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U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said Wednesday that building a consensus among the justices is important, although he admits he can’t do it on his own. Roberts’ comments at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia come as the justices have struggled to reach decisions in several cases this term with the court split evenly between conservative and liberal members. The court has had eight members since the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia. “I try to achieve as much consensus as I can,” Roberts said. “We kind of have to have a commitment as a group. I think...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Thursday that having only eight high court justices isn’t good, resulting in some 4-4 splits this year that denied litigants an opinion. That that means no precedents are set and essentially a Supreme Court review has been denied, Ginsburg told a gathering of court officials in upstate New York. […] “Eight is not a good number,” she said. “Next year I anticipate reporting on the decisions of a full bench.” …

Today Donald J. Trump released the much-anticipated list of people he would consider as potential replacements for Justice Scalia at the United States Supreme Court. This list was compiled, first and foremost, based on constitutional principles, with input from highly respected conservatives and Republican Party leadership. Mr. Trump stated, “Justice Scalia was a remarkable person and a brilliant Supreme Court Justice. His career was defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms. He was a Justice who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I...

Don Willett is a Texas Supreme Court justice:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Willett David Stras is an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stras Allison Eid is a justice on the Colorado Supreme Court:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_H._Eid Joan Larsen is a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Larsen Steven Colloton is a federal judge who has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Colloton Raymond Gruender is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Gruender Thomas Hardiman is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardiman Raymond M. Kethledge is a federal judge...

Trump's picks include Steven Colloton of Iowa, Allison Eid of Colorado and Raymond Gruender of Missouri. Also on the list are: Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, Thomas Lee of Utah, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota, Diane Sykes of Wisconsin and Don Willett of Texas. Trump had previously named Pryor and Sykes as examples of kind of justices he would choose.

The Supreme Court failed to resolve a knotty dispute between faith-based groups and the Obama administration over birth control on Monday, the latest indication of the shorthanded court’s struggle to find a majority for important cases taken up before Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.

The Supreme Court punted Monday on a challenge by religious-affiliated employers to ObamaCare’s contraception mandate, sending the election-year dispute back to the lower courts. ADVERTISEMENT The justices had been considering whether religious-affiliated institutions like the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity of nuns, can be exempt from having to pay for -- or indirectly allow -- birth control and other reproductive coverage in their health plans. But the court did not rule on the merits. Instead, the justices sent the cases back to the appeals courts to make new decisions based on recent statements. “The Court expresses no...

The Constitution already gives Congress power over the Supreme Court's Appellate power in Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. " In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The Heritage organization explained this. "The seminal decision on jurisdiction-stripping statutes under the Appellate Jurisdiction Clause came shortly after the Civil War. Ex parte McCardle (1869) involved a newspaper editor in military custody, who had appealed a lower federal court's denial of habeas corpus relief to the...

Ted Cruz on Friday said he has no interest in becoming a Supreme Court justice, present or future. “I’ll tell you that that is not a desire of my heart," the Texas senator said in an interview on WBAP 820 AM. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/ted-cruz-no-supreme-court-223162#ixzz48ZLP5Su1 Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

From: Tom Jensen, Director of Public Policy Polling To: Interested Parties Subject: Americans Don’t Trust Trump on Supreme Court Vacancy; 65% Want Hearings Date: 5-9-16 A new national Public Policy Polling survey finds Americans don’t trust Donald Trump to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, and would much rather have that decision in the hands of either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Beyond that, there is growing support for filling the seat this year and failure to do so could result in strong backlash for Senate Republicans this fall. Key findings from the survey include: -Only 38% of voters nationally...

The 120-nation Nonaligned Movement headed by Iran accused the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday of violating international law by ruling that nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets can be paid to victims of attacks linked to the country. A communiqué issued by the NAM’s Coordinating Bureau follows an Iranian appeal to the United Nations last week to intervene with the U.S. government to prevent the loss of their funds. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the ruling an “outrageous robbery, disguised under a court order.” The NAM, comprising mainly developing countries, called the U.S. waiver of “the sovereign...

