CASE AGAINST UNIONS MAKING A COMEBACK | USA Today Ed Board Urges SCOTUS To “Do The Right Thing”
June 7, 2017
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1965, the Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut law used to prosecute a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Haven for providing contraceptives to married couples.
THE COMEBACK
|“Conservative groups are wasting little time in trying to deal a crippling blow to labor unions now that JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH has joined the Supreme Court. A First Amendment clash over public sector unions left the justices deadlocked last year after the death of JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA. But union opponents have quickly steered a new case through federal courts in Illinois and they plan to appeal it to the high court on Tuesday.” Sam Hananel with The Associated Press reports on the comeback case that could be a big blockbuster at SCOTUS next year.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The New York Times addresses a new case the Supreme Court decided to take up on Monday which considers how easy it should be for the government to get its hands on your cell phone’s data. NYT thinks the scope of the “third-party doctrine” — the result of a 1979 SCOTUS decision when people made calls on rotary-dial phones and did their research in the Yellow Pages — should be reconsidered now that “virtually everyone is online virtually all the time, being exposed to constant, warrantless digital surveillance.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE 2.0
|The Editorial Board of USA Today is asking the Supreme Court to “please do the right thing” and follow the various rejections of DONALD TRUMP’S travel bans from federal judges who found it to be unconstitutional. The Board urges, “Rather than exerting so much effort on a travel ban of dubious utility and constitutionality, the Trump administration would do well to focus on defeating the Islamic State militarily in Iraq and Syria; using intelligence to detect and disrupt terror plots; and figuring out better ways to vet potentially dangerous people — from whatever country of origin.”
LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH
|CNN put together a compilation of photos of two Supreme Court justices, ANTHONY KENNEDY and RUTH BADER GINSBURG. Check out photos from their younger years growing up as children, to their maturation as justices of the United States Supreme Court. ROLL CALL: Justice Anthony Kennedy is the longest serving justice on the high court and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
SCOTUS VIEWS
Who Is Dangerous, and Who Dies?
The New York Times“In 1972, the Supreme Court found in the 5-4 decision of Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty as practiced in this country was unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. But the majority couldn’t agree on a rationale for its decision, so instead of one majority opinion, five separate concurrences were produced.”
Supreme Court Can Second-Guess Trump Without Weakening Executive Power
The Hill“Deference to the president is based on the idea that the executive has better information and good-enough incentives. Judicial abdication when those conditions are not met does not impinge on the appropriate operation of such deference. Judicial abdication in those circumstances is instead an invitation to unwise and unconstitutional actions by future presidents. “
OTHER NEWS
US Supreme Court Lifts Stay on Execution of Alabama Inmate
The Associated Press“The U.S. Supreme Court decided Tuesday that the execution of an Alabama inmate could go forward even as he and other inmates challenge the state’s lethal-injection procedures.”
Trump's Speedy Supreme Court Request Would be Unusual
Constitution Daily“President Donald Trump wants his Justice Department to quickly pursue a hearing at the Supreme Court for his immigration ban case. The timing would be unusual but not totally unprecedented if the case were argued before next fall.”