TRAVEL BAN, TWEETS, BLUE SLIPS | Taft In The Bath, The Story We’re Getting All Wrong
September 15, 2017
STUPIDLY NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT
|“The Supreme Court is poised to hear oral arguments in the travel ban case early next month. But that doesn’t actually mean justices will ever decide the legality of PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S controversial executive order.” CNN’S Ariane de Vogue considers whether the travel ban will ever get the up-down vote from SCOTUS, which could largely depend on whether the White House chooses to keep and extend the ban past its expiration date this fall. She notes that today the president seemed in favor of keeping the ban, tweeting in response to the terror attack on the London Underground, “The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!”
FEELING BLUE
|“Republicans used an informal rule to block some of former president BARACK OBAMA’S judicial nominees. Now that Democrats are trying to use it, the Senate Judiciary chairman is hinting he might change it.” Zoe Tillman with Buzzfeed reports on the brewing fight over blue slips.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|LESS IS MORE
|For Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston explains the meaning of a simple Supreme Court order. More often than not, these très simple rulings have a “deeper meaning” with potentially “major consequences.”
FEW THINGS A HOT BATH CAN'T CURE
|Our 27th president and the 10th chief justice of the Supreme Court, WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was born on this day in 1857. He is the only person to ever hold those positions, but he’s often only remembered for famously needing the help of six men to get out of the bathtub. But Alexis Coe with The New York Times reports that the story isn’t true, and it’s also not cool to perpetuate. Coe: “Fortunately for Taft, history’s a long game, and it’s never too late to set the record straight. So let’s put to rest the bath story, once and for all, and focus on what may be his real tabloid legacy. After all, Taft is credited with saving the Republican Party in 1912. Without him, there might not be a PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.”
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1981, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to approve the Supreme Court nomination of SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR.