Tag Archives: Supreme Court

What Supreme Court?

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When our Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution, they put in place a system of checks and balances that would theoretically prevent one branch of government or one person from becoming too powerful. That system only works when it is followed.

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Department of Education announced Monday that it will begin notifying more than 804,000 borrowers that their $39 billion in federal student loans will be “automatically discharged in the coming weeks.”

“The forthcoming discharges are a result of fixes implemented by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure all borrowers have an accurate count of the number of monthly payments that qualify toward forgiveness under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans,” said the administration in an Aug. 14 press release—a month after the forgiveness plan was announced.

The department said that the forgiveness program was part of fixes to address “historical failures” in which “qualifying payments made under IDR plans that should have moved borrowers closer to forgiveness were not accounted for.”

This is the Biden administration’s workaround the Supreme Court decision that declared the student loan forgiveness program unconstitutional. There are a number of problems with this program, but one thing that needs to be looked at is the fact that the government is interfering in a contract. When these loans were taken out, the borrower agreed to pay them back. The government should not and does not have the power to interfere in a private contract.

The article notes the cost of the plan:

According to an estimate by the Department of Education, the SAVE plan will cost $138 billion over a decade.

However, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton’s Budget Model predicts the cost to be more than three times that. “We estimate SAVE will incur a net cost of $475 billion over the 10-year budget window,” a July 17 post about the Budget Model said.

The article concludes:

In a June 30 statement, Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job Creators Network, slammed President Biden for criticizing the Supreme Court order striking down his student loan forgiveness plan and his vowing to find another way to push ahead with it.

“President Biden shamelessly failed to recognize a co-equal branch of government in his remarks,” Mr. Ortiz said. “Rather than respecting the court’s decision, Biden promised more executive overreach to forgive student loan debt. His proposals include expanded income-driven repayment plans and a 12-month grace period when payments are set to restart this fall.”

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It includes the details of how to apply and how the Biden administration claims to be within the law.

The Different Reactions Tell Us All We Need To Know

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The Supreme Court today announced a decision that struck down the consideration of race in college admissions. The contrast between President Trump’s reaction and President Biden’s reaction is stark.

On Thursday, Breitbart reported:

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday applauded the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the consideration of race in college admissions.

Trump issued a statement making clear his delight. He said:

This is a great day for America. People with extraordinary ability and everything else necessary for success, including future greatness for our country, are finally being rewarded. This is the ruling everyone was waiting and hoping for and the result was amazing. It will also keep us competitive with the rest of the world.

Our greatest minds must be cherished and that’s what this wonderful day has brought. We’re going back to all merit-based—and that’s the way it should be!

As Breitbart News reported, racial preferences in college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, the Supreme Court decided in a historic decision with profound implications for racial preferences in many areas of law and public policy.

On Thursday, Breitbart posted another article highlighting President Biden’s reaction to the ruling.

The second article reports:

President Joe Biden slammed the U.S. Supreme Court for its decision striking down racial preferences in college admissions on Thursday, declaring in the White House: “This is not a normal court.”

Biden scheduled a press event to react to the decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in which a group representing Asian-American students sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina over their affirmative action programs. The court struck down racial preferences in college admissions that could not meet the “strict scrutiny” standards of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.

Biden slammed the decision, saying that it interfered with colleges’ discretion over how best to achieve diversity within their student bodies — presuming that “diversity,” not excellence, is the purpose of college admissions.

He proposed an alternative standard for admission, an “adversity” standard that would examine an applicant’s socioeconomic circumstances and the difficulties they had to overcome to qualify for college. All applicants, he said, that met the academic standards for admission should then be measured by the “adversity” they had experienced. He did not explain how “adversity” might be an unconstitutional proxy for racial criteria.

This is such gobbledygook. There are children throughout America that are not getting the education they need–mostly in our public schools, which have placed more emphasis on diversity than achievement. The success of the Asian community in America is a result of their work ethic. If other ethnic groups would acquire that work ethic, they would be accepted at elite schools at the same rate as the Asian students. It’s not about race–it’s about the effort put forth. As one example, Ben Carson was not someone whose circumstances were ideal for success, but the love of reading instilled in him by his mother made all the difference. It’s not the race–it’s the culture.

Reining In The Federal Government

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On Thursday, Fox News reported that the House of Representatives had passed the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, or SOPRA, which would rein in the power of the executive branch to govern through regulation.

The article reports:

The House voted Thursday to overturn a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that Republicans say gave the executive branch too much power to impose regulations that cost Americans trillions of dollars each year.

Lawmakers approved the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, or SOPRA, in a mostly party-line 220-211 vote.

Republicans have argued for the last several years that the Supreme Court precedent set in the Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. case effectively told courts that they should defer to federal agencies when they interpret laws passed by Congress as they write regulations. Republicans say that since that ruling, courts have failed to do their due diligence in assessing whether those regulations can be fairly justified under the law.

We are supposed to be governed by laws–not regulations. Laws are supposed to be passed by elected Congressmen who can be held accountable for the laws they pass. The people in the executive branch who are passing regulations were not elected by anyone and cannot be held accountable by the American voters for what they do.

The article notes:

“Since 1984, when the Supreme Court ruled that courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute rather than what Congress intended, the executive branch has begun usurping the legislative branch to issue regulations with the force of law,” Fitzgerald said. “It is certainly not what our founders intended.”

He added that the cost of these regulations have piled up on Americans over the last several decades.

“The total annual cost of regulation is almost $2 trillion, or about 8% of the U.S. GDP,” he said. “If it were a country, for comparison, U.S. regulation would be the world’s eighth largest economy.”

