Bipartisan Bill Introduced That Would Improve Broadcast Access To Federal Court Proceedings | Will SCOTUS Have To Intervene In Impeachment Trial?
January 17, 2020
GET WITH THE TIMES
|Yesterday, as CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS was swearing in senators on live TV for the impeachment trial of DONALD TRUMP, a bipartisan bill was introduced that would require federal appeals courts (including SCOTUS!) to vastly improve broadcast access to their proceedings. GABE ROTH, Executive Director of Fix the Court, had this to say about the news: “That next week’s impeachment trial will be broadcast live, while the audio of this week’s Supreme Court arguments has yet to be released, is a significant and unnecessary discrepancy in public access among our branches of government. The work of the Supreme Court and other federal appeals courts has broad implications for the country, and real-time access to their proceedings ought not be limited to the few who can travel to a courthouse and spend hours waiting to get in.”
FROM MEME TO SCOTUS
|“Can saying ‘OK, boomer’ at work constitute age discrimination? Inquiring minds, among them U.S. Supreme Court CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, want to know. While the jury’s out, workers might want to exercise caution when using this phrase around the office. But they shouldn’t be surprised if younger generations roll their eyes at the heightened concern.” That’s Caleb Melby with Bloomberg providing a rundown on the history of “OK, boomer” and how it ended up making headlines thanks to the Supreme Court this week.
TOP-ED
|In The Wall Street Journal, Michael A. Helfand weighs in on the upcoming Supreme Court case “which tests the constitutionality of state laws that exclude religious organizations from government funding.” Helfand writes, “The case raises a unique question: What happens when a state court invokes a religiously discriminatory rule, but ensures there is no discriminatory impact? Call it discrimination without discriminating.”
KEEP IT GREEN
|This week, conservation groups called on SCOTUS to reject efforts by the Trump administration and Dominion Energy Inc. to build a natural gas pipeline across the Appalachian Trail. Ellen M. Gilmer for Bloomberg Environment reports.
THIS COULD GET MESSY
|Jonathan Turley in The Washington Post suggests the Supreme Court may have to intervene in the Senate’s impeachment trial over a question of calling witnesses to testify — a question, he explains, that is more than 50 years in the making.