Supreme Court preserves access to abortion pill for now

The Supreme Court on Friday preserved women’s access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continues. The justices granted emergency requests from the Biden administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, maker of the drug mifepristone. They are appealing a lower court ruling that would roll back the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone. The drug has been approved for use in the U.S. since 2000, and more than 5 million people have used it. Mifepristone is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol, in more than half of all abortions in the U.S. The court’s action Friday almost certainly will leave access to mifepristone unchanged at least into next year, as appeals play out, including a potential appeal to the high court. The next stop for the case is at the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which has set arguments in the case for May 17. Two of the nine justices — Samuel Alito, the author of last year’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and Clarence Thomas — voted to allow restrictions to take effect, and Alito issued a four-page dissent. No other justices commented on the court’s one-paragraph order, and the court did not release a full vote breakdown. President Joe Biden praised the high court for keeping mifepristone available while the court fight continues. “The stakes could not be higher for women across America. I will continue to fight politically-driven attacks on women’s health. But let’s be clear — the American people must continue to use their vote as their voice and elect a Congress who will pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade,” Biden said in a statement. Alliance Defending Freedom, representing abortion opponents challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, downplayed the court’s action. “As is common practice, the Supreme Court has decided to maintain the status quo that existed prior to our lawsuit while our challenge to the FDA’s illegal approval of chemical abortion drugs and its removal of critical safeguards for those drugs moves forward,” ADF lawyer Erik Baptist said in a statement. The justices weighed arguments that allowing restrictions contained in lower-court rulings to take effect would severely disrupt the availability of mifepristone. The Supreme Court had initially said it would decide by Wednesday whether the restrictions could take effect while the case continues. A one-sentence order signed by Alito on Wednesday gave the justices two additional days, without explanation. The challenge to mifepristone is the first abortion controversy to reach the nation’s highest court since its conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade 10 months ago and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright. In his majority opinion last June, Alito said one reason for overturning Roe was to remove federal courts from the abortion fight. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” he wrote. But even with their court victory, abortion opponents returned to federal court with a new target: medication abortions, which make up more than half of all abortions in the United States. Women seeking to end their pregnancies in the first 10 weeks without more invasive surgical abortion can take mifepristone, along with misoprostol. The FDA has eased the terms of mifepristone’s use over the years, including allowing it to be sent through the mail in states that allow access. The abortion opponents filed suit in Texas in November, asserting that the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone 23 years ago and subsequent changes were flawed. They won a ruling on April 7 by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, revoking FDA approval of mifepristone. The judge gave the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories a week to appeal and seek to keep his ruling on hold. Responding to a quick appeal, two more Trump appointees on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the FDA’s original approval would stand for now. But Judges Andrew Oldham and Kurt Engelhardt said most of the rest of Kacsmaryk’s ruling could take effect while the case winds through federal courts. Their ruling would have effectively nullified changes made by the FDA starting in 2016, including extending from seven to 10 weeks of pregnancy when mifepristone can be safely used. The court also would have halted sending the drug in the mail or dispensing it as a generic, and patients who seek it would have had to make three in-person visits with a doctor. Women also might have been required to take a higher dosage of the drug than the FDA says is necessary. The administration and Danco have said that chaos would ensue if those restrictions were to take effect while the case proceeds. Potentially adding to the confusion, a federal judge in Washington has ordered the FDA to preserve access to mifepristone under the current rules in 17 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia that filed a separate lawsuit. The Biden administration has said the rulings conflict and create an untenable situation for the FDA. Alito questioned the argument that chaos would result, saying the administration “has not dispelled doubts that it would even obey an unfavorable order in these cases.” And a new legal wrinkle threatened even more complications. GenBioPro, which makes the generic version of mifepristone, filed a lawsuit Wednesday to preemptively block the FDA from removing its drug from the market, in the event that the Supreme Court doesn’t intervene. The Supreme Court was only being asked to block the lower-court rulings through the end of the legal case. The appeals court has sped up its review, but there is no timetable for a ruling. Any appeal to the Supreme Court would follow within three months of a ruling, but with no deadline for the justices to decide whether to review the case. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.

Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims

Fox and Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 million settlement Tuesday in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit, averting a trial in a case that exposed how the top-rated network chased viewers by promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election. “The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson said in a news conference outside the courthouse after a judge announced the deal. Dominion had asked for $1.6 billion in arguing that Fox had damaged its reputation by helping peddle phony conspiracy theories about its equipment switching votes from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Fox said the amount greatly overstated the value of the Colorado-based company. The resolution in Delaware Superior Court follows a recent ruling by Judge Eric Davis in which he allowed the case to go to trial while emphasizing it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations about Dominion aired on Fox by Trump allies were true. In a statement issued shortly after the announcement, Fox News said the network acknowledged “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” It did not respond to an inquiry asking for elaboration. Inquiries to Dominion and Fox Corp. were not immediately returned. Records released as part of the lawsuit showed how Fox hosts and executives did not believe the claims by Trump’s allies but aired them anyway, in part to win back viewers who were fleeing the network after it correctly called hotly contested Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden on election night. The settlement, if formally accepted by the judge, will end a case that has proven a major embarrassment for Fox News. If the case had gone to trial, it also would have presented one of the sternest tests to a libel standard that has protected media organizations for more than half a century. Several First Amendment experts had said Dominion’s case was among the strongest they had ever seen. Still, there was real doubt about whether Dominion would be able to prove to a jury that people in a decision-making capacity at Fox could be held responsible for the network’s airing of the falsehoods. Dominion accused Fox of defaming it by repeatedly airing, in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, false allegations by Trump allies that its machines and the software they used had flipped votes to Biden — even as many at the network doubted the claims and disparaged those who were making them. The company sued both Fox News and its parent, Fox Corp., and said its business had been significantly damaged. During a deposition, Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who founded the network, testified that he believed the 2020 election was fair and had not been stolen from Trump. “Fox knew the truth,” Dominion argued in court papers. “It knew the allegations against Dominion were ‘outlandish’ and ‘crazy’ and ‘ludicrous’ and ‘nuts.’ Yet it used the power and influence of its platform to promote that false story.” In his March 31 summary judgment ruling, Davis pointedly called out the news organization for airing falsehoods while noting how the bogus election claims persist, 2 1/2 years after Trump lost his bid for reelection. “The statements at issue were dramatically different than the truth,” Davis said in that ruling. “In fact, although it cannot be attributed directly to Fox’s statements, it is noteworthy that some Americans still believe the election was rigged.” In its defense, Fox said it was obligated to report on the most newsworthy of stories — a president claiming that he had been cheated out of reelection. “We never reported those to be true,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said. “All we ever did was provide viewers the true fact that these were allegations that were being made.” Fox said Dominion had argued that the network was obligated to suppress the allegations or denounce them as false. “Freedom of speech and of the press would be illusory if the prevailing side in a public controversy could sue the press for giving a forum to the losing side,” Fox said in court papers. In a 1964 case involving The New York Times, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the ability of public figures to sue for defamation. The court ruled that plaintiffs needed to prove that news outlets published or aired false material with “actual malice” — knowing such material was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether or not it was true. That has provided news organizations with stout protection against libel judgments. Yet the nearly six-decade legal standard has come under attack by some conservatives in recent years, including Trump and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who have argued for making it easier to win a libel case. Two Republican-nominated Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have publicly expressed interest in revisiting the protection. Dominion’s lawyers argued that Fox made a deliberate decision to repeatedly air the false claims to appeal to viewers. They allowed guests to falsely claim that the company had rigged the election, flipped large numbers of votes to Biden through a secret algorithm, was owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections for Hugo Chavez, the late president, and bribed government officials. “What they did to get viewers back was start this new narrative that the election had been stolen and that Dominion was the thief,” Dominion lawyer Rodney Smolla said during a March hearing. A mountain of evidence — released in the form of deposition transcripts, internal memos, and emails from the time — was damaging to Fox, even if some of it was only tangentially related to the libel argument. Dominion has pointed to text and email messages in which Fox insiders discounted and sometimes overtly mocked the vote manipulation claims. One Fox Corp. vice president called them “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS.” Much of the material showed a network effectively terrified of its audience after its election night declaration that Biden had won Arizona. The race call infuriated Trump and many viewers who

Joe Biden signs gay marriage bill

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law the “Respect for Marriage Act,” a bill codifying protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. “Today is a good day,” “Biden said. “A day America takes a vital step toward equality, for liberty and justice, not just for some but for everyone.” The signing took place after a ceremony and a string of performances from gay entertainers. The bill, which received support from nearly 40 House Republicans last week to send it to the president, repeals the federal Defense of Marriage Act that was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. As The Center Square previously reported, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., helped lead the effort in the Senate, where the bill was first passed. Her office said the legislation would “require the federal government to recognize a marriage between two individuals if the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed.” The legislation would also guarantee that “valid marriages between two individuals are given full faith and credit, regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity or national origin, but the bill would not require a State to issue a marriage license contrary to state law.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 on the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges to make same-sex marriage the law of the land nationwide. That ruling required states to allow same-sex unions under law. The high court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, as well as comments made by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised concerns that the court could do the same to the Obergefell ruling. “Passing the Respect for Marriage Act wasn’t just the right thing to do for America,” Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “It was personal to us, to our staff, and to our families.” Republished with the permission of The Center Square. 