The article concludes:

“While Congress sets broad policies, we delegate authorities to executive agencies because we do not have the expertise to craft the technical regulations ourselves, and we rely on these agencies to carry out the policies we enact,” he (Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee) said.

The bill is unlikely to move in the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House has said President Biden would veto it.

But the issue could be decided by the Supreme Court itself. In the fall, the Supreme Court is expected to hear a dispute between fishermen in New Jersey and the federal government over whether federal rules on fishermen are vastly exceeding what was allowed by Congress.

The fact that this law will probably never become law illustrates the need to get back to the government our Founding Fathers created.

Holding People Accountable

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On Thursday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about a recent common-sense ruling by the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

Alternate headline: Pottery Barn rules apply to walkouts. In an 8-1 decision in which only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fully dissented, the Supreme Court ruled today that unions have to reimburse employers for damages caused by striking workers. The National Labor Relations Act does not confer immunity to unions or workers — the latest ruling from a court that has stiffened the boundaries for labor activities in the last few years:

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that federal labor law did not protect a union from potential liability for damage that arose during a strike, and that a state court should resolve questions of liability.

The majority found that if accusations by an employer are true, actions during a strike by a local Teamsters union were not even arguably protected by federal law because the union took “affirmative steps to endanger” the employer’s property “rather than reasonable precautions to mitigate that risk.” It asked the state court to decide the merits of the accusations.

The opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Three conservative justices backed more sweeping concurring opinions. A single justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.

The case involved Teamsters who created truckloads of cement and then walked off the job–leaving the trucks full and no one to offload the trucks. Obviously, if the cement was left in the trucks, it would ruin the trucks. The Supreme Court (with the exception of one Justice) held the Teamsters liable for the damage they had caused. Striking is legal–damaging property is not.

The article also notes two important aspects of the case:

The Teamsters argued that they can’t be responsible for hypothetical risks to employer property in the absence of workers. Barrett emphatically rejects that, and concludes that the union organized the walkout specifically to create the highest potential risk of catastrophic damage when they had a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent it…

…Congress created the National Labor Relations Board to deal with labor disputes, not property torts. The latter are matters for civil litigation separate from labor-management negotiations. It’s this argument from KBJ that has Thomas call for an end to the Garmon precedent, and which Alito et al expressly reject in their concurrence. To think otherwise would be to create an Open Season on employers’ property under the guise of ‘negotiations.’

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes some very interesting arguments.

The Attack On The Supreme Court Continues

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The overturning of Roe v Wade resulted in the political left attacking the Supreme Court. It also resulted in protestors at the Supreme Court Justices’ homes (despite the fact that protesting against a judge’s home is illegal (Merrick Garland has chosen not to enforce that law). The left has attacked Clarence Thomas since before he was actually on the Court. The most recent attack comes from a Senator in Massachusetts who is a walking advertisement for term limits.

On Tuesday, BizPacReview reported the following:

Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey introduced a bill to pack the Supreme Court on Tuesday, claiming during a press conference on the legislation that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett have “no right” to be on the Court.

Markey’s Judiciary Act of 2023, which pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed, would add four seats to the Supreme Court. During his press conference on the Supreme Court steps, Markey called for Justice Clarence Thomas to resign and claimed that two justices have “no right to be there.”

“In 2016, Senate Republicans broke the rules and packed the court,” Markey said. “In 2020, Donald Trump helped them to break the rules again.”

Republicans refused to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016. After former President Donald Trump took office, Republicans confirmed Gorsuch in 2017.

After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Republicans confirmed Barrett in October 2020.

“We now have two justices on the bench, who frankly, have no right to be there,” he continued. “This Republican court packing has given us partisan justices eager to toss aside decades of precedent to satisfy their deep-pocketed, right-wing special interest benefactors.”

His solution to the charge that the Republicans have packed the court is to have the Democrats pack the court. How in the world does that make sense?

The Supreme Court is the last defense against the radical left’s political agenda. That is the reason the political left is attacking them so hard. This is a battle the political left needs to lose.

How The Political Left Could Take Over The Supreme Court

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We have seen that the political left fought hard to prevent the seating of conservative justices on the Supreme Court. I suspect that we are now going to see the political left attempt to remove the conservative justices that now sit on the Supreme Court. They have already begun the process. President Joe Biden will be able to fill any vacancies that arise, and Kamala Harris will provide the necessary 51st vote (assuming all the Democrats are able to attend the Senate vote).

On Monday, The Daily Wire outlined the plan for the liberal takeover of the Court.

The article reports:

First, they push the idea that the current justices are deciding cases politically, rather than impartially. In other words, the justices are twisting and shaping the Constitution’s meaning to reach results that advance certain political interests.

We are already hearing this talking point in the mainstream media.

The article continues:

Second, the Left attacks Supreme Court decisions, and individual justices, that do not reliably advance liberal political interests, as partisan, corrupt, or unethical.

We have recently seen that with Justice Thomas. The next target is Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The article notes the third part of the plan, which is unconstitutional:

Having created this politically driven, faux ethics controversy, Democrats have introduced legislation to require the Supreme Court to produce a formal ethics code. That much might not sound serious, but because the Constitution, not Congress, created the Supreme Court, Congress does not have such authority.

All nine current justices signed a lengthy Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices explaining how they approach ethical questions, including in ways that necessarily differ from lower court judges.

The more serious problem, however, is that these bills would then allow anyone to file a complaint that a Supreme Court justice has allegedly violated some provisions of such a code.

