GERRYMANDERING AGAIN | TRAVEL BAN AGAIN | ROD ROSENSTEIN AGAIN | And We’re Here For All Of It
April 24, 2018
BLOCK THE VOTE, DON'T BLOCK THE VOTE BABY
|The Supreme Court once again looked at the issue of voting rights today, as justices heard a case in which a lower court invalidated congressional and statehouse maps in Texas because they discriminated against minority voters. This was the third major gerrymandering dispute the high court has heard this term. The justices have already indicated that they are deeply divided on the case, and they spent much of today’s argument wondering whether this case should have been before them at all.
OVERSEAS AND UNDER SIEGE
|Justices ruled today that victims of overseas atrocities or attacks can’t use the 1789 Alien Tort Statute to sue foreign corporations for complicity. This had been a favorite tool among human-rights advocates, but a narrow 5-4 ruling along ideological lines just threw it out the window. The case centered around the victims and family members of terrorist attacks in Israel and Palestinian territories who accused Jordan-based Arab Bank Plc of using its New York branch to distribute millions of dollars to terrorists and their families
NO FEATHERS RUFFLED HERE
|Ruling 7-2, the justices decided today to uphold an administrative review system and avoid a major upheaval in the way patent disputes can be resolved out of court. While obscure to most Americans, billions of dollars hung in the balance for this case. But Big Tech won the day. Companies such as Google and Facebook had argued that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board remained the best way to quash suspect patents, including those obtained by so-called patent “trolls” as a way to extract royalties. On the losing side was Major Pharma looking to return to a system where patent disputes were handled by only the courts and not regulators.
HIS DAY IN COURT
|ICYMI, Deputy Attorney General ROD ROSENSTEIN took a break from the news cycle to argue at the Supreme Court for the very first time. It wasn’t a terribly high-profile case, but for 30 minutes the embattled Trump appointee got some relief from the Mueller mania and had the rare opportunity stand before justices of the nation’s highest court.
SPEAKING OF
|Rod Rosenstein was somewhat at the center of SCOTUS news yesterday. The justices heard arguments involving the role of SEC administrative judges, and they seemed wary of claims that the nonpolitical process for appointing administrative-law judges to hear securities-enforcement cases is unconstitutional. Lawyers for PRESIDENT TRUMP urged the high court to rule that executive officers must be subject to removal by the president, leading some to see their real target as special counsel ROBERT S. MUELLER. As a Justice Department appointee, agency regulations say Mueller may be fired by Deputy Atty. Gen. ROD ROSENSTEIN, but only for “good cause.”
T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE ARGUMENT
|Tomorrow will be the last scheduled oral argument of the term, and it promises to be a blockbuster. It’s an encore showing of PRESIDENT TRUMP’S travel ban, with justices set to hear arguments over the administration’s third version of the policy. The current version has been in effect since early December, but the outcome of tomorrow’s case will determine whether it can remain in place permanently. Dara Lind with Vox previews the big case.
COME ONE, COME ALL
|CNN’s Ariane de Vogue reports that everyone and their mother has decided to throw in their two cents on tomorrow’s SCOTUS travel ban case. Dozens of amicus briefs have been filed on travel ban 3.0, with input coming from art museums, a Gold Star father, lawmakers, states and even one of DONALD TRUMP’S personal lawyers.
WHAT UNITES US
|“It is rare, if not unheard of, for former intelligence experts to weigh in against the government in a major national security case. But the Trump travel ban, to be argued Wednesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, has produced an astounding and bipartisan coalition of intelligence and national security heavyweights who are urging the court to strike down the ban.” That’s Nina Totenberg with NPR noting the unique moment we are in as she shares with us the national security establishment’s argument against the travel ban in six quotes from her conversation with GENERAL MICHAEL HAYDEN. He served as director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005 and as CIA director from 2006 to 2009.
SHOUTOUT FOR COWTOWN
|The one and only JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR will grace the presence of the UC Davis Aggies at the law school’s May 19 commencement ceremony. She’ll come all the way out to the tiny California Cowtown where she’ll address the graduating class and even field some questions from the audience members themselves.