WE’RE BACK BABY | RBG Helped Two Say “I Do” | Trump Still Fighting To Keep His Tax Returns Secret
September 1, 2020
SAY I DO, I DO, I DO, I DO
|After our August break, SCOTUSDaily is back in action — even if the justices aren’t quite yet. Although one justice has been out and about. Over the weekend, JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG officiated a family friend’s wedding. A photo of the justice wearing her judicial robe with a decorative black-and-white embroidered collar was shared on Twitter, and it appears to be the first photo of Ginsburg since she announced that she’s undergoing cancer treatment.
STILL SWINGING
|Jonathan Stempel with Reuters reports PRESIDENT TRUMP on Monday urged a federal appeals court not to let Manhattan’s top prosecutor have his tax returns and that Trump would ask the Supreme Court to intervene if necessary. Stempel: “The argument was made in a filing with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which on Tuesday will hear arguments on Trump’s bid to delay Manhattan District Attorney CYRUS VANCE’S subpoena for the tax returns during Trump’s appeal. Absent a delay, Trump requested a stay to give the Supreme Court time to consider his request.” The president has been fighting the subpoena for a year now, and it’s still unlikely that his tax returns will become public before the election in November.
WAKE UP CALL
|It seems Democrats are finally waking up to the Supreme Court’s importance. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that Democrats’ interest in the federal judiciary has grown since 2016, a trend that Ian Millhiser with Vox says “feels a lot like latching the barn after the horse has escaped.” After the death of JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA, Democrats had their first opportunity to build a Supreme Court majority since PRESIDENT NIXON was in office. But Republicans made the unprecedented move of blocking PRESIDENT OBAMA’S nominee, an outcome that Millhiser argues Democrats aren’t totally blameless for. “If Democrats had turned out at higher rates in 2014, Garland could be the swing vote on the Supreme Court right now, and a wide range of Trump policies — from the travel ban to the asylum ban — would likely be off the table. Even more importantly, we would not have a Supreme Court that is often actively hostile to the right to vote. But the new Pew poll suggests that Democrats are beginning to wake up to the fact that a Republican judiciary is an existential threat to much of the Democratic Party’s agenda, and, as a result, they are beginning to prioritize it.”
DON'T THINK THAT'S HOW THAT WORKS
|Richard Wolf with USA Today reports officials in Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Oklahoma are trying to argue that the Supreme Court’s decision in June striking down Louisiana’s abortion access law actually helps their defense of anti-abortion laws. Wolf writes, “The flurry of activity in federal and state courts is largely a result of CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS’ concurring opinion in the Louisiana case – one that doomed the state’s restrictions on abortion clinics and doctors but rebutted the standard used by the court’s four liberal justices.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
What If The Supreme Court Has To Become Involved In The Election?
The Hill“The Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore casts a long shadow, which is ironic given that the justices expressly sought to limit its reach to the events of the 2000 election. But here we are on the cusp of another election in which the results are being questioned, this time before votes have been cast.”
Trump's Judicial Nominees Are His Legacy — And Why We Cannot Elect Joe Biden
NBC News“The federal judiciary was designed by our Founding Fathers to render impartial decisions on what the Constitution allows the state and federal governments to do; it was designed as a check against encroachments on individual freedom and abuses of power by the legislative and executive branches of government. But, as we have increasingly seen over the last few decades, impartiality and deference to the Constitution among federal judges is ignored when Democrat presidents make appointments.”
Religious Freedom Is Not A License To Ignore Civil-Rights Laws
Los Angeles Times“During the term it completed in July, the Supreme Court decided several important cases involving religious liberty and one that expanded legal protection for gay Americans. In the term that begins next month, the justices will hear a case that purportedly pits those two interests against each other. But the real question in the case is simpler: whether a religious organization that receives government money can violate civil-rights laws. The answer is no.”