Chief Justice To Swear In Biden, Will He Also Preside Over Trump’s Senate Trial? | Climate Change Case Before Justices Today
January 19, 2021
DAY ONE TO DO LIST
|Tomorrow, PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN will become President of the United States, and he already has plans for his first official day in office. In an Inauguration Day executive order, Biden will cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit. Although PRESIDENT TRUMP has been pushing for the project to move forward, the Keystone pipeline faced several major hurdles last year including SCOTUS rejecting a request from the administration to allow construction on parts of the pipeline that had been blocked by a federal judge in Montana.
YOU NEED ME MAN I DON'T NEED YOU
|As is custom, CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS will lead the incoming president in the oath of office. Mark Sherman with the Associated Press reports it will be the fourth time Roberts will have to swear in a new president who either voted against his confirmation to the Supreme Court or hasn’t been shy about their opposition to his views. Sherman also points out, “It’s the first time in American history that the incoming president and vice president have together voted against a majority of the court. The unusual milestone reflects that both halves of the Democratic ticket served in the Senate at a time of increasing political polarization that found full expression in Supreme Court nomination fights.”
HERSTORY IN THE MAKING
|Also on Wednesday, KAMALA HARRIS will be sworn in as the nation’s first female vice president and the first Black and South Asian person to hold the office. JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR will do the honors of swearing in Harris, using a Bible once owned by THURGOOD MARSHALL.
SPEAKING OF SONIA
|During PRESIDENT TRUMP’S last full week in office, the Supreme Court faced his administration’s efforts to fulfill its objective of executing 13 federal death row inmates in six months. Late Friday night, DUSTIN JOHN HIGGS became the 13th inmate to be put to death. JUSTICES STEPHEN BREYER and SONIA SOTOMAYOR were not happy with that result. Sotomayor wrote in response, “This is not justice.” She said of the 13 executions, “To put that in historical context, the Federal Government will have executed more than three times as many people in the last six months than it had in the previous six decades.”
THERE IS NO PLANET B
|The justices have a climate change case before them today that could shape dozens of similar lawsuits across the country. But, as John Schwartz with The New York Times writes, the case may not even require justices to discuss global warming during oral argument. “That’s because the hearing in BP v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore is not about whether climate change is real or caused by greenhouse gases generated by humans. The hearing is not even about whether fossil fuel companies should pay Baltimore for the costs of climate change, which is the point of the underlying lawsuit. Instead, the justices decided to hear the case on a single, highly technical legal question: What happens when a federal court sends a case to be heard in state courts? That is what has occurred in the Baltimore case, which began its life in state court, and which the fossil fuel companies are trying to move to federal court, where they expect a more favorable outcome.”
WE'VE COME TO THE END OF THE ROAD
|Now that PRESIDENT TRUMP’S time in office has come to a close, Joan Biskupic with CNN reviews for us a timeline of events over the last four years involving Trump and the Supreme Court. The four years, of course, began with CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS administering the oath of office in which Trump swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
IS IT TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
|Last week, PRESIDENT TRUMP became the only president to ever be impeached twice. But Nina Totenberg with NPR reports on whether the Senate has the power to try an ex-president on impeachment charges. She writes, “The Constitution says that after the House of Representatives votes to impeach a president or any other civil officer, the case is sent to the Senate for a trial, which ‘shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification’ from future office. Conviction requires a two-thirds vote, but barring Trump from future office would take only a majority vote.” However, legal scholars disagree over what exactly the Founders intended with that language.
WITHOUT YOU
|Devin Dwyer and Benjamin Siegel with ABC News report on whether CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS will have to preside over the Senate impeachment trial (assuming there is one). They explore the possibility of Roberts recusing himself — in case the constitutionality of the proceedings were challenged in federal court. “In Roberts’ absence, the responsibility to preside may fall to VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS, as incoming president of the Senate, or to SEN. PATRICK LEAHY of Vermont, as president pro tempore, according to experts.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
One Of Trump’s Worst Legacies Will Be His Transformation Of The Supreme Court
The Washington Post“President Trump will be gone soon, if not soon enough. His worst legacy is the ugly, racially tinged divisiveness that he stoked for four years, and that resulted in the sacking of the Capitol as Congress prepared to count the electoral college votes. But a close second involves the building just across the street: a Supreme Court transformed by strong-arm tactics — distorted, really — into a conservative juggernaut. Even as the House debated how to protect the country against Trump, that dramatic change was on display in an abortion case that augured darker days to come.”
The Self-Pardon Trap That May Catch Our Rogue President Trump
USA Today“Be careful what you wish for, Mr. President: Any attempt to pardon yourself for federal crimes may increase the likelihood that the Department of Justice will indict you. DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel concluded in 1974 that a ‘President cannot pardon himself.’ But courts have had no occasion to affirm that conclusion. The only way for the Justice Department to have the issue resolved is to indict Trump notwithstanding any grant of self-clemency.”
OTHER NEWS
Biden Readies Sweeping Rollback Of Trump-era Abortion Crackdown
NBC News“President-elect Joe Biden is poised to roll back several of the Trump administration’s most restrictive sexual and reproductive health policies, including limits on abortion. Reproductive rights advocates expect Biden to quickly overturn Trump-era rules, like banning federal funds for foreign and national health organizations that promote and provide abortion and giving employers more freedom to deny free contraceptive coverage for their workers.”