LGBTQ Decision Good For U.S. Economy | Texas Democrats Petition SCOTUS Over Vote-By-Mail
June 17, 2020
GORSUCH?
|“If the first shock Monday morning was that the conservative Supreme Court had delivered a landmark victory to gay and transgender workers, the second was the opinion’s author: PRESIDENT TRUMP’S first nominee for the high court, NEIL M. GORSUCH.” Robert Barnes with The Washington Post notes that for 38 months with SCOTUS Gorsuch has been one of its most conservative members and he’s better known for his dissents than his majority opinions. Barnes writes, “It is not usually the case that the most junior member of the majority take the lead in writing what will be one of the most famous cases of the term.”
PULLED OUT THE RUG
|Margot Sanger-Katz and Erica L. Green with The New York Times report that despite the Trump administration’s concerted effort to eliminate transgender rights across the government, education, housing, the military and health care, the Supreme Court might have just pulled the rug out from under that effort. “The administration has been working to pursue a narrow definition of sex as biologically determined at birth, and to tailor its civil rights laws to meet it. Access to school bathrooms would be determined by biology, not gender identity. The military would no longer be open to transgender service members. Civil rights protections would not extend to transgender people in hospitals and ambulances. But the administration’s definition is now firmly at odds with how the court views ‘sex’ discrimination. In each of those settings, transgender Americans now probably have a stronger case to bring before the courts.”
EQUALITY PAYS
|Dion Rabouin with Axios reports that the Supreme Court’s LGBTQ workers’ rights decision this week is good news for the U.S. economy. PAUL DONOVON, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, says the decision provides employment security to an additional 5% of American workers and gives the U.S. an international comparative advantage. He wrote in a note to clients, “If prejudice could cost someone their job, they needed cash as insurance. If that risk is reduced, LGBTQ+ investors can consider more diverse investment options. Taking money out of idle cash balances to invest should be positive for the economy.”
DID THIS TO YOURSELF
|Yesterday the Supreme Court blocked the execution of a Texas inmate who was not allowed to die in the presence of a Christian priest. Richard Wolf with USA Today writes, “The court, which customarily looks favorably upon issues involving religious freedom, was in a bind of its own making: It blocked a Buddhist prisoner’s execution last year because he was denied his own spiritual adviser. To avoid further discrimination, Texas barred all clergy from being present at executions. The high court’s action in the Buddhist prisoner’s case represented an about-face, following its refusal to block an Alabama inmate’s execution for being denied the company of a Muslim imam.”
STORIES BEHIND THE SCOTUS CASES
|For The New Yorker, Michael Schulman writes of the three people at the center of the landmark SCOTUS decision this week: AIMEE STEPHENS, GERALD BOSTOCK, and DONALD ZARDA. “Monday’s ruling is the end result of three intertwined cases, in which two gay men and a transgender woman alleged that they were fired for who they are. So who are they?” Schulman shares the stories behind the Supreme Court cases.
TOP-ED
|“For all of the attention that we pay to these ‘merits’ cases on the court’s docket, the Trump administration, with a majority of the justices’ acquiescence, has quietly racked up a series of less visible — but no less important — victories by repeatedly seeking (and often obtaining) stays of lower-court losses. Such stay orders are generally unsigned and provide no substantive analysis. But they nevertheless have the effect of allowing challenged government programs to go into full effect even though lower courts have struck them down — and often when no court has ever held them to be lawful in the first place.” Stephen I. Vladeck writes in The New York Times about the Supreme Court quietly enabling PRESIDENT TRUMP through emergency relief — a trend that has sharply risen since Trump took office.
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Obscure Supreme Court Decision The Trump Administration Could Use To Gut The First Amendment
The Atlantic“It was, in 2020 terms, a geologic era—nearly a full three weeks—ago that Donald Trump issued his “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship.” The proclamation thunders against Twitter for fact-checking a false presidential tweet, then alleges a far-ranging conspiracy to stifle conservative voices on social media. It somewhat vaguely threatens to change Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—which protects websites that host or republish speech—unless these media get with the MAGA program.”
Why Scalia Should Have Loved The Supreme Court’s Title VII Decision
The Washington Post“The 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision on Monday in Bostock v. Clayton County, which applied Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to gay and transgender workers, represents far more than a landmark civil rights precedent. It represents a victory for textualism in the interpretation of statutes. And it effectively inters, perhaps once and for all, a 128-year-old decision that illustrates exactly how laws should not be construed.”
‘We Are Part Of The Problem They Protest’
The New York Times“If after reading the 10th (or 50th) pledge of corporate solidarity with the anti-police-brutality protests your eyes are hurting from rolling so much, you’re not alone. Nike? Check. Netflix? Check. Peloton? Check. The revolution has been focus-grouped. ‘Together we stand,’ Amazon says, in stark white letters against a somber black background, ‘against systemic racism and injustice.’ Great to hear. So it has been striking to read the growing stream of anguished public statements in recent days coming from another, unexpected source: chief justices at the highest state courts across the country, often joined unanimously by their colleagues.”
OTHER NEWS
Texas Democrats Ask US Supreme Court To Weigh In On Vote-By-Mail Expansion
CNN“Texas Democrats said Tuesday that they are asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on their push to expand vote-by-mail in the state amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Texas Democratic Party filed the petition in the United States Supreme Court arguing that current Texas election law discriminates against voters under the age of 65, who currently have to provide an excuse — like being away on Election Day during voting hours, being sick or disabled, or in jail — when applying for a mail-in ballot. The petition argues such age discrimination is a violation of the 26th Amendment.”
Health Care Workers Await Supreme Court DACA Decision
NPR“Javier Quiroz Castro and Estefania Betancourt Macias are nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic. They’re also DACA recipients, awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on the fate of the DACA program.”