Stay tuned. Unless the Republicans develop a plan to stop this, we are going to lose the checks and balances in our government that protect our God-given freedoms.

 

Heading To The Supreme Court

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On Sunday, John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about the Biden administration’s plan to forgive $400 billion in outstanding student debt. The plan is being challenged and will make its way to the Supreme Court at the end of February.

The article notes:

On Friday, a group of amici filed a brief urging the Court to invalidate Biden’s order. It is probably the most impressive group of amici I have ever seen, including top constitutional scholars like Michael McConnell and political figures including William Barr, Mitch Daniels, Mick Mulvaney, and others. These amici are represented by Sidley and Austin, a major law firm.

The brief is included in the article.

The article concludes:

In recent years, as the brief documents, presidents of both parties have used strained interpretations of broadly-worded statutes to justify unconstitutional usurpations of power, sometimes spending money that Congress had specifically refused to appropriate. Biden’s debt forgiveness continues this trend under particularly absurd pretenses, and on an unprecedented scale. As the brief argues, if the Biden administration can get away with this, there is really no check on executive power, going forward.

As a condition precedent to the merits, the case also raises a standing issue. I have not studied that issue, and have no idea whether it has merit under current law. I would only say that if a president acts unconstitutionally to deprive the taxpayers of $400 billion in revenue, there had better be someone who has standing to challenge his illegal action.

Let’s pray that the Supreme Court understands the checks and balances our Founding Fathers put in place.

Is This Bill Constitutional?

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The inaccurately named Respect for Marriage Act is currently making its way through the Senate. However, there are some questions about whether or not the bill is Constitutional. On Sunday, Just the News posted an article listing some of those concerns.

The article reports:

The bill, HR 8404, was introduced in the House by U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY, on July 18 and passed by a vote of 267-157 the next day. The U.S. Senate took it up on Nov. 14.

It would provide “statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages” and repeal several provisions of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The 1996 law received bipartisan support including from then U.S. Sen. Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and from Democratic President Bill Clinton, who signed it.

When a constitutional amendment was proposed to ban same-sex marriage in 2006, Sen. Biden told Meet the Press’ Tim Russert, “I can’t believe the American people can’t see through this. We already have a law, the Defense of Marriage Act … where I voted and others … that marriage is between a man and a woman and states must respect that. … Why do we need a constitutional amendment? Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Sixteen years later, President Biden now supports replacing DOMA provisions, which “define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex,” with ROMA provisions “that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law,” according to the bill summary.

The article notes:

After their vote, Biden said, “Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” adding their vote made “the United States one step closer to protecting that right in law.”

Schumer also said he had “zero doubt” the bill “will soon be law of the land.”

But multiple groups disagree, arguing it’s unconstitutional for the same reasons the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. Because the court already ruled Congress doesn’t have the constitutional authority to define marriage under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, and because ROMA is nearly identical to DOMA, they argue it will also likely be struck down.

In a letter to Congress, the nonprofit religious freedom organization Liberty Counsel argues the court ruled in Windsor, “DOMA, because of its reach and extent, departs from this history and tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage.” It also ruled, “[b]y history and tradition the definition and regulation of marriage . . . has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States.”

It is entirely possible that the way to solve this dilemma is to totally remove government from the institution of marriage. Leave marriage with the church–churches should have the right to marry or not to marry anyone they want to. A couple can find a church to do their wedding without having to worry about the government getting involved. A church certificate would be enough to prove the wedding, and the government would not need to be involved. In the case of a divorce, the church certificate would prove the marriage. Let the churches go on record for what they support and what they don’t support.

Moving Toward The Country The Founding Fathers Envisioned

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On October 13th, CBN posted an article about an important Supreme Court decision that got lost in the chaos of the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.

The article reports:

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade it was easy to miss, but the court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA delivered a major blow to the federal bureaucracy.

The case considered the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. President Obama couldn’t get his plan to drastically change the nation’s power grid known as “Cap and Trade” through Congress, so he famously acted on his own.

“I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward,” the president said before a 2014 cabinet meeting and on a number of other occasions. 

Working through the EPA on executive authority he expanded the Clean Air Act, written in the 1960s, to reduce toxic emissions. Instead of addressing individual power plants as the law had been applied, Obama went after the entire fossil fuel industry in a way that would have transformed the U.S. power grid, and for that, the Supreme Court called a foul.

“The court said Congress has to say specifically what they want EPA to do if they’re going to do something that has such a monumental impact,” said Derrick Morgan, executive vice president of The Heritage Foundation.

He says the court’s action is significant as presidents increasingly wield their executive pens to get their agendas passed around Congress.

Essentially, this forces Congress, elected by the people, to make the laws and be held accountable for the laws they make. The President has the choice to sign or veto the laws and should also be held accountable. This may help deal with some of the garbage regulations coming out of Washington. This ruling may also serve to protect the free speech rights that many in Congress are trying to limit.

The article concludes:

Also, look for more guidance from the Supreme Court. Chad Squitieri, an expert in administrative law at The Catholic University of America, says the court seems primed to examine whether the administrative state has drifted too far from the separation of powers which is a bedrock of America’s Constitution.

“The Major Questions Doctrine which was applied in West Virginia v EPA is sort of, I like to say, scratching at the non-delegation itch. It’s not the full-fledged non-delegation doctrine, but I think it’s something of a halfway measure and I think these types of questions – looking at different ways courts may police how Congress delegates authority to the agencies – is going to be a recurring theme in the years to come,” he told CBN News.

