BRINGING ETHICS TO SCOTUS | All Eyes On Justice Kennedy | Markey’s Not-So-Hot Idea
April 12, 2017
AN UPHILL BATTLE
|“If Democrats thought it was hard to stop PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S first U.S. Supreme Court nominee, it promises to be even tougher for them if he gets to fill another vacancy, potentially to replace the most influential justice, ANTHONY KENNEDY. Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes sides with the court’s liberals in key cases such as on gay rights and abortion, is one of three justices 78 or older…Former Kennedy Supreme Court clerks said the justice, who turns 81 in July, may be pondering retirement either this year or in 2018.”
A LAWLESS SCOTUS
|Executive Director of Fix the Court, GABE ROTH, was on NBC this week talking about ethics at the Supreme Court. “There’s no outside body, there’s no inspector general, there’s no internal ethics office,” Roth notes. Meanwhile, for the fourth time in six years, Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced a Supreme Court Ethics Act to compel the justices to adopt a professional code of conduct. Roth hopes that Republicans will cosponsor the bill because it seems to be a fair compromise between Congress’ broad statutory authority over the judiciary and the justices’ own insights into the types of ethics rules that should apply to them given their unique place in the constitutional order.
PLAYING POLITICS
|Speaking at a college in upstate New York yesterday, CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS expressed concern for the “partisan hostility” surrounding the confirmation of JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH because it could undermine the public confidence in the apolitical nature of the judicial system. “We in the judiciary do not do our business in a partisan, ideological manner,” Roberts said. “The new justice is not a Republican or a Democrat; he’s a member of the Supreme Court. But it’s hard for people to understand that when they see the process that leads up to it.”
GIRL, INTERRUPTED
|This may come as no surprise, but at the Supreme Court, men talk over women all the time but the reverse almost never happens. In The Washington Post, Tonja Jacobi and Dylan Schweers say that with JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH joining the bench, he will be “the most junior justice on the court will be a man, in contrast with the past nine years, when JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR and then JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN each held that title.” They note, “During that time, the two female justices were interrupted during oral arguments far more often than the other justices on the court. Some might say that is because they were junior; we predict that the soon-to-be Justice Gorsuch will nevertheless be interrupted far less than those two female justices.”
WORLD'S WORST IDEA
|Jim Newell for Slate explains why he thinks SENATOR ED MARKEY’S suggestion to reinstate the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees is a really, really bad idea. He opines, “The SCOTUS filibuster is gone. Some Senate Republicans made noises, too, about restoring the filibuster on executive and sub-SCOTUS judicial nominees after Democrats nuked it in 2013. They never did that, because it would have been a dumb form of unilateral disarmament.”
ALL EYES ON YOU
|Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr reports that long before NEIL GORSUCH took his oath of office Monday, speculation was swirling that JUSTICE KENNEDY might retire at the end of the term. He writes, “President Donald Trump’s aides are preparing for the prospect of a new nomination while liberals brace for what could be a seismic shift on the court.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
David Souter Killed the Filibuster
The New York Times“It’s possible that structural forces — the ideological sorting of the parties, the decay of the republic toward an executive-judicial diarchy — were always going to push the filibuster to extinction, no matter whether Bork was Borked or Garland pocket-vetoed. But if agency and contingency have a role in history, there is a crucial turning point that deserves to be remembered: the strange nomination and career of David Hackett Souter.”
Ravitch: Why the Supreme Court should not force the public to pay for religious schools
The Washington Post“In this post, Diane Ravitch, education historian and public school advocate, explains the history of the Blaine Amendments and why she thinks the Supreme Court should leave them in place.”
OTHER NEWS
North Carolina Republicans File Bill to Ban Same-Sex Marriage
TIME“Three Republican lawmakers have filed a bill seeking to outlaw same-sex marriage within North Carolina. House Bill 780, otherwise known as the ‘Uphold Historical Marriage Act,’ says the United States Supreme Court ‘overstepped its constitutional bounds’ when it negated an amendment of North Carolina’s constitution in its 2015 landmark Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.”
Clinic's Closure Leaves 3 Abortion Providers in Louisiana
The Associated Press“The closures come as abortion restrictions imposed by the Legislature force clinics to fight costly legal battles. Currently, abortion providers in Louisiana are fighting restrictions including a requirement for a 72-hour waiting period for many women, and a ban on a common second-trimester procedure called dilation and evacuation.”