Terri Sewell votes for the Defense of Marriage Act

Thursday, Congresswoman Terri Sewell voted to send H.R. 8404, the Respect for Marriage Act, to President Joe Biden’s desk. This controversial legislation was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 258 to 169. This also repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), upholding couples’ right to equal protection under federal law and requiring states to recognize valid out-of-state marriages. “No American should be discriminated against because of who they love,” said Rep. Sewell.  “As the Supreme Court threatens to strip away more of Americans’ hard-fought personal liberties, I’m proud that this Democratic Congress is standing up for the dignity and equality of every American by sending the Respect for Marriage Act to President Biden’s desk. As the representative of America’s Civil Rights District, I will always fight for the equal treatment of all Americans under the law!” Supporters justified the need for federal legislation on marriage, citing a statement made by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas, in his concurring opinion in the Dobbs abortion decision, called for the Court to similarly reconsider the controversial Obergefell versus Hodges decision creating the right to same-sex marriage. Obergefell overturned state laws, including the Alabama Constitutional Amendment, stating that marriage is between one man and one woman only. The Respect for Marriage Act will take several steps to protect same-sex and interracial marriages. While the Supreme Court has effectively voided DOMA, this federal law still remains on the books. The Respect for Marriage Act will repeal this statute once and for all. The legislation will uphold married couples’ right to equal protection in all areas covered under federal law, such as Social Security, tax filings, and veterans’ benefits. The bill prohibits state officials from denying recognition of an out-of-state marriage on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. Sewell was the only member of the Alabama House delegation to vote in favor of the bill. The final bill now heads to the President’s desk for his signature. “Today, Congress took a critical step to ensure that Americans have the right to marry the person they love,” President Biden said in a statement. “The House’s bipartisan passage of the Respect for Marriage Act—by a significant margin—will give peace of mind to millions of LGBTQI+ and interracial couples who are now guaranteed the rights and protections to which they and their children are entitled.” Sewell was recently re-elected to her seventh term representing Alabama’s Seventh Congressional District. She is the only Democrat in Alabama’s congressional delegation and the only Black woman to represent the state of Alabama in Congress in its history. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.

Gary Palmer votes against the Respect for Marriage Act

Gary Palmer Official

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the controversial Respect for Marriage Act. Congressman Gary Palmer voted against the measure. Palmer warned that this bill was “about forcibly imposing a new definition of marriage and silencing those who disagree.” The bill had already passed the U.S. Senate 61 to 36. It now goes to the desk of President Joe Biden where he has said that he will sign it. “Marriage between a man and a woman is one of the self-evident truths that pre-exist the concept and institution of culture and government,” Palmer said in a statement emailed to Alabama Today. “Marriage is the fundamental building block of all cultures and civilizations. It is essential for family formation and for the bearing and raising of children. Attempts to redefine marriage through the deceptively titled ‘Respect for Marriage Act’ will not change what marriage is by nature nor its importance to the future well-being of our nation.” “This bill is not about the freedom of individuals to live and love as they choose but about forcibly imposing a new definition of marriage and silencing those who disagree, particularly people of faith,” Palmer stated. “This bill jeopardizes religious liberty for people of all faiths who do not support redefining marriage and will only accelerate discrimination against individuals, businesses, and organizations who refuse to promote same-sex unions. For these reasons, I opposed passage of this bill.” The legislation was passed in a 258-169-1 vote. Thirty-nine Republicans joined all Democrats in supporting the measure. By passing the bill into law before Republicans take control of the House next month, it means that this law will be in effect in the states even if the controversial Supreme Court ruling – Obergefell versus Hodges – making gay marriage legal across the nation is eventually overturned by the Court. Justice Clarence Thomas, who vociferously opposed Obergefell v. Hodges when it passed, had recently publicly floated the idea of overturning the controversial decision. Following the bill’s passage in the Senate, Biden said he would “promptly and proudly” sign it into law. The bill gives federal protections to same-sex couples, requiring that the federal government and all states recognize marriages if the pair were wed in a state where the union was legal. It also cements protections for interracial couples, ordering states to recognize marriages regardless of “the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.” The bill also repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. The House had passed an earlier version of the Respect for Marriage Act 267 to 157 vote in July.  That earlier version of the bill was altered in the Senate after Republicans expressed concerns that it lacked religious freedom protections. Gary Palmer was recently re-elected to his fifth term representing Alabama’s Sixth Congressional District. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.

