IS TRUMP TOO BIG FOR HIS BREECHES? | Is Gorsuch A Terrible Writer? | Is Civics Our Way Forward?
January 24, 2018
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1993, retired JUSTICE THURGOOD MARSHALL died at the age of 84 in Bethesda, Maryland.
TOO BIG FOR THEIR BREECHES
|For The Economist, Steve Mazie discusses the challenge to DONALD TRUMP’S latest version of his travel ban that the Supreme Court agreed to hear this term. He argues that the president’s lack of authority to issue such sweeping regulations might “prick the ears of justices who worry about presidents becoming too big for their breeches.”
NO SCOTUS, NO PROBLEM
|Marc Levy with The Associated Press reports on what will follow the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling which struck down the state’s congressional map citing partisan gerrymandering in violation with the state constitution. Levy: “Constitutional lawyers say the U.S. Supreme Court is very unlikely to block Monday’s decision, given that the lawsuit was decided on the state Constitution.”
SOME SERIOUS SCOTUS SHADE
|Mark Joseph Stern with Slate is packing a punch today, calling out JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH for being a “terrible” writer. “Since his elevation to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch’s prose has curdled into a glop of cutesy idioms, pointless metaphors, and garbled diction that’s exhausting to read and impossible to take seriously. It may even be alienating the conservative justices whom Gorsuch was supposed to beguile with his ostensibly impeccable reasoning.” It’s no surprise that Mark took the care to write a very eloquent piece to articulate his argument here. We see you, MJS, and we appreciate you.
BUT CAN HE SPEAK
|Before an audience of college students yesterday, JUSTICE GORSUCH urged that it is critical for America to return to a culture of civics and civility. At Stockton University in southern New Jersey, Gorsuch remarked, “To preserve our civil liberties, we have to work on being civil with one another.” David Porter with The Associated Press reports.
CIVICS FORWARD
|Neil Gorsuch wasn’t the only justice out and about this week. JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR spent her time Tuesday talking to educators and lawmakers in Seattle, Washington about the importance of teaching kids how, and why, to engage with government. Claudia Rowe with The Seattle Times reports on the justice’s appearance.