges came from both the left and the right. Justice Anthony Kennedy, nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, sided with Ginsburg in that decision. Kennedy was fiscally conservative, yet his libertarian streak showed itself when he agreed with Ginsburg on social issues like gay rights, same-sex marriage and abortion. Continue reading.

Supreme Court could threaten Biden agenda

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The Supreme Court is looming as a roadblock for Democrats as they plot an ambitious wish list if they gain control of the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade. 

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s ascension to the Supreme Court, which Republicans hope to finalize this month, would lock in a conservative majority likely for decades, setting the courts up as a potential foil for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s agenda and Democratic leadership in the House and Senate. 

The result of a 6-3 court, Democrats warn, could lead to the justices striking down a host of top priorities for the party, including health care, voting rights legislation or enacting stricter background checks for gun purchases.  Continue reading.

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the “head” of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands.

Federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett has not commented publicly about her own or her family’s involvement, and a People of Praise spokesman declined to say whether she and her husband are current members.

But Barrett, 48, grew up in New Orleans in a family deeply connected to the organization and as recently as 2017 she served as a trustee at the People of Praise-affiliated Trinity Schools Inc., according to the nonprofit organization’s tax records and other documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Only members of the group serve on the schools’ board, according to the system’s president. Continue reading.

Barrett’s Record: A Conservative Who Would Push the Supreme Court to the Right

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As an appeals court judge, Judge Barrett has issued opinions that have reflected those of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, but with few of his occasional liberal rulings.

WASHINGTON — Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, has compiled an almost uniformly conservative voting record in cases touching on abortion, gun rights, discrimination and immigration. If she is confirmed, she would move the court slightly but firmly to the right, making compromise less likely and putting at risk the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade.

Judge Barrett’s judicial opinions, based on a substantial sample of the hundreds of cases that she has considered in her three years on the federal appeals court in Chicago, are marked by care, clarity and a commitment to the interpretive methods used by Justice Antonin Scalia, the giant of conservative jurisprudence for whom she worked as a law clerk from 1998 to 1999.

But while Justice Scalia’s methods occasionally drove him to liberal results, notably in cases on flag burning and the role of juries in criminal cases, Judge Barrett could be a different sort of justice. Continue reading.

Majority says winner of presidential election should nominate next Supreme Court justice, Post-ABC poll finds

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A majority of Americans oppose efforts by President Trump and the Republican-led Senate to fill a Supreme Court vacancy before the presidential election, with most supporters of Democratic candidate Joe Biden saying the issue has raised the stakes of the election, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The Post-ABC poll, conducted Monday to Thursday, finds 38 percent of Americans say the replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week, should be nominated by Trump and confirmed by the current Senate, while 57 percent say it should be left to the winner of the presidential election and a Senate vote next year.

Partisans are deeply divided on the issue, though clear majorities of political independents (61 percent) and women (64 percent) say the next justice should be chosen by the winner of this fall’s election, including about half of each group who feel this way “strongly.” Continue reading.

High court vacancy adds ‘urgency’ to Minnesota legislative races

The injection of a United States Supreme Court nomination fight with just six weeks left in the 2020 campaign could have political ripples beyond who serves in Washington.

A new justice to fill the vacancy left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death would likely alter the ideological makeup of the court and potentially set a new course on abortion and reproductive health. It puts added focus on who writes Minnesota’s laws in those areas.

“I would say the sense of urgency changed,” said Maggie Meyer, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota. Continue reading.

What is court packing, and why are some Democrats seriously considering it?

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Expanding the Supreme Court to more than nine seats sounds like a radical idea, and the term for it, “court packing,” sounds derisive because it has created controversy every time it has come up. But it has been attempted — and done — in American history before.

Now the idea is back in the political mainstream as some Democrats, frustrated that the Supreme Court could get even more conservative in the coming months, push presidential nominee Joe Biden to consider it if he wins the White House and Democrats take back the Senate majority.

Biden seems reluctant — he hasn’t acknowledged Democratic calls to do this since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died — but there is a world in which he may warm to it and attempt to push through legislation. Here’s what it is, its history and how it could become a reality. Continue reading.

Polls Have Shown Voters Prefer Biden to Pick Next Justice

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In surveys before Justice Ginsburg’s death, he led by a slightly wider margin on choosing the next justice than he did over all against President Trump.

In 2016 and 2018, many analysts concluded that Supreme Court politics helped Republicans by helping to energize or consolidate conservative voters.

True or not, it certainly wasn’t obvious ahead of time which side would benefit from a court vacancy, and the same can be said today, in the aftermath of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There’s no way to know exactly what will unfold, but a closer look at recent polls, including new New York Times/Siena College surveys, does provide reason to think that Joseph R. Biden Jr. might have as much — or more — upside on the issue than President Trump.

In Times/Siena polls of Maine, North Carolina and Arizona released Friday, voters preferred Mr. Biden to select the next Supreme Court justice by 12 percentage points, 53 percent to 41 percent. In each of the three states, Mr. Biden led by just a slightly wider margin on choosing the next justice than he did over all. Continue reading.

On The Trail: Battle over Ginsburg replacement threatens to break Senate

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The coming battle to fill a seat on the Supreme Court left vacant by the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg threatens to set the Senate on the path that would radically and acrimoniously change what was once the world’s most deliberative body.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) waited less than two hours after the court’s announcement of Ginsburg’s death before declaring he would hold a vote on President Trump’s eventual nominee, a pronouncement as predictable as the Democratic howls of hypocrisy that followed.

The decision is especially politically charged after McConnell’s equally immediate declaration that the Senate would not approve President Obama’s nominee to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat after the conservative icon died just less than 10 months before Election Day. Continue reading.