Justices Rule On “Wealth Test” For Immigrants | Which Justices Are Registered Democrats, And Which Are Registered Republicans
January 28, 2020
SHOW ME THE MONEY
|The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 yesterday allowing the Trump administration to implement a rule denying legal permanent residency to certain immigrants deemed likely to require government assistance in the future. It’s been called a “wealth test” and its implementation means those using or likely to use Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs will face greater scrutiny from immigration officials. The justices voted along ideological lines, with the decision announced as CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS sat as the presiding officer in Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.
ANOTHER BATTLE IN THE WAR
|Yesterday, PRESIDENT TRUMP’S lawyers were hard at work between the impeachment trial in the Senate and the Supreme Court. In regards to the latter, his lawyers told SCOTUS in opening briefs that that the House of Representatives and a Manhattan prosecutor should not be able to subpoena the president’s longtime accounting firm and banks for his financial records. Ariane de Vogue with CNN reports on the latest in this “monumental dispute concerning separation of powers and claims of absolute immunity.”
THE DEFENDER GENERAL
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times reports on a proposal to create a new office that would counterbalance that of the solicitor general. A new article published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review by Professors Daniel Epps of Washington University in St. Louis and William Ortman of Wayne State University suggests a “Defender General” could help even the playing field at the Supreme Court, particularly when it comes to criminal litigation. Liptak writes, “The defender general’s office envisioned by the article would sometimes represent individual criminal defendants or file supporting briefs on their behalf. More important, it would represent the interests of criminal defendants generally, even when they diverged from the interests of the particular defendant in the case.”
SPEAK YOUR PIECE
|Michael O’Sullivan with The Washington Post reviews a new documentary on JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS, in which the justice himself sat for hours and hours of interviews about his career and personal life. O’Sullivan writes that the documentary gives Thomas an opportunity to have “full say” on the story of his life without challenge or opposition to some of the controversy that has been central in shaping it (read: his confirmation hearing and the accusations of ANITA HILL and others).
JUSTICES ARE DEMS AND REPUBLICANS TOO
|Fix the Court released a new analysis today which reveals three Supreme Court justices are registered as Democrats, while two or three are registered as Republicans. FTC’s Executive Director GABE ROTH shared in his statement about these findings, “Supreme Court justices are supposed to be apolitical arbiters of cases and controversies who are above partisan politics. But the formal and public affiliation between justices and political parties calls that independence into question.”