Transition Away From Trump Policies Plays Out On SCOTUS Calendar | Arkansas’ Message For Justice Barrett

March 12, 2021

Lawrence Hurley with Reuters reports the Supreme Court yesterday canceled an upcoming argument on a Trump policy backing work requirements for people who receive healthcare under the Medicaid program for the poor. The high court’s action came at the request of the Biden administration which has started the process of reversing the previous policy.

This week, SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE held the first in a series of hearings to investigate how large political donations might be influencing Supreme Court nominations and decisions. Kalvis Golde with SCOTUSblog writes of the hearing that took place Wednesday: “The problem is not one of partisanship, Whitehouse said, noting that ‘in recent years Democratic dark money has caught up’ to similar backing of Republican efforts. Rather, the issue is transparency. ‘Dozens of anonymously funded legal organizations have sprung up,’ Whitehouse claimed, and the lack of any requirements for donor disclosure means the public – and the justices – cannot know when the same sources that supported a justice’s confirmation might be backing the legal team behind a party, or amicus, in a given case.”

John Fritze with USA Today covers how PRESIDENT BIDEN’S transition into power has impacted the issue of immigration at SCOTUS. Immigration had been at the center of DONALD TRUMP’S agenda for all four years of his time in office, but now that he’s gone, the issue seems to be gone too. Fritze points out, however, “But immigration experts predict the lull won’t last as President Joe Biden comes under immense pressure from the left to quickly unwind many of Trump’s policies and Republicans line up to try to block the administration’s earliest orders. Two such cases are already moving through lower federal courts in Florida and Texas.”

Mark Joseph Stern with Slate writes the new, near-total abortion ban in Arkansas is a direct message to JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT that the time has come to tear down Roe v. Wade. Stern notes Arkansas has the fifth-highest rate of maternal mortality in the country and it joins a number of other states in almost completely restricting access to abortion in the hopes that the Supreme Court will soon do away with its own multi-decade precedent on the issue. “The new law is certain to be blocked by the lower courts, which are obligated to adhere to precedent protecting the constitutional right to abortion. But it is clearly designed to test the Supreme Court’s adherence to that precedent now that conservatives hold a supermajority on the bench for the first time in 80 years.”