TRAVEL BAN TO DIE ANOTHER DAY | Not-So-Friendly Friends Of The Court | RBG Says There’s Work To Be Done
September 12, 2017
THE BAN IS BACK...AGAIN
|Just when you think the travel ban is beyond resuscitation, it lives to die another day. JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY issued a short-term order yesterday restoring PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ban and putting last week’s federal appeals court ruling on hold until SCOTUS decides whether to grant the administration’s request for a longer-term order. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the overall travel order on October 10. The order from the White House imposed a 90-day ban on people entering the United States from six mostly Muslim countries and a 120-day ban on refugees, to give officials time to assess vetting procedures. The case is Trump v. Hawaii.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|“Some federal judges have joined the ‘resistance to PRESIDENT TRUMP, but the Supreme Court doesn’t seem happy about it. See the Court’s pithy rebuke Monday to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which last week defied a Supreme Court decision on the Trump travel ban.” The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal looks at what they’re calling “The Ninth Circuit Resistance.”
THE BACKFIRE EFFECT
|For Reuters, Alison Frankel explains how the Justice Department’s “about-face” on LGBT workplace bias could actually backfire against the Trump administration when the issue comes before the Supreme Court this term.
TIPPING THE SCALES
|In Part One of a series on how our courts are swayed, Zachary Mider for Bloomberg unveils how “friends of the court” have hidden ties to big investors looking to tip the scales of justice in their favor. Mider starts by looking into the amicus briefs filed in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cases — four of which had all of the amicus briefs filed siding with shareholders.
MORE FROM MIDER
|Bloomberg’s Zachary Mider gives us a quicktake of the series Bloomberg will publish this week that will reveal how these “friends of the court” aren’t always who they appear to be. Mider writes, “Sometimes, they’re paid lobbyists in disguise, helping well-funded litigants attempt to tip the scales of justice.” In this piece, Mider answers eight quick questions to give us the bird’s-eye view of how this issue plays out and what could be done to improve the situation.
THE BAKER'S DILEMMA
|David Savage with The Los Angeles Times dives fork first into the upcoming Supreme Court case about a bakery owner’s refusal to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. It will be up to the justices to determine and define the scope of “proper protection” of the First Amendment and the rights it affords.
FULL STEAM AHEAD
|In Chi-Town yesterday, JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG told a crowd at Roosevelt University that she will remain on the Supreme Court for as long as she can work at “full steam.” She told her audience, “There’s work to be done.” Sophia Tareen with The Associated Press reports.
ON THE ROAD
|Later this week, JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO will deliver the keynote address at the dedication of the new University of South Carolina School of Law building. The program will also include remarks by USC President Harris Pastides, Dean Robert Wilcox, S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty and William Hubbard, past president of the American Bar Association, a USC alumnus and university trustee. [Post Courier]
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1958, a unanimous Supreme Court declined a Little Rock School District request to delay desegregation mandated by the Court’s Brown v. Board ruling by more than two years.
OTHER NEWS
U.S. Supreme Court Asked to Hear West Virginia Gas Case
The Associated Press“Landowners have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the reversal by West Virginia’s highest court concluding natural gas companies can deduct post-production costs from the royalties paid landowners for mineral rights.”
Legal Groups Move to Challenge Trump's Arpaio Pardon
POLITICO“Two advocacy groups moved on Monday to challenge Donald Trump’s pardon of controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, alleging that the president’s move was unconstitutional because it undermined the power of the federal judiciary.”