Tag: Chief Justice John Roberts
The Court Is Likely to Reject the Independent State Legislature Theory
It is often difficult, if not impossible, to tell what the Supreme Court is thinking about a case from the questions the justices ask counsel. But the argument in Moore v. Harper, heard by the Court in early December, was different. By the end, it was clear the Supreme Court has no appetite for the independent state legislature theory—and that offers hope for the future of America’s democracy.
The theory—that state legislatures have the unreviewable power to set
A Court Without Precedent – The Atlantic
Just a few years ago, a clear majority of Americans trusted the Supreme Court. Now, a month after Roe v. Wade was overturned, poll after poll shows that a clear majority of Americans do not.
To which many of the Court’s closest observers would say, “What took so long?”
For more than a decade, the Court has issued narrow rulings, decided by slim majorities, that align with Republican political goals. Five Justices unleashed dark money in politics. They gutted the
The Supreme Court Is Kicking God Back Into School
Religious conservatives have been fighting for years to get prayer back into America’s schools, and this year, the Supreme Court gave them what they wanted. In Kennedy v. Bremerton, the six conservative justices affirmed a coach’s right to offer a prayer after a football game.
But what is really astonishing is that this decision will over time prove to be less monumental than the Court’s other big religion decision this term. In Maine’s Carson v. Makin, the Court
The Numbers Are All Wrong in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta
This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, a case that is seeking to limit the scope of a decision the Court made less than two years ago. In July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that Congress never annulled the Muscogee Nation reservation. After the McGirt ruling, an additional five reservations in the state were affirmed by lower courts—meaning that more than 40 percent of Oklahoma is now legally Indian
The Supreme Court Is on a Doomed Crusade
The Supreme Court has set itself on a collision course with the forces of change in an inexorably diversifying America.
The six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have been nominated and confirmed by GOP presidents and senators representing the voters least exposed, and often most hostile, to the demographic and cultural changes remaking 21st-century American life. Now the GOP Court majority is moving at an accelerating pace to impose that coalition’s preferences on issues such as abortion, voting rights, and
The Supreme Court Is Gutting Voting Rights by Shadow Docket
The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court continues its run of nullifying constitutional rights by shadow docket, while insisting that it is doing no such thing.
On Monday, the Court blocked a ruling—written by a panel of three federal judges, two of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump—that found that Alabama had violated the Voting Rights Act when it drew a congressional map with one majority-Black district out of seven rather than two, in a state where Black people
The Supreme Court Loses Its Chief Pragmatist
Last spring, during an online civics class I teach at the National Constitution Center for high-school students, I asked Justice Stephen Breyer about the values of compromise, consensus, and intellectual humility that he has championed throughout his career, as a Senate staffer for Ted Kennedy, an appellate judge, and a Supreme Court justice.
“I saw Senator Kennedy do this all the time,” replied Breyer, who announced his retirement from the Supreme Court today. “He was a Democrat—Republicans disagreed with him
How Manchin and Sinema Completed a Conservative Vision
The decision by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to block their fellow Democrats from passing new federal voting-rights legislation clears the path for years of tightening ballot restrictions in Republican-controlled states. It also marks a resounding triumph for Chief Justice John Roberts in his four-decade quest to roll back the federal government’s role in protecting voter rights.
Roberts as much as anyone set in motion the events that have led to this week’s climactic Senate confrontation over voting legislation.
Defending Democracy Is No Longer Popular Within the GOP
The next few weeks will likely answer the most crucial question that emerged from last year’s insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump: Can one political party defend American democracy on its own?
In the days after the January 6 attack, it appeared possible that many Republicans would join Democrats in a cross-party coalition to defend democracy against the autocratic threat. But instead, Trump has consolidated his control over the GOP, led a movement to purge Republican elected officials who
The Judge Who Told the Truth About the Mississippi Abortion Ban
Of all the arguments that animate the anti-abortion cause, two stand out as particularly far-fetched: that banning abortion protects women’s health and shields African Americans from genocide. Yet for years, these arguments have driven debates over state laws, served as justifications for court decisions upholding those laws, and even appeared on billboards warning women in predominantly Black communities not to kill their babies. Three years ago, Mississippi lawmakers prohibited almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy to save