Free Republic

packing the Supreme Court with up to six new members as soon as the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress and the White House. ... Biden .. refused to answer a question of whether he supports this call by his running mate Kamala Harris and other Democratic leaders. Biden told reporters “It’s a legitimate question, but let me tell you why I’m not going answer… it will shift the focus.” That was an extraordinary statement since if the question was legitimate, the refusal to answer it was not. Many of us would not support a presidential candidate who...

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied a request from Republicans to stop Montana Gov. Steve Bullock’s (D) plan to mail ballots to all registered voters. Kagan, who has jurisdiction over the case based on geography, denied the request without referring the case to the full court. The suit was brought by Joe Lamm of the Ravali County Republican Central Committee and other voters. The GOP-dominated Legislature banned mail-in ballots for general elections, instead allowing only by-request, no-excuse-required “absentee ballots” and in-person voting compatible with Phase 2 safety restrictions in the governor’s COVID-19 reopening plan. But Bullock argued an emergency declaration...

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to act on a Trump administration request to reinstate a rule mandating that abortion-inducing drugs be taken in the presence of a doctor Instead, the justices returned the case to a federal trial court in Maryland and gave the judge there 40 days to rule on the administration's request. The administration is expected to ask the judge to either lift or narrow an order he entered in July that suspended a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule requiring women to take abortion pill in the presence of a doctor. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang,...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard the Trump administration’s appeal in a case involving three U.S. residents who FBI agents wrongly placed on the federal government’s “no fly list” as punishment for their refusal to spy on fellow Muslims. The men seek to hold the agents personally responsible for what they allege was a pattern of harassment designed to coerce them into becoming government informants in violation of their religious beliefs. The legal question at hand is whether a federal law that protects the free exercise of religion allows government agents to be sued for monetary damages. The lawsuit arose...

If you want to know the roots of the country’s present polarization over the Supreme Court, we have to go back. No, not to the contentious hearings for Brett Kavanaugh two years ago, nor to Sen. McConnell’s decision to deny a hearing or confirmation vote to Merrick Garland, who was President Obama’s 2016 pick to replace Justice Scalia. We must go even farther back than the drama of the Clarence Thomas hearing in 1991 or the attacks on Robert Bork’s character in 1987. The real point of origin is one of the first judicial controversies in the history of the...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) this evening announced that the hearing to consider the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States will begin October 12, 2020. The hearing will last three to four days, using the format the committee has followed for recent Supreme Court nominees. Opening statements by Judiciary Committee members and the nominee will occur on Monday, October 12. The questioning of Judge Barrett will begin on Tuesday, October 13. Testimony by those who know Judge Barrett the best and legal experts...

Amy Coney Barrett, a front-runner for the open U.S. Supreme Court seat President Donald Trump is pushing to fill, is a favorite among religious conservatives. As a judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett, 48, has voted in favor of one of Trump's hardline immigration policies and shown support for expansive gun rights. Here are some of her most notable opinions. GUNS Barrett indicated support for gun rights in a March 2019 dissenting opinion. She was part of a three-judge panel that considered a challenge to a federal law that bars people convicted of felonies from...

[Note: This piece is heavy on video content.] Time to hook him back up to that IV in the basement. – The Democrat Party’s Unfrozen Caveman Candidate needed a long nap on Friday so his elder-abusing handlers called a lid on the day by 11:00 ET. It marked the 10th day in the first 25 days of September on which the elderly, declining Biden became so tired after a public outing that he had to retreat back to his basement lair. Because Gropey Joe McNastyFinger was not able, Jill Biden got the assignment of making the campaign’s speech of the...

Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III has announced his intention to file legislation next week that would introduce term limits for all future U.S. Supreme Court Justices. According to Congressman Kennedy's office, the bill would establish 18-year term limits on any Supreme Court Justices approved after its passage. After their 18-year terms, justices would then be allowed to continue their service on lower courts. Kennedy's bill would then create a regular appointment process to allow every president to nominate a new justice to he Supreme Court during each odd year, guaranteeing each president the opportunity to nominate two justices per four-year...

