Free Republic

Speaking at the University of Chicago Law School on Thursday, President Barack Obama was asked by an audience member how his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court would bring “diverse characteristics” to that court. In answering, Obama argued: “I have transformed the federal courts from a diversity standpoint with a record that’s been unmatched.” He also said: “But at no point did I say: ‘Oh, you know what, I need a black lesbian from Skokie in that slot. Can you find me one?’” …

President Obama defended his pick of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court on Thursday, acknowledging he was a “white guy” but adding that he was an “outstanding jurist.” Obama defended the diversity of his federal appointments during a conversation in Chicago, Illinois, about nominating Garland. However, Senate Republicans have largely been steadfast in saying they will not hold hearings for him, since it’s an election year. Obama contended he had appointed more African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and LGBT judges than any president before. He quipped he never felt he needed a “black lesbian from Skokie,” saying that was...

At the school where he used to teach constitutional law, President Obama declared today that "in some ways the judicial process is a casualty of some broader trends in our democracy." Obama's discussion at the University of Chicago was intended to needle a reticent Congress on holding confirmation hearings for his Supreme Court nominee, Chicago native Merrick Garland. He was joined at the event by House Dems representing Illinois and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). The president said his decade teaching classes and seminars at the law school was "really fun." "It used to be that people read the Constitution and...

President Barack Obama accused Senate Republicans on Thursday of jeopardizing the “integrity of the judicial branch” by refusing to consider his “extraordinary” nominee to the Supreme Court. Holding court before Chicago law students, Obama argued that the treatment of judge Merrick Garland will cause the public to lose confidence in the ability of courts at all levels of government to fairly judge cases and resolve controversies. “Our democracy can’t afford that,” Obama said. …

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Tuesday that she met with President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland, and she is “more convinced than ever that the process should proceed” despite the GOP leadership’s assertion that the next president should nominate the next Supreme Court justice. “I’ve just concluded a more than hour-long meeting with Judge Garland. It was an excellent meeting that allowed us to explore many of the issues that I would raise with any nominee to the Supreme Court as well as some of the criticisms that have been levied against him. The meeting left me...

Three days. Five categorically different statements about abortion. Donald Trump officially has more flip-flops than Old Navy, and yet his supporters stand by him because they feel the economy is more important. More important to trust a man who has bankrupted several of his businesses because he borrowed too much money at too high of rates because bankers didn’t have enough faith in his business plans to give him normal lending rates. More important to trust a man who “stands” against illegal immigration despite being fined for hiring illegal immigrants to work on his projects and having hired illegal immigrants...

Much attention is being paid to the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, but equally partisan battles are being waged for control of state courts around the nation. In states where voters elect Supreme Court judges, millions of dollars are being spent to reshape the courts for years to come. Judicial watchdogs say spending by national groups overwhelmingly favors judges on the right of the political spectrum, and is mostly aimed at maintaining or improving the courts’ responses to corporate interests while countering state-level spending by labor unions and other interest groups. Lawmakers are busy too, debating proposals to tip the balance...

In 2012, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was asked if he would time his retirement so that a conservative president could appoint his replacement. Scalia responded, “I would not like to be replaced by someone who immediately sets about undoing everything that I’ve tried to do for 25 years, 26 years.…I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Unless you think I’m a fool.” Well, no one thought Justice Scalia was a fool. Nor, however, did everyone understand exactly what Justice Scalia achieved in his nearly three decades on the Supreme Court. Now that President Obama has nominated a potential...

With the vacancy on the Supreme Court unlikely to be filled before the end of the year, and with Donald Trump likely to be the Republican nominee for president, one way to fill the highest court’s vacancy with a superb jurist and reduce tensions within the Republican Party would be for the Donald to announce that he plans to appoint Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court. Ted Cruz is a smart guy and right on most of the issues. He’s solid on abortion and the Second Amendment, and we wouldn’t have to worry about where he would come down...

A years-long process by California teachers to free themselves of the yoke of mandatory dues fees even when the teachers refused to join the unions came up one justice short at the Supreme Court. That justice, of course, was the late Antonin Scalia, who would have almost certainly chosen to affirm the First Amendment and property rights of the plaintiffs. Instead, a 4-4 split at the Supreme Court on Friedrichs v California Teachers Association has the impact of affirming the lower court ruling that kept the requirement to make those payments in place: BREAKING: Supreme Court "divided equally" in...

