Trump Preparing His SCOTUS Appeals Over Financial Records | What To Expect When You’re Expecting A DACA Deal
November 14, 2019
NARROWING EXPECTATIONS
|The Supreme Court yesterday heard oral argument in a racial discrimination case against telecommunications giant, Comcast. BYRON ALLEN, a black entrepreneur, contends that race played a role in Comcast refusing to air his company’s content. The question before the court was whether Allen had to plead that race was the key reason he was denied a contract at such an early stage of litigation. Allen contended he had only to make credible allegations that race was an issue in Comcast’s decision-making, at least in filing the complaint. Justices seemed to only want to address the narrow question of what plaintiffs were required to say at the outset of lawsuits. The question of what plaintiffs had to prove at trial, after the parties had exchanged information, was a separate one, several justices said.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCKING ON JUSTICES' DOOR
|Yesterday, a full United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia let stand an earlier ruling requiring PRESIDENT TRUMP’S accounting firm to turn over eight years of his financial records to Congress. The president now plans to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court, while also appealing a decision from the New York-based appeals court requiring Trump to turn over his tax returns to a local grand jury in Manhattan.
NO HIDING FROM THIS ONE
|Cristian Farias for New York Magazine reviews the Supreme Court’s hearing this week on the future of DACA. He makes note of what has turned into something of a catchphrase for the administration’s argument in the case, reflecting on the solicitor general’s “We own this” comment. Farias writes, “The Supreme Court too will have to own this. Because for better or for worse, whatever a majority of the justices conclude will reflect how the United States government treats those who are here through no fault of their own and who have made America their home. Neither Trump nor the justices will be able to hide behind legalese.”
REALITY CHECK
|Burgess Everett with POLITICO reminds that Congress, and more specifically the Senate, can’t be counted on to get a deal on DACA. He describes what he calls “the massive trust deficit” between Senate Democrats and the president, and says it’s not just the Democrats who are “skeptical of the president’s negotiating style on immigration.” Everett: “The court is expected to make a ruling sometime next spring — right in the middle of an election year, when the politics of immigration will be even more difficult. And there is simply no recent evidence that points to Congress coming to a deal, throwing into doubt the deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country as children.”
OTHER NEWS
Redistricting Activists Brace For Wall Of Inaction As Battle Moves To States
The Washington Post“In North Carolina, lawmakers have been forced back to the drawing board yet again after a state court ruled last month that the current congressional map was drawn illegally along partisan lines. It’s the latest judicial rebuke of gerrymandering in North Carolina, where state and federal judges have repeatedly tossed congressional and legislative maps since they were drawn by GOP lawmakers after the 2010 Census. But activists say that trying to abolish lines drawn for partisan gain will probably be a lot harder elsewhere in the country, where conservative-leaning state courts are less receptive to such challenges.”
Can A Border-Patrol Agent Be Sued For Killing A Mexican Teen?
The Economist“Violence plagues America’s border with Mexico. The Border Network for Human Rights, a non-profit organisation, documents “at least 90 people [who] have died as the result of an encounter” with American personnel between January 2010 and July 2019. The parents (pictured) of one of those victims, a 15-year-old boy named Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca, were present for Hernández v Mesa, a Supreme Court oral argument on November 12th inquiring into what remedy families have—if any—to hold border agents accountable when they use indiscriminate force.”