GARLAND HAUNTS THE HILL | Trump and HRC Make Other Plans
September 15, 2016
BACK, BACK AGAIN
|Supreme Court nominee JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND was back on the Hill yesterday, taking meetings and talking baseball and books. This time around, there were less cameras, and far less excitement for his visit, as Democratic leaders try to keep attention on his “languishing nomination.” Minority Leader HARRY REID: “Meeting with Judge Garland is so difficult because this good man should be on the Supreme Court right now.” Mary Clare Jalonick with AP has the story.
SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT
|This morning in a radio interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Democratic presidential candidate HILLARY CLINTON hinted she wouldn’t be bound by Barry O’s Supreme Court pick in JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND. She said she would “look broadly and widely for people who represent the diversity of our country” if she has the opportunity to make “any” Supreme Court nominations. Bloomberg’s Mike Dorning and Greg Stohr report.
FROM THE RUMOR MILL
|Sources say Republican presidential candidate DONALD TRUMP wants to put PayPal co-founder PETER THIEL on the U.S. Supreme Court. Thiel, who is still in his forties, attended Stanford Law School and worked at Sullivan & Cromwell for seven months. If confirmed, he would be the first openly gay member of SCOTUS.
BEST OFFENSE? A GOOD DEFENSE
|For The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin covers the national debate over San Francisco 49ers quarterback COLIN KAEPERNICK taking a knee during the national anthem before his team’s games. Toobin writes, “The best answer to the anthem conundrum, however, can be found in the most eloquent opinion in the history of the Supreme Court.” And that’s about as good of a defense as a person can get.
TOP-ED
|Birth control is the issue that continues to bedevil the Supreme Court, according to Linda Greenhouse in The New York Times. On the topic, she addresses last term’s decision in Zubik v. Burwell and writes, “The contraception mandate has been widely misunderstood from the beginning, demonized by its opponents as a way for a heavy-handed government to smuggle abortion into the workplace, as some of the more ignorant comments on the government’s website claim. It is, of course, nothing like that. It’s about respecting women as they choose their life course and make crucial decisions about work and family. By punting, stalling for time, taking a breather — whatever the justices thought they were doing back in May — the court gave the administration a chance to hit reset, a chance it was smart enough to take by asking its opponents finally to put their cards on the table and by inviting ordinary people to tell the world why the case matters.”
TOP-ED
|Birth control is the issue that continues to bedevil the Supreme Court, according to Linda Greenhouse in The New York Times. On the topic, she addresses last term’s decision in Zubik v. Burwell and writes, “The contraception mandate has been widely misunderstood from the beginning, demonized by its opponents as a way for a heavy-handed government to smuggle abortion into the workplace, as some of the more ignorant comments on the government’s website claim. It is, of course, nothing like that. It’s about respecting women as they choose their life course and make crucial decisions about work and family. By punting, stalling for time, taking a breather — whatever the justices thought they were doing back in May — the court gave the administration a chance to hit reset, a chance it was smart enough to take by asking its opponents finally to put their cards on the table and by inviting ordinary people to tell the world why the case matters.”
CHANGE OF PLANS
|Tony Mauro for The National Law Journal reports this election could supremely alter our high court’s business agenda depending on who the president picks to fill JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA‘s seat.
WE DON'T REALLY NEED NINE
|Eric Segall in The Daily Beast argues against conventional wisdom which says having eight supreme court justices is bad for our country. “With four conservatives and four liberals divided along party lines, the justices will have to try harder to reach consensus and will likely decide far more cases…Those are both beneficial, not negative, side effects of an evenly-divided Supreme Court. The court sets an excellent example for the rest of government and the American people when the justices work hard to reach results both sides can live with (or at least can vote for), especially in our most controversial and important cases.”
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
|While his Supreme Court nomination has been put on hold for six months, PRESIDENT OBAMA‘s lower court appointments might swing the presidential election over to his favored pick, HILLARY CLINTON. USA Today’s Richard Wolf reports.
OTHER NEWS
How the Equal Rights Amendment succeeded
The Chicago Tribune“It’s often been said that if Americans were allowed to vote on some of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights — such as the freedom of the press or the right against self-incrimination — they would reject them. What is rarely noted is that if some protections excluded from the Constitution put to a referendum, voters would readily grant their approval.”
We should elect Supreme Court justices
USA Today“We often hear that the Constitution needs to grow and change with the times. Perhaps we should have a national conversation on whether, in these times, the Supreme Court should be chosen by the voters rather than the elites.”
Detroit students are being deprived of their constitutional right to literacy, says federal lawsuit
The ABA JournalTuesday, Los Angeles pro bono group Public Counsel filed a federal lawsuit in Detroit claiming students are being denied their constitutional right to literacy. The seven plaintiffs attend five of the city’s lowest performing schools, one of which has 100 percent of its sixth-grade class scoring below proficiency in reading and math.