“The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a New York woman’s bid to send her son to kindergarten without receiving state-required vaccines, in a case that highlights the limits of the court’s push to expand religious rights,” the Washington Post reports.
“In a one-line order, the high court effectively sided with state and local officials, who argued that a religious exemption would undermine their attempts to prevent the spread of disease among children and the general public.”
“The Justice Department has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the Trump administration to resume expansion of an internal government database available to states to verify the citizenship status of voters,” Bloomberg reports.
“The application submitted to the court on Tuesday marks the latest high-stakes, election-related fight to reach the justices in recent weeks.”
“A federal judge said the Trump administration must provide the court with 48 hours’ notice before engaging in any work on the Memorial Circle for the president’s proposed 250-foot arch — a day after the interior secretary announced that groundbreaking would soon begin,” NOTUS reports.
“U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan’s order, signed Friday evening, applies to activity like excavation and construction, but exempts on-site information gathering to ensure compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act.”
New York Times: Is work starting for Trump’s arch? It depends who’s asking.
“Missouri appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to allow the use of new congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump in the fast-approaching midterm election,” Associated Press reports.
“The appeal comes after Missouri’s highest court blocked the new map and ordered a statewide vote in November on whether to keep or reject it.”
“The Supreme Court on Friday granted Republicans’ request to halt a lower court decision that prevented political party committees from receiving more favorable broadcast advertising rates, giving the GOP a win weeks before the November elections,” CBS News reports.
“The order from the high court restores guidance from the Federal Communications Commission that allows political parties and committees access to cheaper rates for political ads in the run-up to the midterms. The decision could be a boon for national Republican groups, which have amassed bigger war chests than their Democratic counterparts and can flood the airwaves with more ads in support of GOP candidates.”
Ruth Marcus: “In both the ballroom and the mail-in-ballot cases, the President has tested the Justices’ willingness to stop him in his tracks.”
Anne Applebaum: “During the Biden administration, MAGA allies and politicians filed multiple lawsuits with the goal of exposing alleged censorship. None has done so. One of them, brought by the Missouri attorney general, made it all the way to the Supreme Court before justices asked for underlying evidence that the government had censored anyone. The answer was no.”
“Another, brought against the Stanford research project by America First Legal—Stephen Miller’s team—failed in July, when a judge found the suit had no standing, no jurisdiction, and, after a discovery process requested by the plaintiffs, no evidence. There was no proof, in other words, that the Stanford research had resulted in anyone being censored.”
“Other cases against the Biden administration were simply settled by President Trump’s Department of Justice without finding any evidence of ‘censorship’ either.”
“A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from carrying out for now the president’s latest effort to impose new limits on automatic birthright citizenship after losing an earlier legal fight before the U.S. Supreme Court,” Bloomberg reports.
“The courts cannot keep up with President Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“In cases on immigration, spending, mass firings and restructuring agencies, the administration has barreled ahead in the face of slow-moving legal challenges. If Mr. Trump loses when those lawsuits are finally resolved, it may be too late as a practical matter to undo what he has achieved.”
“The challenge to Mr. Trump’s enormous White House ballroom project is just the latest example of a mismatch between a judicial system characterized by unhurried deliberation and a presidency built for speed.”
“In early 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly of a heart attack on a Texas ranch, sending his Supreme Court colleagues into a period of grief and uncertainty. Behind closed doors, they had to contend with another piece of unsettling news,” the New York Times reports.
“Justice Scalia, the leading light of the conservative legal movement, had left no plans for his working papers, according to five people aware of the situation. For a Supreme Court justice, this was the equivalent of dying without a will. With no instructions for creating an archive or opening it to the public, the definitive inside account of his work — and the court’s — could be lost or emerge with uncomfortable speed.”
“So following his death, his colleagues entered into private negotiations to try to head off any such situation in the future.”
“A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the White House to continue construction on a $400 million ballroom project as lawsuits play out,” the Associated Press reports.
“The decision replaces a temporary order from Chief Justice John Roberts previously issued hours before a lower-court decision halting the work would have gone into effect.”
President Trump “knocked U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who has overseen the case over the Kennedy Center and the president’s attempts to refurbish and rename the living memorial, as ‘highly conflicted,'” NewsNation reports.
“Republican campaign groups – supported by the Trump administration – asked the Supreme Court on Monday to let them purchase television advertising at discounted rates, handing the nation’s highest court another emergency appeal that could influence the outcome of this year’s midterm elections,” CNN reports.
“The quick-turn appeal follows a series of high-profile decisions from the 6-3 conservative court that have largely benefited Republicans. A separate case dealing with President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order on mail ballots is also expected to rocket back to the justices in the coming days.”
“President Trump’s Justice Department had a problem. Judge after judge was rejecting its demands that hospitals across the country turn over internal records of transgender care provided to children,” the New York Times reports.
“By the end of April, federal judges in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Seattle had either quashed or substantially pared back the administration’s demands that hospitals send patient records to the federal government.”
“But the administration did not give up. Instead, in April, it went to the Northern District of Texas’s Fort Worth courthouse, where nearly all cases go directly to the district’s chief judge, Reed O’Connor, or a second judge, Mark T. Pittman, who was appointed by Mr. Trump.”
“Construction on President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shows no signs of slowing down. And the U.S. Supreme Court shows no signs of wanting to stop it,” Bloomberg reports.
“More than a week has passed since Chief Justice John Roberts issued an interim order letting work continue while the court considers the case. Two lower courts said Trump flouted the law by starting the project without congressional authorization.”
“On its face, Roberts’ order was neutral. The one-page administrative stay gave no explanation and said nothing about the likelihood of Trump securing the necessary five votes for a longer-term order to let construction continue without restriction while the litigation proceeds.”
“But the practical consequences are clear.”
“A military judge on Friday tossed out a confession that alleged Sept. 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed delivered to FBI agents almost 20 years ago, finding it was not given voluntarily,” CBS News reports.
“The ruling marks a blow to the federal government’s long-delayed effort to prosecute Mohammed, who is accused of developing the plot to crash planes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. He is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along with several other defendants who are awaiting trial.”
“A federal judge ruled late Thursday that the Trump administration violated Anthropic’s First Amendment rights by blacklisting the artificial-intelligence company as a supply-chain risk,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California mostly sided with Anthropic in a final ruling on the company’s March lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying the government had erred in its haste to label Anthropic a supply-chain risk.”
“A federal judge on Thursday sharply questioned the Kennedy Center’s plans to add President Donald Trump’s name back to its building in coming weeks and expressed frustration that it could happen before he decides whether the move is legal,” CNN reports.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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