Do the nation’s trial lawyers deserve a taxpayer bailout? That’s what they’re after: a special-interest tax break of $1.6 billion. In fact, after Congress refused to consider giving them that break, they are now trying to get it from the Treasury Department. In order to bestow that gift, though, the …
In last week’s hearings to determine whether former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan should be a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a number of liberal Senators criticized the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. as the work of “conservative activists.” In Ledbetter, …
In her questioning of Elena Kagan yesterday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked about the degree to which courts should defer to agency constructions of statutes, pointing to a 2006 Supreme Court decision regarding the Clean Water Act (CWA) that left intermittent seasonal streams unprotected. Kagan told Senator Feinstein she did …
Elena Kagan is a notably opaque Supreme Court nominee. In order to perform their constitutional function, the members of the Senate will have to reach a conclusion about her views and whether they are in the mainstream. Certain of the documents that she has generated give clues that lead to disturbing answers. …
The argument that constitutionalists should not object if President Obama replaces a liberal justice with another liberal (for 30 more years?) is absurd for several reasons, including that such simple political labels don’t fit what most judges do. More to the point, while Justice Stevens’s decisions frequently disappointed those who …
At its Executive Business Meeting on February 4, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nominations of Edward Chen, Louis Butler, Mary Smith, and Christopher Schroeder to the floor for consideration by the Senate. President Obama resubmitted those nominations in January after the Senate adjourned in December without acting on …
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), dated December 30, 2009, the Attorneys General of 13 States have objected to the so-called Nebraska Compromise that reportedly won the crucial support of Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) for the Senate health care takeover …
