The Supreme Court “blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives, one meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants,” the New York Times reports.
“Industry groups and some 20 states challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its regulations would impose.”
The U.S. Supreme Court “bolstered efforts to make federal elections more competitive, upholding an independent commission set up by Arizona voters to draw congressional districts,” Bloomberg reports.
“The 5-4 ruling is a setback to Arizona Republicans, who had hoped to redraw that state’s district map and potentially capture two more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. At the same time, the decision may prevent Democrats from shifting district lines in California, buttressing a similar commission there.”
Rick Hasen: “This is a huge victory not only for those who support redistricting commissions, but those who want to see election reforms done with the use of the initiative process and other tools for direct democracy.”
The Supreme Court “ruled on Monday against three death row inmates who had sought to bar the use of an execution drug they said risked causing excruciating pain,” the New York Times reports.
“The drug, the sedative midazolam, played a part in three long and apparently painful executions last year. It was used in an effort to render inmates unconscious before they were injected with other, severely painful drugs.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court “refused to consider letting states require evidence of citizenship when people register to vote for federal elections, rejecting an appeal from Arizona and Kansas,” Bloomberg reports.
“The rebuff is a victory for the Obama administration and voting- and minority-rights groups that battled the two states in court. It leaves intact a decision by a U.S. agency that blocked the states from requiring proof of citizenship for voters in federal elections.”
Rick Hasen: “This is a huge win for those who want to see a greater federal role and uniformity in elections.”
“Most Republicans look at what’s happening and think we’re watching a new stage of left-wing nuttiness. It’s just surreal.”
— Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R), quoted by the Washington Post.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “has proposed a constitutional amendment that would subject Supreme Court justices to periodic judicial elections in the wake of rulings that upheld a key portion of the Affordable Care Act and affirmed gay couples’ right to marriage,” the Washington Post reports.
“Exhilarated by the Supreme Court’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, gay rights leaders have turned their sights to what they see as the next big battle: obtaining federal, state and local legal protections in employment, housing, commerce and other arenas, just like those barring discrimination based on race, religion, sex and national origin,” the New York Times reports.
“The proposals pit advocates against many of the same religious conservatives who opposed legalizing same-sex marriage, and who now see the protection of what they call religious liberty as their most urgent task.”
“Conservatives were left baffled after Chief Justice John Roberts saved Obamacare three years ago. On Thursday, as the George W. Bush appointee again helped President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement avoid a potentially devastating blow, they felt betrayed,” Politico reports.
“Adding to the sting: The chief justice wasn’t just along for the ride. When the court’s ruling allowing the law’s insurance subsidies to be offered nationwide emerged, he wrote the majority opinion and delivered it from the bench.”
Wall Street Journal: “The ruling, however, made clear the chief justice is building another kind of legacy, one in which he is trying to keep the Supreme Court out of Congress’s way in important and potentially divisive policy areas.”
President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts “got off to a rough start from the very beginning, when they tripped over each other’s words during a key line in the oath at Obama’s first inauguration,” the Washington Post reports.
“Both Harvard Law School graduates, they occupy nearly opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Obama, as a senator, had voted against Roberts’s confirmation the court, saying the judge lacked sufficient empathy for the powerless and could not be counted on to vote the right way in the most important cases.”
“But in Thursday’s Supreme Court decision upholding federal subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act, Roberts again helped sustain the president’s policy legacy in a way that few could have anticipated when Obama took office. In voting with the majority and writing the opinion, the chief justice has ensured that the legacies of both the Obama presidency and the Roberts court are forever intertwined.”
Wall Street Journal: “The Supreme Court is scheduled to issue decisions Thursday, with six major cases remaining on the docket, and is expected to release opinions again on Friday and perhaps next week. Still to be decided are the health-law subsidies and gay-marriage cases, along with closely watched rulings involving congressional redistricting and power plant emissions.”
“The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been a conservative court. But even conservative courts have liberal terms – and the current term is leaning left as it enters its final two weeks,” the New York Times reports.
“The court has issued liberal decisions in 54 percent of the cases in which it had announced decisions as of June 22, according to the Supreme Court Database, using a widely accepted standard developed by political scientists. If that trend holds, the final percentage could rival the highest since the era of the notably liberal court of the 1950s and 1960s led by Chief Justice Earl Warren.”
The Supreme Court ruled that Texas “did not violate the First Amendment when it refused to allow specialty license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag. Such plates, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the majority, are the government’s speech and are thus immune from First Amendment attacks,” the New York Times reports.
“The vote was 5 to 4. The court’s other three liberal members joined Justice Breyer’s majority opinion, as did Justice Clarence Thomas.”
President Obama “expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would uphold subsidies millions of consumers use to buy health insurance, and at the same time warned of possible dire consequences if that doesn’t happen,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) warned that Congress would not implement a quick fix: “Let’s be clear: if the Supreme Court rules against the administration, Congress will not pass a so called ‘one-sentence’ fake fix.”
Wonk Wire: States look for alternative Obamacare rescue plans
“Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges as confronted are any worse now, or alas even much different, from what they ever were.”
— Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, quoted by the Washington Post, suggesting he might be a creationist. ThinkProgress notes the earliest Homo sapiens actually lived in Africa about 100,000 years ago.
Rick Hasen: “It is not your imagination. Supreme Court Justices are in the news more than ever, whether they are selling books, testifying before Congress, addressing a Federalist Society, or American Constitution Society event, or just talking to a Muppet on Sesame Street. The number of books about the Court and particular Justices continues to grow. Websites are now devoted to tracking the Justices’ movements as they crisscross the country (and the world) speaking to various audiences. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is even promoted on T-shirts as the “Notorious R.B.G.,” a riff on the name of famous rap artist Notorious B.I.G. She will soon be the topic of a biopic staring Natalie Portman.”
“That Supreme Court Justices have become celebrities is not news. Indeed, Justices’ public statements about same-sex marriage or Bush v. Gore often get extensive coverage, and extrajudicial comments on issues in pending cases sometimes lead to (ignored) calls for judicial recusal. However, until now no one has quantified the increase in the number of publicly reported events and interviews done by Justices overall and which Justices engage most reported extrajudicial speech.”
“Kansas legislators are threatening to eliminate funding for state courts if a judge strikes down a controversial law passed last year,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Republican senators and representatives agreed Monday on a two-year judicial budget that would self-destruct if any court blocks or overturns a 2014 law that stripped the Kansas Supreme Court of some administrative authority, giving local courts control over their own budgets and leadership.”
Hillary Clinton told a group of her top fundraisers “that if she is elected president, her nominees to the Supreme Court will have to share her belief that the court’s 2010 Citizens United decision must be overturned,” the Washington Post reports.
“Clinton’s emphatic opposition to the ruling, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on independent political activity, garnered the strongest applause of the afternoon from the more than 200 party financiers gathered in Brooklyn for a closed-door briefing from the Democratic candidate and her senior aides, according to some of those present.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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