SUPREME COURT AGREES TO TAKE ON CFPB CASE | The Court That Could Decide The Future Of The Trump Presidency…Other Than SCOTUS
October 21, 2019
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1971, President Richard Nixon nominated Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Both nominees were confirmed.)
PILE IT ON
|Friday, justices agreed to consider the Trump administration’s effort “to speed the removal of thousands of migrants without allowing them federal court hearings.” Richard Wolf with USA Today reports, “The case is one of several challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on migrants seeking asylum after crossing the Mexican border.” The high court already has one major immigration case regarding DACA that is set for argument in November.
NO ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT POWER
|Also on Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the president has the power to replace the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The outcome of that case could potentially limit the independence of the watchdog agency that was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law after the 2007-08 financial crisis. Lawmakers prohibited the president from being able to fire the head of the agency to insulate it from political influence. But Republicans and the banking industry have wanted the agency to have some accountability to the president, and the Justice Department has made that argument since Trump took office.
OH IT'S ON
|Lyle Denniston writing for Constitution Daily notes, “For more than 80 years, a strict limit on the power of Presidents to maintain control over some of the most powerful agencies of the federal government has remained settled by the Supreme Court, yet has continued to be debated intensely among constitutional lawyers, scholars, and political theorists. On Friday, the Supreme Court reopened the issue in a dramatic and potentially historic way.” He notes that the Supreme Court’s move to review the CFPB also means it may consider “whether to strike down the entire Dodd-Frank law if the bureau’s existing structure is ruled invalid.”
DC SLEEPS ALONE TONIGHT
|Joan Biskupic with CNN reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia “could help determine the fate of legal issues surrounding the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry and Trump’s desire to withhold personal information and limit his allies from cooperating with investigators.” She explains the power and prominence of the DC Circuit and how its relationship with Washington could help determine the fate of the Trump presidency.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
|SCOTUS today tossed out a challenge to Republican-drawn electoral districts in Michigan that Democrats said were illegally configured to dilute their voting power, reports Andrew Chung with Reuters. He writes, “The justices had put the panel’s decision on hold before they issued their rulings in the two major gerrymandering cases from Maryland and North Carolina. In a blow to election reformers, the justices found that federal courts have no role to play in reining in electoral map manipulation by politicians aimed at entrenching one party in power.”
OTHER NEWS
Can Colleges Police Sports Betting? Some Are Trying
The New York Times“The rapid spread of legalized sports betting, made possible by a United States Supreme Court ruling last year, is prompting colleges and universities to grapple quickly with whether they can, or should, control a lawful activity so explicitly linked to the performances of their students. But as more states have allowed bets and as wagers have soared — there were more than $730 million in sports bets in August, more than double the amount from a year earlier — there is no consensus among universities about how they should respond.”
Maui Mayor Won’t Settle Clean Water Act Case At Supreme Court
Bloomberg Environment“A local dispute that could derail an environmental case at the Supreme Court is no closer to resolution just weeks before oral arguments. Maui Mayor Michael Victorino on Oct. 18 confirmed he doesn’t intend to follow through on a legal settlement that local lawmakers recently approved for County of Maui v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund, a major case focused on the scope of the Clean Water Act.”