Culture.

As attorney Paul Clement took to the Supreme Court to defend the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of House Republicans, the lawmakers who hired him to do so stood silently by. It was the right thing to do, many Republican strategists say, to avoid distracting from the GOP’s core economic message. But some members [...]

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Federalism.

A rare instance in which the left is decidedly pro-federalism. The word from Reuters and SCOTUSblog: U.S. Supreme Court justices signal interest in striking down #DOMA as violating states’ rights #breaking — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 27, 2013 Final update: #scotus 80% likely to strike down #doma. J Kennedy suggests it violates states’ rights; [...]

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Plus, the difference between private and public acts.

Color me just a little puzzled by today’s editorial from Bloomberg on the two-case review this week at the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the traditional definition of marriage.  According to my admittedly limited study of civics and the law, the Supreme Court’s role in American jurisprudence is to make judgments based on the [...]

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Marriage.

The one thing that the parties in this case seem to agree on is that marriage is very important. It’s thought to be a fundamental building block of society and its preservation essential for the preservation of society. Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new. I think it [...]

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Arguments.

Just want to get this up before fuller reports of this morning’s oral arguments start trickling in. SCOTUSblog is on the scene and says we may, against all odds, see this case dismissed: Breaking: 1st update- #prop8 unlikely to be upheld; either struck down or #scotus won’t decide case. More in 30 mins. — SCOTUSblog [...]

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Marriage.

Despite Washington’s frigid temperatures and freezing rain Monday, a virtual tent city of activists both for and against same-sex marriage braved the elements together, holding a spot and a hope to see history unfold. Supreme Court oral arguments challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8 are set to take place on [...]

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Sea changes?

It does seem increasingly feasible — Sen. Rob Portman recently came out in support of gay marriage earlier this month, which might pave the way for some more Republican politicians to follow suit — although I think at this point it’s more likely we’re looking at a hard-fought battle between the true-north social conservative approach [...]

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Log jam

Among the many things not getting done in Washington these days, filling up the bench of the Judicial branch is still near the top of the list. This backlog of judicial nominees has been going on for at least a decade now, with some ebbs and flows in high profile cases. The D.C. Circuit Court [...]

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Rush to judgment?

No surprise, since leaving the DC Court of Appeals ruling in place would mean setting the precedent that a President can’t use the recess-appointment power at all except during, y’know, recesses.  The only real eyebrow archer in this move is that the White House didn’t ask for an en banc review first: The Obama administration [...]

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Oh my.

Granted, he’s speaking in broad philosophical terms here. And granted, the logic of democratic compromise necessarily doesn’t apply if the Equal Protection Clause has been violated. But when the guy whom everyone thinks will be the swing vote on the Court’s big gay-marriage case says something like this — in the heart of the state [...]

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Second override in two weeks on abortion restrictions.

Pro-life leaders have tried for the last few years to push the window of restrictions on abortions to at at least the stage where a heartbeat can be detected in normal diagnostic testing.  Arkansas had been the first state to pass such a measure, but Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, vetoed it over concerns about [...]

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Laissez faire.

He said this early in today’s filibuster when he was riffing on subjects to keep things going. It seems to have gone mostly unnoticed but it’s a big deal, especially for an aspiring presidential candidate. Joel Pollak of Breitbart is one of the few bloggers I read to have recognized its significance. I’m tempted to [...]

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"Evolution" complete.

The news here isn’t that O’s weighing in on the side of Ted Olson and David Boies. Technically he doesn’t need to get involved, but good luck explaining that to his base if he sits this one out and the decision comes back 5-4 in favor of upholding Prop 8 four months from now. They’ll [...]

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Change.

We’re stretching the definition of “prominent” a bit for this one, eh? The closest thing here to a current Republican officeholder with a national profile is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The only person named whom the average Republican voter might be able to pick out of a line-up is Huntsman, a.k.a. the new co-chairman of No Labels. [...]

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Disparate treatment of states in the balance?

A little over a year ago, I wrote that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice may have gambled away Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act by blocking a South Carolina voter-ID law on its basis.  Holder blocked a law that matches another in Indiana, which had already passed constitutional muster, but [...]

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Chicken or Egg?

As much as I try to keep up with events at the Supreme Court, there always seem to be some that slip past me. Such was the case with this week’s ruling regarding drug sniffing dogs and random traffic stops. The high court ruled unanimously that a Florida police officer’s use of a drug-sniffing dog [...]

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Decision time.

At this point, after that ringing endorsement of gay equality in his inaugural, it’d be news if he wasn’t considering it. Still worth noting, though, partly because he has just one more week to make a decision and partly because, if he does wade in against Prop 8, it’ll mark the final stage of his [...]

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Citizens United on steroids.

If you loved or hated the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, you’ll want to gear up for next session’s review of McCutcheon v FEC.  The case will determine whether the little-known federal cap on aggregate contributions to candidates and political parties will stand constitutional scrutiny, and may impact campaign contributions more generally: In a move [...]

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Anniversary.

On the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we reaffirm its historic commitment to protect the health and reproductive freedom of women across this country and stand by its guiding principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters, and women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies [...]

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Civil disobedience.

Hobby Lobby and religious book-seller Mardel Inc., which are owned by the same conservative Christian family, are suing to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills… Kyle Duncan, who is representing Hobby Lobby on behalf of [...]

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1927-2012.

Perhaps no jurist has had as much impact in our lifetimes as Robert Bork without sitting on the Supreme Court — and perhaps no jurist has been as unfairly maligned.  After a life of public service, the US Senate under the direction of Ted Kennedy conducted a character assassination on Bork that denied him a [...]

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Choices.

Nothing surprising about this, but in case there was doubt, here’s Greg Sargent to dispel it: The Obama Justice Department is not saying whether it will address this question. But sources tell me the legal team representing the plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case — Ted Olson, David Boise, and Ted Boutrous — plan to [...]

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Bombshell.

I’m surprised. I said a few weeks ago that I thought neither wing of the Court had an incentive to grant cert on gay-marriage cases right now. The conservative wing should be worried that Kennedy, who’s written two landmark opinions supporting gay rights, will vote with the liberals. The liberal wing should be worried that [...]

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Huzzah!

We’ve got to celebrate the freedom-endorsing little victories won by the Supreme Court while we’ve still kinda’-sorta’ got it (one shudders to think of what what the highest court in the land may look like after four more years of President Obama), and the justices logged one in favor of private-property rights with their unanimous [...]

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Waiting game

While most of the nation’s attention has remained focused on the fiscal cliff, business as usual continues in the judicial branch. And for those who have been closely following the court battles over same sex marriage, Friday had been anticipated to be a big day. The highest court was supposedly set to announce whether they [...]

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