“I think it’s because the current court is more prepared than courts in the past to enforce the original understanding of the Constitution – what we would call the original public meaning of the Constitution, particularly the separation of powers and federalism,” he continues.

It will be a relief to many Americans who want to be governed directly by the people they elect and are eager to rid themselves of what they see as a gross overreach by unelected bureaucrats.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is a really good decision.

Moving Toward More Honest Elections

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Periodically I post articles that I do not understand. This is one of them. I am posting it because I think it is an important step to end some of the problems that we have had in recent elections.

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times reported:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated an appeals court decision that required Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots even if there is no date on the envelope.

“The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot,” wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson (pdf), siding with David Ritter, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for a judgeship.

They also threw out a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that allowed the counting of mail-in ballots in the race that Ritter had sought to remove because voters did not write the date on the ballots. Ritter lost his 2021 bid to serve on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas after 257 mail-in ballots that didn’t have dates were counted.

Pennsylvania Republican legislators and conservatives filed amicus briefs saying the 3rd Circuit’s ruling threatened the integrity of the 2022 midterm elections.

But the Supreme Court’s action on Tuesday means that the 3rd Circuit ruling cannot be used as a precedent in the three states covered by this regional federal appellate court—Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware—to allow the counting of ballots with minor flaws such as the voter failing to fill in the date. Vacating the ruling does not change Ritter’s loss in his race.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

In the months preceding the 2020 election, many states altered their voting laws because of the fear generated during the Covid pandemic. Many of those laws were changed in ways that were not in compliance with the constitutions of their state. A number of court cases since the election (and some before the election) have reversed those changes and required the states involved to follow their own constitutions.

UPDATE:  Pennsylvania says it will ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling (article here).

The Second Amendment Goes To The Supreme Court (Again)

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There have been a number of Second Amendment cases that have made their way to the Supreme Court in recent years. That alone should make all of us carefully examine the nominees for the court. Some of the decisions in the past have been five-four, meaning that placing one of two liberal justices on the Court could easily end the Second Amendment. There is no higher court than the Supreme Court–if the Court begins to undo the Second Amendment, there will be no place to appeal.

On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article about another Second Amendment case that the Supreme Court recently heard and ruled on.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court reversed a federal appeals court decision on Oct. 3 that upheld one of Massachusetts’ tough gun laws, months after the high court expanded Second Amendment rights.

The Massachusetts law in question, the constitutionality of which is now in doubt, imposed a lifetime ban on purchasing handguns—but not possessing them—on anyone convicted of a nonviolent misdemeanor that involved the possession or use of guns.

The high court remanded the case, Morin v. Lyver (court file 21-1160), to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit “for further consideration in light of” the Supreme Court’s landmark June 23 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Massachusetts was previously added to Morin v. Lyver as an intervenor to defend the constitutionality of the state law.

The order was unsigned and no justices indicated they were dissenting from it. The justices didn’t explain why they granted the order.

In Bruen, a 6–3 ruling, the high court recognized a constitutional right to bear firearms in public for self-defense and struck down New York’s law that required an applicant to demonstrate “proper cause” to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public.

The court also found that gun restrictions must be deeply rooted in American history if they are to survive constitutional scrutiny.

The person in the Massachusetts case was Alfred Morin, a resident of Massachusetts. Mr. Morin, who has a concealed carry permit in Massachusetts, traveled to Washington, D.C., and was visiting the American Museum of Modern History, when he saw a sign saying that guns were not permitted. He approached a guard to ask where he could check his gun. Mr. Morin possessed a valid Massachusetts License to Carry Firearms but was unaware that District of Columbia laws prohibited him from carrying his gun, despite having the Massachusetts license.

The article continues the story:

Police arrested Morin and charged him with carrying a pistol without a license, possession of an unregistered firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition.

On Nov. 8, 2004, Morin pleaded guilty to attempting to carry a pistol without a license and possession of an unregistered firearm, both misdemeanors.

The Superior Court of the District of Columbia sentenced Morin to 60 days imprisonment on each count, three months of supervised probation, and 20 hours of community service. The court suspended the imprisonment portion of the sentence.

Morin later applied to police in his home state for a Firearms Identification Card and a permit to buy a firearm in February 2018. Respondent William Lyver, chief of the Northborough, Massachusetts, police department, denied Morin’s application for a permit to purchase on April 4, 2018.

The Supreme Court summarily disposed of the pending case, simultaneously granting the petitioner’s request seeking review while skipping over the oral argument phase at which the merits of the case would have been considered. Some lawyers call this process GVR, which stands for grant, vacate, and remand.

Mr. Morin should have checked the laws of Washington, D.C., before bringing his gun there. However, he did the right thing in approaching the guard in the museum. There was absolutely no reason to arrest him–they should have simply told him to leave Washington, D.C., and come back without his gun. This entire case was totally unnecessary.

Has This Lady Read The U.S. Constitution?

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On Friday, The Hill posted an article about a recent comment by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

The article reports:

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Thursday at a conference that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is tied to its conformity to public opinion, Reuters first reported.

“I’m not talking about any particular decision or even any particular series of decisions, but if over time the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that’s a dangerous thing for a democracy,” Kagan said at a judicial conference in Montana.

…Kagan said at the conference that the court earns its legitimacy by remaining impartial and nonpartisan.

“Overall, the way the court retains its legitimacy and fosters public confidence is by acting like a court, is by doing the kinds of things that do not seem to people political or partisan,” she said.

Kagan referenced times in history when Supreme Court justices failed to discipline themselves and instead “attempted to basically enact their own policy or political or social preferences,” saying that this puts court legitimacy at risk.