Supreme Court weighs ‘most important case’ on democracy

The Supreme Court is about to confront a new elections case, a Republican-led challenge asking the justices for a novel ruling that could significantly increase the power of state lawmakers over elections for Congress and the presidency. The court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a case from North Carolina, where Republican efforts to draw congressional districts heavily in their favor were blocked by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court because the GOP map violated the state constitution. A court-drawn map produced seven seats for each party in last month’s midterm elections in highly competitive North Carolina. The question for the justices is whether the U.S. Constitution’s provision giving state legislatures the power to make the rules about the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections cuts state courts out of the process. “This is the single most important case on American democracy — and for American democracy — in the nation’s history,” said former federal judge Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative who has joined the legal team defending the North Carolina court decision. The Republican leaders of North Carolina’s legislature told the Supreme Court that the Constitution’s “carefully drawn lines place the regulation of federal elections in the hands of state legislatures, Congress, and no one else.” Three conservative justices already have voiced some support for the idea that the state court had improperly taken powers given by the Constitution when it comes to federal elections. A fourth has written approvingly about limiting the power of state courts in this area. But the Supreme Court has never invoked what is known as the independent state legislature theory. It was, though, mentioned in a separate opinion by three conservatives in the Bush v. Gore case that settled the 2000 presidential election. If the court were to recognize it now, opponents of the concept argue, the effects could be much broader than just redistricting. The most robust ruling for North Carolina Republicans could undermine more than 170 state constitutional provisions, over 650 state laws delegating authority to make election policies to state and local officials, and thousands of regulations down to the location of polling places, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Luttig, who advised former Vice President Mike Pence that he had no authority to reject electoral votes following the 2020 election, is among several prominent conservatives and Republicans who have lined up against the broad assertion that legislatures can’t be challenged in state courts when they make decisions about federal elections, including congressional redistricting. That group includes former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, law professor Steven Calabresi, a founder of the conservative Federalist Society, and Benjamin Ginsberg, a longtime lawyer for Republican candidates and the party. “Unfortunately, because of ongoing and widespread efforts to sow distrust and spread disinformation, confidence in our elections is at a low ebb,” Ginsberg wrote in a Supreme Court filing. “The version of the independent state legislature theory advanced by Petitioners, in this case, threatens to make a bad situation much worse, exacerbating the current moment of political polarization and further undermining confidence in our elections.” The arguments are taking place a day after the final contest of the 2022 midterms, the Georgia Senate runoff between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. In that contest, state courts ruled in favor of Democrats to allow for voting on the Saturday before the election, over the objections of Republicans. Jason Snead, of the conservative Honest Elections Project, said the case is an opportunity for the high court to rein in out-of-control state courts which are being pushed by Democratic attorneys to effectively create new rules governing voting, including the Georgia example. “We’ve seen a fairly pervasive attempt to use courts to rewrite election laws if those laws don’t suit partisan agendas,” Snead said in a call with reporters. “That’s not something we want to see when it flies in the face of the Constitution.” He is among proponents of the high court’s intervention who argue the case doesn’t represent “a threat to democracy.” The justices can instead write a narrow opinion that places limits on state courts without upsetting the choices New York and other states have made to restrict partisan redistricting, a group of New York voters wrote in a court filing. The New Yorkers implicitly recognize that if the court gives more power to state legislatures over drawing congressional lines, Republicans may not necessarily benefit. During the last redistricting cycle, states that used independent redistricting commissions rather than legislatures were largely Democratic-dominated ones. Commissions drew 95 House seats in states with Democratic legislatures and governors, as opposed to only 12 in states with GOP control. A ruling that grants legislatures ultimate power over redistricting could eradicate those commissions and let Democrats redraw a major chunk of the House map. “The bottom line is the impact of this fringe theory would be terrible,” said former Attorney General Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “It could unleash a wave of gerrymandering from both parties.” Even less dramatic changes may not necessarily tilt the GOP’s way on a national redistricting map that was essentially fought to a draw, and where state court rulings cost Democrats about as many House seats as Republicans. The Supreme Court refused to step into the North Carolina case in March, allowing the court-drawn districts to be used this year. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented. Writing for the three, Alito said, “there must be some limit on the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the conduct of federal elections. I think it is likely that the applicants would succeed in showing that the North Carolina Supreme Court exceeded those limits.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh has separately written about the need for federal courts to police the actions of state courts when it comes to federal elections. Chief Justice John Roberts’ record on this question gives both sides some hope. In 2015,

