GOP WANTS A SCOTUS RETIREMENT ASAP | Justices’ Grasp On Religion | DACA On The Road To SCOTUS
May 10, 2018
DO IT YESTERDAY
|Today, SENATOR CHUCK GRASSLEY encouraged any Supreme Court justices considering retirement to immediately step down so that he can get a new justice on the bench before the midterms. He told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, “I just hope that if there is going to be a nominee, I hope it’s now or within two or three weeks, because we’ve got to get this done before the election. So my message to any one of the nine Supreme Court justices, if you’re thinking about quitting this year, do it yesterday.” Rebecca Morin reports for POLITICO.
TOP-ED
|Before term’s end, the Supreme Court will rule on two blockbuster cases that might seem vastly different, but are actually both about religious discrimination. Linda Greenhouse in The New York Times looks ahead to rulings in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case and the travel ban case and argues, “I recognize that placing these cases in a religious-discrimination frame obscures their many distinct complexities…My point here is not to offer a full-dress analysis of the cases, but rather to suggest that the imminent decisions will tell us a lot about how the current court thinks about religion — specifically, how it defines religious discrimination and who it thinks needs the court’s protection.”
ON THE FAST TRACK
|AP’s Jessica Gresko reports that last week’s lawsuit filed in Texas to shut down the DACA program could speed the issue’s path to the Supreme Court. Apparently, it isn’t a question of if the Supreme Court will rule on the program, but when. She writes, “If Texas and six other states persuade a judge to issue a nationwide order barring the government from continuing DACA, that decision could conflict with existing judges’ orders telling the government it must partially continue the program. That’s the kind of conflict the Supreme Court generally steps in to address.” It’s possible the court may even have to address the issue before the start of the new term in October.
BOUND FOR THE BENCH
|One of PRESIDENT TRUMP’S judicial nominees had some serious splainin’ to do this week during his confirmation hearing. On Wednesday, RYAN W. BOUNDS, a nominee for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was grilled by Democrats for past controversial comments he’s made criticizing race-focused groups and questioning the value of cultural sensitivity training. Meagan Flynn writes in The Washington Post that Bounds explained to senators that his “rhetoric had been ‘overheated’ back then and offered apologies for the tone of some of his writings.”