SCOTUS TO TAKE ON DACA | Clarence Thomas Having The Time Of His Life | Brett Kavanaugh’s First Year As A Justice
July 1, 2019
DREAM ON, DREAM ON
|On Friday, the Supreme Court granted an appeal to the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA, the Obama-era program created to protect nearly 1 million DREAMers brought into the country illegally as children. Nina Totenberg with NPR reports, “PRESIDENT TRUMP sought to revoke their protected status in 2017, seven months after taking office. The administration claimed in court that it could revoke DREAMers’ status anytime because the original Obama program was illegal. It also asserted that the courts had no power to review its decision. Four federal appeals courts subsequently rejected those arguments, and the Supreme Court earlier this month refused to expedite high court consideration of the cases.” A decision from SCOTUS will likely come a year from now in 2020.
LET'S MAKE A DEAL
|Michael D. Shear and Adam Liptak with The New York Times note the DACA case is “likely to be a yearlong legal clash over immigration policy and the power of the presidency that will probably culminate next summer with a ruling by the justices.” However, they say this new timeline now gives opportunity to Congress to resolve the status of DREAMers permanently before the Supreme Court weighs in. “Members of both parties, as well as Mr. Trump on several occasions, have expressed sympathy for the Dreamers, many of them fully assimilated young men and women in school or with careers. But there is no evidence that a deal is likely.”
TOP-EDS
|In The New York Times, Cristian Farias argues that SCOTUS doesn’t need to fix DACA for Trump. He wonders why after months of silence from justices on the subject, they now have “the sudden urgency to step in.” Meanwhile, Scott Martelle in the Los Angeles Times also reacts to the news of the Supreme Court taking on the DACA challenge for next term. He writes, “In case you were harboring any doubts over the role immigration will play in the 2020 presidential campaign, the Supreme Court on Friday morning all but guaranteed it will be front and center next spring.”
NOW I'VE HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE
|Also on Friday the Supreme Court decided not to take on a case regarding surgical abortions in Alabama — a decision JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS agreed with, though he wants SCOTUS to circle back on abortion precedent in general. Caroline Kelley and Ariane de Vogue with CNN explain that the case had to do with an Alabama law prohibiting a type of surgical abortion that challengers say amounts to a ban on “the most commonly used method for performing pre-viability second trimester abortions.”
AND I OWE IT ALL TO YOU
|“Thomas seized on Alabama’s appeal to decry ‘abortion via live dismemberment.’ The court’s ‘abortion jurisprudence,’ he wrote, ‘has spiraled out of control.’ In fact, the right to choose has no basis in ‘the text of the Constitution.’ (For ambiguous reasons, he still concurred in the decision not to take the appeal.)” Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern also takes a look at some of the recent “missives” from JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS this term in which he has “bashed, among other targets, the media, a lower court judge, and (naturally) women who get abortions.” Stern writes that Thomas seems to be having the time of his life.
IN HIS SHOES
|It’s hard to believe it, but JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH only just completed his first full term as a Supreme Court justice. His role on the high court has surprised some, as he voted with his liberal colleagues as often as he did with his conservative ones. He also provided the decisive vote in eight 5-4 rulings that had traditional ideological splits. Tessa Berenson with TIME digs into Brett Kavanaugh’s first term and what a book on the coffee table in his chambers says about the road that led him to SCOTUS.
SPEED BUMPS AHEAD
|Greg Stohr with NBC News reports that with JUSTICES GORSUCH and KAVANAUGH in place, the Supreme Court has indeed taken a turn to the right — albeit with some bumps along the way. He writes, “The court is undoubtedly more conservative with President Donald Trump’s two appointees on the bench. As the nation moves into a long and contentious election season, the court’s move to the right will give Trump fuel to fire up his base and Democrats fodder for making the court a major campaign issue of their own.”
TWO ROADS DIVERGED
|And though GORSUCH and KAVANAUGH came to the Supreme Court “as closely tied as any nominees in recent memory,” Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal explain that they haven’t exactly been in lockstep. “On the term’s most significant, ideologically charged cases, the Trump appointees voted together. They found no constitutional remedy for partisan gerrymanders and authorized property owners to challenge local land-use regulations in federal court. But the two justices carved out distinct identities. They disagreed some 20 times over the course of the court’s term—a number that represented more than a quarter of the docket.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
Making America White Again
The Washington Post“It is unfortunate that the potential even exists to create a lag between the nation’s vibrant and highly diverse population and the makeup of its legislative districts. The good news is that these younger, diverse populations will soon become part of the body politic. Perhaps then, when making decisions about political representation, all branches of the government will come to recognize that the nation’s demographic future should not be ignored.”
Gerrymandering Is An American Political Tradition
Bloomberg“Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’m glad partisan gerrymandering survived at the Supreme Court. I don’t much like the practice, but I’ve made my peace with the notion that my likes and dislikes are not the correct guide to constitutional interpretation. And although the route traveled by the thin majority in Rucho v. Common Cause is a bit slippery, the justices seem to me to have reached the right destination.”
Clarence Thomas Is Actually Right About Supreme Court Precedent
Slate“Whether a case is ‘demonstrably erroneous’ is often in the eye of the beholder, not some ‘objective’ truth, despite Thomas’ reductionist dogmatism. Moreover, traditionally the justices have at least talked the talk of not overturning cases simply because five justices thought the prior decision incorrect. Apparently, Thomas disagrees, and for once, he is right.”
Historical Fiction At The Supreme Court
The Atlantic“A divided Supreme Court last week blocked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from adding an untested citizenship question to the 2020 census. The Court’s ruling is a victory for representative democracy over the Trump administration’s latest power play, which would have led to a dramatic undercount of the country’s noncitizen population, with substantial implications for federal funding and political representation. In the process of reaching the right outcome, however, the Court has rewritten history, with justices up and down the bench joining together to create an atmosphere of normalcy around a question that is anything but.”
OTHER NEWS
With No Supreme Court To End Gerrymandering, Will States Make It More Extreme?
The New York Times“Thursday’s 5-4 ruling means that North Carolina’s current Republican-drawn map delineating its 13 Congressional districts — a map that critics have said is among the country’s most egregious examples of hyper-partisanship — will stand. The decision could also embolden lawmakers around the country to continue to push the envelope and craft seats for their respective parties with the aid of increasingly sophisticated computer mapping tools.”
Why The Trump Administration Is Running Out Of Time To Print The Census
The New York Times“The task of printing forms for the 2020 census was already enormous and difficult, with an immovable once-a-decade deadline mandated by the Constitution. On Thursday, the Supreme Court made the printing of census forms — a job held by one company, R.R. Donnelley — even more onerous. Over decades in Chicago, R.R. Donnelley has printed best-selling novels, direct mail, copies of The New Yorker and Sears catalogs. Now the company has been left to grapple with the logistical nightmare of meeting a deadline of national importance without knowing when the job will start.”