Supreme Court

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/15/2020
  

  James Flug, Who Helped Block Nixon Nominees and Investigated Watergate, Dies at 81

  James Flug, an aide to Senator Ted Kennedy, played a significant role in Senate investigations and in the successful political opposition to Richard Nixon's Supreme Court nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/11/2020
  

  Lifetime Tenure Meant Even Trump’s Supreme Court Picks Could Resist His Pressure

  by Teri Kanefield

  Alexander Hamilton's arguments for a independent judiciary in the Federalist Papers were borne out by the Supreme Court's dismissal of the pro-Trump suit brought by Texas's attorney general. 

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• SOURCE: Algemeiner
  12/6/2020
  

  US Supreme Court to Hear Two Cases Related to Holocaust Restitution

  Two cases test the doctrine of foreign sovereign immunity to determine whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction to return works of art to heirs of Jewish art dealers dispossessed by Nazis in 1935.

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• SOURCE: Capital Radio
  11/30/2020
  

  Can Trump Change A Key Census Count? Supreme Court Hears His Claim

  Margo Anderson says that the Trump administration's plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census is unprecedented in the history of the count. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  11/10/2020
  

  Will Supreme Court Invalidate Obamacare A Decade After It Was Enacted?

  NPR court analyst Nina Totenberg discusses the case being argued today in front of the new 6-3 conservative majority which could jeopardize millions of people's health insurance during the COVID pandemic. 

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• SOURCE: WAMU
  11/7/2020
  

  Will This Election Be A Replay Of ‘Bush v. Gore’ At The Supreme Court? Not Likely

  by Nina Totenberg

  "Election experts, both conservative and liberal, however, say that so far they have seen no evidence of fraud. Rather, as professor Muller puts it, the allegations have been 'nitpicky stuff'.”

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  11/5/2020
  

  The Supreme Court We Need

  by Linda Greenhouse

  The veteran Supreme Court reporter argues that the nation needs the court to enable government to actually take action to solve big national problems. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/4/2020
  

  The Night the Supreme Court Settled a Presidential Election, Declaring George W. Bush the Winner

  On the day the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore ruling was released, it was not immediately clear that it made George W. Bush the president-elect. 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  11/2/2020
  

  Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Black Lives Matter Organizer

  "The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protesters cannot be held liable for the unintended, unlawful actions of others," said American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Director David Cole.

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• SOURCE: WNYC
  11/2/2020
  

  The History of 'Court Packing'

  Historian Julian Zelizer discusses the history and fallout of FDR's 1937 plan to "pack" the court, and similarities and differences that might come into play in 2021. 

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• 11/1/2020
  

  Reconsidering "Court Packing" as Restoring Governing Norms

  by Greg Bailey

  The Republicans' choice to push through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination with the backing of a minority of the country means a new Congress must consider corrective action in the name of justice and democracy.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/27/2020
  

  Pack the Courts

  by Larry Kramer

  The former Dean of Stanford Law School argues "once cooperation breaks down, the only play to restore it is tit-for-tat. It’s the only way both sides can learn that neither side wins unless they cooperate."

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  10/27/2020
  

  Trump’s Supreme Court Justices Show How They Might Help Him in Contested Election

  "Now we have one Supreme Court justice identifying with Trump’s alleged horror of post-Election Night uncertainty, and two Supreme Court justices pointing the way to a state legislative hijacking of the results."

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/27/2020
  

  Wisconsin's Ballot Extension Plan Blocked By U.S. Supreme Court

  NPR's David Greene talks to election law expert Rick Hasen about Monday's Supreme Court decision that may offer a a window into how the court could rule over a contested Election Day outcome.

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/26/2020
  

  Our Undemocratic Constitution

  by Julie C. Suk

  "We should not misconstrue the success of the midcentury Court: the few bright moments of inclusive constitutionalism, from Brown to Roe, did not make our Constitution inclusive and democratic."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/25/2020
  

  Amy Coney Barrett’s Judicial Philosophy Doesn’t Hold Up to Scrutiny

  by Angus King and Heather Cox Richardson

  "To put it bluntly, the whole premise of originalism is nonsense in that it pretends to make the work of the Supreme Court look straightforward and mechanical, like 'calling balls and strikes,' in Justice John Roberts’s famous phase."

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• SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
  10/26/2020
  

  Amy Coney Barrett’s Philosophy Has Far Worse Roots Than Most Americans Know

  by Simon Gilhooley

  At the core of originalism is a fundamentally conservative effort to limit the possibilities of our constitutional order to the imagination of historical figures from the 18th century, which included racial hierarchy and support for chattel slavery.

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• 10/25/2020
  

  FDR Was Right to Propose Enlarging the Court

  by James D. Robenalt

  Franklin Roosevelt's error in 1937 was not to propose expanding the court, it was to fail to explain and defend his popular political reasons for doing so.

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• SOURCE: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
  10/23/2020
  

  $80 Million Dark Money Group Tied to Trump Supreme Court Advisor Leonard Leo

  A picture is emerging, but it will take years to sort out. One thing is clear, though: Leo and his allies have amassed a massive war chest of anonymous donations for their fight to remake the federal judiciary.  

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/22/2020
  

  The Supreme Court Is Helping Republicans Rig Elections

  by Adam Serwer

  Historian Lawrence Goldstone supports the argument that today's Roberts Court is continuing the jurisprudence of the post-Reconstruction era by denying the racism of restrictions on voting even as nonwhite voters are disenfranchised.