This is an amazing statement. The only thing the Supreme Court is required to be tied to is the U.S. Constitution.

On Saturday, Ed Morrissey posted the following at Hot Air:

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said on Thursday that it would be a “dangerous thing for a democracy” if the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court loses the confidence of the American public.

Speaking in public for the first time since the court’s momentous ruling last month that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Kagan stressed the importance of the justices staying in their proper roles as judges and not dictating public policy.

The problem with Roe v. Wade actually had very little to do with abortion. The problem with Roe v. Wade was the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Abortion is an issue that needs to be determined by every state–by legislators voted in by the people of that state and answerable to the people of that state. The Supreme Court simply overturned a decision that was unconstitutional. They did not end abortion–they simply left it up to each state to make the laws that the people in that state want.

Another Story The Mainstream Media Is Hoping We Will Forget

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article with the following headline, “Will America Ever Find Out Who the Supreme Court Leaker Is?” That is a very good question. Each Justice is allowed four law clerks, and there is a support staff. However, the number of people who would have had access to a draft of a brief would be very limited. We really should know by now who leaked, and the person who leaked should be facing severe consequences. It is odd that we don’t know.

The article reports:

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court officially ended its term after releasing final opinions on a number of cases. 

But the Supreme Court still hasn’t revealed who leaked the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization at the beginning of May. 

…The leak not only rocked the Supreme Court, where trust and confidentiality are crucial, but prompted violent pro-abortion activists to launch a number of attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and illegally converge on the homes of conservative justices. Democrats have called for court-packing and even the elimination of the Supreme Court. Last week, President Joe Biden attacked justices on foreign soil.

…On June 24, the Court released the final opinion on Dobbs. It was largely unchanged and was nearly identical to the leaked draft opinion. The Department of Justice has expressed little interest in exploring potential criminal consequences for the leaker. 

I can only assume that the leak came from the political left–the Justice Department does not seem to have prioritized the case (as I believe they would have if the leak came from the right). I suspect the media (and the Biden administration) are simply hoping that we will forget about the entire matter by the end of summer and it will never be brought up again. I really think that if the Republicans take Congress in the mid-terms, they have some serious investigating to do in a lot of areas.

Waiting For The Court Cases On This New Law To Begin

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On June 23rd, The New York Post reported that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the restrictions New York State had put on concealed carry permits.

The Court ruled:

Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said Thursday that the law’s requirement of New Yorkers who want a permit to carry a handgun in public to show “proper cause” that the weapon is ​specifically needed for self-defense “violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public.”

Well, the New York legislature decided that the Supreme Court decision was unacceptable.

On Saturday, The American Thinker reported:

In an act of breathtaking defiance and spitefulness not seen since Southern states engaged in “massive resistance” to the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision, the New York State Legislature gave a middle finger to the Supreme Court and voted Friday to effectively nullify the Court’s decision last week in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

After an extraordinary session for the explicit purpose of defying the Court, Senate Bill S51001 was rammed through on a party-line vote by the Democratic supermajority, passed the Assembly, and received the signature of Gov. Kathleen Hochul.

Writing for the majority in Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas struck down New York’s century-old requirement that an applicant for a handgun carry permit demonstrate a “special need” if he wanted to carry for self-defense.  New York’s licensing process was entirely discretionary and arbitrary, and in many jurisdictions, licensing officers simply refused to issue permits for self-defense.  This was particularly true in New York City, where applicants were routinely and summarily rejected unless they were politically connected or celebrities — such as Howard Stern, Donald Trump, and Don Imus.  In other jurisdictions, licensing officers simply invented acceptable reasons on a whim, often issuing handgun licenses for “hunting and target shooting” only, if at all.  (In one rural upstate county, a former judge who had authority as a licensing officer invented a requirement that he would not allow any permit-holder to have more than five handguns without appearing before him personally and giving a “good reason.”)

In Bruen, Justice Thomas ruled that these arbitrary restrictions were unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment’s guarantee to keep “and bear” arms for self-defense, ordering New York State and New York City to issue concealed carry permits to qualified applicants for that reason.

In response, Gov. Hochul (who was endorsed by the NRA in 2012 when she ran for Congress in rural Western New York) vindictively declared that New York would restrict guns to the point where the State would “go back to muskets.”  Hochul called the Legislature back from recess and presented a bill that criminalizes as a felony offense concealed carry in perhaps 98% of the state.

At some point you begin to wonder why some people in our government are so anxious to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

Another Win For The Supreme Court

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Does anyone remember this gem from 1975:

This is a kid-oriented explanation of how laws are supposed to be passed in America. Unfortunately, many of our laws are currently being passed by unelected bureaucrats in government agencies. These bureaucrats are not held accountable by the people because they never have to run for office. Well, on Thursday the Supreme Court took a small step to bring America back to the lawmaking procedure established by our Founding Fathers.

Red State posted an article on Thursday reporting the decision.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court sharply curtailed the power of the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. In a 6-3 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court sided with conservative states and fossil-fuel companies in adopting a narrow reading of the Clean Air Act.

The Court found that Congress had not authorized the EPA to induce a shift toward cleaner energy sources.

“Congress did not grant EPA…the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan,” the majority wrote.
The ruling was spurred by an appeal to a decision last year that struck down a Trump-era power plant rule.

In appealing that decision, West Virginia asked the court to consider whether the EPA has the authority to try to push the entire system away from coal and reshape the country’s electric grid.

The article notes:

Justice Kagan in her dissent acted as though it was the Court’s responsibility to address climate change, rather than interpret the law and the Constitution.

