HAPPY BIRTHDAY RBG | Gorsuch And His Billionaire Buddy | Did Alito Do A No-No?
March 15, 2017
HBD
|Sending birthday wishes to JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG who turns 84 years old today. The justice has served on the U.S. Supreme Court for twenty three years. HBD RBG!
YES, NO, MAYBE SO
|Key Democrats still haven’t made up their mind about how they plan to vote on the Supreme Court nomination of JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH. Some of these Dems are in red states and face reelection battles in 2018, making their decision on this nomination critical. Emma Loop with Buzzfeed reports.
WE'RE FINE, WE'RE FINE, WE'RE TOOOOOTALLY FINE
|Reporting on their own report, Seung Min Kim and Burgess Everett note that after their story ran yesterday detailing the Democrats’ struggle to settle on a Supreme Court strategy, a coalition of progressive organizations issued a joint statement pressuring senators to battle harder against GORSUCH.
PUTTING IN WORK
|Meanwhile, NEIL GORSUCH is putting in some serious prep time ahead of next week’s confirmation hearing. He’s digging through his own voluminous record of legal opinions and undergoing “murder boards” to practice how he’s going to answer tough questions. POLITICO’s Seung Min Kim reports on the behind-the-scenes practice taking place and the high stakes for both Democrats and Republicans.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
|Charlie Savage and Julie Turkewitz with The New York Times reports that JUDGE GORSUCH has a “web of ties” to publicity-shy billionaire Philip F. Anschutz whose influence is especially felt in his home state of Colorado. “Democrats have based much of their criticism of [Gorsuch] on the argument that his judicial and economic philosophy unduly favors corporations and the wealthy. But his relationship with Mr. Anschutz, 77, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes to be $12.6 billion, has received scant attention.”
TAKING NOTE
|“U.S. Supreme Court nominee NEIL GORSUCH warned in 2010 that the trend toward too much discovery and too few trials in civil litigation, as well as the ‘vitriol’ of judicial confirmation hearings, were threatening the rule of law in America.” Tony Mauro with The National Law Journal reports on the speech notes from the SCOTUS nominee that painted a “dark picture of litigation.”
A SERIOUS NO-NO FROM ALITO
|According to the Code of Conduct for U.S. judges, they are allowed to make public appearances on the banquet circuit — as they often do — so long as they aren’t a speaker or guest of honor at fundraising events. The Code of Conduct has never been officially adopted by SCOTUS, though CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS has said the justices look to it as “a uniform source for guidance,” thus justices have refrained from speaking at money-making events, even for their favorite nonprofits. Hold the phone though, JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO might have broken this rule when he was recently honored by the Claremont Institute. Slate’s Steven Lubet has the story.
OTHER NEWS
Should Agencies Decide Law? Doctrine May Be Tested at Gorsuch Hearing
The New York Times“The confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, is set for next week, and a sundry list of big issues is bound to be brought up. One involves an arcane legal doctrine known as Chevron deference, which many say will be crucial to the Trump administration’s plans to tame the regulatory state.”
New TV Ads Hit SCOTUS Nominee For Putting Corporations Over People
The Huffington Post“Days before Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch gets his Senate confirmation hearing, a Democratic group is going up with national television ads calling him out for his record of siding with corporations over everyday Americans.”