ANNIVERSARY OF BROWN V. BOARD | Iowa Abortion Law Unlikely To See SCOTUS | RBG Documentary Staying Strong At Box Office
May 17, 2018
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka which held that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.
NOT AS EASY AS YOU THINK
|AP’s Barbara Rodriguez and David Pitt report that supporters of the nation’s strictest abortion law are hoping to bring the issue back before the Supreme Court but constitutional experts say it’s unlikely to happen. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed their complaint against the law in state court and focused on violations of Iowa’s constitution rather than federal constitutional law. That would make the Iowa Supreme Court the court of last resort, not SCOTUS.
A PRETTY PENNY
|“U.S. securities regulators haven’t been able to get more than $800 million in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains since a 2017 Supreme Court case limited the time they have to recover funds for harmed investors.” Dave Michaels writes in The Wall Street Journal that because the new SCOTUS ruling only gives the SEC five years to sue bad actors after a fraud occurs, they’re going to have trouble making a significant impact on recovery for investors. He notes, “Congress could change the law to give the SEC more time to file charges against people and firms suspected of defrauding investors. The SEC has been aided by an abundance of whistleblower tips in recent years, but says it sometimes still discovers well-concealed frauds too late.”
BACK TO THE TRACKS
|AP reports that horse racing is likely to get a boost from the Supreme Court ruling on sports betting after years of struggling to get a strong footing on the national sports landscape. “Track owners believe horse racing has an advantage since race tracks in many states will be among the first to allow sports gambling. Many race tracks already offer slot machines and table games — popularly known as racinos — in addition to betting on horses.”
STAYING STRONG
|The new RBG documentary is showing a little box office muscle, cracking the top 10 this weekend and taking in $1.2 million from only 180 screens nationwide. In just over two weeks of a limited release the film has made more than $2.2 million. The Associated Press reports.
SCOTUS VIEWS
America Is About To Get More Law-Abiding
The Washington Post“Repeal of Prohibition in 1933 instantly reduced crime by reducing the number of criminalized activities, including some that millions of Americans considered victimless activities and none of the government’s business. Now, America is going to become more law-abiding, the Supreme Court having said that the federal government cannot prohibit states from legalizing what Americans have been doing anyway with at least 150 billion of their dollars annually.”
Odds Are Good Sports Betting Will Complete The Gambling Revolution
Chicago Tribune“We think of revolutions as sudden, spectacular events, much like earthquakes or erupting volcanoes that transform the landscape overnight. But sometimes they occur so slowly and quietly that it’s possible to overlook how much change they bring about. Over the past generation, the United States has undergone a gambling revolution. A pastime once seen as the sordid province of mobsters, grifters and wastrels has become an all-American form of fun.”
Bill Bradley Says Gambling On High School Sports Is Upon Us. Don't Bet On It.
The Washington Post“There’s just one problem with Bradley’s prediction: It’s probably not going to happen. While bets on high school sporting events have been taken by some offshore sportsbooks in the past, the practice is outlawed in Nevada, the only state as of now to legally offer single-game sports wagering.”