Maybe she needs to go back and reread the Constitution.

If the Biden administration wants to change the source of America’s energy, they need to ask Congress to pass a bill to do that. Elected officials need to be held accountable for the laws they make. Bureaucrats are not elected and cannot be held accountable. That is why our laws are supposed to be made by Congress and not by bureaucrats.

In Case You Are Wondering, It Is Ultimately About The Money

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The protests continue against the Supreme Court ruling against abortion, despite the fact that the ruling did nothing more than allow each state to make its own rules regarding abortion. So what is all this noise actually about? First of all, abortion is a million-dollar industry that contributes large amounts of money to politician’s campaign coffers. If abortion is limited, campaign contributions will also be limited. Secondly, it is cheaper for a corporation to pay for an abortion than to pay for maternity leave and the costs associated with motherhood. Also, a mother’s first priority is generally her child–not the corporation. So abortion does make a large contribution to the economy and to the political class. That explains some of the horror at the idea that some states will be limiting abortion. Meanwhile, the government is seriously interested in maintaining the status quo.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner reported the following:

The Biden administration is considering setting up abortion providers on federal land in red states, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Tuesday.

The administration has not decided yet whether it will pursue the plan, which is favored by left-wing legislators Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), but Becerra said that “every option is on the table.”

…Becerra’s comments are at odds with those of Vice President Kamala Harris, who said just Monday that the administration was not discussing clinics on federal lands. 

The article concludes:

The proposal, if pursued by the administration, would offer women a safe haven for abortion access in red states, most of which have already curtailed access. The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban overturned the 49-year-old constitutional guarantee of the right to an abortion, sending the power of regulating access to the procedure back to the states. But abortion is not federally illegal.

“We know that there is misinformation out there about what the Supreme Court did. We want to make sure it’s clear that Americans didn’t lose every right they have. Americans still can assert their rights, and we will do everything we can to protect you,” Becerra said

Just for the record, abortion was never and never should be a right.

Punished For Doing Your Job Well

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On Saturday, The Daily Wire reported that the attorneys who argued the concealed carry case before the Supreme Court were forced to retire from their law firm.

The article reports:

The lawyers who won a major Second Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court this week got even less than a pat on the back from the white-shoe law firm they work for – they were forced to quit.

Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, the lawyers who successfully argued against New York’s law restricting conceal-carry gun permits, were told by Kirkland & Ellis they had to stop representing Second Amendment plaintiffs or find another firm. In a Wall Street Journal article, the duo explained how their celebration was cut short.

“Having just secured a landmark decision vindicating our clients’ constitutional Second Amendment rights in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, we were presented with a stark choice—withdraw from representing them or withdraw from the firm,” they wrote. “There was only one choice: We couldn’t abandon our clients simply because their positions are unpopular in some circles.”

The article concludes:

The decision has implications for at least eight other so-called “may issue” states, where bureaucrats have the final say in whether a citizen merits a permit. In New York, the law was used to render concealed carry handgun permits nearly impossible to obtain.

Clement, who served as the U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, and Murphy, also an experienced appellate attorney, were partners in the firm. But they wrote that they were resigned to leaving after being told they can’t take on Second Amendment cases.

“This isn’t the first time we have left a firm to stick by a client,” they wrote. “What makes this circumstance different is that the firm approved our representation of these clients years ago, and dropping them would cost the clients years of institutional memory. More remarkable still, in one of the cases we were asked to drop, we prevailed in the Supreme Court on Thursday.”

We are in danger of losing our Republic.

A Good Decision

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On Tuesday, CNS News reported that the Supreme Court has ruled that the State of Maine cannot limit its tuition assistance programs to non-religious schools. Six of the Justices voted against limiting the assistance to only non-religious schools, citing the First Amendment prohibiting laws that limit the free expression of religion.

The article reports:

“Maine has enacted a program of tuition assistance for parents who live in school districts that do not operate a secondary school of their own,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority:

“Under the program, parents designate the secondary school they would like their child to attend — public or private — and the school district transmits payments to that school to help defray the costs of tuition. Most private schools are eligible to receive the payments, so long as they are ‘nonsectarian.’

“The question presented is whether this restriction violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”

As the opinion noted, Maine has limited its tuition assistance payment to “nonsectarian schools” since 1981.

The petitioners wanted to send their children to accredited religious schools, but since those two schools did not qualify as “nonsectarian,” they were denied the state tuition assistance payments.

The petitioners sued the commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, alleging that the “nonsectarian” requirement violated the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As parents increasingly speak out against some of the values being taught in our public schools, religious schools that better reflect the values of parents are becoming more popular. Since the State of Maine provides tuition assistance where secondary schools are not available, the parents should have the right to choose their child’s school. I thought liberals were about ‘choice.’

Still Searching For The Leaker

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On Tuesday, The Western Journal reported that the investigation into the leaking of the abortion opinion draft from the Supreme Court is heating up.

The article reports:

Inside the Supreme Court, an investigation into the leak has now reached the point where law clerks are being asked to provide cellphone records and sign affidavits, CNN reported Tuesday, citing three sources it did not name.

Why are people inside the Court still leaking to CNN?

The article notes:

Chief Justice John Roberts met with law clerks after the leak. Each justice gets four clerks, and the prized spots that can be steppingstones to a high-profile career.

CNN estimated that in addition to the 36 clerks, others would have had access to the draft, totaling about 75 people in all.

The report said it was not clear whether other court employees were being asked to share cellphone records.

The court’s internal investigation is being led by the court’s marshal, Gail Curley.

Curley, a lawyer and former Army colonel, oversees the police stationed at the court’s building.

