HARVARD LAW SCHOOL? WHAT LIKE IT’S HARD | Meet The Judicial Puppet Master
October 27, 2017
HOW MANY HARVARD GRADS DOES IT TAKE
|“When a law school has educated one of every six justices to ever serve on the Supreme Court, and its alums make up a majority of the current court, a certain amount of gasconade — to use a Harvard word — is to be expected. So the audience was appreciative Thursday when CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN G. ROBERTS took the stage at Harvard Law School with one former and four current Supreme Court justices and announced: ‘A minority of my colleagues send their regrets.’” Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reports on yesterday’s bicentennial celebration of Harvard Law School which was well attended by current and former members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
PUPPET MASTER
|Joseph P. Williams with U.S. News profiles one of the most powerful figures in the federal justice system: LEONARD LEO. He writes, “Leo is the unseen hand that has guided a third of the Supreme Court’s nine members to their positions on the bench, reinforcing a three-decades-long, 5-4 conservative majority in the process.”
STEPPING UP TO BAT
|Marcia Coyle with The National Law Journal notes that in the upcoming cake case, U.S. Solicitor General NOEL FRANCISCO will make the government’s arguments in support of the Colorado baker who refused on religious grounds to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
SCOTUS VIEWS
There's No Free Speech Right To Refuse Wedding Cakes To Gay Couples
The Washington Post“We argue, in essence, that the Free Speech Clause does not protect a baker’s right to refuse their request because baking cakes is conduct that is neither historically nor inherently a form of protected speech. Furthermore, contrary to what the Justice Department argues, requiring a baker simply to make a cake for a wedding is not tantamount to requiring him to participate in the wedding celebration.”
John Roberts Has Tough Job Of Keeping Faith In Supreme Court
The Hill“The chief justice seeks to protect the Supreme Court by setting what he sees as the appropriate strike zone for judicial decision making. Too high, too low, or too wide, and the public may question not just individual calls, but the whole effort.”
OTHER NEWS
Trump Judicial Nominee Draws More Scrutiny Over Anti-LGBT Comments: 'We Discriminate'
The Washington Post“Before Jeff Mateer became President Trump’s nominee for a federal judgeship in Texas, he fought a local ordinance extending equal protections to members of the LGBT community and said the separation of church and state does not exist in the Constitution. But likely among his most controversial statements — ones that surfaced in recent weeks since his nomination — were made in 2015 speeches, in which he openly talked about discriminating based on sexual orientation.”
Here Come The Judges
The Washington Post“One thing that’s notable about the four nominees that the Senate should consider next week is that all four come from states with at least one Democratic senator. In each of these cases, the home-state Democratic senator did not seek to use the “blue slip” prerogative to block the nominee’s consideration, forestalling a potential showdown on the continuation of the blue slip tradition.”