Tag Archives: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Stephen Breyer is set to retire – should his replacement on the Supreme Court have a term limit?

Leave a reply
Will Stephen Breyer’s replacement on the Supreme Court serve for so long?
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Paul M. Collins, Jr., UMass Amherst and Artemus Ward, Northern Illinois University

A vacancy sign hangs above the Supreme Court bench following reports on Jan. 26, 2022, that long-serving liberal justice Stephen Breyer is set to retire.

Names are already being thrown around in the media as to who will replace him, aided by helpful hints from President Joe Biden himself. But whoever it is can, depending on their age, expect a lengthy spell on the bench of the highest court in the land. Continue reading →

Share Button

The erosion of Roe v. Wade and abortion access didn’t begin in Texas or Mississippi – it started in Pennsylvania in 1992

Leave a reply
Demonstrators in Austin march at the Texas State Capitol in just one of many rallies held across the U.S. to protest the state’s new abortion law.
Montinique Monroe/Getty Images News via Getty Images

Alison Gash, University of Oregon

Abortion rights are more vulnerable to Supreme Court reversal now than at any time since the court legalized the procedure in its landmark 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade.

The court is set to weigh in on abortion restrictions from at least two states this term. The first is a Texas law effectively outlawing abortions after six weeks. The second is a Mississippi law barring abortions after 15 weeks.

On Oct. 22, 2021, the Supreme Court upheld a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing the Texas law to go into effect while the case is being litigated. Continue reading →

Share Button

Architect of Texas Abortion Ban Takes Aim at LGBTQ+ Rights While Urging Reversal of Roe

Leave a reply

“Make no mistake, the goal is to force extreme, outdated, religious-driven values on all of us through the courts.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-18-2021

The Women’s March on Washington in 2017. Photo: Mobilus In Mobili/flickr/CC

Advocates for reproductive freedom and LGTBQ+ equality on Saturday pointed to a legal brief filed in a U.S. Supreme Court case that could soon overturn Roe v. Wade as a crucial example of the broader goals of those fighting to end abortion rights across the United States.

“It’s never just been about fetuses. It’s about controlling sex,” tweeted Muhlenberg College assistant professor Jacqueline Antonovich, a historian of health and medicine. Continue reading →

Share Button

48 Years After Landmark Ruling, Advocates Push to #ReimagineRoe and Build Abortion Justice

Leave a reply

“Roe is the floor. We want an end to Hyde. We want people to access abortion care, when they need it, without discrimination, stigma, or harm.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams.  Published 1-22-2021

Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt Pro-choice demonstration in front of SCOTUS. in June 2016. Photo: Jordan Uhl/flickr/CC

Nearly a half-century after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that access to safe, legal abortion is a constitutional right, advocates are now pushing the Biden administration and Congress to

urgently and aggressively pursue a bold reproductive justice agenda.

While advocates have fought to protect Roe v. Wade since 1973, 48 years later to the day—with a new pro-choice administration and Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress—calls are building to #ReimagineRoe and treat the high court’s landmark ruling as a floor rather than a ceiling for reproductive rights and healthcare. Continue reading →

Share Button

Trump’s Pennsylvania lawsuits invoke Bush v. Gore – but the Supreme Court probably won’t decide the 2020 election

Leave a reply

Judges can intervene in elections, but the Supreme Court really prefers not to. Jantanee Phoolmas/Moment via Getty Images

Steven Mulroy, University of Memphis

The Trump campaign has filed two lawsuits in federal court over ballot counting and voting deadlines in Pennsylvania, threatening to take the election to the Supreme Court. Both consciously echo the two main legal theories of Bush v. Gore, the infamous Supreme Court case that decided the contested 2000 presidential election.

But this race is not likely to be decided by the Supreme Court.