Justices mull latest challenge to landmark voting rights law

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared open Tuesday to making it harder to create majority Black electoral districts, in an Alabama case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power across the United States. The justices heard two hours of arguments in the latest showdown over the federal Voting Rights Act, with lawsuits seeking to force Alabama to create a second Black majority congressional district. About 27% of Alabamians are Black, but they form a majority in just one of the state’s seven congressional districts. The court’s conservatives, in a 5-4 vote in February, blocked a lower court ruling that would have required a second Black majority district in time for the November elections. A similar ruling to create an additional Black majority district in Louisiana also was put on hold. Conservative high-court majorities have made it harder for racial minorities to use the Voting Rights Act in ideologically divided rulings in 2013 and 2021. A ruling for Alabama in the new case could weaken a powerful tool that civil rights groups and minority voters have used to challenge racial discrimination in redistricting. Some conservative justices seemed sympathetic to Alabama’s arguments that the court should insist on a “race-neutral” approach to redistricting and should make it harder for people claiming racial discrimination in voting to clear an early legal hurdle. Against pushback from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the other liberal justices, Justice Samuel Alito said it’s too easy for people suing over discrimination in redistricting to win because the first bar in the legal test is too low — simply showing that another political district could be drawn in which minority residents make up a majority of voters. In practice, Alito said, “will not the plaintiffs always run the table?” The outcome appears to rest with Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. Their questions suggested they may be open to a more narrow win for Alabama than the broadest outcome the state is asking for, which might even allow states to dismantle existing districts where racial minorities make up more than half the voters. Even the state’s “least far-reaching argument,” as Alito put it, would result in many fewer districts drawn to give racial minorities the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice, the court’s three liberal justices said. Jackson, the court’s first Black female justice who was hearing her second day of arguments, disagreed with arguments made by Alabama’s lawyer, Edmund LaCour Jr., that redistricting has to be done without regard to race. Constitutional amendments adopted after the Civil War were intended to give a “constitutional foundation for a piece of legislation that was designed to make people who had less opportunity and less rights equal to white citizens,” Jackson said. The Voting Rights Act “by its plain text is doing that same thing.” Justice Elena Kagan referred to the Voting Rights Act as not only “an important statute” but “one of the great achievements of American democracy” while acknowledging that recent Supreme Court cases have cut back on the law. “Now, in recent years, the statute has fared not well in this court,” she said. “You’re asking us essentially to cut back substantially on our 40 years of precedent and to make this, too, extremely difficult to prevail on, so what’s left?” Kagan said to LaCour. Partisan politics underlies the case. Republicans who dominate elective office in Alabama have been resistant to creating a second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority that could send another Democrat to Congress. Two appointees of President Donald Trump were on the three-judge panel that unanimously held that Alabama likely violated the landmark 1965 law by diluting Black voting strength. The judges found that Alabama has concentrated Black voters in one district, while spreading them out among the others to make it impossible for them to elect a candidate of their choice. Alabama’s Black population is large enough and geographically compact enough to create a second district, the judges found. Alabama argues that the lower court ruling would force it to sort voters by race and the state insists it is taking a “race neutral” approach to redistricting. That argument could resonate with conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts. He has opposed most consideration of race in voting both as a justice and in his time as a lawyer in Republican presidential administrations. Roberts said little Tuesday to telegraph his vote. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch also had little or nothing to say in court, but Thomas, in particular, has voted consistently to limit the reach of anti-discrimination laws. The arguments were the first Supreme Court case involving race for Jackson. A challenge to affirmative action in college admissions is set for arguments on October 31. A decision in Merrill v. Milligan is expected by late June. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.

U.S. Supreme Court poised to keep marching to right in new term

With public confidence diminished and justices sparring openly over the institution’s legitimacy, the Supreme Court on Monday will begin a new term that could push American law to the right on issues of race, voting, and the environment. Following June’s momentous overturning of nearly 50 years of constitutional protections for abortion rights, the court is diving back in with an aggressive agenda that seems likely to split its six conservative justices from its three liberals. “It’s not going to be a sleepy term,” said Allison Orr Larsen, a William and Mary law professor. “Cases the court already has agreed to hear really have the potential to bring some pretty significant changes to the law.” Into this swirling mix steps new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s first Black woman. Jackson took the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the court’s liberal wing, who retired in June. She’s not expected to alter the liberal-conservative divide on the court, but for the first time the court has four women as justices, and white men no longer hold a majority. The court, with three appointees of President Donald Trump, could discard decades of decisions that allow colleges to take account of race in admissions and again weaken the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. In a separate elections case, a Republican-led appeal could dramatically change the way elections for Congress and the presidency are conducted by handing more power to state legislatures and taking it away from state courts. Also on the agenda is a clash over the rights of a business owner with a religious objection to working with same-sex couples on their weddings. In the term’s first arguments Monday, the justices are being asked to limit the reach of the Clean Water Act, nation’s main law to combat water pollution. The case involves an Idaho couple who won an earlier high court round in their bid to build a house on property near a lake without getting a permit under that law. The outcome could change the rules for millions of acres of property that contain wetlands. A Supreme Court decision for the couple could strip environmental protections from 45 million acres and threaten water quality for millions of people, said Sam Sankar, senior vice president of the Earthjustice environmental group. “It’s going to help a lot of industries. It’s going to hurt real people,” Sankar said. But Damien Schiff, representing the couple, said a favorable court ruling could free ordinary property owners from worrying about large fines and years of delays. “You don’t have to be a large industrial company or large property owner to have a problem,” Schiff said. There’s little expectation that the outcomes in the highest-profile cases will be anything other than conservative victories, following last term’s outcomes. In their first full term together, the conservatives ruled not only on abortion, but expanded gun rights, enhanced religious rights, reined in the government’s ability to fight climate change and limited Biden administration efforts to combat COVID-19. Deborah Archer, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, underscored the long odds facing defenders of affirmative action in college admissions. “It is most certainly an uphill climb. We’re in a scary place where we are relying on Justice Roberts,” Archer said. Her assessment stems from Chief Justice John Roberts’ long-standing support, both as a judge and a White House lawyer in the 1980s, for limits on considerations of race in education and voting. “It’s a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,” Roberts wrote in a 2006 redistricting case from Texas. Last term’s epic decisions might have produced bruised feelings among the justices anyway. But the leak of the abortion decision in early May, seven weeks before it was released, exacerbated tensions on the court, several justices have said. The court has apparently not identified the source of the leak, Breyer said in a recent interview on CNN. Justice Elena Kagan delivered a series of talks over the summer in which she said the public’s view of the court can be damaged especially when changes in its membership lead to big changes in the law. “It just doesn’t look like law when some new judges appointed by a new president come in and start just tossing out the old stuff,” Kagan said in an appearance last month at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito both took issue with Kagan, if obliquely. Roberts said it was wrong to equate disagreement with the court’s decisions with questions of legitimacy. In a comment Tuesday to The Wall Street Journal, Alito didn’t name Kagan. “But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line,” he said, according to the newspaper. Separately, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was interviewed on Thursday by the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. She stood by the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, according to the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Ginni Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, texted with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election. In January, her husband was the only justice to vote to keep documents from the National Archives out of the committee’s hands. Polls have shown a dip in approval for the court and respect for it. The latest Gallup Poll, released last week, reflected Americans’ lowest level of trust in the court in 50 years and a record-tying low approval rating. In a talk to judges and lawyers in Colorado last month, Roberts reflected on the last year at the court, calling it an “unusual one and difficult in many respects.” Following the leak, the court was ringed with an 8-foot security fence, and Roberts called it “gut-wrenching” to drive to work past the barricades. He also said it was “unnatural” to hear arguments without the public present, a concession to the coronavirus pandemic. Now the barricades are down, and the public will be allowed inside the courtroom for arguments for the first time since March

