Poor guys/gals having to work in July!! When did they decide they take a 3 month summer recess?
Well, it’s not quite a three-month vacation. They spend at least some of the time reading the briefs and preparing for the cases that will be heard in the upcoming October term.
Also, while I’ve never believed that government jobs need to compete with the salaries offered in the private sector, the salaries these judges get aren’t especially huge for their level of training and expertise. The make basically 250 grand a year, and every one of these folks could probably pull down that much every month or so as a partner in a large, prestige law firm.
Roberts votes with liberals to throw out Louisiana anti abortion law.
Link, please?
Roberts said he voted with the liberals because he had to follow a case from 2016.
Done for today , more opinions tomorrow.
Thanks, mhendo!
Wow, this is fantastic!
Breyer wrote the main opinion, joined by the other three liberals.
Roberts wrote a concurrence, in which he struck down the restrictions based largely on stare decisis. He also affirmed the third-party standing issue, agreeing with the four liberals that abortion providers “have standing to assert the constitutional rights of their patients.”
Roberts may need to have armed guards. Especially if he votes to send Trump’s taxes to NY or Congress. Probably have opinions Tues and Wed or even next week .
What’s really interesting here is that Roberts not only voted to strike down the TRAP laws based almost solely on the principle of stare decisis, but he did so:
- based on a case where he was among the three dissenting justices
and - for a case in which, had the current court been in session, the result would have been very different
Each of the four conservative justices wrote a dissent. I haven’t had time to read them all yet, but part of the dissent, especially in Alito and Kavanaugh’s case, seems to be that the case should be sent back for more fact-finding, to determine whether Louisiana’s law does actually create an excessive burden by restriction abortion access. Basically, they’re arguing that we don’t really know whether requiring admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles would unduly restrict abortion, because we don’t know enough about how the process works and whether the doctors concerned would actually be able to get admitting privileges.
Clarence Thomas disagrees with the idea of third-party standing. He argues that the doctors and abortion providers don’t have standing to bring a suit on behalf of their patients, and would remand the case for dismissal altogether for this reason.
Actually, they weren’t done for the day. They also released Seila Law v. CFPB, and in that case the court held that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by congress with a single director who could be fired by the President only for cause, is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers.
The court, however, did not say that this fact makes the whole CFPB unconstitutional. It ruled that the director’s removal protection is “severable from the other provisions of Dodd-Frank that establish the CFPB,” meaning that if the structure of the directorship is fixed, the CFPB can survive. It remanded the case back to the 9th Circuit to see whether the CFPB’s investigative demands of Seila Law were valid.
It was a 5-4 decision, with the conservatives in the majority. The liberal minority concurred regarding the severability issue,. but dissented from the main ruling about the constitutionality of the director model. Thomas wrote a concurrence, joined by Gorsuch, in which he argues that all for-cause removal provisions for federal agencies are unconstitutional, not just this one (i.e., Thomas and Gorsuch would completely overrule the Humphrey’s Executor case that acted as precedent here).
If presidents are given a freer hand in removing whatever appointees they want to remove, it will make it a lot easier for Biden to purge Trump appointees.
Probably get tax cases opinion today or maybe Wed. I think they tend to spread out the big cases
The justices’ decisions may be taken to apply to only Republican presidents.
I’m not sure where you get your confidence that the tax cases will be released this week.
Sure, they might be, but there are still 10 decisions pending, including some big ones, like:
- Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (funding for religious schools)
- McGirt v. Oklahoma (the extent of Indian reservations in Oklahoma)
- Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (defining the “ministerial exception” in employment)
- Chiafalo v. Washington, and Colorado v. Baca (the faithless elector cases).
Probably means that I am not confident about when cases are released. and probably they will have to stick around until next week.
Speaking of their pay, they could certainly make more money as a big shot lawyer. But what other job in America is for life and you don’t really have a boss?
Only 2 cases today , no tax case. They ruled 5-4 Montana cannot bar tax money to christian schools . You can probably guess who the 5 were.
I assume you meant “religious” schools, note merely christian ones. If so, does this mean I can set up my wiccan school in Helena and get some nice tax dollars for expenses?
Montana gives a tax credit for donations to religious schools and that is what they upheld today. Lower court said that the donations are not constitutional but the SC overturned that .
No opinions tomorrow but possibly some Thurs.
Just curious – does the federal government allow tax deductions for donations to religious schools?
Also – does Montana give a tax credit or simply a deduction?
ETA – I know I could looks this up, but I’m particularly lazy today, so – Thanks!