Snooping on a tablet computerImage copyrightThinkstock The US Supreme Court has approved a rule change that could allow law enforcement to remotely search computers around the world. Previously, magistrate judges could order searches only within the jurisdiction of their court, often limited to a few counties. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said the change was necessary to modernise the law for the digital age. But digital rights groups say the move expands the FBI's hacking authority. The DoJ wants judges to be able to issue remote search warrants for computers located anywhere that the United States claims jurisdiction, which...

Dr. No seems to have become Dr. Yes. Kind of. Tom Coburn, the former Republican senator from Oklahoma known for his often contrarian views, said Wednesday that Judge Merrick B. Garland should get a vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, going against his old colleagues who have staunchly opposed even considering President Obama's Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year....

On Saturday night, HBO debuted its account of the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings. While it was billed as “meticulously researched” by the leftist screenwriters and Hollywood executives behind the film, Confirmation rewrites history to advance the myth that Anita Hill was a victim of sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas. The fictional “docudrama” that twists and omits key facts, and in some cases, outright makes things up, is yet another attempt by the left to establish through persistence what could not be established through evidence. At the end of Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings, polling done by Pew and others showed that...

In 2014, President Barack Obama signed 12 executive orders directing various agencies in the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security to refrain from deporting some 4 million adult immigrants illegally present in the United States if they are the parents of children born here or legally present here and if they hold a job, obtain a high-school diploma or its equivalent, pay taxes and stay out of prison. Unfortunately for the president, the conditions he established for avoiding deportation had been rejected by Congress. In response to the executive orders, 26 states and the House of Representatives sued the...

“Lawfully” does not mean “legally.” Welcome to what Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the Supreme Court on Monday is the “immigration world.” Or, more accurately, welcome to the new world President Barack Obama — through his solicitor — is asking the Supreme Court to join him in declaring. […] “Aliens with lawful status under the [Immigration and Nationality Act] are here lawfully; their presence therefore is not a basis for removal,” said Obama’s solicitor in his brief. “By contrast, mere ‘lawful presence’ occurs when the Executive ‘openly tolerate[s] an undocumented alien’s continued presence in the United States for a fixed...

Don't tell anybody what I want to do. If they find out you know that they'll never let me through. Just so you know, when a case reaches the Supreme Court and the Justices deadlock, that means the lower court ruling stands. That was bad news last month when it meant California teachers unions got to continue their shameless extortion racket. But sometimes it’s good news, and that appears to be the case when it comes to Obama’s executive amnesty. If The Hill’s sources are reading the Justices correctly, a lower court ruling halting the practice appears to be generating...

It's a bad sign when you get halfway through a presidential campaign with no sages wagging their heads sagaciously as they cite Lord Acton. No wonder the politicians get away with so much. Their consciences have not had to reconcile with the most profound political sagacity of modern times. To wit: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The great English historian delivered this pronouncement in a letter to his friend Bishop Mandell Creighton. I'm not aware of any instance in which the words have suffered intellectual rebuff -- probably because they illuminate such occasions as the Supreme...

Do not let 'Justice' Kagan manipulate you again, like she did on Obamacare. Do NOT let a President create Law. That is not his position. Do not 'tweak' his Law or you will be creating Law and that is not your position either! Congress didn't act because we already have Laws to deal with immigration. It's just that this Administration isn't bothering to follow the Law. And they sue States who try to enforce the Laws on the books. Our immigration system isn't broken, it is simply that the IMMIGRATION LAWS AREN'T BEING ENFORCED!

The impassioned election-year debate over President Obama’s immigration executive actions lands Monday before a short-handed Supreme Court, where justices will consider a fundamental question: how much power does the president truly have? The justices plan to hold 90 minutes of oral arguments dealing with Obama’s bid to spare millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. A coalition of states calls it an executive power grab. "President Obama's executive action is an affront to our system of republican self-government," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who supports those states. But the White House contends the president’s authority is clear, and the policies humane...