CHIEF JUSTICE BACKS OUT OF CASE | Widespread Support of Same-Day Audio | McConnell In An Ironic Moment
January 5, 2017
BACK OUT, BRO
|After realizing he owns about $175,000 of stock in Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., — a company with business before the high court this term — CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS announced Wednesday that he will recuse himself from the case. In a letter from the clerk of the court, it was noted that “the ordinary conflict check conducted in the chief justice’s chambers inadvertently failed to find this potential conflict.” Executive Director of Fix the Court, GABE ROTH, responded to this oversight commenting, “This is the third instance in the last 15 months in which a justice initially missed a stock conflict and failed to recuse himself from a case as required by law. Why is it so hard for the Supreme Court to get this right?”
ARE YOU FIRED UP?
|Speaking of GABE ROTH, his organization put out a petition calling for Supreme Court justices to release same-day audio of oral arguments, particularly as we approach two closely watched cases scheduled for hearing on January 18. Note, it was only eight hours after the release of the petition that folks from all fifty states signed in support of same-day audio.
TOP-ED
|Linda Greenhouse at The New York Times responds to CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS’ year-end report with some disappointment at his lack of acknowledgement of the nearly year-long vacancy at the Supreme Court. He also made no mention of the 84 district judgeships that remain vacant. Remembering CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST, who once used the year-end report to respond to a political eruption with a call for judicial independence, Greenhouse argues Roberts should have had the gall to do something similar. “I’ll grant that it would have been a delicate matter for the chief justice to wade into national politics at this almost impossible freighted moment, weeks before he is to administer the presidential oath to DONALD J. TRUMP…But it seems to me that if there was ever a moment to put delicacy aside, this was it.”
STRUGGLE BUS
|“Democrats are lurching toward a fight over the next Supreme Court, wracked with bitterness about the 11-month blockade of an open seat but with no clear message on how to respond to the nominee expected from President-elect DONALD TRUMP once he takes office.” In The Washington Post, David Weigel reports on Dems struggling to get on the same page and gear up for the fight over SCOTUS.
LEADING THE CHARGE
|There Is one Democrat who seems to have a clear call to action in the name of filling JUSTICE SCALIA’S seat, and that’s SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER. He delivered a very clear message Wednesday when he told reporters that if any of Trump’s nominees are “out of the mainstream,” Democrats will fight them “tooth and nail.”
ISN'T IT IRONIC
|Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL warned Democrats that staging a blockade similar to what Republicans have done for the last eleven months will not be tolerated. McConnell: “Apparently there’s yet a new standard now, which is to not confirm a Supreme Court nominee at all. I think that’s something the American people simply will not tolerate and we’ll be looking forward to receiving a Supreme Court nomination and moving forward on it.” Is anyone else hearing the soft, subtle voice of Alanis Morissette?
COULDN'T CARE LESS
|MSNBC’s Steve Benen responded to SENATOR MCCONNELL’S comments writing, “Look, I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in the subtleties of Americans’ attitudes on the federal judiciary, but if there’s one thing the 2016 elections made abundantly clear, it’s that most of the public couldn’t care less about Supreme Court obstructionism. Senate Republicans, for 11 months, refused to even consider a moderate, compromise nominee — and GOP senators had little trouble keeping their majority.”
OTHER NEWS
Sex Offender Lockup Should Trouble Court More
Bloomberg“In a major blow to civil liberties, an appeals court has upheld the Minnesota system that civilly commits sex offenders after they’ve served their prison terms, a confinement from which no one has ever been fully released. The decision, filed Tuesday, used the wrong legal standard, making it too easy for the state to lock people up indefinitely for future dangerousness. Worse, the U.S. Supreme Court might not review the decision, despite its being egregiously wrong, because there is no clear disagreement among the circuit courts.”
Trump SCOTUS Short-Lister Joan Larsen Is a Fan of Executive Power and Presidential Signing Statements
ReasonIf Donald Trump nominates Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen to the U.S. Supreme Court, Damon Root says the Senate Judiciary should take a good hard look at her past statements in support of expansive executive power.