SCOTUS AT IT AGAIN

[hntnhole]

THIS FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 12:43 pm this afternoon: 

 

The Supreme Court opens its new term Monday, hearing arguments for the first time after a summer break and with new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Already the court has said it will decide cases on a range of major issues including affirmative action, voting rights and the rights of LGBTQ people. The justices will add more cases to their docket in coming months.

A look at some of the cases the court has already agreed to hear. The justices are expected to decide each of the cases before taking a summer break at the end of June:

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

In cases from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the court could end any consideration of race in college admissions. If this seems familiar, it's because the high court has been asked repeatedly over the past 20 years to end affirmative action in higher education. In previous cases from Michigan and Texas, the court reaffirmed the validity of considering college applicants' race among many factors. But this court is more conservative than those were.

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VOTING RIGHTS

The court could further reduce protections for minority voters in its third major consideration in 10 years of the landmark Voting Rights Act, which was enacted to combat enduring racial discrimination in voting. The case the justices are hearing involves Alabama, where just one of the state's seven congressional districts has a Black majority. That's even though 27% of the state's residents are Black. A three-judge panel that included two appointees of President Donald Trump agreed that the state should have to create a second district with a Black majority, but the Supreme Court stopped any changes and said it would hear the case. A ruling for the state could wipe away all but the most obvious cases of intentional discrimination on the basis of race.

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ELECTIONS

Republicans are asking the justices to embrace a novel legal concept that would limit state courts' oversight of elections for Congress. North Carolina's top court threw out the state's congressional map that gave Republicans a lopsided advantage in a closely divided state and eventually came up with a map that basically evenly divided the state's 14 congressional districts between Democrats and Republicans. The state GOP argues that state courts have no role to play in congressional elections, including redistricting, because the U.S. Constitution gives that power to state legislatures alone. Four conservative justices have expressed varying levels of openness to the “independent state legislature” theory.

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CLEAN WATER

This is yet another case in which the court is being asked to discard an earlier ruling and loosen the regulation of property under the nation's chief 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 the Clean Water Act. The outcome could change the rules for millions of acres of property that contain wetlands.

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IMMIGRATION

The Biden administration is back at the Supreme Court to argue for a change in immigration policy from the Trump administration. It's is appealing a ruling against a Biden policy prioritizing deportation of people in the country illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk. Last term, the justices by a 5-4 vote paved the way for the administration to end the Trump policy that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their court hearing. In July, also by a 5-4 vote, the high court refused to allow the administration to implement policy guidance for deportations. A Trump-era policy favored deporting people in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties.

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LGBTQ RIGHTS

A new clash involving religion, free speech and the rights of LGBTQ people will also be before the justices. The case involves Colorado graphic and website designer Lorie Smith who wants to expand her business and offer wedding website services. She says her Christian beliefs would lead her to decline any request from a same-sex couple to design a wedding website, however, and that puts her in conflict with a Colorado anti-discrimination law.

The case is a new chance for the justices to confront issues the court skirted five years ago in a case about a baker objected to making cakes for same-sex weddings. The court has grown more conservative since that time.

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NATIVE AMERICAN ADOPTION

In November, the court will review a federal law that gives Native Americans preference in adoptions of Native children. The case presents the most significant legal challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act since its 1978 passage. The law has long been championed by Native American leaders as a means of preserving their families and culture. A federal appeals court in April upheld the law and Congress’ authority to enact it. But the judges also found some of the law’s provisions unconstitutional, including preferences for placing Native American children with Native adoptive families and in Native foster homes.

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BACON LAW BACKLASH

Also on the menu for the justices: a California animal rights law. The case stems from a 2018 ballot measure where California voters barred the sale of pork in the state if the pig it came from or the pig's mother was raised in confined conditions preventing them from laying down or turning around. Two agricultural associations challenging the law say almost no farms satisfy those conditions. They say the “massive costs of complying” with the law will “fall almost exclusively on out-of-state farmers” and that the costs will be passed on to consumers nationwide.

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ART WORLD

The court's resolution of a dispute involving pieces by artist Andy Warhol could have big consequences in the art world and beyond. If the Warhol side loses a copyright dispute involving an image Warhol made of the musician Prince, other artworks could be in peril, lawyers say. But the other side says if Warhol wins, it would be a license for other artists to blatantly copy.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the Supreme Court at [think before following links] https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court  

[hntnhole]

REGISTER.  VOTE. 

OUR HARD-WON RIGHTS DEPEND ON IT, AS WELL AS THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS.  

[BootmanLA]

I've actually had all these cases on my radar since the Court agreed to hear them, except the Warhol one, and tbh I haven't spent enough time on any related issue in recent years to have an informed opinion. In all of the other cases, there's a serious chance of major rollbacks in civil rights and environmental and humanitarian policy.

A sarcastic "thank you" to all the people in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania who couldn't bring themselves to vote for "the email lady" figuring she was going to win anyway. Especially considering the cavalier way Hair Furor treated classified information during and following his presidency. 

[PozBearWI]

24 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

I've actually had all these cases on my radar since the Court agreed to hear them, except the Warhol one, and tbh I haven't spent enough time on any related issue in recent years to have an informed opinion. In all of the other cases, there's a serious chance of major rollbacks in civil rights and environmental and humanitarian policy.

A sarcastic "thank you" to all the people in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania who couldn't bring themselves to vote for "the email lady" figuring she was going to win anyway. Especially considering the cavalier way Hair Furor treated classified information during and following his presidency. 

and perhaps a tacit non sarcastic "thank you" to those of us here in Wisconsin who are poll workers to ensure fair and free elections, regardless of what the big R party is declaring

[BootmanLA]

1 hour ago, JimInWisc said:

and perhaps a tacit non sarcastic "thank you" to those of us here in Wisconsin who are poll workers to ensure fair and free elections, regardless of what the big R party is declaring

Absolutely, and I mean no disparagement to those who did their civic duty and voted OR to those who worked hard to ensure the elections (in 2020, 2016, and more) were fair and free. 

Put another way: In the 2016 election, in Wisconsin, Trump received 2,682 FEWER votes than Mitt Romney received in 2012. But Clinton (thanks in large measure to relentless coverage of "But her emails") received 238,449 fewer votes than Barack Obama received in 2012. If only one in ten of those "drop offs" had turned out and voted for Clinton, she would have carried Wisconsin.

It's a similar story with slightly different numbers in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

[hntnhole]

Thanks to each of your for your responses.  Ran out of responses again, but what is, just is.  The world won't end because of it.  

[BREEDmeRAW]

Didn't we learn from African Apartheid that a small majority of only white men should control the country is wrong? Right now Iranian women are protesting for their rights and the USA is going backwards to the 1700's and eliminating individual rights.

If the Supreme Court wants to go by the Original Constitution and what the founding fathers considered the "Law of the Land" then Clarence Thomas can not be married to a white women. 

Also, he and the Female Justices have to resign. Since women are not individual people with their own rights an not allowed Abortion, we should stop giving them names and refer to them as baby machines for the country.

That is not the Country that I want to live. 

[hntnhole]

4 hours ago, BREEDmeRAW said:

That is not the Country that I want to live

Of course not.  However, this is what we have, so we fight to make it better, more inclusive, less hate-filled.  It's a process, nothing happens as fast as we wish it would, so take part in the process of improving our country.  Only by engaging in activism do we gain ground.  When we don't bother to fight for our rights, the hatemonger will gradually strip them away.

If you have any doubts, ask any woman of clear mind and heart how she'll vote in a few weeks.  These were hard-won battles over the years, and they will have to be fought for over and over again.