The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling that did not split on traditional ideological lines, upheld South Dakota’s ability to require that out-of-state internet sellers collect state sales tax on goods sold into South Dakota. The case involved the internet retailer Wayfair and South Dakota.
The case is being misrepresented in many...
I’m so old, I remember when two partisan gerrymandering cases in the Supreme Court — one from Wisconsin and one from Maryland — were on just about everyone’s list of blockbuster cases this term, including Bloomberg, Politico, and CNN, among many others.
The Wisconsin case involved a very pro-Republican legislative district map...
The Supreme Court, in the case of Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky, ruled that a Minnesota law that banned “political badge, political button, or other political insignia” at polling places on Election Day was unconstitutional.
The case was brought by voters who, among other things, wanted to wear a Tea Party Patriots...
Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute presented a fairly boring legal issue of statutory construction.
The legal issue was whether the process used by Ohio to clean up its voter rolls complied with federal statutes.
In February 2011, the Obama/Holder DOJ abruptly announced it would refuse to continue defending the Defense of Marriage Act after years of arguing in Court that DOMA was constitutional.
In defending DOMA for years, the DOJ was upholding an important principle, that DOJ should defend existing laws in court so long as...
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. From USA Today:
The verdict criticized...
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PAPSA) that outlawed sports gambling in most states.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument this morning on Trump’s Travel Order No. 3, which restricts visa travel to the U.S. from seven countries, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea.
The Travel Order is not a “travel ban,” it’s an order regulating who can come into the United...
Back in 2008 when Obama was running for president, then Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was busted for trying to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat. A few years later, he was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.
Has it really been a year?
Yes, on April 10, 2017, Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Remember, Gorsuch only was nominated for the Scalia seat because Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, was not given a Senate hearing much less vote (it’s highly unlikely he would...
The Supreme Court just handed down a police use-of-force decision, Kisela v. Hughes (
Retired SCOTUS Justice John Paul Stevens (who is now 97 years old) has written a NY Times op-ed piece calling for the elimination of the Second Amendment. The reason he gives is this:
We previously reported that the Trump administration took the unusual step of trying to get the Supreme Court to hear the case of the San Francisco federal district court order preventing Trump from ending DACA without getting a ruling first from the 9th Circuit.
What made the procedure confounding, is that the...
On February 19, 2018, the majority Democrat members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court imposed a new congressional district map that was very Democrat friendly, likely swinging 4-5 seats to Democrats. It could be the difference between Democrats taking control of the U.S. House or not in the 2018 midterms.
The map became...
Opponents of the 2nd Amendment are gearing up to exploit the Parkland School shooting by making it part of the Resistance movement against Trump, the NRA and Republicans.
That was obvious from the start, and it’s more so now that the March For Our Lives on March 24 picks up celebrity donations...
Earlier today I was reading Prof. Josh Blackman’s post responding to criticism he has received for using the term Judicial Resistance, On the Judicial Resistance:
Over the past year, I have discussed at some length the self-professed “legal resistance,” which has coordinated legal strategies to resist President Trump in the courts. This...
During a discussion at Columbia University, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blamed a “macho atmosphere” and rampant sexism for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 electoral loss.
“I think it was difficult for Hillary Clinton to get by even the macho atmosphere prevailing during that campaign, and she was criticized in a way...
