Chief Justice Roberts Has Been Vaccinated | SCOTUS Turns Away Election Challenges And Texas Mail-in Voting Case
January 12, 2021
HERE'S LOOKIN' AT YOU, PENCE
|Today, the House plans to formally call on VICE PRESIDENT PENCE to strip PRESIDENT TRUMP of his powers by invoking the 25th Amendment. If Pence does not invoke the 25th, House Democrats have said they’ll move to vote on Trump’s impeachment as soon as Wednesday. The New York Times reports, “The vice president has already indicated that he was unlikely to force the president aside, and no one in either party expected Mr. Trump to step down. With that in mind, Democrats had already begun preparing a lengthier impeachment report documenting the president’s actions and the destruction that followed to accompany their charge. They were confident they had the votes to make Mr. Trump the first president ever to be impeached twice.”
CHECKING ON THE CHIEF
|Joan Biskupic with CNN reports CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS has received two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. She explains court officials have generally declined to reveal the status of justices’ vaccinations. Although the Supreme Court is still hosting oral arguments remotely via teleconference, Chief Justice Roberts regularly goes into the building, and other justices will occasionally work from the high court as well.
THE VOTES ARE IN
|The Supreme Court on Monday turned down more cases involving Republican efforts to overturn the election results. Justices declined to fast-track eight election cases, an outcome that notably came after Congress had already done its job of certifying the results last week. SCOTUS yesterday also turned away a Democratic effort to expand mail-in voting in Texas. And so, the state law letting people cast no-excuse absentee ballots only if they’re 65 or older remains intact.
FROM YOU'RE FIRED, TO YOU'RE HIRED
|Yesterday, the Biden administration announced 21 new hires to the White House counsel’s office, including five former Supreme Court clerks. Mike Scarcella and Marcia Coyle with The National Law Journal report.
OTHER NEWS
Supreme Court’s Environmental Docket Swells With Added Cases
Bloomberg Law“The Supreme Court’s environmental docket got a lot busier last week, as the justices agreed to wade into new disputes over renewable fuels and hazardous waste. Halfway through its term, the high court is now set to resolve two high-stakes questions under the Clean Air Act and the federal Superfund law—building on a docket that already features cases addressing endangered species protections, water rights, and climate liability.”