House OKs bill to protect contraception from Supreme Court

The right to use contraceptives would be inscribed into law under a measure that Democrats pushed through the House on Thursday, their latest campaign-season response to concerns a conservative Supreme Court that already erased federal abortion rights could go further. The House’s 228-195 roll call was largely along party lines and sent the measure to the Senate, where its fate seemed uphill. The bill is the latest example of Democrats latching onto their own version of culture war battles to appeal to female, progressive, and minority voters by casting the court and Republicans as extremists intent on obliterating rights taken for granted for years. Democrats said that with the high court recently overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973, the justices and GOP lawmakers are on track to go even further than banning abortions. “This extremism is about one thing: control of women. We will not let this happen,” said Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., who sponsored the legislation. All of the bill’s nearly 150 co-sponsors are Democrats. In his opinion overturning Roe last month, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should now review other precedents. He mentioned rulings that affirmed the rights of same-sex marriage in 2015, same-sex intimate relationships in 2003, and married couples’ use of contraceptives in 1965. Thomas did not specify a 1972 decision that legalized the use of contraceptives by unmarried people as well, but Democrats say they consider that at risk as well. Republicans accused Democrats of manufacturing a crisis, saying there is no serious effort underway to erase the right to use contraceptives. “If we allow the majority to undermine constitutional safeguards for an imagined and fake emergency, they will create more imagined emergencies in the future to violate and undermine our constitutional principles,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-NY., said during the debate. She said Democrats wanted to “distract and scare the American people and score cheap political points.” The measure’s fate seemed unclear in the 50-50 Senate, where at least 10 Republicans would have to support the bill for it to reach the 60 votes needed for most legislation to pass. House Democrats have begun forcing votes on these and other issues related to privacy rights, hoping for long-shot victories or to at least energize sympathetic voters and donors and force Republicans from competitive districts in difficult spots. The House voted last week to revive a nationwide right to abortion, with every Republican voting no, and voted largely along party lines to bar prosecuting women traveling to states where abortion remains legal. The House voted Tuesday to keep same-sex marriage legal, with 47 Republicans joining all Democrats in backing the measure. Though 157 Republicans voted no, that tally raised expectations that the bill could win enough support for GOP senators to pass, sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature. The contraception bill explicitly allows the use of contraceptives and gives the medical community the right to provide them, covering “any device or medication used to prevent pregnancy.” Listed examples include oral contraceptives, injections, implants like intrauterine devices, and emergency contraceptives, which prevent pregnancy several days after unprotected sex. The bill lets the federal and state government, patients, and health care providers bring civil suits against states or state officials that violate its provisions. Same-sex marriage may have such broad public acceptance that growing numbers of Republicans are willing to vote for it. But anti-abortion groups oppose the contraception legislation, and it remains to be seen if significant numbers of GOP lawmakers are willing to make that break. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said the legislation “seeks to bail out the abortion industry, trample conscience rights, and require uninhibited access to dangerous chemical abortion drugs.” The National Right to Life Committee said it “goes far beyond the scope of contraception” and would cover abortion pills like RU486, which supporters said was incorrect. The measure drew a mixed reaction from two of the Senate’s more moderate Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she was “most likely” to support the measure. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, demurred, saying she was working on bipartisan legislation that she said would codify the rights to abortion and perhaps for contraception. There are few state restrictions on contraceptive use, said Elizabeth Nash, who studies state reproductive health policies for the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Nash said she was concerned that there will be efforts to curb emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices and to help providers and institutions refuse to provide contraceptive services. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.

