TRUMP ASYLUM BAN TO TEST CONSERVATIVE JUSTICES | Sotomayor & RBG Explain What It Takes To Get The Job Done
September 11, 2019
TODAY IN HISTORY
|Today, in New York and around the country, we remember the lives lost eighteen years ago today from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. James Barron with The New York Times writes, “Once more, families gathered at ground zero, where nearly 3,000 people died on that bright September morning. Once more, there was an outpouring of grief. Once more, there was the sound of a bell tolling in mourning. And there was the rhythm of names being recited.”
TELL ME WHO YOU'RE LOYAL TO
|Ian Millhiser with Vox reports on the president’s asylum ban and whether it could be a loyalty test for the Supreme Court. He notes that the arguments the Trump administration is advancing in East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr are going to be “hard to square” with Trump-appointed JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH. Millhiser argues that what’s at stake in East Bay “is whether the court’s conservative majority will stick to its stated principles — or whether it only applies those principles selectively to undermine liberal policies.”
WHAT'S DONE IS DONE
|At a judicial conference yesterday, JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR spoke of her work to build relationships with her Trump-appointed colleagues, despite their sharp ideological differences. She spoke of what it was like having to navigate the arrival of JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH after accusations surfaced of him sexually assaulting women. Sotomayor said, “Whether things occurred or didn’t occur, all of that is irrelevant. It is yesterday, today is today and moving forward, I have to work with him. And because I have to work with him, my measure of him has to be what he is doing as a justice now.” Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports.
WHY CAN'T WE BE FRIENDS
|Sotomayor isn’t the only one trying to make peace with her colleagues. At a University of Chicago event, JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG also noted the importance of having collegiality among justices. “We couldn’t do the job the Constitution assigns to us unless we worked well together,” she said. Ginsburg appeared at UChicago to receive the 2019 Harris Dean’s Award for being “an exceptional leader who has championed analytically rigorous, evidence-based approaches to policy, and who is an example for the next generation of policy leaders and scholars.”