There are several reasons, sitting at the intersection of law and politics, why the ghosts of Florida past won’t rise again in Pennsylvania. As a law professor who’s authored a book on election reform, I rate success in Trump’s efforts to wrench back Biden’s lead through litigation as a real long shot, though not out of the question. Continue reading →

Share Button

Constitutional Law Experts Endorse Democrats’ Bill to Create 18-Year Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices

Leave a reply

They called it “a critical piece in prescribing how our country’s leaders can work to depoliticize the Supreme Court and its confirmation process.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-23-2020

Constitutional law experts on Friday endorsed a bill that would create 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court Justices. (Photo: Matt Wade/flickr/cc)

Over two dozen constitutional law experts on Friday endorsed legislation recently introduced by a trio of House Democrats that would establish 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The endorsement letter (pdf) signed by professors and scholars across the country, along with a former U.S. senator and a former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, comes as the Senate GOP is trying to confirm right-wing Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s third nominee to the high court, before the November general election. Continue reading →

Share Button

Warning Fundamental Rights and American Lives at Stake, 5,000+ Lawyers Urge Senate to Reject Barrett

Leave a reply

“Rushing to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett will cause irreparable damage to the public’s faith in the Supreme Court, the rule of law, and our democracy.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-9-2020

Photo:massmatt/flickr/CC

Ahead of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings scheduled to start Monday, more than 5,000 lawyers issued an open letter Friday urging senators to “defend the lives and fundamental rights of all Americans” by refusing to confirm President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Congressional leaders and the White House have been locked in a political battle over the high court’s empty seat since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg  in September. Rights advocates have raised alarm about Barrett’s “extreme ideology”—as the lawyers put it—since even before Trump officially announced her nomination. Continue reading →

Share Button

Successful GOP Repeal of ACA Would Strip Health Coverage From Millions and Give Top 0.1% a Massive Tax Cut—During a Pandemic

Leave a reply

“If Trump gets the Supreme Court to strike down ACA, the richest 0.1% would get a tax cut of $198,000 a year, and Big Pharma would get a tax cut of $2.8 billion. But millions of seniors would pay billions more for prescription drugs, and 20 million would lose their health insurance.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-6-2020

Health Care Reform Law Protests at the US Supreme Court in 2012. Photo: Elvert Barnes/CC

New research released Tuesday shows that if the Supreme Court next month sides with the Trump administration and 18 state attorneys general seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act, more than 20 million people would lose health insurance and millions more would be forced to pay more for healthcare—in the middle of a pandemic—while Big Pharma and the richest 0.1% would enjoy major tax cuts.

“The stakes in this case, always extraordinarily high”—wrote Tara Straw and Aviva Aron-Dine in one of several reports (pdf) published this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)—”are even higher now amidst a global pandemic and an economic crisis that has caused more people to lose health insurance and become eligible for help from the ACA.” Continue reading →

Share Button

Unlike US, Europe picks top judges with bipartisan approval to create ideologically balanced high courts

Leave a reply

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 21 called on the Republican-controlled Senate not to confirm a new justice until the next president is in office. Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images

David Orentlicher, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Filling Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court immediately sparked a bitter partisan fight.

But choosing judges for the nation’s highest court doesn’t have to be so polarizing.

In some European countries, judicial appointments are designed to ensure the court’s ideological balance, and the entire process, from nomination to confirmation, is generally not seen as partisan. By choice and by law, high court justices in those places work together to render consensus-based decisions. Continue reading →

Share Button

‘Knives Out on SCOTUS’: Patriotic Millionaires Open Letter Pushes Senate Dems to Fight ‘Nakedly Illegitimate’ Nomination Attempt

Leave a reply

Citing Trump’s signals that he may try to remain in office regardless of the election results, the group tells lawmakers, “to be clear, you no longer have the option to stand idly by and wait for things to ‘play out.'”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 9-25-2020

Judge Amy Coney Barrett during her Circuit Court confirmation hearing. Screenshot: C-SPAN

Ahead of reporting Friday that President Donald Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Patriotic Millionaires launched a “Knives Out on SCOTUS” campaign pressuring Senate Democrats to fight back against “morally-bankrupt Republican hypocrites” in the chamber who are trying to “hand a far-right ideologue a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court just days before the most divisive and consequential election in American history.”

The group’s open letter, which Americans are urged to sign, comes after a week of mobilizing in response to Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell (R-Ky.) vowing after Ginsburg’s death that they were committed to nominating and voting on her replacement before November 3. The letter demands that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and members of the Democratic Caucus “use every possible procedural tool” at their disposal “to disrupt and delay this public fraud.” Continue reading →

Share Button