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US Supreme Court

New Documents Undermine Supreme Court Student Debt Case

May 9, 2023 Julia Rock, The Lever. , , ,
Newly unearthed documents show a major student loan servicer is projecting revenue increases even under President Joe Biden’s debt cancellation plan — directly undermining the argument Republican officials are making in their lawsuit to block the measure. But conservative justices on the Supreme Court appear prepared to strike down the debt relief program anyways, disregarding the evidence and their own legal theories to fulfill the wishes of the dark money network that helped build their Supreme Court supermajority. At issue is the concept of “standing” — a legal term for who is allowed to bring a case to the judiciary. For years, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has consistently shut down cases they don’t like by insisting that plaintiffs are unharmed and therefore do not have standing to be in court.

Supreme Court Denies Big Oil Push To Move Lawsuits Away From States

April 27, 2023 Climate Nexus, Ecowatch. , , ,
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday effectively rejected appeals by multiple oil and gas companies to have cases brought against them heard in federal court. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals from Exxon Mobil, Suncor Energy, and Chevron, leaving lower court rulings that the cases brought against them by Rhode Island and counties and municipalities in Maryland, Colorado, California and Hawaii should be heard in the state courts in which they were filed. States and municipalities are seeking to hold fossil fuel firms accountable for deceiving the public about the climate-heating effects of their product, and the harm caused by those impacts, and the fossil fuel defendants believe they have a better chance of winning if they can get the cases heard in federal court.

Legalization For All Network Condemns Anti-Immigrant Supreme Court Ruling

December 31, 2022 Fight Back News. , , ,
The Legalization for All Network condemns the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on December 27 to force the government to keep the terrible Trump-era ‘Title 42’ policy in place that closed the US-México border to asylum-seekers.  Trump invoked Title 42 more than two years ago, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to close the border to asylum-seekers attempting to present themselves at the US-México border to request asylum. It is a right under international law to request asylum and have that request considered. That has not happened at the US-México border since Title 42 was imposed. Trump’s implementation of Title 42 at the US-México border has unjustly and indefinitely trapped desperate people in makeshift camps, parks and shelters on the México side of the border.

The Racism Of The Supreme Court’s Supermajority Was On Full Display

November 4, 2022 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , ,
During more than five hours of oral arguments in two cases that will probably spell the death of affirmative action in colleges and universities, the racism of the six right-wingers on the Supreme Court was on full display. It appears the court will overrule existing precedent that permits limited affirmative action. The court ruled in the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger that the 14th Amendment allows public universities to consider race as one factor in a “holistic” admissions process in order to assemble a diverse student body. “Numerous studies show that student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and ‘better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society, and better prepares them as professionals,’” the court explained.

Lawyers Speak Out On Supreme Court: ‘This Is A Revelation Of The Future’

July 4, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
The recent US Supreme Court rulings set legal precedents that will further erode human and civil rights and empower corporations as well as open the door for more cases that will advance Christian and capitalist ideologies. Clearing the FOG speaks with two legal experts, Shahid Buttar and Marjorie Cohn, about the specifics of the recent decisions on abortion, gun rights, school prayer, and the EPA and how they fit into the bigger picture. They also provide guidance on what we need to do to stop growing fascism in the United States.

Wynn Alan Bruce: Climate Activist Dies After Setting Himself On Fire

April 25, 2022 Bevan Hurley, The Independent. , , ,
A climate activist has died 24 hours after setting himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court on Earth Day. Colorado photojournalist Wynn Alan Bruce, 50, suffered critical injuries in the incident at 6.30pm Friday on a plaza in front of the court. He was airlifted to hospital, where he died Saturday. Capitol Police, Supreme Court police, and DC police all responded to the incident. “A medical helicopter just landed near the Capitol for a medical emergency. This is not a public safety issue,” Capitol Police tweeted. Mr Bruce ran a portrait photo studio in Boulder, and his social media account was filled with posts about the environment and Buddhism. He also left a cryptic post on his Facebook page with a fire emoji and the date of his death 4/22/2022.

Texas, Big Oil Target Indian Children In Bid To End Tribal Sovereignty

September 22, 2021 Sarah Rose Harper and Jesse Phelps, Lakota People's Law Project. , , ,
If the Supreme Court overturns the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — a federal law that keeps Native children with Native families — tribal sovereignty could soon be a thing of the past in the U.S. Should the Supreme Court rule in the plaintiffs’ favor in the case of Brackeen v. Haaland, we could quickly see a return to blatant, pre-1978 genocidal practices — when Native babies were legally stripped of their families, culture, and identities. It’s critical that every one of us take immediate action. Before you do anything else today, sign our petition telling President Biden and the Department of Justice to defend ICWA, Secretary Haaland, and tribal sovereignty with every available means. In this landmark case, the Brackeens — the white, adoptive parents of a Diné child in Texas — seek to overturn ICWA by claiming reverse racism.