Terri Sewell lone legislator to vote in support of Respect for Marriage Act

Six of the seven U.S. Representatives for Alabama are Republicans, so it is no surprise that all six voted against the latest bill to pass the House. The Respect for Marriage Act aims to repeal and replace laws that would outlaw same-sex or interracial marriage. The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved the legislation with 267 yeas and 157 nays. That means 47 Republicans — almost one-fifth of the GOP lawmakers — voted in favor of the bill. Rep. Terri Sewell was the lone Alabama leader who voted in support of the bill, while Congressmen Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Jerry Carl, Barry Moore, Gary Palmer, and Mike Rogers were nays. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed and signed into law by Bill Clinton. The bill defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. However, the Supreme Court ruled the laws unconstitutional in the cases of United States v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). With the current conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, and because that court has already reversed the controversial abortion rulings in Roe v. Wade, leaders are trying to protect other rights that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas already asked his colleagues to rule on. Thomas wrote that past rulings from the Court regarding gay rights and contraception rights should be reconsidered and that those rulings “were demonstrably erroneous decisions.” Justice Samuel Alito argued for a more narrow interpretation of the rights guaranteed to Americans, noting that the right to an abortion was not spelled out in the Constitution. The cases Thomas mentioned were Griswold vs. Connecticut, the 1965 ruling in which the Supreme Court said married couples have the right to obtain contraceptives; Lawrence v. Texas, which established the right to engage in private sexual acts; and the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which ruled there is a right to same-sex marriage. “Today, I proudly voted to protect marriage equality in Alabama and across the country,” stated Rep. Sewell in a press release. “As the Supreme Court comes after our hard-fought personal liberties, right-wing extremists are now threatening to strip away Americans’ right to marry the person they love. With the Respect for Marriage Act, House Democrats are taking urgent action to enshrine marriage equality into federal law and prohibit states from discriminating against same-sex and interracial couples. We will not go back!” While Sewell described this legislation as needed and urgent, Rep. Moore disagreed, arguing that the court’s ruling on those issues were set precedent. “With inflation at a 41-year high, a new record for border crossings set in June at over 191,000, and violent crime plaguing the country, it is outrageous that Democrats are focused on unnecessary legislation that repeals a law struck down by the courts years ago,” said Moore in a press release. “Despite mischaracterizations Democrats are using to justify their urgency, the Supreme Court made it clear in Dobbs that their decision should not be used to cast doubt on precedents that have nothing to do with abortion.” The bill now heads to the Senate. .

House passes same-sex marriage bill in retort to high court

The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved legislation Tuesday to protect same-sex and interracial marriages amid concerns that the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade abortion access could jeopardize other rights criticized by many conservatives. In a robust but lopsided debate, Democrats argued intensely and often personally in favor of enshrining marriage equality in federal law, while Republicans steered clear of openly rejecting gay marriage. Instead, leading Republicans portrayed the bill as unnecessary amid other issues facing the nation. Tuesday’s election-year roll call, 267-157, was partly political strategy, forcing all House members, Republicans, and Democrats, to go on the record. It also reflected the legislative branch pushing back against an aggressive court that has raised questions about revisiting other apparently settled U.S. laws. Wary of political fallout, GOP leaders did not press their members to hold the party line against the bill, aides said. In all, 47 Republicans joined all Democrats in voting for passage. “For me, this is personal,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y., who said he was among the openly gay members of the House. “Imagine telling the next generation of Americans, my generation, we no longer have the right to marry who we love,” he said. “Congress can’t allow that to happen.” While the Respect for Marriage Act easily passed the House with a Democratic majority, it is likely to stall in the evenly split Senate, where most Republicans would probably join a filibuster to block it. It’s one of several bills, including those enshrining abortion access, that Democrats are proposing to confront the court’s conservative majority. Another bill guaranteeing access to contraceptive services is set for a vote later this week. House GOP leaders split over the issue, with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Rep. Steve Scalise voting against the marriage rights bill, but the No. 3 Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York voting in favor. In a notable silence, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell declined to express his view on the bill, leaving an open question over how strongly his party would fight it if it should come up for a vote in the upper chamber. Key Republicans in the House have shifted in recent years on the same-sex marriage issue, including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who joined those voting in favor on Tuesday. Said another Republican, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, in a statement about her yes vote: “If gay couples want to be as happily or miserably married as straight couples, more power to them.” Polling shows a majority of Americans favor preserving rights to marry, regardless of sex, gender, race, or ethnicity, a long-building shift in modern mores toward inclusion. A Gallup poll in June showed broad and increasing support for same-sex marriage, with 70% of U.S. adults saying they think such unions should be recognized by law as valid. The poll showed majority support among both Democrats (83%) and Republicans (55%). Approval of interracial marriage in the U.S. hit a six-decade high at 94% in September, according to Gallup. Ahead of Tuesday’s voting, a number of lawmakers joined protesters demonstrating against the abortion ruling outside the Supreme Court, which sits across from the Capitol and remains fenced off for security during tumultuous political times. Capitol Police said among those arrested were 16 members of Congress. “The extremist right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has put our country down a perilous path,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., in a floor speech setting Tuesday’s debate in motion. “It’s time for our colleagues across the aisle to stand up and be counted. Will they vote to protect these fundamental freedoms? Or will they vote to let states take those freedoms away?” But Republicans insisted the court was only focused on abortion access in June when it struck down the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling, and they argued that same-sex marriage and other rights were not threatened. In fact, almost none of the Republicans who rose to speak during the debate directly broached the subject of same-sex or interracial marriage. “We are here for a political charade; we are here for political messaging,” said Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. That same tack could be expected in the Senate. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said, “The predicate of this is just wrong. I don’t think the Supreme Court is going to overturn any of that stuff.” As several Democrats spoke of inequalities they said they or their loved ones had faced in same-sex marriages, the Republicans talked about rising gas prices, inflation, and crime, including recent threats to justices in connection with the abortion ruling. For Republicans in Congress, the Trump-era confirmation of conservative justices to the Supreme Court has fulfilled a long-term GOP goal of revisiting many social, environmental, and regulatory issues the party has been unable to tackle on its own by passing bills that could be signed into law. The Respect for Marriage Act would repeal a law from the Clinton era that defines marriage as a heterogeneous relationship between a man and a woman. It would also provide legal protections for interracial marriages by prohibiting any state from denying out-of-state marriage licenses and benefits on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. The 1996 law, the Defense of Marriage Act, had basically been sidelined by Obama-era court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the rights of same-sex couples to marry nationwide, a landmark case for gay rights. But last month, writing for the majority in overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito argued for a more narrow interpretation of the rights guaranteed to Americans, noting that the right to an abortion was not spelled out in the Constitution. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas went further, saying other rulings similar to Roe, including those around same-sex marriage and the right for couples to use contraception, should be reconsidered. While Alito insisted in the majority opinion that “this decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,” others have taken notice. “The MAGA

