TRANSGENDER RIGHTS AT THE FOREFRONT ONCE AGAIN | Chief Justice Concerned About Politicization of Courts | Death Penalty Makes A Return In Ohio
July 26, 2017
TWEETSTORM DU JOUR
|This morning, the president declared that transgender people will no longer be permitted to serve in the U.S. military. In a statement released on Twitter, DONALD TRUMP wrote: “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” Once again, transgender rights have come to the forefront of the political debate, following the Supreme Court’s decision in the spring to scrap plans to hear a major transgender rights case and threw out a lower court’s ruling in favor of a transgender Virginia high school student after Trump rescinded Obama’s policy.
TELL US SOMETHING WE DON'T KNOW
|While globetrotting around the world this summer, CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS found himself in New Zealand yesterday talking about the process by which justices are selected to join the U.S. Supreme Court. At an event at the Victoria University of Wellington, the chief justice expressed concern for the politicization of the judicial confirmation process. He said, “Judges are not politicians, and they shouldn’t be scrutinized as if they were. You’re not electing a representative, so you’re not entitled to know what their views on political issues are.”
THE RETURN OF THE DEATH PENALTY
|The state of Ohio just carried out its first execution since 2014 amid a legal dispute about the constitutionality of Ohio’s execution method. The execution of Ronald Phillips followed delays to his and two other executions. However, the federal appeals court ultimately allowed his execution to proceed, with the Supreme Court declining to intervene.
FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
|The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage put together a 15-minute video that explains everything you need to know about how the Constitution created the judicial branch. The episode goes through the structure of the federal courts and it also traces the way judicial politics work using the tools of statutory and constitutional interpretation.