SCOTUS Adds Eleven New Cases To Docket | Justice Gorsuch In Hot Water Over Trump Hotel Speech
September 28, 2017
HAPPY GRANTS DAY
|What a time to be alive! It’s grants day over at SCOTUS and the big news just keeps rolling in following justices’ announcement of 11 new cases to its merits docket for the term. Amy Howe with SCOTUSblog walks us through the major cases granted out of the SCOTUS “long conference.”
A SECOND CHANCE
|The justices announced today that they will consider striking down the mandatory fees that support collective bargaining, agreeing to hear the case of an Illinois state employee who objects to paying fees to the union which represents some 35,000 state workers. The decision, due by next June, could prove a costly setback for public sector unions in 22 states, including California, where such fees are authorized by law. But this issue isn’t new to SCOTUS. Last year, the court split 4-4 in a case dealing with the same question. And now JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH is on the bench, and likely to provide the fifth vote to eliminate these union fees.
A SECOND, SECOND CHANCE
|The Supreme Court agreed to take up once again a case involving a California dealership that claims service advisers are similar to salesmen or mechanics, and therefore exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
BUT THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS POLITICAL JUDGES, RIGHT?
|The newest Supreme Court justice is in hot water today for agreeing to speak at a luncheon at DONALD TRUMP’S luxury hotel in Washington D.C. hosted by the Fund for American Studies. Many court watchers and ethicists have called on JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH to cancel the appearance because it sends signals of partisanship — signals Gorsuch has previously spoken out against.
TOP-ED
|In USA Today, Gabe Roth, Executive Director of Fix the Court, notes that JUSTICE GORSUCH’S decision to speak at the Trump hotel today “has offended the conflict-of-interest sensibilities of legal ethicists at several levels — and rightly so.” Roth writes, that at a time of such partisanship and division, the Supreme Court should do more to raise the political discourse and lead conversations across party lines. Wouldn’t it be nice if liberal justices talked to conservatives, and conservative justices talked to liberals? Roth writes, “With all the partisanship in Washington, not to mention on our TVs and in our social media feeds, wouldn’t it be nice if the one supposedly apolitical branch branched out and addressed the unexpected?”
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
|Linda Greenhouse with The New York Times considers some lessons that could be learned from the SCOTUS travel ban clash that never came. She argues, “Just because a case is moot, as this one appears to be, doesn’t mean that nothing happened.”
HERE ARE THE BIGGIES
|Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr takes a look ahead to the biggest cases on the SCOTUS docket this term which include a full list of ideologically divisive cases that could turn on a single vote. In other words, this term promises to be jam-packed with blockbuster decisions.
SCOTUS VIEWS
The System is Rigged, and the Supreme Court Could Fix It. Will Justices do the Right Thing?
The Sacramento Bee“The Supreme Court should affirm this decision and put an end to partisan gerrymandering. The democratic process would be greatly improved if election districts are drawn in a fair and neutral manner.”
Neil Gorsuch Just Showed His Commitment to Racial Equality is About as Strong as Donald Trump's
Slate“Gorsuch may be more eloquent than Donald Trump, but the justice’s support for racial equality as a practical matter now appears to run about as deep as the president’s. It’s sickening to see the newest justice embrace a jurisprudence that excuses white supremacy in the criminal justice system so soon after his paean to equality.”
OTHER NEWS
From Her Dad's Killing During the Crack Epidemic to a Supreme Court Clerkship
The Washington PostJohn Woodrow Cox tells us the story of Tiffany Wright, who against all odds, is now a clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.