All Justices Have Been Vaccinated | Will SCOTUS Chip Away At Qualified Immunity?
March 8, 2021
VACCINATION STATION
|Friday, Supreme Court spokeswomen KATHY ARBERG announced all nine justices have been fully vaccinated. Rachel Janfaza with CNN reports it was the first time the high court publicly acknowledged the vaccination status of all nine justices. Even so, they’ll carry on their business of hearing oral arguments via teleconference, and most of the justices are working from home.
THIS IS YOUR SHOT
|Mark Sherman with the Associated Press reports PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN is getting his first shot at shaping the federal judiciary now that two seats have become vacant on the influential D.C. appeals court. Sherman writes, “The nearly 90 seats that Biden can fill, which give their occupants life tenure after Senate confirmation, are fewer than former Trump inherited four years ago. That’s because Republicans who controlled the Senate in the final two years of the Obama White House confirmed relatively few judges. Included in the tally are 10 seats on federal courts of appeals where nearly all appeals, other than the few dozen decided by the Supreme Court each year, come to an end. One seat is held by MERRICK GARLAND, whose confirmation as attorney general is expected in the coming days. Another longtime judge on the court, DAVID TATEL, has said he is cutting back on his duties, a change that allows Biden to appoint his successor.”
CAN IT BE
|“For years, the Supreme Court has been hostile to lawsuits from victims of police violence, prisoners subjected to appalling cruelty and others who sought to sue government officials for violations of their constitutional rights. That might be starting to change. In recent rulings, one terse and the other cryptic, the justices ordered an appeals court to reconsider the cases of two prisoners in Texas, prompting debate about whether the Supreme Court is ready to trim the doctrine of qualified immunity.” That’s Adam Liptak with The New York Times explaining the possibility of SCOTUS revisiting qualified immunity which requires plaintiffs to show government officials violated a constitutional right that had been “clearly established” in a previous ruling. Liptak notes, “The doctrine has been the subject of scathing criticism across the ideological spectrum, and it became a flash point in the nationwide uproar last summer over police brutality, with activists and lawmakers calling for its reconsideration.”
A SUPREME ONSLAUGHT
|Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports some critics think the Supreme Court has too many secret admirers. As SCOTUS gets flooded with friend-of-the-court briefs, some worry the court’s disclosure requirements are too easily skirted. Bravin explains that those submitting amicus briefs are required to disclose if they were funded by a party to the case or its lawyer, or whether anyone other than an outside group’s member of attorney contributed money to their preparation. The volume of amicus briefs in recent years is breaking records with a whopping 911 filed during the court’s last full term, for an average of 16 per case.
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Supreme Court Might Kill Voting Rights—Quietly
The Atlantic“At the center of any democracy is the right to vote. If people cannot vote, then they have no say in the laws that govern them and cannot be truly free and equal citizens. But the right to vote is not a machine that runs by itself; it is dependent on the work of laws and institutions. And in America, conservatives have turned those laws and institutions against that right, seeking to reverse hard-fought gains that have helped make the constitutional promise of democracy a reality for all citizens. With a new voting-rights case before the Supreme Court, the situation might be about to get much, much worse.”
Democrats’ Election Reform Bill Attacks Anonymous Political Speech
USA Today“It simply makes no sense that voting should be strictly anonymous, while speech — or merely talking about voting — should be subject to legal disclosure regulations. If made law, HR1 would require a ridiculous scheme in which the federal government would have to decide what tweets, videos and other advertisements to regulate based on what constitutes ‘political speech.’ In an era when more people have the ability to use social media to speak on political matters, regulation of such speech is nearly an impossibility.”