The Supreme Court just quietly gutted antitrust law
American Express charges merchants higher fees than other credit card companies — and orders merchants to keep that fact quiet. John Moore/Getty ImagesThe decision was overshadowed by other blockbuster cases and the announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, but the Supreme Court last week delivered the most significant antitrust opinion by the Court in more than a decade — one that made it extraordinarily more difficult for the government to rein in certain companies that abuse their market power.
The case was Ohio v. American Express, and it arrived against a backdrop of growing public recognition of the excessive clout wielded by corporations over American workers and consumers, and rising interest in anti-monopoly law and policy, especially on the left.
Read Article >The Supreme Court is an anti-democratic nightmare. Here’s how to fix it.
Today, we let nine justices decide our most contentious social issues. ShutterstockThe Supreme Court handed down victory after victory to conservatives this term. It upheld Trump’s travel ban, dealt a blow to public-sector unions, allowed a bakery to discriminate against gay customers, and struck down a California law that required “crisis pregnancy centers” to disclose abortion options.
The coup de grâce was Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement of his retirement. Kennedy is the Court’s most moderate Republican appointee as well as the Court’s swing voter. His legacy includes cases that recognized same-sex marriage and advanced gay rights, limited the death penalty, and preserved the right to an abortion.
Read Article >Elena Kagan’s dissent trashes Supreme Court as “black-robed rulers overriding citizens’ choices”
Justice Elena Kagan. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court dealt a stunning blow to public sector unions in its 5-to-4 majority decision in Janus vs. AFSCME. Justice Elena Kagan, who voted in opposition along with the Supreme Court’s other liberals, didn’t hold back in her dissenting opinion, calling some of her colleagues “black-robed rulers overriding citizens’ choices.”
She declared, “The First Amendment was meant for better things.”
Read Article >America after Anthony Kennedy
Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy is seen during a ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House April 10, 2017, in Washington, DC. Eric Thayer/Getty ImagesAnthony Kennedy, the longest-serving member of the Supreme Court, is retiring.
Kennedy has, since at least 2005, been the swing vote on many of the Court’s most ideologically charged decisions, responsible for 5-4 rulings that legalized same-sex marriage, preserved Roe v. Wade, upheld warrantless wiretapping, blew up campaign finance restrictions, overturned DC’s handgun ban, and weakened the Voting Rights Act. That position has made him one of the most powerful people in America for well over a decade now, not even counting the 18 years he shared his position as the Court’s swing voter with Sandra Day O’Connor.
Read Article >How Democratic lawmakers should help unions reeling from the Janus decision
Plaintiff Mark Janus in front of the Supreme Court. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesWith its 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, the Supreme Court has just imposed a right-to-work regime on public workers everywhere in the country — a profound blow to the union movement.
As a result of the decision, public sector unions are now legally obligated to provide representation to workers and yet legally prohibited from requiring anyone to pay for that representation.
Read Article >6 excerpts that explain the Supreme Court’s big anti-union ruling
A union activist protesting in favor of AFSCME’s side in the case. Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesOn Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued what is probably its single most consequential ruling of the year. Janus v. AFSCME is a devastating blow against public sector unions, barring them from charging “agency fees” to the public employees for whom they negotiate pay increases and benefit bumps if those employees decline to join the union as full members.
Now, teachers unions, police unions, and more will be forced to lobby public employees to pay full union dues, even though those employees will get the same benefits from the union if they pay nothing at all.
Read Article >The Court’s indefensible double standard
A lawyer helps a woman stranded by the Trump travel ban. Kyle Grillot/AFP/GettyMany legal experts have spotted a clear tension between this week’s close 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding President Trump’s travel ban, and the court’s very recent 7-2 ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
The cases raised similar issues, yet the justices went in opposite directions. Both decisions involved seemingly neutral government policies that were challenged in part because of evidence showing the true purpose behind them was discrimination on the basis of religion.
Read Article >Read: Sotomayor condemns Trump’s “unrelenting attack on the Muslim religion”
Leigh Vogel/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, June 26, 5-4, that the Trump administration’s travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries is constitutional, largely because the administration picked the listed countries using criteria that were, on their face, race- and religion-neutral. Those criteria just happened to result in a policy banning entry from a number of Muslim countries (plus North Korea and Venezuela) and to come from a president who had repeatedly promised to bar Muslims from entering the United States.
The Court’s four liberals dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent, which Justice Elena Kagan joined, is cautiously written, arguing that the case should be sent back to district court based on evidence that the policy is not being applied in a fair way.
Read Article >The latest Supreme Court decision is being hailed as a victory for digital privacy. It’s not.
