JUSTICES HEAR FIRST MAJOR GUN CASE IN A DECADE | Secrets Don’t Make Friends, SCOTUS
December 2, 2019
DON'T SHOOT, IT'S MOOT
|Before the Supreme Court today is its first major gun case in a decade. Justices hear a case concerning a New York City gun regulation that restricts where licensed handgun owners can take their locked and unloaded handguns throughout the city. At the time of SCOTUS first agreeing to take up the case, the law blocked licensed individuals from removing a handgun from the address listed on the license except to travel to nearby authorized small arms ranges or shooting clubs. However, since SCOTUS added the dispute to its docket, the regulation expanded in its allowance on where the guns can travel. The state and the city changed the law to allow transport to second homes or shooting ranges outside the city. And so New York contends that because the law has changed — and the updates provide everything that gun owners had asked for in their lawsuit — the case is moot and should be thrown out.
THIS IS YOUR HOMETOWN
|“For a century, this tiny town has breathed beneath the long shadow of a colossal chimney. In fact, a mining behemoth created Opportunity specifically to prove it was safe to live in the path of the dark plume of smoke that billowed from the company’s copper smelter. The plant is long shuttered, but the big stack looms 585 feet tall, the largest free-standing masonry structure in the world. Studies long ago shattered the company’s safety claims by linking high levels of arsenic and lead to serious health threats.” Kathleen McLaughlin with The Washington Post reports on the case justices will hear on Tuesday regarding the town of Opportunity and “its struggle to force powerful corporate and government interests to clean up the dangerous waste left behind.”
IS THERE DOUBT AFOOT
|Even though the Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question from being added to the 2020 Census, Michael Wines with The New York Times reports that new questions have started to arise about why exactly there was a push to have the question added. He writes, “A steady trickle of new disclosures in the case this past month has sharpened questions about whether Republican Party politics drove the effort to add the question to the head count — and whether the Trump administration tried to conceal that in court.”
MYSTERY MONDAY
|“The lack of transparency at the Supreme Court begins with the heavy red drapes that frame the courtroom on all sides. The court replaced the drapes this summer, but would not reveal the name of the company that did the work.” That’s Mark Sherman with The Associated Press reporting on the Supreme Court’s lack of transparency — on issues big and small — from the drapes to the taxpayer-funded building to justices’ lack of disclosures on travel and gifts. GABE ROTH with Fix the Court told AP, “The Supreme Court should be leading the judiciary in openness and accountability, but by and large, it’s fallen behind.”
OTHER NEWS
As Supreme Court Decision Looms, Undocumented Asians Say They Must Speak Up Or Risk Losing DACA
Los Angeles Times“In the constellation of activism for those in the country illegally, Santos is in a decided minority — an Asian immigrant fully open about his tenuous status in the United States. As the Supreme Court weighs the future of so-called ‘Dreamers’ and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, he said he thinks more Asian and Pacific Islanders need to come out of the shadows. And he points to the advocacy among immigrants in other groups, particularly those from Mexico and Central America.”
Ginsburg Health Scare Raises Prospect Of Election Year Supreme Court Battle
The Hill“The recent hospitalization of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg following a year of health scares has raised the prospect of a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year and a partisan battle royal that would likely surpass the impeachment fight. Liberal activists are already calling on President Trump to keep any possible Supreme Court vacancy open until after the 2020 election, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has indicated he would fill a court vacancy next year, even though he blocked former President Obama’s nominee for most of 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.”
‘Lock Me Up’: The Last Man To Be Arrested For Defying Congress During An Investigation
The Washington Post“Use of the inherent contempt power dates back to 1795, when Congress had three men arrested for offering bribes to lawmakers. The procedure fell into disuse because it is ‘cumbersome, time consuming and relatively ineffective,’ according to the Congressional Research Service. Instead, cases are turned over to the courts. But the MacCracken case, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, could provide a precedent for the current standoff.”