Breaking News

Afternoon round-up

At 9 p.m., President Donald Trump is expected to announce his nominee for the Supreme Court. Kimberly Atkins of Boston Herald reports on the “last-minute jockeying by lawmakers and other political stakeholders [that] played right into the reality show-like gamesmanship surrounding President Trump’s choice for Supreme Court nominee”; around 4 p.m. this afternoon, Catherine Lucey of Associated Press reported that Trump had “decided on his Supreme Court nominee.”

Whomever Trump selects could set the court “on a new trajectory and deliver decisions to which conservatives have been looking forward for generations,” Bradford Richardson reports for The Washington Times. “The White House expects to immediately hit the ground running once Trump makes his 9 p.m. announcement on Monday, a time he selected for maximum TV exposure as anticipation grows around the pick,” Christopher Cadelago reports for Politico.

Yvonne Abraham addresses Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, in an op-ed for Boston Globe, calling this “only the moment that might define your entire career” and urging her “to protect us from whoever does get the nod” from overturning Roe v. Wade, if confirmed. At The National Law Journal, Leon Friedman contends that even if the nominee is confirmed, “that doesn’t mean progressives are powerless against such rollbacks” to abortion rights, LGBT rights and affirmative action.

J.J. McCullough of National Review argues that a “more rightward Supreme Court will yield many good things, yet political enthusiasm for outcomes should not supersede all other concerns. Supreme Court reform remains a worthy cause because it will help rein in an institution prone by design to imperial overreach.” Ezra Klein of Vox also writes about the need for reform, reasoning that the “Supreme Court has always been undemocratic. What it’s becoming is something more dangerous: anti-democratic.”

Constitution Daily marks the 150th anniversary of the 14th Amendment’s ratification by looking “at 10 historic Supreme Court cases about due process and equal protection under the law.” At Take Care, David Gans writes that the “legacy of this Amendment, its purpose, and its continuing, urgent relevance show exactly how high the stakes for this nominee and the future of the Supreme Court.” At Politico, Sherrilyn Ifill contends that in this anniversary year, “anyone whose record does not show a demonstrated commitment to the Constitution’s core guarantees of equality and liberty for all should be soundly defeated.”

At Appellate Advocacy Blog, Kent Streseman starts a series of posts on “judicial undoing: the circumstances, process, and advocacy of overruling” precedent. For Reason, Jonathan H. Adler presents data suggesting that the “stark departure from stare decisis seen this past June was something of a departure for the Roberts Court — at least as we have come to know it thus far. Under Chief Justice Roberts, the Court has largely maintained the status quo.”

At ImmigrationProf Blog, Kevin Johnson looks at Justice Anthony Kennedy’s immigration legacy. In an op-ed for The Hill, Bridget C.E. Dooling looks more closely at Kennedy’s concurrence in Pereira v. Sessions, a recent case involving procedures for removal proceedings for nonpermanent residents, in which, she argues, Kennedy “took a broad and aggressive swipe at a doctrine at the core of how our government works.”

Briefly:

  • At Verdict, Celestine McConville analyses the court’s decision this June in Trump v. Hawaii, which rejected a challenge to the Trump administration’s September 2017 proclamation restricting entry into the United States by nationals of eight countries; she writes that “[t]o support its Establishment Clause analysis, the Court relied on core equal protection precedent and, in the process, seems to have announced a new equal protection rule regarding when the presence of government animus will invalidate government action.”

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Recommended Citation: Andrew Hamm, Afternoon round-up, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 9, 2018, 7:38 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/afternoon-round-up-4/