TRUMP ADDS TO SHORTLIST | Federalist Society Ready To Win | War, What Is It Good For
November 20, 2017
READY FOR YOU
|Friday, the president revealed he’s ready for another Supreme Court vacancy and added five judges to his list of possible picks for the high court. Among the names were Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett, 45, who was confirmed two weeks ago to a seat on the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago and D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, 52, a White House lawyer for PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH and a former clerk for JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY. Kavanaugh’s name received the most fanfare and has been perceived to be a move to entice Kennedy to step down from the bench.
NOT A GOOD LOOK
|“It is one thing for a new administration to switch sides in a legal dispute. That is merely unusual. It is another to urge the Supreme Court to deny review in a case that would test whether the government’s new position is correct.” Adam Liptak with The New York Times reports that in a brief filed with the high court last month, the Justice Department tried to have it both ways. “It told the justices that it no longer believed that some federal prisoners serving longer prison terms than the law allowed were entitled to challenge their sentences in court. For the last 16 years, the Justice Department had taken the opposite view. It said so in at least 11 Supreme Court briefs.” At the same time, the DOJ urged the justices to refuse to hear an appeal from a man sentenced to more time than the law allowed even though it just acknowledged that the legal question was significant and that the department’s new position could lead to harsh results, condemning inmates to serve out unlawful sentences. Say wha?!?
ON THE UP-AND-UP
|Zoe Tillman with Buzzfeed notes that after eight years on the sidelines, the Federalist Society is ready to reshape the courts under PRESIDENT TRUMP. She reports on the group’s annual dinner last week in which “the nation’s preeminent conservative lawyers group was in an especially celebratory mood” with an expectation of more reasons to celebrate in the near future.
PUTTING THE MOVES ON
|Sunday, advocates for DREAMers made the unexpected move of heading off a Supreme Court battle over their demands for more records on the basis of PRESIDENT TRUMP’S decision to end the DACA program. POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein reports on the legal strategy behind the decision.
PODCAST DU JOUR
|War: what is it good for, absolutely nothing unless you’re a fan of The Washington Post’s podcast, “Constitutional.” Their latest episode examines the origins of the Second and Third Amendments which were originally designed to go hand in hand to help “ensure domestic tranquility” in America.
OTHER NEWS
He Took On The Voting Rights Act And Won. Now He's Taking On Harvard.
The New York Times“Mr. Blum, 65, has orchestrated more than two dozen lawsuits challenging affirmative action practices and voting rights laws across the country. He is behind two of the biggest such cases to reach the Supreme Court: one attacking consideration of race in admissions at the University of Texas, which he lost; the other contesting parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, widely considered one of this country’s most important pieces of civil rights legislation, which he won.”