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Constitution Tag

Posted by Mark Pulliam on January 31, 2020 16 Comments
As has been widely reported, a recently-released draft advisory opinion of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States—a 15-member group of judges responsible for fashioning and interpreting ethical rules applicable to the federal judiciary—concluded that membership in the non-partisan Federalist Society by judges, law clerks, and staff attorneys is improper because the group’s ideological orientation would call its members’ impartiality into question.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 18, 2019 28 Comments
A year ago almost to the day, we reported that a Texas federal judge (1) held that the Obamacare individual mandate was unconstitutional after Congress repealed the mandate tax (which was the justification for the Supreme Court upholding the mandate in 2012), and (2) the mandate was not severable from the rest of the law, so the entire law fell. It was a full defeat of Obamacare, Federal Judge kills Obamacare:

Posted by Jared Samilow on July 22, 2019 17 Comments
Two months ago, Harvard Law Professor and fiercely anti-Trump pundit Laurence Tribe bragged that "it's the president’s corrupt financial entanglements with foreign governments that I’ve always believed would bring him down in the end." More recently, Tribe declared that "the Trump strategy of denying, delaying, deflecting, and dissembling while continuing to defy the Constitution has all but run its course and that the chickens are finally coming home to roost.”

Posted by Jared Samilow on July 10, 2019 28 Comments
President Trump prevailed Wednesday morning in a lawsuit claiming that profits from his businesses violate the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution. The case was brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington D.C., who said that Trump properties, notably the Trump International Hotel in D.C., were siphoning business away from state-owned convention centers.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 27, 2019 10 Comments
In one of the major cases of this term, the Supreme Court has refused to provide a role for federal courts in deciding so-called partisan gerrymandering cases. That is, cases in which the federal courts pass judgment on the political process that gave rise to sometimes unfair districts benefitting one party or another. It was a straight 5-4 conservative-liberal split.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 09, 2019 53 Comments
There is no constitutional crisis regarding the House Intelligence Committee's unsuccessful attempt to get the unredacted Mueller report, including secret grand jury information, and the documents underlying the investigation. Disregard what Jerrold Nadler says about there being a constitutional crisis.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 20, 2019 61 Comments
I wouldn't call our Founding Fathers perfect, but man did they leave us one of the greatest documents penned in the English language. Their brilliance provided America not only with the Bill of Rights, but with the Electoral College. Grumbles about the Electoral College have existed for a long time, but after President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, its elimination shot to the top of the Democrats list of issues in their campaigns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren proclaimed her wish to abolish the Electoral College at a recent town hall, but I don't think she's given it much thought to the mess this would create.
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