It is an old axiom that it is socially inappropriate to speak ill of a person in the immediate aftermath of their death. But what if that person has been an evil villain their entire life? It seems entirely appropriate to acknowledge their life of villainy, and yes, to even proclaim “good riddance” on their passing. … Read more
Back in early June, the House voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn in civil contempt: The 229-191 vote fell straight along party lines. The resolution required only a simple majority and needed to be passed in only one chamber of Congress. It came after the House Judiciary … Read more
The media is focused on the obvious: Trump backs away from census citizenship question, direct agencies to hand over citizenship information to Commerce: President Donald Trump issued an executive order Thursday directing the Commerce Department to obtain citizenship data through means other than the US census, dropping a controversial plan to include a citizenship question … Read more
The Trump administration had argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that it needed a decision on the citizenship question because the printer’s deadline for the 2020 Census form was July 1. In fact, the Supreme Court relied on this representation, bypassing the court of appeals (which is extremely rare) and adding the constitutional question to … Read more
I’m going to take today’s decisions out of order, and review them by relevance instead. As I expected, the two partisan gerrymandering cases (Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause) were combined together into a single opinion. The court has for years avoided addressing the issue of partisan gerrymandering, with former Justice Kennedy suggesting that … Read more