WELCOME TO OT17 | Just How Badly Is Gorsuch Annoying His Colleagues | SCOTUS To Review Dark Heart Of America Tomorrow
October 2, 2017
WORST MASS SHOOTING IN AMERICAN HISTORY
|One man is responsible for killing at least 58 people and injuring more than 500 on Sunday night in Las Vegas, Nevada. PRESIDENT TRUMP issued a statement on Twitter this morning saying, “My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!” Later this morning, the president called the incident “an act of pure evil.” The shooter is now dead and has been identified as a 64-year-old local resident.
WELCOME TO OT17
|It’s a big day in the SCOTUS world with the new term starting and justices promising to dole out some “bigly” decisions this year. Robert Barnes with The Washington Post echoes what JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG said recently when she told an audience of law students that the term ahead will be “momentous.” Barnes reports on the upcoming term and the big cases worth watching.
SEX, POLITICS, PRIVACY, SPORTS GAMBLING, OH MY!
|It’s not the title of a racy movie, it’s the new #SCOTUS term — Nina Totenberg with NPR tweeted on the new term this morning and in her latest piece she gives us a preview of what to watch for. She also delivers a tantalizing opener to her article: “If last year’s Supreme Court term was so dry of interesting cases that it looked like a desert, this term, which opens Monday, already looks like a tropical rainforest. And the justices are only halfway to filling up their docket.” The cup runneth over, you might say.
DAY ONE
|“The Supreme Court kicked off its new term Monday with a spirited legal battle over worker rights: whether employers can block employees from joining together to pursue legal action related to their jobs. The justices wrestled with a trio of cases where employees tried to bring class-action lawsuits over failure to pay legally-required overtime, but employers argued that standard hiring agreements the workers signed require them to take their cases to private arbitration on a worker-by-worker basis.” Josh Gerstein with POLITICO reports on the big news from the first day back at SCOTUS.
SAVE THE DRAMA FOR YO MAMA
|Noah Feldman for Bloomberg writes that the stage is set for some serious drama at the Supreme Court this term. “The gerrymandering case, Gill v. Whitford, goes to the dark heart of how federal political power is deployed in the U.S.,” he writes. Read his full story that delves into the major issues coming before the court, along with some of the more “quirky” cases we should have our eyes on.
HERE'S HOW
|The partisan gerrymandering case could reshape redistricting, and Michael Wines with The New York Times is here to explain. He reports, “In essence, the court is being asked to decide whether such a partisan divide should continue unabated or be reined in. The immediate stakes are enormous: A decisive ruling striking down the Wisconsin Assembly map could invalidate redistricting maps in up to 20 other states, said Barry C. Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Other analysts said that at least a dozen House districts would be open to court challenges if the court invalidated Wisconsin’s map. Some place the number of severely gerrymandered House districts as high as 20.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The New York Times agrees with DONALD TRUMP on one very important thing: “America’s political system is rigged.” The Ed Board looks to tomorrow’s big partisan gerrymandering case before the justices and urges, “The better, although not perfect, solution is to take map drawing away from self-interested politicians and put it in the hands of an independent or bipartisan commission, as more than a dozen states have done, helping to make races both more competitive and less partisan.”
YOU'RE THE WORST
|Jeffrey Toobin with The New Yorker wonders just how badly JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH is annoying his colleagues at the Supreme Court. “Gorsuch’s speeches might appear less distasteful to his colleagues if he had made an otherwise more graceful début on the Court. As LINDA GREENHOUSE observed in the Times the end of Gorsuch’s first term, he managed to violate the Court’s traditions as soon as he arrived. He dominated oral arguments, when new Justices are expected to hang back. He instructed his senior colleagues, who collectively have a total of a hundred and forty years’ experience on the Court, about how to do their jobs.” And the list goes on…
ANOTHA ONE
|The Editors of Bloomberg are also calling on the Supreme Court to bring an end to partisan gerrymandering, opining that if justices allow the practice to stand it would be “devastating for our democracy.”
PODCAST DU JOUR
|“The Daily” podcast, presented by The New York Times, focuses on gerrymandering today. EMILY BAZELON talks about the Supreme Court case out of Wisconsin and DAN SCHULTZ, a Republican and former lawmaker in Wisconsin, discusses his regret for supporting redistricting in the state.
THE FIRST MONDAY OF ALL FIRST MONDAYS
|First Mondays, the brilliant podcast focused on SCOTUS goings-on, takes on the first Monday of the new term with a preview of the cases to come. But that’s not all! The pod will uncover secrets of the solicitor general’s hidden apartment in the Department of Justice building—and its possibly unsavory origins—and it will also delve into the role of apostrophes in Supreme Court cases. We’re maxing out on nerdiness today, people…tell me you don’t love it.
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1967, THURGOOD MARSHALL joined the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first black man in history to be a justice. DeNeen L. Brown writes in The Washington Post about the justice’s nomination to the high court and the legacy he left behind.
OTHER NEWS
Antonin Scalia's Less Well-Known Legacy: His Speeches
NPR“In a sunny den in McLean, Va., Maureen and Christopher Scalia sit side-by-side on a comfy couch. He co-edited Scalia Speaks, an anthology of his father’s speeches on a variety of subjects, and he ranks eighth in birth order out of the nine Scalia children. She is the mother of those nine children, and the widow of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — a conservative icon, bon vivant, music lover and witty observer of law and life.”
Aging Justices Deserve Better Than a Death Watch
The Morning Call“There’s something profoundly morbid about watching the Supreme Court and worrying about the health of your favorite aging justices. A mandatory retirement age would take away the uncertainty. Such a rule was part of an elaborate court-packing plan proposed Monday by the president of Poland — before he withdrew it under intense international pressure.”
U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Samsung Appeal in Warranty Dispute
Reuters“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a bid by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to force customers who have filed proposed class-action lawsuits against the company to arbitrate their claims instead of bringing them to court.”
Supreme Court Rejects Kim DotCom's Appeal
Bloomberg“The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from embattled internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, leaving intact an order that lets the federal government seize $40 million from accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand.”