Supreme Court Allows Evictions To Resume During Pandemic

August 27, 2021 Mark Sherman, Associated Press. , , ,
Washington — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is allowing evictions to resume across the United States, blocking the Biden administration from enforcing a temporary ban that was put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. The court’s action late Thursday ends protections for roughly 3.5 million people in the United States who said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to Census Bureau data from early August. The court said in an unsigned opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reimposed the moratorium Aug. 3, lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization. The justices rejected the administration’s arguments in support of the CDC’s authority.

Supreme Court Allows Gavin Grimm’s Victory To Stand

June 28, 2021 ACLU. , , ,
Washington — The Supreme Court today declined to hear Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, allowing lower court decisions in support of transgender students to stand. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit have both ruled that the school board violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause by prohibiting Grimm from using the same restrooms as other boys and forcing him to use separate restrooms. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear Grimm’s case at an earlier stage of the litigation in 2017, but the case was sent back to the lower courts after the Trump administration withdrew the government’s support for Grimm’s claims.

Revealing The Pentagon Papers In Congress: A Pyrrhic Victory

June 26, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
I propped myself up on an elbow as the announcer read the news: The Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, against Nixon. The government’s unprecedented move to stop the presses had failed. The Court agreed with two lower courts that the attempt to impose prior restraint on the press was unconstitutional. The ruling turned out to be more complex than at first glance, but it was an unequivocal call for Constitutional constraint on an out-of-control control executive. The Court challenged the executive’s misuse of “national security” as a mantra to undermine the Bill of Rights and accrue quasi-dictatorial powers. Writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black boldly took on Nixon’s nonsense: “To find that the President has ‘inherent power’ to halt the publication of news by resort to the courts would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make ‘secure.’

US Supreme Court Rejects Case On Native American Sovereignty

June 15, 2021 Charmaine White Face, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Rapid City, South Dakota - In a devastating blow to the Self-Determination of all Native American Indian Tribes in the United States, the Supreme Court denied the Petition in the case, Gilbert v. Weahke. In doing so, the Justices also violated Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, the Indian Self-Determination Act, the Lanham Act, the Transfer Act, and the Abstention Doctrine. The case began when a federal agency, the Indian Health Service (IHS), gave an Indian Self-Determination Act multi-million dollar contract to a South Dakota non-profit corporation to manage the Sioux San IHS Hospital in Rapid City, SD. As the South Dakota non-profit corporation was not a Tribal Organization under the jurisdiction of any tribe and without federal recognition, this was a violation of Public Law 93-638, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA).

Supreme Court Case On Farmworker Protections Could Harm All Regulation

March 24, 2021 Sam Knight, Truthout. , , ,
The legacy of Cesar Chavez has been getting another look in recent months. In January, President Joe Biden placed a bust of the 20th-century labor leader in the Oval Office, giving journalists the opportunity to reexamine how Chavez fought for farmworkers, while commentators on social media noted that Chavez’s treatment of undocumented immigrants, at certain points during his life, complicates his image as a tireless champion of migrant laborers. But a sinister reexamination of Chavez’s legacy is also happening. A California labor regulation that resulted from his campaigning is under threat from the Supreme Court at the urging of dark money-funded right-wing think tanks.

Could Baltimore’s Climate Change Suit Become A Supreme Court Test Case?

January 20, 2021 David Hasemyer, Inside Climate News. , , ,
What began as a narrow jurisdictional question to be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a climate change lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore could take on far greater implications if the high court agrees with major oil companies to expand its purview and consider whether federal, rather than state courts, are the appropriate venue for the city’s case and possibly a host of similar lawsuits.  The high court initially agreed to hear a request by the oil and gas industry to review a ruling by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which the court affirmed a federal district judge’s decision to allow Baltimore’s lawsuit to be tried in state, rather than federal, court based on a single jurisdiction rule.  

Will The Supreme Court Overrule Farmworker Union Rights?

December 4, 2020 David Bacon, Labor Notes. , , ,
Not long before Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit against California’s farmworker access rule in federal court on behalf of two companies—Cedar Point Nursery in Siskiyou County and the Fowler Packing Company in Fresno. The foundation is a conservative libertarian group that holds property rights sacred and campaigns against racial equity. It fought hard for the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the high court. The access regulation, which took effect after the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, allows union organizers to come onto a grower’s property in the morning before work to talk with workers.

Health Care For Millions On The Line

November 14, 2020 Hajira Hasghar, Liberation News. , , ,
Oral arguments began in the case California v. Texas this week, just days after the confirmation of Trump-appointed justice Amy Coney Barrett. For the third time in the past 10 years, Republicans have launched yet another legal attack at the Supreme Court in an attempt to eliminate healthcare coverage for millions. Republicans hope to use the new 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court to deal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a final blow.  In 2010, former President Obama introduced what would become his signature legislation under the name of the Affordable Care Act, known commonly as Obamacare.
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