The article concludes:

Justice Clarence Thomas said the damage done to the court by the leak was severe.

“I do think that what happened at the court is tremendously bad,” Thomas said at a recent conference.

“I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them. And then I wonder when they’re gone or destabilized, what we will have as a country? And I don’t think the prospects are good if we continue to lose them,” he said.

If the pool of suspects is only 75 people, the investigation should be completed fairly quickly. I wonder why it has not been.

Challenging Admission Policies

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

  • University of Michigan professor Mark Perry told The Daily Caller News Foundation that he filed a Title VI complaint over a program application at the University of South Carolina that was restricted to students of certain race and ethnicities. 
  • Following his complaint, the application was updated stating the program is  “Open to all Rising High School Juniors and Seniors in South Carolina,” but highlighted students “who are in support of the advancement of business students from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply,” Perry told TheDCNF. 
  • “They’re so corrupt and they’re so unprincipled, that they do this all the time,” Perry said. “They might not even realize they’re violating federal civil rights laws or they know that it’s illegal, but they do it anyway because they’ve done it in the past (and) they’ve always gotten away with it because no one has ever challenged them.”

On Monday, The Carolina Journal reported:

The N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Virginia Lt. Gov Winsome Sears, each the first black lieutenant governor of their respective state, have joined forces to pen a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Asian-American students suing Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill. Carolina Journal was present at the Lieutenant Governor’s Mansion on May 19 at a press conference where the North Carolina Asian American Coalition (NCAAC) thanked Robinson for his support.

The students in the lawsuit accuse the institutions of discriminatory admissions practices, where they are held to a higher standard during consideration because of their race. The Robinson/Sears Amicus brief was filed May 9th.  

“While it can be argued that these policies had a role in helping many Americans overcome the persistent effects of historical and past discriminations in higher education, those effects are becoming less impactful the further we travel from the dark days of state-sanctioned discrimination,” said Robinson at the event. “Instead, they now function to unfairly discriminate against and deny opportunity to other ethnic and racial groups. Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity is immoral in all of its forms, and we can do better. We must do better.”

The nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions filed the original suit in 2014, but when it was ruled in November 2021 that Chapel Hill could continue to use affirmative action in their admissions, the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

College admissions should be based on merit. If a student is admitted because of race or ethnicity and does not have the ability to do college work, the student is being set up to fail. No one gains by doing that. I hope the lawsuit is successful and we go back to rewarding people who work hard and stop rewarding people or punishing people for something they have no control over.

Allowing Ordinary Citizens To Run For Office

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On Monday, The Patriot Journal posted an article about a recent Supreme Court decision that will make it easier for the average American to run for political office.

The article reports:

All of America is waiting for the Supreme Court to release a number of ground-breaking rulings. Last week, the court revealed it was set to release “one or more” rulings today.

It seems they are holding off that one ruling and addressing other important cases. One of them came from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who was challenging a campaign finance law.

Cruz claimed the law was wrongfully punishing him. And the court, in a 6-3 ruling, backed the senator.

The ruling involved how much money a candidate could raise to pay off their personal debts after an election. In other words, if a candidate funded his own campaign, he could only pay himself back $250,000. Like it or not, in today’s elections, that is chump change. The Supreme Court agreed with Senator Cruz that the cap on how much a candidate could pay himself back was a limitation on free speech. The ruling was 6-3. The Supreme Court’s three liberal judges voted against removing the limit. A vote against removing the limit is a vote to keep the incumbents in power in Washington by making it more difficult for political outsiders to run for office.

The article concludes:

Although this might not seem relevant to us peons who don’t have nearly $250,000 to our names, this benefits anyone who wants to run for public office.

This ruling means someone can donate their own money to their campaign, without fear that they’ll go bankrupt. Because, after an election, they can use campaign funds to pay themselves back.

This ruling can help folks who want to run for public office but had previously avoided out of concerns for their livelihood.

The Impact Of The Leak

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On Saturday, NewsMax posted an article featuring Justice Clarence Thomas’ comments about the leak of the Supreme Court draft of the abortion decision. Notice that somehow the leaker has not yet been identified.

The article reports:

Justice Clarence Thomas says the Supreme Court has been changed by the shocking leak of a draft opinion earlier this month. The opinion suggests the court is poised to overturn the right to an abortion recognized nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade.

The conservative Thomas, who joined the court in 1991 and has long called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, described the leak as an unthinkable breach of trust.

“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it,” he said while speaking at a conference Friday evening in Dallas.

…Thomas, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush, said it was beyond “anyone’s imagination” before the May 2 leak of the opinion to Politico that even a line of a draft opinion would be released in advance, much less an entire draft that runs nearly 100 pages. Politico has also reported that in addition to Thomas, conservative justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett had voted with the draft opinion’s author, Samuel Alito, to overrule Roe v. Wade and a 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that affirmed Roe’s finding of a constitutional right to abortion.

Thomas said that previously, “if someone said that one line of one opinion” would be leaked, the response would have been: “Oh, that’s impossible. No one would ever do that.”

“Now that trust or that belief is gone forever,” Thomas said at the Old Parkland Conference, which describes itself as a conference “to discuss alternative proven approaches to tackling the challenges facing Black Americans today.”

There is a need for confidentiality in Supreme Court negotiations and drafts. Justices need to be free to offer opinions, popular or unpopular, to reach a consensus on a decision. Knowing that drafts or notes from these deliberations are subject to being leaked could seriously impact the debates needed to rule on an issue. It bothers me that no one has yet been held responsible for the leak (only a small number of people had access to the draft), and the news reports do not see to be interested in finding out who the leaker is. This leak needs to be dealt with quickly and strongly in order to prevent future leaks.

