SCOTUS TOSSES OUT LAW LIMITING POLITICAL ATTIRE AT POLLS | Justices Ready To Drop The Hammer On Unions | Art Lien’s Ode To The Caps
June 14, 2018
YOU'RE NEVER FULLY DRESSED
|Today the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that strikes down a Minnesota law that restricts political attire at polling places for violating the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Justices split 7-2, with CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS delivering the opinion of the court. He noted that although states have “permissible objective” to make some prohibitions at the polling place, Minnesota’s law was too vague on which kinds of clothing qualify as too political for the polls. “If a State wishes to set its polling places apart as areas free of partisan discord, it must employ a more discernible approach than the one Minnesota has offered here,” Roberts wrote.
TO DIE ANOTHER DAY
|Public sector unions dodged a bullet today, will no ruling from the justices on whether such unions can college “fair share” dues from non-members. Dylan Matthews for Vox explains the big unions case which most expect will gut public sector unions operating across 22 states. However, Mathews tempers that prediction by noting the case may not necessarily elicit a straightforward partisan judgement. He writes, “Two very prominent libertarian law professors, UChicago’s WILLIAM BAUDE and UCLA’s EUGENE VOLOKH, authored an amicus brief siding with the union in the case. ‘I don’t think there’s any First Amendment problem with compelled payments of union agency fees at all,’ Volokh explained in a blog post. ‘The government can constitutionally require people to pay money to the government (in taxes), money that the government can then use for ideological purposes (e.g., supporting a war, opposing racism, promoting environmentalism, and so on). Likewise, the government can constitutionally require people to pay money to unions, money that the unions can then use for ideological purposes.'”
NOBODY SAID IT WAS EASY
|Barry Burden and Robert Yablon opine in The Hill that it’s unlikely we’ll get a “bright line ruling” from SCOTUS in this term’s two partisan gerrymandering cases. They think that ultimately it will be up to the court of public opinion to play a decisive role in the future of partisan gerrymandering in American politics.
RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE? RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE
|North Carolina A&T State University is divided not figuratively, but quite literally, thanks to good old-fashioned gerrymandering. “As part of its effort to help Republicans win 10 of the state’s 13 seats in the House of Representatives in 2016, the state legislature split the largest of the nation’s historically black colleges down the middle, ensuring that its students could not influence the outcome for either seat.” Richard Wolf with USA Today reports, “The Supreme Court has spent a near-record 255 days this term trying to hammer out its decision on partisan gerrymandering — the designing of election districts for political advantage. Rulings on one-sided maps from Wisconsin and Maryland are due this month — possibly as soon as Thursday and could all but decide the North Carolina case. But if the justices don’t reach a final conclusion on whether blatant partisanship is permissible or unconstitutional, North Carolina’s congressional map looms as the next test.”
BACKING THE BAKER
|This week, ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS showed public support for the Supreme Court’s decision to side with the Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple. Speaking at the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center’s annual Leadership Mission in Washington, Sessions said that “there are plenty of other people to bake that cake.” Candice Norwood with POLITICO reports.
GO CAPS GO
|If you haven’t yet visited SCOTUSblog today to see ART LIEN’S masterful sketch of the Supreme Court justices as D.C. Caps players, then you absolutely must take a peek. And even worse, if you don’t know who Art Lien is, you need to read up right now. Happy Thursday!
SCOTUS VIEWS
You Have The Right To Vote. Use It Or Lose It, The Supreme Court Says.
The Washington Post“In the United States, if you don’t buy a gun for several years, you do not lose your Second Amendment right to bear arms. If you never write a letter to the editor or participate in a street demonstration, you retain your full First Amendment rights to free speech. If you skip church for years on end, the government cannot stop you from finally attending a service. But according to a decision by the Supreme Court this week, if you fail to cast a ballot, you can be removed from the voter rolls and denied your fundamental right to vote.”
What Kind Of Political Districts Do Americans Want?
The Baltimore Sun“It is generally accepted among political scientists that the election method used in the United States to elect the House tends to result in two dominant political parties. For all their partisan squabbling, the one thing that Democrats and Republicans would agree upon is that there should only be two parties. And as long as they have a hold on our government system, we are unlikely to escape from this.”