Statements from Supreme Court justices on the death of Justice Ginsburg (updated) The eight members of the Supreme Court, along with retired Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, released statements on Saturday addressing the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The full text of their remarks is below the jump: Continue reading »

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, feminist pioneer and progressive icon, dies at 87 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a trailblazer who fought for gender equality as a lawyer and became a beloved hero of the progressive movement as a justice, died on Friday of complications from pancreatic cancer. When she was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1993, Ginsburg was a reserved and relatively unknown court of appeals judge, but during the course of her 27 years on the court she became an improbable pop-culture icon, inspiring everything from an Oscar-nominated documentary film to her own action figure. She was 87. With the presidential election less than two months away, Ginsburg’s death will undoubtedly kick off a heated battle over how quickly the vacancy should be filled. After Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, Senate Republicans immediately announced that they intended to oppose any effort to confirm a successor to Scalia until after the 2016 presidential election. Although President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland in March 2016 to take Scalia’s place, Garland’s nomination went nowhere, and Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit nominated by President Donald Trump, was confirmed in April 2017 to fill the vacancy created by Scalia’s death. Even before Ginsburg announced her most recent bouts with cancer this summer, McConnell had already made clear last year that, if a vacancy occurred on the court in 2020, he intended to fill it. At her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Ginsburg told the Senate Judiciary Committee that her life story “could happen only in America.” Born Joan Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933, she was quickly nicknamed “Kiki” by her older sister Marilyn, who died in 1934 of meningitis at the age of six. The Baders lived in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Neither of her parents attended college: Her father, Nathan, came to the United States from Russia as a teenager and worked as a furrier; her mother, Celia Amster Bader, was born a few months after her parents arrived in the country from Austria and worked in a garment factory to put her brother through college. Ginsburg later said that her mother “made reading a delight and counseled me constantly to ‘be independent,’ able to fend for myself.” The Baders were Jewish, and Ginsburg recalled, as a child, seeing a sign in front of a Pennsylvania resort that said “No dogs or Jews allowed.” Continue reading »

Petitions of the week: A pair of cases on Trump and the emoluments clauses This week we highlight two new cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to decide whether business competitors of the Trump International Hotel have the right to sue the president under the Constitution’s emoluments clauses. Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Trump v. District of Columbia involve challenges to President Donald Trump’s ownership interest through the Trump Organization in various properties and restaurants in New York and Washington, including the Trump Hotel. Originally filed in 2017, the lawsuits allege that Trump is violating the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses, which prohibit the president from receiving funds or other benefits from foreign or state governments or officials. In the first case, the challengers own, operate or work for hospitality companies, hotels or restaurants in New York or Washington. They argue that their businesses have suffered because foreign and domestic governmental customers have patronized Trump’s interests. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected the president’s attempt to dismiss the case. His petition asks the Supreme Court to decide whether business competitors have a legal right to sue to enforce the emoluments clauses. In the second case, Maryland and the District of Columbia assert an interest in protecting businesses within their jurisdiction that compete with the Trump Hotel, among other arguments. After a district court rejected the president’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, Trump asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to reverse that decision through a legal mechanism called a writ of mandamus, which is essentially an order from a higher court commanding a lower court to correct a clear error. The 4th Circuit declined. The president’s petition asks the justices to decide whether a writ of mandamus is appropriate. There are now three cert petitions pending at the Supreme Court involving challenges to Trump’s business activities under the emoluments clauses. The third case – Blumenthal v. Trump, which we featured in July – was brought by Democratic lawmakers. These and other petitions of the week are below the jump: Continue reading »

Friday round-up Two Supreme Court justices made public appearances on Thursday — if only virtually — and a third received a lifetime achievement award as the legal academy celebrated Constitution Day. The National Constitution Center awarded its 32nd annual Liberty Medal to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and, in lieu of an in-person ceremony, the center invited Ginsburg’s favorite opera singers and friends to pay tribute to her lifelong work in the law. Justices Stephen Breyer and Neil Gorsuch, meanwhile, participated in virtual discussions about the Constitution and the court. SCOTUSblog’s Katie Barlow reports that Breyer called for greater civic participation, and SCOTUSblog’s Kal Golde writes that Gorsuch praised Ginsburg for the many sacrifices she has made. Additional coverage of the Breyer and Gorsuch appearances comes from Jessica Gresko and Mark Sherman of the Associated Press. They report that, according to Breyer, the reason the court is holding audio-only arguments during the coronavirus pandemic is that the justices are “concerned about security, particularly potential disruptions from the outside, including hackers.” And Mark Walsh of Education Week reports that Gorsuch, while urging K-12 students to study the Constitution, expressed his concern that “60 percent of people fail our citizenship test” and “only about a third can identify three branches of government.” We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!