Alabama cites abortion ruling in transgender medication case

Days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states can prohibit abortion, Alabama has seized on the decision to argue that the state should also be able to ban gender-affirming medical treatments for transgender youths. The case marks one of the first known instances in which a conservative state has tried to apply the abortion ruling to other realms, just as LGBTQ advocates and others were afraid would happen. Critics have expressed fear that the legal reasoning behind the high court ruling could lead to a rollback of decisions involving such matters as gay marriage, birth control, and parental rights. The state is asking a federal appeals court to lift an injunction and let it enforce an Alabama law that would make it a felony to give puberty blockers or hormones to transgender minors to help affirm their gender identity. In its historic ruling last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court said terminating a pregnancy is not a fundamental constitutional right because abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution and is not “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.” In a brief filed Monday, the Alabama attorney general’s office argued similarly that gender transition treatments are not “deeply rooted in our history or traditions,” and thus, the state has the authority to ban them. Alabama contends such treatments are dangerous and experimental, a view disputed by medical organizations. Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said this is the first case he is aware of in which a state cited the abortion ruling on another issue, but added, “It won’t be the last.” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said in the majority opinion that the abortion ruling should not cast “doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” But Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the same legal reasoning should be used to reconsider high court rulings protecting same-sex marriage, gay sex, and contraceptives. “It is no surprise that Alabama and other extremely conservative states are going to take up that invitation as forcefully as they can,” Minter said. “Justice Thomas’ concurrence was a declaration of war on groups already under attack, and we expect the hostility to be escalated.” In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s so-called Dobbs decision, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in an interview with NewsNation, did not rule out defending a state law against gay sex if the GOP-controlled Legislature were to approve a new one. The previous one was struck down by the high court in 2003. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Massachusetts lawmakers are looking to increase state protections for gender-affirming care, in addition to abortion, in reaction to the Supreme Court ruling. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was unavailable for comment Thursday, a spokesman said. Jeff Walker, who has a 15-year-old transgender daughter, said this spring that it felt as if Alabama were attacking families like his with legislation targeting transgender kids’ medication and dictating their choice of school bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams. He said the state’s argument in this case is worrisome for everyone. “I think everyone should be concerned by the wording of this appeal. By this logic, any health care the state feels isn’t in line with its morals or beliefs should be banned,” Walker said. The Alabama case could become an early test of where judges stand on the scope of the abortion ruling. The appeals court granted the state’s request for an expedited schedule for submitting briefs, and a decision could come as early as this fall. While Alabama was already appealing the injunction in the transgender medication case, the state quickly incorporated the abortion decision into its filing. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey this spring signed the law making it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to dispense certain medication to minors to help with their gender transition. A federal judge in May issued a preliminary injunction blocking the measure, siding with parents who said the law violates their children’s rights and their own rights to direct their youngsters’ medical care. “What’s interesting about Supreme Court decisions is they tend to have a life of their own,” said Alison Gash, a professor of political science at the University of Oregon. Courts have generally supported the right of parents to make medical decisions for their children, including in cases where families don’t want to get cancer treatments recommended by doctors, Gash said. She said she is expecting to see more arguments like Alabama’s arising out of the Dobbs decision, and they could have a major effect on the right to make medical decisions. “A lot of us feel like the guardrails have completely fallen off, because there is no real predictability about how relevant Dobbs will be to a whole wide range of issues that affect so many different vulnerable communities,” Gash said. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.

MORE STORIES