Not Everyone Wants Roe v. Wade To Stay In Place

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One of the things that seems to be getting lost in the debate over Roe v. Wade is what the consequences of overturning the law would be. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not make abortion illegal in America. Overturning Roe v. Wade will allow every state to set its own abortion guidelines. It may be that abortion may be illegal in some states, but American women will still have access to abortion. It may not be as convenient, and possibly that will cause women to rethink their options. Also, overturning Roe v. Wade will have a negative impact on the campaign coffers of most Democrats. That may be the reason this fight has gotten so nasty. Some of the Democrats in Congress want abortion up until birth to be legal in every state. Attempting to get a law passed to codify that did not go well.

On Wednesday, Townhall reported the following:

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has repeatedly shown his ineptitude when it comes to leading Democrats in the upper chamber, and he did so again in spectacular fashion on Wednesday afternoon. In what he seems to think was a grand gesture to prove his party’s commitment to a woman’s (birthing person’s?) right to kill her unborn child only put Democrats on the record supporting a bill that’s more radical than Roe ever was.

After the unprecedented leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion signaling that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, Schumer jumped into action and called for the passage of a bill to supposedly “codify” Roe in federal law. But he once again failed to do the math among his own caucus or the Senate as a whole before holding what became nothing but a failed show vote to prove Democrats support radical abortion rights that go beyond what even most pro-abortion Americans support.

The vote to break a Republican filibuster and move to the final vote on the “Women’s Health Protection Act” came down 51-49, with every Democrat but one voting to move ahead — Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia joined all the Republicans to block the legislation from moving forward.

The article details the Senate bill:

In summary, the Democratic bill would make elective abortions legal across the entire country for all nine months of pregnancy (with “mental health” loopholes eliminating any real limitations), eliminating virtually all existing state-level restrictions (including lopsidedly popular ones), gutting conscience protections for healthcare workers who don’t want to participate in abortions, allowing non-doctors to facilitate the abortions, and likely forcing taxpayers to finance all of it.  Short of endorsing post-birth infanticide or instituting CCP-style compulsory abortions, it’s hard to imagine a more extreme piece of legislation on this issue.  Dressing this up as “codifying Roe” is astoundingly dishonest, yet it’s mindlessly — or perhaps not so mindlessly — repeated by journalists, ad nauseam.

I suspect Senator Schumer knew that the bill would fail. What the bill probably did was energize that small fringe of the Democrat party that supports unlimited abortion. I will admit that I have a hard time understanding why some people are fighting so hard for the right to kill a baby.

The Leak

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On Monday, Politico reported that they have obtained an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that strikes down Roe v. Wade. This is an unprecedented leak.

Here is what we actually know:

1. The draft is from February–it is a draft–not a final decision. Votes could change.

2. Whoever leaked this will be disbarred. If it is a Republican, the person will have a lifelong problem finding a job in the legal profession. If it is a Democrat, the person will be promised a lucrative career somewhere in Democrat politics.

3. This is a first. Up until now, everyone who worked in the Supreme Court bureaucracy respected the institution enough not to leak.

Here is my speculation:

1. This was leaked to energize the Democrat base for the mid-term elections–it is a desperate move.

2. Within days, Congress will move to pack the Court in an effort to intimidate the Justices and change the decision indicated in the draft.

Yesterday, Breitbart reported the following:

Turley (Jonathan Turley, criminal defense attorney and Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University) noted that if Politico indeed obtained a true copy of the drafted opinion, “it is hard not to view this as a malicious act.”

“What is the motivation of releasing such a decision? The only intent of such a leak is to trigger a response from outside of the Court,” he continued. “…This draft is from February and the majority can shift on such opinions. However, the act of leaking such a draft opinion ranks as an original sin for judicial ethics.”

He surmised the leak could be an effort to “pressure the Court and push the legislation in Congress on a federal abortion law before the midterm elections. It will also likely renew the call for court packing.”

This will get heated, but the lives of Americas future generations are on the line.

Why Primary Elections Matter

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On Thursday, Townhall reported that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been confirmed as the 116th Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Three Republicans voted in favor of her confirmation–Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah. All of the Democrats voted in favor of her confirmation.

The article reports:

Just before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the occasion “a wonderful day, a joyous day, an inspiring day for the Senate, for the Supreme Court and for the United States of America.”

One of the narrowest Supreme Court confirmation votes in history, the final step in Judge Jackson’s path to a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the United States follows a much less chaotic set of hearings than Democrats and their leftist activists made Trump’s appointees go through. There were no disruptions inside the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing room as senators questioned Judge Jackson, no baseless accusations of sexual misconduct in anyone’s past, no demands for additional investigations, no public criticism of family members, and no Michael Avenatti-type characters. 

Instead, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee engaged in respectful but tough questioning that sought to elicit information about Judge Jackson’s judicial philosophy. None was provided. 

Concerns about Judge Jackson’s stated belief that Critical Race Theory should “meld” with the Constitution to determine judicial decisions were brushed aside as obscure conspiracy theories. 

Choosing someone for a responsible position based on anything other than outstanding qualifications is foolish. I suspect Justice Jackson will make her presence felt on the Supreme Court fairly quickly. When we see criminals favored over victims and laws that have nothing to do with race declared as ‘racist,’ we will begin to understand the damage that has been done.

Hopefully all three of the Republicans who voted for confirmation will face a primary opponent the next time they are up for reelection.