Joan Cros Garcia/Corbis/Getty ImagesCongratulations — a closely divided US Supreme Court has just ruled in Carpenter v. United States that you have a constitutional right to privacy in the locational records produced by your cellphone use. Law enforcement now cannot ask Sprint, AT&T, or Verizon, for cell tower records that reveal your whereabouts through your phone’s interaction with those towers, at least without a warrant.
Carpenter builds on two earlier decisions. In 2011, the Court required a warrant before police placed a GPS tracker on a vehicle to track its movements. In 2014, it forbade warrantless searches of cellphone during arrests. Whatever it’s other flaws, the Roberts Court thus seems to understand electronic privacy’s importance.
Read Article >The Weeds: how big of an impact will the Supreme Court abortion decision really have?
In late June, the Supreme Court struck down two major anti-abortion laws with its decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. The ruling, which overturned legislation responsible for shuttering roughly half of the abortion clinics in Texas, has been hailed as a pretty significant victory for pro-choice advocates.
And it is — at least in the immediate sense.
Read Article >Did the Supreme Court just admit affirmative action is about racial justice?
Abigail Fisher, rejected UT applicant, at the US Supreme Court. The majority opinion in Fisher v. Texas, which upheld the affirmative action policy of the University of Texas, marks a turning point in the long controversy surrounding race-conscious admissions policies and perhaps an important shift in the orientation of the Supreme Court as well. Justice Kennedy, long the pivotal swing vote on the Court and a skeptic of affirmative action, voted to uphold UT’s policy.
It may seem at first that this marks an ideological shift to the left. But Fisher is more likely a long overdue recognition by the Court of the limits of its own competence. In a move that infuriated the minority, the Court elected to leave calculations about the educational benefits of diversity to educators.
Read Article >The Weeds: when the Supreme Court split, who won? Hillary Clinton.
Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court’s 4-4 split in the United States v. Texas case meant the block on President Obama’s executive action regarding immigration would not be removed soon. As of now, the case is in limbo — not actually the result of a definitive yes or no vote, meaning the block was not made permanent either. The way things stand, no one wins.
But maybe there is someone who stands to benefit from the judicial deadlock. Hillary Clinton can now campaign on the premise of finishing what was started and filling the vacancies in the judicial system.
Read Article >The Supreme Court's abortion ruling could be a game changer for the pro-choice movement
Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is the biggest break pro-choice advocates have gotten in decades. The ruling struck down two major anti-abortion laws in Texas that had closed about half the state’s abortion clinics, and would have closed even more if those laws had been allowed to stand. Many other states have similar laws, and they’re already starting to fall in the wake of the decision.
But these two laws — requiring doctors to have admitting privileges with a nearby hospital, and requiring abortion clinics to become surgical centers — aren’t the only anti-abortion laws out there. Far from it, as my colleague Sarah Kliff explained: States have passed nearly 300 anti-abortion laws since 2010, and most of them are nothing like the Texas laws that were struck down.
Read Article >Andrew Prokop, Dara Lind and 3 more
5 winners and 4 losers from this Supreme Court term
Pro-choice and pro-life activists demonstrate on the steps of the United States Supreme Court on June 27, 2016, in Washington, DC. Pete Marovich/Getty ImagesThis year’s Supreme Court term was unsettling. Following the sudden death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year — and Senate Republicans’ refusal to fill the seat — it initially seemed the Court might take a more reserved approach.
And the justices did punt in a few areas, including birth control access, and made more convoluted decisions in other cases, but they didn’t back away from all major decisions, particularly in high-profile cases. A few clear winners and losers emerged: The Court decided on the first major abortion rights case in a generation, and essentially put an end to the Obama administration’s sweeping deferred deportation plans for undocumented immigrants.
Read Article >The pro-life movement is winning. It'll take more than one Supreme Court ruling to change that.
Tom Williams/Getty News ImagesThe abortion rights movement isn’t winning.
Sure, abortion rights advocates were justified in cheering the Supreme Court decision Monday striking down two Texas regulations: Those laws were among the most restrictive in the country and led to multiple clinic closures.
Read Article >It could take years for Texas abortion clinics to reopen, even after a Supreme Court victory
Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty ImagesPro-choice advocates won a huge victory on Monday when the Supreme Court struck down two major anti-abortion laws in Texas in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Those laws, part of an omnibus anti-abortion bill called HB 2, were responsible for closing about half of all abortion clinics in Texas.
Before HB 2 passed in 2013, Texas had 41 open clinics. Today there are 19. If the Court had ruled to uphold the restrictions, that number would have shrunk to nine. So it’s no surprise that lead plaintiff Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO and founder of Whole Woman’s Health, said she was “beyond elated” by the ruling.
Read Article >The Supreme Court struck down a Texas abortion law. Expect other states’ laws to start falling, too.
Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty ImagesThe Supreme Court decision to strike down two restrictive abortion laws in Texas will likely have a ripple effect across the country, potentially forcing other states to drop their own similar anti-abortion laws in the coming years.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that two Texas laws were unconstitutional: one that required abortion clinics to be certified as ambulatory surgical centers and another requiring doctors to gain admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Read Article >The Supreme Court quietly handed gun control advocates a small victory
Allison Shelley/Getty ImagesIn the middle of all the excitement about the Supreme Court’s big abortion decision on Monday, the court handed down another, smaller, win for liberals: It ruled that those convicted of domestic violence offenses can be barred by federal law from buying or owning a gun for life — even if the conviction only demonstrates that someone acted recklessly violent, as opposed to intentionally or knowingly violent, toward a partner or spouse.
Voisine v. United States is a fairly technical ruling in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still important because of what the court didn’t do. The court could have decided that gun laws don’t cover domestic violence crimes in which the abuser’s intent isn’t clearly violent — and that could have, depending on how some states and the feds apply their domestic violence laws, limited the scope of federal restrictions on guns for domestic abusers. But the court instead allowed federal gun restrictions to remain more broad.
Read Article >Pro-choice advocates just won the biggest Supreme Court abortion case in decades
In a huge victory for the pro-choice movement, the Supreme Court voted 5-3 Monday to strike down two major anti-abortion provisions that were part of an omnibus anti-abortion law Texas passed in 2013.
The court’s ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt also strikes a blow to a strategy by the pro-life movement to limit abortion access incrementally, through state laws.
Read Article >Hillary Clinton celebrates Supreme Court abortion ruling as “victory for women across America”
Hillary Clinton in Indianapolis on Sunday. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images) Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty ImagesHillary Clinton is cheering the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to strike down a Texas law that would have curbed abortion access in the state, arguing the Texas law risked ending “every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives.”
Clinton has been an advocate for abortion rights since her earliest days in politics, and has become a target for pro-life groups who fear the expansion of abortion access under another Democratic presidency. Indeed, Clinton has not just defended the status quo of abortion rights, but also called for repealing the Hyde amendment, which would allow low-income women to use federal funds for abortion under Medicaid.
Read Article >This paragraph shows why the Supreme Court didn’t buy Texas’s claims in the abortion case
Pro-choice activists in front of the US Supreme Court. Pete Marovich/Getty ImagesThe big claim for supporters of Texas’s abortion restrictions has always been that these policies protect women’s health. Proponents say the restrictions — like requiring “admitting privileges” with nearby hospitals and costly renovations to become “ambulatory surgical centers” — help make abortion centers safer. This argument allowed anti-abortion advocates to act as if they weren’t really trying to restrict abortion, but instead trying to help women by making the (already relatively safe) procedure safer.
But on Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled against Texas’s abortion restrictions. One key reason, as Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the court’s decision: The court saw the claim that these restrictions protected women as bogus. Breyer wrote:
Read Article >Supreme Court abortion decision: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's must-read quote
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always been one of the staunchest supporters of abortion rights on the Supreme Court. So it’s not surprising that she chose to author her own, strongly worded concurrence to the Monday decision striking down Texas’s restrictive abortion law.
“It is beyond rational belief that H. B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women,” Ginsburg wrote in her concurrence.
Read Article >Do white people want merit-based admissions policies? Depends on their competition.
Abigail Fisher, the plaintiff in Fisher v. Texas, is advocating for a merit-based admissions policy. Mark Wilson via Getty ImagesThe Fisher v. Texas Supreme Court case on affirmative action rested on whether race, as used in the University of Texas admissions policy, violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
On Thursday, the Court ruled that UT’s policy was, in fact, constitutional. But the central question of the case stemmed from the underlying idea that racial considerations in admissions decisions inherently undermine academic merit.
Read Article >3 winners and 4.5 million losers from the Supreme Court’s immigration deadlock
(Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)Most of the time, when the Supreme Court rules in a case, the meaning of the opinion is pretty clear: It’s right there in the text. But when the Court deadlocked in the immigration case United States v. Texas on Thursday, it issued a one-sentence slip opinion: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.”
But it was a damn influential sentence. The Supreme Court’s split effectively kills President Obama’s 2014 proposals to allow 4.5 million immigrants to apply for protection from deportation and work permits. It vindicates Senate Republicans’ strategy of holding the court at eight members after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. And it raises the stakes of the presidential election in November.
Read Article >Obama on immigration deadlock: “so important for the Supreme Court to have a full bench”
President Barack Obama expressed disappointment and frustration at the Supreme Court’s deadlock on immigration today, which effectively killed the administration’s late 2014 efforts to protect 4.5 million immigrants from deportation.
“For more than two decades now our immigration system, everybody acknowledges, has been broken,” Obama said. “And the fact that the Supreme Court wasn’t able to issue a decision today doesn’t just set the system back even further, it takes us further from the country that we aspire to be.”
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