Total victory is upon us, folks. And some Republicans have managed to get on a path towards redemption with conservatives. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said he wouldn’t block the nominee. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a ‘no,’ but as we’ve said before—Maine is an oddball state. She gets a pass. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a runner up in the biggest pain in the a** contest among the GOP, did initially say that she’s opposed to filling the Supreme Court vacancy left by Ruth Bade Ginsburg, but is now changing her tune. The last justice passed away last Friday making the...

Demand Justice, a progressive outside group, is planning to spend $10 million on an ad campaign aimed at preventing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat from being filled until after the presidential inauguration in January. "No confirmation til after Inauguration Day," Brian Fallon, the group's executive director, tweeted on Friday night. The spending, confirmed to The Hill by a source familiar, is an early sign of what is likely to be a massive spending battle on both sides over the fate of the Supreme Court seat, in what was already an unprecedented election year. Democrats are already...

The U.S. Supreme Court has given the Trump administration another gigantic immigration victory. On Thursday, the nation’s highest court ruled 7-2 that the federal government can deport illegal aliens, including those seeking asylum, quickly and with only limited judicial review. The ruling could affect thousands of would-be immigrants now present in the United States. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with the Trump administration on the case. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan, both liberals, were the two dissenters. “In a decision in the case of Dept. of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, the court ruled that the Illegal Immigration Reform...

'If there is no indication in their record that at any time they have acknowledged that Roe was wrong at the time it was decided, then I’m not going to vote for them.' Social conservatives are done being taken for granted by the GOP: That’s the message Sen. Josh Hawley shot across the party and administration’s bow Sunday, setting a brave and admirable standard for Christian legislators that is sure to pit him against powerful Washington Republicans and Democrats.“I will vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided.” Hawley told...

The Supreme Court has allowed President Trump to defy Congress and continue to spend more than $6 billion diverted from military funds to pay for the construction of a border wall in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.

The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote has denied a request to halt construction of President Trump’s border wall over environmental concerns. A number of groups, including the ACLU and Sierra Club, had asked the high court to get involved again after the justices last year cleared the way for the administration to use military funds for construction while the case played out in the courts. A federal appeals court had ruled against the administration last month, but the justices, for now, have given another temporary victory to the administration.

The Supreme Court on Friday denied an appeal by a Nevada church to allow additional worshipers to join in-person services based on capacity amid the coronavirus pandemic. Nevada has placed a 50-person cap on all places of worship, no matter the capacity of the building, as a part of the state's coronavirus restrictions. But casinos, along with other businesses such as restaurants and movie theaters, may permit up to 50 percent capacity, allowing casinos to grant access to hundreds of patrons at a time. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh all issued dissenting opinions rejecting the constitutionality of...

Conservative lawmakers blasted Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after he sided with the court's liberal justices in a 5-4 decision Friday that rejected a Nevada church’s request to block the state government from enforcing a cap on attendance at religious services. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted early Saturday morning that Roberts had "abandoned his oath." "What happened to that judge?" tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). "Freedom of religion is our first freedom. Yet SCOTUS has ruled that casinos can host hundreds of gamblers, while churches cannot welcome their full congregations. Justice Roberts once again got it wrong, shamefully closing...

In Nevada, it seems being in the entertainment business has more leeway than those exercising their constitutionally protected right to worship. Amid the COVID outbreak, the state has limits on the capacity of certain locations. For churches, it’s no more than 50. For everything else, from movie theaters to casinos, it’s much more than that. It seems a bit unfair. The standard makes no sense, but it seems to be perfectly logical for Chief Justice John Roberts who sided with the liberal wing of the Supreme Court in the case of a church who challenged this unfair standard (via NYT):...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in the wake of the recent hospitalization of 87-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has had made it clear that he would confirm a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court should a vacancy arise this year, despite having blocked a vote on then-President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, after Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death in February 2016. At the time, McConnell said the people deserved the right to have the court vacancy filled by whoever won the presidential election that November. Upping the ante further, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., suggested that Senate Republicans would...

When Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch redefined “sex” in federal law, twisting federal bans on sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and transgender identity, his colleague Samuel Alito rightly warned that the decision would wreak havoc on the health care industry. Almost exactly one month later, the ACLU filed a lawsuit to force a Roman Catholic hospital to perform transgender surgery in violation of the Hippocratic Oath, citing none other than Gorsuch’s opinion. In Hammons v. University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), a biological female who identifies as a transgender man, Jesse Hammons, claims St....