JUSTICES GO BACK TO THE FUTURE | Dashed Dreams of a SCOTUS Nominee
September 20, 2016
BACK TO THE FUTURE:
|Yesterday, JUSTICES STEPHEN BREYER, SAMUEL ALITO, and CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS returned to the nation’s birthplace to re-enact the only reported jury trial in the court’s history at the Philadelphia City Hall — mere blocks away from where SCOTUSDaily was written this fine morning.
As Richard Wolf with USA Today reports, the justices brought a modern touch to the re-enactment: they were a justice short. “It took four of the six justices in 1794 to preside over Georgia v. Brailsford, a 222-year-old case that tested whether a state could confiscate debts owed to a British citizen once the Revolutionary War had ended.”
ALL THE WISER
|Noah Feldman with Bloomberg says MERRICK GARLAND shouldn’t get his hopes up for a spot on SCOTUS, though he argues the wisest thing for Republican senators to do would actually be to confirm him. He writes, “The upshot is that Garland’s chances for confirmation now seem smaller than they did a few months ago. Democratic efforts to draw attention to the empty seat don’t seem to have had any serious impact beyond the Democratic base. Republicans might have to sacrifice a more liberal court to protect their individual political interests. But for elected politicians, that’s an easy trade to make.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board for The New York Times: “How does a lie come to be widely taken as the truth? The answer is disturbingly simple: Repeat it over and over again. When faced with facts that contradict the lie, repeat it louder. This, in a nutshell, is the story of claims of voting fraud in America.”
SO WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA
|Yesterday the CPP made headlines with reports that the 27 states waging legal war against the policy are actually on track to meet its standards. In The Hill, Richard L. Revesz, Denise A. Grab and Jack Lienke write that the Clean Power Plan isn’t anything out of the ordinary. In fact, its basic components have already been used in several prior Clean Air Act regulations, issued under administrations of both parties.
THE PATH TO CHANGE
|She was one of the architects of the Clean Power Plan under PRESIDENT OBAMA and she’s here to tell us that bipartisanship is possible, and necessary, on the long road to tackling climate change. In The Washington Post, Heather Zichal urges the next administration to “build a historic partnership between business and government — an opportunity to prove once and for all that good climate policy creates good jobs.”
LET'S GET REAL
|While we’re on the subject, Bjorn Lomborg in The Washington Post wants the next administration to wise up and realize that not only is climate change a real problem, but we are not on course to solve it. “The next president must focus on the smartest solutions for all the world’s many ills, not just those that get the most attention. In facing climate change, he or she needs the courage to forgo subsidizing politically popular solar and wind, and to focus on green research that will help much more to solve the problem.” Well that just took all the wind out of our sails.
COMEBACK STORY
|For The Associated Press, Will Weissert tells us how Texas’ voter ID law landed in federal court once again, and what we can expect next.
ICYMI
|September 17 was Constitution Day, and so David Cobb in The Hill writes to remind us that the best way to celebrate our Constitution is to remove money from politics in our country. “If we are to fulfill the promise of a democratic Republic, we must abolish Court-created doctrines that allow the 1% to rule over the 99%.”
OTHER NEWS
Did State Farm Bankroll Judge? Customers Claim Is Now Class Action
Bloomberg“Some customers of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. claim the company conspired to help elect an Illinois Supreme Court candidate so he could vote to throw out a $1 billion award against the company.”
Lloyd Karmeier named chief justice of Illinois Supreme Court
The Chicago TribuneThe supreme court of Illinois announced yesterday in a unanimous selection that their colleague Justice Lloyl Karmeier will serve a three-year term as the court’s chief justice. He will be the administrative officer of the state’s judicial system and oversee more than 900 judges in Illinois.