This article is part of a symposium previewing Trump v. New York.
Jennifer Nou is a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School.
The census saga continues. This time, however, the Trump administration is more truthful about its motivations. It wants to count immigrants who are in the country without authorization, not — it turns out — to enforce the Voting Rights Act, but rather to influence the reapportionment of legislative seats. Specifically, the government has issued a presidential memorandum to exclude these immigrants from the apportionment base, the state population counts used for reallocation. The case now before the Supreme Court raises important jurisdictional, statutory and constitutional arguments against the memorandum. By focusing only on the statutory claims, I will argue for an interpretation that subjects census-related policy decisions to more robust administrative process. Doing so, I hope, will help mitigate the extent to which the census is a means of political entrenchment. Continue reading »
SCOTUSblog and Goldstein & Russell, P.C. are seeking to hire a full-time employee to serve as firm manager for Goldstein & Russell, P.C., and deputy manager of SCOTUSblog. The position is based in Bethesda, Maryland, and requires occasional in-person work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading »
This article is part of a symposium previewing Trump v. New York.
John S. Baker Jr. is professor emeritus at the Louisiana State University Law Center. He filed an amicus brief in support of the federal government.
At next week’s oral argument in Trump v. New York, the justices should ask the government why it hasn’t excluded all foreign nationals from the congressional apportionment calculation, whether they are in the country legally or illegally.
The Trump administration is right to exclude people in the country illegally from apportionment. But it should also exclude all other foreign nationals, such as foreign students studying on student visas. No foreign national qualifies as “an inhabitant,” as that term was understood at the Founding. The Supreme Court in Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992) agreed that only “inhabitants” count for apportionment. Continue reading »
This article is the first entry in a symposium previewing Trump v. New York.
Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election and is scheduled to be sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2021. Ten days before Biden’s inauguration, President Donald Trump is scheduled to send a report to Congress that contains the number of people living in each state and indicates how many seats in the House of Representatives to which each state is entitled. On Monday, Nov. 30, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. New York, a challenge to the Trump administration’s plan to exclude people who are in the country illegally from the state-by-state breakdown used to allocate seats in the House.
If the court upholds the plan and the administration is able to implement it before leaving office, the new method of apportioning House seats could shift political power away from states with large immigrant populations and toward states with fewer immigrants. Continue reading »
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What is the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket”? John Elwood, head of Arnold & Porter’s appellate and Supreme Court Practice, sits down with SCOTUStalk host Amy Howe to explain the often opaque work that happens outside of the court’s regular roster of argued cases. For much more on the shadow docket and its increasing importance, check out SCOTUSblog’s recent symposium on how this group of cases has shaped issues such as voting procedures, coronavirus responses, capital punishment and more.
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After adding two new cases to their merits docket for the current term on Friday, the justices did not grant any new petitions for review in an order list released on Monday morning.
The justices declined to hear the case of Calvin McMillan, who is one of 32 people on death row in Alabama sentenced to death by a judge after the jury voted for life in prison. McMillan had argued that his execution would violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment because he was sentenced by “judicial override.”
The justices also turned down a challenge by retail giant Walmart to a Texas law that bars public corporations from obtaining a license to own a retail liquor store. Walmart argued that the law violates the Constitution’s commerce clause by discriminating against out-of-state businesses. Continue reading »
After agreeing Friday to review two new cases — both involving the scope of police officers’ search-and-seizure authority — the Supreme Court will begin Thanksgiving week by releasing additional orders from its Friday conference. Among the issues pending on the court’s docket this week is a pair of emergency requests from religious organizations seeking to stop New York from enforcing restrictions on large gatherings at religious congregations. New York responded to the requests last week by telling the justices they should not get involved in the dispute. Continue reading »
On Monday, the court released additional orders from the Nov. 20 conference. The justices did not add any new cases to their merits docket.
On Thursday, the court will be closed for Thanksgiving.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the Supreme Court on Friday to stay out of the state’s battle with two Orthodox Jewish synagogues in New York City over an executive order that limits attendance at houses of worship as part of an effort to combat the coronavirus. Cuomo told the justices that because of “continued progress in containing COVID-19 spread,” the restrictions that the synagogues asked the court to block no longer apply to them.
Cuomo, a Democrat, issued the order at the heart of the dispute in October. The purpose of the order and the initiative that the order implemented, Cuomo explained in Friday’s filing, is to identify clusters of COVID-19 cases, to take “short-term aggressive measures” in and around the areas where those clusters are located to prevent the virus from spreading, and then to monitor the cases to determine how to proceed from there. When a cluster is identified, the area immediately around the cluster is known as a “red” zone; the area around the red zone is known as an “orange” zone, and the area around the orange zone is known as a “yellow” zone. Attendance at worship services is limited to 10 people at religious institutions in the red zone and 25 people in the orange zone. Attendance in the yellow zone is limited to 50% of the building’s maximum occupancy. Continue reading »
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