When President Obama first nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, Senate Republicans were united in their wall of opposition — no meetings, no hearing, no vote. And while Garland’s path remains a very uphill battle, some Republicans are starting to shift their tone. Two weeks into the nomination fight, 16 Republican senators now say they will meet with Garland — over 25 percent of the GOP caucus — according to a running count by NBC News. That includes senators up for re-election in Blue States, such as New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte and Illinois’ Mark Kirk, who will be the...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid predicts the Senate will confirm Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court after Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election in November. The Nevada Democrat says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to consider a high court nominee until a new president offers a nomination for the vacancy is “dumb advice” for Republican senators. …

President Barack Obama says Republicans’ refusal to consider his Supreme Court nominee will threaten the integrity of the justice system and prove that the judicial nomination process is “beyond repair.” In an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Obama says the fight is bigger than “a single election.” He argues that the election-year blockade could make it impossible for future presidents to install judges on the court. He says that would “betray the vision of our founding.” …

This is the kind of case the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia liked to sink his judicial teeth into -- whether the federal government can compel a religious entity like the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious beliefs and acquiesce to the ObamaCare contraceptive coverage mandate. As LifeSite News reported on Wednesday’s hearing: This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious order of women who have vowed their lives to care for the elderly poor.

If you were totally avoiding the internet today, or if you live under a particularly pleasant and comfortable rock, maybe you don’t know that the federal government and a bunch of nuns are duking it out before the Supreme Court over birth control. More to the point, they’re fighting over the Little Sisters of the Poors’ refusal to subsidize contraception and abortion-causing drugs for their employees via their health insurance coverage, all of whom, by the way, are mandated by the President Obama’s signature eponymous government overreach law to purchase their own health insurance. Well, fair’s fair, right? I mean,...

Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday tried to clear his name and tout his record on Supreme Court nominations, calling Republican branding of his past remarks on the subject “ridiculous” and casting himself as a longtime advocate of bipartisan compromise in filling seats on the high court. In a speech at Georgetown Law School, Biden issued a broad warning that Republicans’ election-year blockade of President Barack Obama’s nominee “can lead to a genuine Constitutional crisis” and sought to distance himself from the strategy. He argued Republicans have distorted a 1992 speech in which he seemed to endorse the notion of...

News of Antonin Scalia’s death left me shocked and sad. For nearly three decades, he had been a fixture on our nation’s highest court, holding tight to the founding fathers’ constitutional vision and fending off encroachments on our freedom, whether they came from plaintiffs or his fellow, more liberal justices. He will be missed. His passing leaves a gaping hole in a Supreme Court that has caused quite the tiff over the past month. The media (social and otherwise) has been the battlefield, with one side defending the president’s prerogative to appoint a replacement immediately (including his own VP who...

Sotomayor Helps Puerto Rico Argue Its Bankruptcy Case Noah Feldman Before Tuesday, I’d have said that Puerto Rico had no chance to win its legal fight to let its municipalities and utilities declare bankruptcy. That's how the island hopes to resolve its overwhelming debt problems, but the federal bankruptcy code says that it can't. That's what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held last summer, unanimously. The statute seemed so clear that even Judge Juan Torruella, the appellate court’s only Puerto Rican member, concurred in an outraged separate opinion criticizing the federal law. Then Sonia Sotomayor stepped...

Democrats hoping to use the death of Antonin Scalia to their political advantage hit upon what they mistakenly thought was another piece of “evidence” in their favor yesterday. To the shock of many with little understanding of the history of the Supreme Court, the justices are back in business and doling out decisions from the current session. On Tuesday, while the world was focused on the awful events in Brussels, SCOTUS delivered the first of what may turn out to be several deadlocked votes, delivering a 4-4 tie in the case of Hawkins v. Community Bank of Raymore. This...

Whenever I hear the words "centrist" or "moderate," especially when they come from The New York Times and The Washington Post, the words "liberal" and "cover-up" immediately come to mind. Since President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, a confirmed conservative, the words "centrist" and "moderate" have been repeated ad nauseam. They were repeated so often, in fact, that they resembled the sound of a skipping needle across a vinyl LP with dust in its grooves. Even the reliably liberal New York Times, while repeating the centrist and moderate line, acknowledged that Garland's addition to the...