WE BACK BABY | End of Summer, End of DACA | Caking at SCOTUS
September 5, 2017
THE COMEBACK KID
|No not UCLA’s Chosen Rosen…I’m talking about the return of SCOTUSDaily to your inboxes, your hearts and your minds. Another year, another term at the Supreme Court and we’ll be here with you through it all. Many thanks to the friends and fans who have continued to make SCOTUSDaily possible – your readership and contribution of stories is immensely appreciated. Ok, let’s dive right in shall we?
SUMMER DON'T GET NO SHINE NO MORE
|Summer’s over, and so is DACA. This morning, the Trump administration dropped the hammer on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, putting an expiration on the legal protections granted to roughly 800,000 people known as “DREAMers” who entered the U.S. illegally as children. Earlier this year, the administration ended a similar program known as DAPA which was also created under PRESIDENT OBAMA and would have expanded eligibility for DACA to give legal status to as many as five million parents of citizens and legal permanent residents. That order was blocked by a legal challenge by the State of Texas, and the Supreme Court announced last year that it had deadlocked on the case, 4 to 4. Michael Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis with The New York Times report that it’s now up to Congress to replace the DACA policy with legislation before it fully expires on March 5, 2018.
FEEL IT STILL
|For Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston gives us the lay of the land when it comes to the dissolution of DACA. He notes that the timing of any future appeal to SCOTUS may be crucial because if it comes this term, JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY will hold a decisive position. He was presumably part of the majority that voted to end the DAPA program, but who knows, maybe he’ll be “more sympathetic to the claims of the youths involved in the DACA program.”
IF SHE COULD, SHE WOULD
|Can or should states make presidential candidates release their tax returns? That’s the question Steve Leblanc with The Associated Press seeks to answer in his latest. He writes, “Article Two of the Constitution establishes three requirements to win the White House: The president must be a “natural born citizen,” must be at least 35 years old, and must be a resident within the United States for 14 years. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that states and the federal government cannot add to the qualifications of senators and congressional representatives beyond those outlined in the Constitution — something that could be extended to the president. But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers in nearly half the states, mostly Democrats, from pushing presidential candidates to release their tax returns.”
CAKING
|The new term promises bring LGBT and religious liberty issues to the forefront of discussions in and around the Supreme Court. CNN’s Ariana De Vogue covers the story of Jack Phillips, a bakery owner who will argue before the justices that he cannot be compelled to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding ceremony because it would violate his religious beliefs.
AIN'T OVER YET
|In June of this year, the Supreme Court denied any relief to seven D.C. men who were convicted for one of the most notorious murders in the city’s history. And though the case has been put to rest, Thomas L. Dybdahl with Slate notes that there may still be more to the story. An upcoming Netflix documentary about the murder will argue that video statements at the heart of the government’s case were false, coerced confessions. The doc will stream on September 8 as part of The Confession Tapes series.
OTHER NEWS
Short Circuit: A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
The Washington PostRead the latest edition of the Institute for Justice’s weekly Short Circuit newsletter which provides a comprehensive look at what the federal courts are saying right now.
How Top U.S. Law Firms Get Away With Paying Women Less
Bloomberg“The uptick in lawyer gender-bias cases reflects a broadly felt frustration, says Professor Deborah Rhode, director of Stanford Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession, related in part to surveys showing substantial, persistent pay and promotion discrepancies. ‘Studies find that male lawyers are two to five times more likely to become partner than female lawyers,’ Rhode says. ‘I think a lot of women lawyers are fed up.’”