Judiciary
May 20, 2023 — John Hinderaker
It wouldn’t be if it were imposed by a private party, although there might be other problems with it. But can a government entity require its employees to assent to a series of political propositions, and to take what is effectively a loyalty oath? I don’t think so. That’s why my organization has moved to participate in the case of Henderson v. Springfield R-12 School District, now on appeal in
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May 2, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Democrats are attacking the independence of the Supreme Court, for obvious reasons: for once, they don’t control it. The attack is multi-faceted, but “ethics” is the most common excuse. They attacked Justice Thomas, whom they hate, for going on vacations with a rich conservative friend, Harlan Crow. It is obvious that Thomas committed no ethics violation, and the Wall St. Journal’s Editorial Board points out the Left’s usual double
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March 23, 2023 — Steven Hayward
If you look up “courtly southern gentleman” in a dictionary, you just might find a picture of Louisiana Senator John Kennedy (a former Democrat, by the way). He’s rapidly becoming my favorite senator in committee hearings, for his polite questions and unrancorous demeanor with Biden nominees that expose their ignorance or ideological bias. He’s bit like detective Columbo; he lets the nominees hang themselves with their own words. This week
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March 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The First Amendment is under unprecedented attack, as the Democratic Party has weaponized one federal and state agency after another to go after its opponents. An important instance of this phenomenon is the effort by Democratic banking regulators to deprive disfavored organizations of access to our financial system. The issue is raised in NRA v. Vullo (the link goes to Eugene Volokh’s discussion of the case). The facts underlying the
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January 27, 2023 — John Hinderaker
On Wednesday, a group of Biden nominees to district court judgeships came before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator John Kennedy asked one of the nominees, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, some basic questions about the Constitution. Her inability to answer them has gotten a lot of attention: To be fair, constitutional questions rarely come before a state court trial judge. And, like Judge Bjelkengren, I am not familiar
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October 6, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho has a modest proposal to resist the cancel culture of legal education. Commencing with next year’s incoming class at Yale Law School, he is adopting a Yale boycott. He declines to hire YLS graduates as law clerks. I drew on the text of his keynote speech to the Federalist Society Kentucky Chapters Conference to flesh it out here. Toward the end of his talk Judge
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October 3, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Two weeks ago Judge Laurence Silberman traveled to Hanover, New Hampshire, to meet up with classmates celebrating their sixty-fifth reunion at Dartmouth College. While in town Judge Silberman gave a Constitution Day talk defending free speech under the auspices of the college’s Rockefeller Center. We posted a link to the text published by the Wall Street Journal and the related video of the event over the weekend in “Bravo, Judge
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September 30, 2022 — Scott Johnson
NRO’s Nate Hochman obtained a copy of Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho’s keynote address to the Kentucky Chapters Conference of the Federalist Society and reports on it in “Federal Judge Vows to Stop Hiring Law Clerks from Yale Law School.” Judge Ho’s address — “Agreeing to Disagree — Restoring America by Resisting Cancel Culture” — cited a number of high-profile examples of speakers being shouted down or otherwise censored at
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September 25, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday I posted Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann’s Order and accompanying Memorandum that Governor Tim Walz has alleged compelled his administration to keep pouring money out to the Feeding Our Future fraudsters. On Thursday Judge Guthmann authorized release of a statement calling out Walz for this lie and the Star Tribune for regurgitating it. John wrote about it here. Judge Guthmann’s statement is posted online here. I quote it
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September 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Judge Kenneth Starr has died today at the age of 76. I have to borrow from Jake Bleiberg’s AP obituary: At age 37, he became the youngest person ever to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also had served. From 1989-93, Starr was the solicitor general in the
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July 24, 2022 — John Hinderaker
This is a shocking story: One of President Biden’s latest judicial nominees serves on the board of a group that backed calls to defund the police and has called to abolish prisons. Biden nominated Roopali Desai, a litigation partner at the law firm Coppersmith Brockelman, to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court bench last month. The 9th Circuit is notoriously liberal, but this is ridiculous. Before we get to abolishing prisons,
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July 16, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Cast your mind back to 2016 for a moment, when it seemed a lock that Hillary Clinton would win the election, and nominate a leftist to succeed Justice Scalia. (Remember that Hillary refused to commit to re-sending the nomination of Merrick Garland—a clear signal to progressives that she’s pick someone younger and more progressive.) Mark Tushnet, one of the leading leftists at Harvard Law School, let loose with his id
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May 19, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Well, duh—the obvious answer is YES. But that hasn’t been a winning argument in the Supreme Court since 1935 unfortunately. In the aftermath of the leaked Dobbs opinion, the left has been in a panic about what other “rights” the Supreme Court might take away, like the right to same sex marriage, inter-racial marriage, contraception, and watching European soccer in the middle of the night. The left lacks imagination, and apparently
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May 3, 2022 — John Hinderaker
I was in law school when Roe v. Wade was decided. Pretty much everyone was shocked because it was such a terrible decision. Someone took a poll of law professors and, as I recall, 85% said they thought the decision was wrong. Roe has had a negative impact on both the Supreme Court and on American politics. It set the precedent for regarding the Constitution not as a document, but
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April 3, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Back in February we reported here on the federal district court ruling that the new “diversity” admissions process for the elite Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, had illegally discriminated against Asians. (Who do they think they are—Harvard?) The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has unfortunately granted a stay against the district court’s ruling pending further appeal, which means TJ can continue discriminating against Asians for next fall’s admissions:
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February 25, 2022 — Steven Hayward
This afternoon a Federal District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, handed down a summary judgment in favor of parents who sued Fairfax County Public Schools for the recent changes in the admissions process for Thomas Jefferson High School, the extremely selective public high school that emphasizes math and science. The case, Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, strikes a significant blow to race-conscious policies in education. The County Board had
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January 30, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Biden’s pledge to name a black woman—and only a black woman—to the Supreme Court is going down badly with Americans, a majority of whom are growing tired of the left’s relentless identity politics. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll begins its report thus: A new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that a plurality of Americans view the Supreme Court as motivated by partisanship, while President Joe Biden’s campaign trail vow to select
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