SAME-DAY AUDIO, WAS THAT SO HARD? | Justices Looking Likely To Support Muslim Travel Ban | Greenhouse On The Modern Civil War
April 26, 2018
WE'RE SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE
|Should same-day audio be the Supreme Court standard? Not to be crass…but duh. Michael McGough writes in the Los Angeles Times that there’s really no good reason why audio recordings of all arguments aren’t streamed the same day. “It’s important to realize how unusual it is that the public can hear arguments in the case of Trump vs. Hawaii on the same day the lawyers made them, albeit on a slightly delay. As GABE ROTH of Fix the Court notes, this is the first time the court has released audio on the same day since April 28, 2015, the day of the argument in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the same-sex marriage case.”
NOW WE'RE TALKING
|And while we’re talking SCOTUS upgrades, why not shoot for the moon and have a conversation about live audio of arguments? Perhaps that should be the real Supreme Court standard? It is 2018 after all. AP’s Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko are on the same wavelength in their latest where they point out, “The Supreme Court is not noted for its speed or adaptability, but it moved very quickly to post a link to an audio recording of arguments over PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S travel ban. Less than an hour after the justices left the bench Wednesday, the public was able to listen to the courtroom action in the high-profile case. The fast turnaround raises two questions: Why not just provide live audio of the proceedings? At the very least, why not do same-day release more often?”
READY RED LEADER
|In the last oral arguments of the term, the justices made pretty clear that they’re ready to allow PRESIDENT TRUMP’S travel ban to remain in place. Both CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTSand JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY made clear that it’s not up to the courts to second-guess a president’s policy given his exposure to critical national security information.
WHEN WORDS HAVE NO MEANING
|CNN’s Joan Biskupic says that based on yesterday’s travel ban arguments, it looks like the Supreme Court isn’t interested in holding DONALD TRUMP’S words against him. Biskupic writes that although justices made clear that they are aware the incendiary comments Trump made during his campaign, a majority of them are making their legal calculation without too heavily weighing the rhetoric.
RIDDLE ME THIS
|“The national-security argument is hard; but as for the Establishment Clause question, were the justices asking the right questions? So what if this version of the proclamation uses neutral language? So what if it is ineffective as a ‘Muslim ban’? Should this save the proclamation if ‘unreasonable observers’—let’s say, purely hypothetically, the kinds of Americans who might decide to vote for a presidential candidate who said ‘Islam hates us’ and promised a ‘total and complete shutdown’ of Muslim immigration—would think that the proclamation really is an effective, intentional attack on Islam? Why should ‘ineffectiveness’ matter if the president who issued it kept winking at the camera and slyly hinting he has done what he said he would do? If the proclamation’s anti-Muslim message is visible only to the ignorant and bigoted, does that really somehow make it okay?” That’s Garrett Epps with The Atlantic asking all the big questions about the justices’ likely ruling in favor of the president’s travel ban.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times thinks that no matter what the Supreme Court says, “Trump’s Muslim ban is bad policy.” The Ed Board asserts, “Even if the court agrees — wrongly, in our view — that the ban can go forward legally, the fact remains that imposing such a broad exclusion based on discriminatory misconceptions is foolish and counterproductive policy.”
PODCAST DU JOUR
|Need more travel ban content? Check out the latest episode of The Daily with Michael Barbaro. He is joined by ADAM LIPTAK with The New York Times to discuss yesterday’s arguments and better understand the primary question on justices’ minds: Should the president’s authority have anything to do with his personal beliefs?
TOP-ED
|Linda Greenhouse with The New York Times thinks there’s a civil war being waged in this country between the White House and blue states. She notes that the weapons of choice aren’t cannon balls though, it’s federal funding for sanctuary cities, the upcoming census, and the cap on tax deductions that will strike at residents of cities and states where high tax rates support decent public services.
SCOTUS VIEWS
Just Another Day In Court
Slate“In truth, arguments in Hawaii v. Trump would have benefited from some theatrics. While most of us may be inured to it, the travel ban is still a devastating attack on immigrants whose only offense is having the wrong nationality and religion. Unfortunately, a majority of the court looks poised to uphold the ban by ignoring its genesis and deferring to a president who could not be trusted to take your Starbucks order, let alone set immigration policy. Trump’s enablers turned his Muslim-bashing campaign promises into law, and the Supreme Court seems eager to play along with this repeatedly bungled ruse.”
Supreme Court's Gerrymandering Decision Could Set Dangerous Precedent On Discrimination
NBC News“While predicting Supreme Court decisions is often a fool’s errand, Texas’ chances are looking good. If a majority of the members of the court pushed pause on the Texas lower court’s decision to force lawmakers to draw new lines, it’s easy to see why they would be unlikely to now strike Texas’ district lines down. And if Texas does prevail, voters will go to the polls in 2018 with the knowledge that lawmakers are both able and willing to use the levers of power to protect themselves — and not their constituents.”
OTHER NEWS
The Supreme Court Considers Travel Bans And Imaginary Presidents
The New Yorker“Even if the justices allow the ban to go forward, it would be unconscionable for them not to take the opportunity, in their decisions, to address Korematsu, and to renounce it thoroughly. If they think that it is different from the travel ban, they should say why, in ways that serve to reject Trump’s assertion that the courts had no right to review the ban in the first place and to clarify the limits of a president’s ability to target certain groups in the name of security. Otherwise, that power, under future presidents—and this one—will not just be hypothetical.”
Courts Give Trump A Possible Path Through A Legal Minefield On Immigration
The New York Times“Two back-to-back court developments this week indicate a possible road map for President Trump through the minefield of legal resistance he has faced as judges across the country have blocked much of his hard-line immigration agenda.”
Trump's 'Muslim Ban' Is Already Happening, Immigrant Rights Advocates Say
NPR“No matter how the Supreme Court rules on the travel ban, immigrant rights advocates say the Trump administration is already achieving the so-called ‘Muslim ban’ that the president talked about during the campaign. Muslim immigration to the U.S. is down sharply since President Trump took office. Thousands of refugees and other would-be immigrants have been caught up in the administration’s rapidly shifting immigration policies, leaving families scattered on opposite sides of the world.”