FOUR-WEEK SPRINT STARTS NOW | Mayor Pete On SCOTUS | The Federalist Society Explained
June 3, 2019
OFF TO THE RACES
|The Supreme Court today begins its four-week sprint to the end of the term. CNN’s Ariane de Vogue makes note of what we’ve already seen thus far: CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS has “bobbed and weaved, balancing his institutional concerns against his own solidly conservative leanings” while BRETT KAVANAUGH has surprised with both the contentiousness of his confirmation hearings and his votes alongside liberal colleagues. She writes, “As the term ends the country will see where they stand on a citizenship question on the 2020 census, as well as the issue of extreme partisan gerrymandering. And all eyes will look to next term — held in the heat of the election—to see which cases the court will decide to hear.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE 1/2
|Bloomberg’s Editorial Board thinks SCOTUS should save the 2020 Census and block the citizenship question from being added — especially now that there’s new evidence that gives clear reason for such a decision. “Now, thanks to a bizarre sequence of events, new evidence on this has emerged. Computer files of the deceased Republican redistricting expert Thomas Hofeller show that he played a crucial role in getting the citizenship question added, after research he conducted showed it would help Republicans to gerrymander congressional districts to better effect. The Supreme Court will decide what the law requires. But there can’t be much doubt about where the public interest in all this lies. If a bad policy, shown to be dishonestly advanced, is stopped in its tracks, that will be good news.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE 2/2
|The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal also looks at the pending Supreme Court ruling on the citizenship question being added to the Census. However, this Ed Board has a different take on the documents brought forward and whether they reveal the Trump Administration’s partisan motivations for adding the question. “The truth is that Republicans were following the law that Democrats claim to revere, and the furor is a last-ditch attempt to turn the Supreme Court their way in an important case.”
PISTOL PETE
|“As Democrats agonize over a spate of state laws restricting abortion rights and even a potential reversal of Roe v. Wade, one 2020 presidential candidate is putting an ambitious, long-shot plan to reform the Supreme Court front-and-center of his campaign.” Josh Lederman with NBC News explains how PETE BUTTIGIEG has made overhauling the Supreme Court central to his campaign. The presidential candidate told NBC he would support “whatever Supreme Court reform will depoliticize this body” and stop the court from being viewed as “an almost nakedly political institution.”
BREAKING RULES FOR BREAKING NEWS
|Today the Supreme Court ruled that an Obama-era rule change on how Medicare reimbursements to hospitals are made should be removed, because officials did not follow the proper notice and comment regulations in implementing the formula. Justices ruled 7-1 in the case, with JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER dissenting and JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH sans vote. Jacqueline Thomsen and Peter Sullivan with The Hill write, “The highly technical ruling and dispute involves billions of dollars in Medicare payments to hospitals. The court ruled for hospitals that had sued over the 2014 policy, which reduced their payments for serving low-income patients because of a change to the payment formula.”
FEDERALIST SOCIETY EXPLAINED
|Dylan Matthews and Byrd Pinkerton with Vox spoke with Amanda Hollis-Brusky about how a student group came to control GOP court nominations. Hollis-Brusky, a political scientist at Pomona College, explains how the Federalist Society’s power originated and the role that funding plays in its success.
CHEERS TO SCOTUS
|The latest episode of The Ginsburg Tapes podcast considers when SCOTUS finally raised the bar for sex equality over the Constitution: in a case about beer. Lauren Moxley discusses how an Oklahoma challenge over who could buy beer at what alcohol percentage went all the way to the Supreme Court.
SCOTUS VIEWS
John Roberts Strikes A Blow Against Free Speech
The Atlantic“The chief justice, a First Amendment tiger when the rights of rich campaign donors are at issue, clearly frets that ordinary people—protesters, let’s say randomly—will bother hardworking police. Remarkably enough, Roberts gathered five votes for his invented rule—his own plus those of Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh. The accession of Breyer and Kagan should underline an important truth about this court—that the ‘four liberals’ shorthand disguises that two of the four are very, very moderate indeed on many issues.”
When We Talk About Abortion, Let's Talk About Men
The New York Times“It takes two to make an unwanted pregnancy. That’s why we need to talk about men when we talk about abortion. The last time we included men in the discussion was 1992, when the Supreme Court wisely overturned Pennsylvania’s law requiring a woman seeking an abortion to prove she had first notified her husband. That’s right — attempting to give men veto power over women was the only meaningful effort to include men in abortion regulation.”
The Fact That Missouri Only Had One Abortion Clinic Left Was Already A Scandal
The Washington Post“For several days last week, it looked as though Missouri might become the only state in which there was no operating abortion clinic — until a St. Louis judge issued a last-minute temporary restraining order Friday, preventing the state from revoking the license of a Planned Parenthood facility operating in the city. The dispute that led to the near-closure is a scandal — but so is the fact that there was only one remaining clinic in all of Missouri, a function of a state government determined to end access to legal abortion.”