Gorsuch, speaking to students on Constitution Day, honors Ginsburg Justice Neil Gorsuch praised Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s four decades of service as a judge, telling schoolchildren across America on Thursday to “think about the sacrifices she’s made on our behalf. We owe her a very great deal.” Gorsuch’s comments came during a “Virtual Student Town Hall” hosted by the National Constitution Center. The event, streamed by classrooms in schools around the country, was part of a long line of festivities by the center to celebrate Constitution Day. The day’s events will conclude with a musical performance to commemorate Ginsburg’s receipt of the center’s 32nd annual Liberty Medal. Continue reading »

Breyer’s Constitution Day message: Participate Justice Stephen Breyer kicked off Constitution Day on Thursday morning by urging law students to fulfill the Constitution’s promise through civic participation. Breyer sat down with George Washington University Law School students via Facebook Live in a discussion moderated by GW Law Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew and Associate Dean Alan Morrison. Just one day after the Supreme Court announced it would hold October oral arguments remotely, Breyer said that a “plus” of the new system is that it encourages everyone to listen more closely. The “minus” of the new way of doings things, he said, is that the justices do not get the opportunity to have much dialogue — a predictable downside for the justice known for multi-part questions that often invite a back-and-forth with advocates. Continue reading »

Event announcement: ACS Supreme Court Preview On Thursday, Sept. 24, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, the American Constitution Society will host a virtual preview of major cases set for argument during the 2020-21 Supreme Court term, including a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a dispute over whether religious organizations should be exempt from a city’s nondiscrimination policy, and the House’s efforts to obtain secret grand-jury materials from the Mueller report. After a welcome from ACS President Russ Feingold, Kimberly Atkins of the Boston Globe will moderate a discussion among law professors Katherine Franke of Columbia and Abbe Gluck of Yale, as well as practitioners Elbert Lin of Hunton Andrews Kurth, Jeannie Rhee of Paul Weiss and the Campaign Legal Center’s Paul Smith. Click here for more info and to register.

Thursday round-up The Supreme Court on Wednesday released two pieces of new information about oral arguments for its upcoming 2020-21 term. The court said that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it will hear arguments by telephone at least through its October sitting while releasing an audio livestream, as it did in May. The court also released its argument calendar for its December sitting (the court’s October and November argument calendars were released previously). Amy Howe (in stories that first appeared at Howe on the Court) covers both the announcement about telephone arguments and the December argument calendar. Continue reading »

Justices release December calendar The Supreme Court on Wednesday released the calendar for the December argument session, which will include the clash between the Department of Justice and the House Judiciary Committee over the committee’s efforts to obtain secret materials from the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Over six days between Nov. 30 and Dec. 9, the court will hear 10 hours of oral argument in 12 cases. The justices will hear Department of Justice v. House Committee on the Judiciary on Dec. 2; one week later, they will hear oral argument in a high-stakes dispute arising out of the government’s rescue of mortgage-finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after the 2008 financial crisis. The cases scheduled for argument during the December session are below the jump: Continue reading »

Justices to hear October arguments by phone The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it will start its new term in October by hearing oral arguments the same way that it did at the end of its previous term: remotely, with the justices and lawyers participating by telephone as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Members of the public will once again be able to listen to oral arguments live, through a feed provided by the court to the media and then made available by the media to the public. The announcement by the court’s Public Information Office came less than three weeks before the court’s October argument session is scheduled to begin. All of the cases slated for oral argument were originally on the court’s calendar in March or April of this year, but the justices canceled arguments in those months because of the pandemic. The justices then rescheduled some of the March and April cases for May, hearing oral arguments by telephone and providing live audio for the first time, but they pushed the remaining 10 cases back to the fall. Continue reading »

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