Spotlight On Breyer Now That Dems Control Senate | Trump’s Census Plan Likely To Fail Due To Count Delay
January 8, 2021
THT WOULD BE A NO
|In a one-sentence order released yesterday, the Supreme Court denied a day-old bid to reverse PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S election defeat. Greg Stohr with Bloomberg reports, “The justices rejected REPRESENTATIVE LOUIE GOHMERT’S request to block VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE from invoking the law that governed the congressional-vote counting session. The court acted even though the case was seemingly moot after Congress ratified JOE BIDEN’S victory win early Thursday in a session interrupted the previous day by rioters.”
A VERY SMALL CLUB
|Mark Sherman with the Associated Press reports on PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN tapping MERRICK GARLAND to serve as attorney general. “Garland is joining a small club,” Sherman writes, “including a couple of Supreme Court justices, who gave up lifetime jobs as a federal judge because a president, or soon-to-be president, asked them to.” Garland said of the opportunity: “I have loved being a judge. But to serve as attorney general at this critical time, to lead the more than 113,000 dedicated men and women who work at the department to ensure the rule of law, is a calling I am honored and eager to answer.”
ALL EYES ON BREYER
|“With Democrats securing control of the U.S. Senate, some liberal activists are calling for liberal JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER to make retirement plans so Democratic PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN quickly can appoint a successor to the Supreme Court’s oldest member.” Lawrence Hurley with Reuters covers what’s possible for Biden’s approach to SCOTUS now that Democrats won both races in Georgia this week, including fulfilling his campaign promise of putting a Black woman on the court.
SCOTUS VIEWS
How To Ensure This Never Happens Again
The New York Times“The path from the Nov. 3 election has been harrowing for American democracy. Though state and local officials ran clean, well-functioning elections, leaving no doubt that Joe Biden was the victor, President Trump and a sizable faction of Republicans in Congress have relentlessly tried to subvert the results. Their assault culminated in yesterday’s insurrection at the Capitol, a physical attack on the home of our democracy, incited by the sitting president. This dark reality owes much to Trump’s malign political style — his narcissism and demagogy, his willingness to sell lies to his political base — and to the ways that the Republican Party has fed his worst tendencies. But certain aspects of the electoral system also helped bring us to this point.”
Trump’s Self-Pardon Fantasy Will Meet A Harsh Reality
The Atlantic“I don’t believe a self-pardon’s gonna fly. I don’t mean to say that President Donald Trump will not attempt it. He very well might. I also don’t mean to say that it won’t be a big deal if and when he does attempt it. It will be a very big deal. I mean, rather, that a self-pardon will not materially decrease the likelihood of his attempted prosecution by the Justice Department after he leaves office, and may even increase the chances of his indictment. More important, it will probably not result in legal recognition that the pardon power extends to presidential self-forgiveness. To the contrary, if Trump does attempt a self-pardon in the face of a compelling federal criminal case against him, the result is likely to be Supreme Court rejection of the self-pardon’s legality.”
OTHER NEWS
New Delay In Census Process Probably Ends Trump’s Plan To Exclude Undocumented Immigrants From Apportionment
The Washington Postimmigrants from being counted for a decade’s worth of congressional apportionment because the Census Bureau has projected it won’t be able to get state population totals to him before he leaves office. Trump’s historically unprecedented plan, announced in July, probably would have given House Republicans a political advantage. It sparked a flurry of lawsuits, and three federal courts ruled that it was illegal. The Supreme Court said last month that it was too early to rule on it.”