Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about the healthcare reform bill that will be signed into law in the coming days. A more interesting question, and one more relevant to this blog, is what effect its passage might have on a potential Supreme Court vacancy this summer. Because of his victory yesterday, the President [...]

President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter is the type of decision we have come to expect from the Obama administration. It involved important political considerations and will likely prove to be good enough for liberals but not off-putting for conservatives. Let me start off with the assumption that she [...]

President Obama gave the commencement speech at Notre Dame earlier today and spoke primarily about abortion and other social issues. You can find a full recap from the New York Times here. I don’t ordinarily take note of political speeches coming from the White House, but I have to think about whether or not the [...]

On Monday, in response to a complaint from the United States Department of Justice alleging that Governor Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich had solicited bribes and engaged in a massive conspiracy to commit fraud, the Illinois House voted 113-0 to begin impeachment proceedings. Blagojevich has not yet been indicted. On December 10th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [...]

The Court today handed down an Order’s List (here) that, among other things, granted, vacated and remanded a detainee case and struck down another petition questioning Barack Obama’s qualifications to be President. In Rasul v. Myers, a group of individuals who had been held in Gutantanamo filed suit claiming inappropriate use of torture and “religious [...]

Over the course of the past week, both the blogosphere and mainstream media have been spending quite a bit of time over at the Supreme Court rumor mill. There has been a lot of buzz about two cases concerned with president-elect Obama’s citizenship, Donofrio v. Wells (08A407) and Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz (08A469). The applications for [...]

Again, our thanks to commenter Ted for bringing the Scalia referral to our attention. In speaking about that application for stay, Ted writes: I don’t think Team Obama should get too comfortable with the Court’s denial of [Donofrio] since [Wrotnowski] IS distributed for Dec 12 conference. It’s important to remember that the “safe harbor” deadline–the [...]

Just as everyone thought the Obama Citizen controversy was over in the Courts, another case has popped up. Even though I don’t share his concern, thanks to commentor ‘Ted‘ for bringing the latest case to my attention. Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz is a motion for injunction filed by Cort Wrotnowski against Susan Bysiewicz, Secretary of State [...]

Once again, the Court rejected a case challenging President Obama’s citizenship. The case was Donofrio v. Wells (08A407). You can find the Order List here and the docket page here. The case had been rejected by Justice Souter, the Justice who presides over that circuit, before it was refiled with Justice Thomas, who opted to [...]

The Supreme Court appears to have declined review in a case filed against the Secretary of State of New Jersey that sought to nullify Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. The case, which centers on Obama’s citizenship, was not among those for which the Court accepted review on Friday; thus, watchers of the high Court [...]