Explanation for the supreme courts decision is called

WASHINGTON, DC – The Supreme Court is expected in the next seven days to hand down five major decisions, three of which will be huge, and potentially material for the history books –on abortion, the Second Amendment, and religious liberty. The Supreme Court’s term begins the first Monday of October, and officially lasts until the date of the next term’s October start date. But the court’s term as a public matter usually ends in the final week of June, which is to say next week. This year is unusual in the number of extremely consequential cases it has. This week the court held in Carson v. Makin that Maine violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause by excluding Christian school choice from a school aid program. But with Carson decided, fully five of the court’s 13 remaining cases are also major cases. One is Biden v. Texas , about President Joe Biden’s attempt to shut down one of former President Donald Trump’s signature policies, the Migrant Protection Protocols … [Read more...] about Historic Supreme Court Decisions Loom on Abortion, Guns, Religion

Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Sunday, during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” called on Democrats to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Anchor Jake Tapper said, “There are a lot of progressives who are calling on President Biden to expand the size of the Supreme Court. Do you think Biden should do that?” Abrams said, “I know how the law works, and it is not up to President Biden. This is a choice that has to be made by our both executive and legislative branch, but I do think that we have to recognize there’s nothing sacrosanct about nine members on the United States Supreme Court, but that is a long-term question. What we have to focus on right now is the danger this Dobbs decision presents to the women in the state of Georgia and across the country.” “As someone who is pro-choice and proudly pro-choice, I believe we need leaders right now who are willing to defend who we are and defend the women under our care,” she … [Read more...] about Stacey Abrams: ‘There Is Nothing Sacrosanct About Nine Members’ on Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Friday eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion in the US, overturning the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade. The court's decision gives states the power to make their own laws on abortion, many of which have banned or plan to ban or severely restrict access to abortion. Eight states have bans that are now effective , with at least another eight to soon follow. As the nation grapples with the impact of the ruling, several prominent executives from tech, entertainment and other industries have spoken out. Some companies have also said they'll cover travel expenses for employees who can't access abortions where they live. Here's a look at what companies and their leaders have said so far. What executives say and companies are doing Apple: The iPhone maker said it supports "employees' rights to make their own decisions regarding their reproductive health." "For more than a decade, Apple's comprehensive benefits have allowed our … [Read more...] about Apple, Disney, Others Speak Out on Supreme Court Overturning Roe v. Wade

The nation continues to grapple with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1973 case that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion in the US. The court's decision on Friday gave states the power to make their own laws on abortion, many of which have banned or plan to ban or severely restrict access to abortion. At least eight states have bans that are now effective , with around a dozen others set to implement bans or near-total bans soon. Since the opinion was released, several prominent executives from tech, entertainment and other industries have spoken out. Some companies have also said they'll cover travel expenses for employees who can't access abortions where they live. Here's a look at what companies and their leaders have said so far. What executives say and companies are doing Apple: The iPhone maker said it supports "employees' rights to make their own decisions regarding their reproductive health." "For more than a … [Read more...] about How Apple, Disney and Other Companies Have Responded to Supreme Court Overturning Roe v. Wade

The Supreme Court just gutted a major policy tool the US might have used to tackle climate change. Its decision today on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency essentially says that the EPA shouldn’t be allowed to determine whether the US gets its electricity from clean or dirty sources of energy. That derails previous efforts by the agency to transition the US away from fossil fuels to clean energy sources like wind and solar by regulating the power sector. With the new decision, the agency might be able to push a power plant to install technology to reduce its emissions on-site, but it can’t influence states’ decisions on where they get their energy from in the first place. To make things worse, the premise of the court’s decision could erode any federal agency’s ability to regulate industry in order to tackle climate change and even other major issues. Now, whether the US can follow through on the climate commitments it’s made on the global stage will depend … [Read more...] about The Supreme Court just took away an EPA tool to fight climate change — what happens next?

College and university professors had a public meltdown on Twitter in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade on Friday. One Stanford professor declared that women not having the ability to kill their unborn children is “barbaric.” “The Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade rushes the nation toward an abyss where we have no civil or human rights,” proclaimed Critical Race Theory proponent and Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi in a Twitter tirade. When women don’t have the right to make reproductive choices about their own bodies, we lose a foundational right. When we lose foundational rights, all rights are threatened. 2/5 — Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) June 24, 2022 “When women don’t have the right to make reproductive choices about their own bodies, we lose a foundational right,” Kendi added in a follow-up tweet. “When we lose foundational rights, all rights are threatened.” Stanford assistant professor Hakeem Jefferson also … [Read more...] about Professors Have Social Media Meltdowns After Supreme Court Overrules Roe v. Wade

Thursday's Supreme Court decision regarding the use of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants comes down to two specific issues: Should the Supreme Court take the case at all; and did Congress delegate sufficient authority to the EPA for it to implement a specific regulatory scheme first proposed during the Obama administration? But the case was decided against a backdrop of conflict between the court's conservative and liberal justices, and some of that conflict spills into this decision. We'll tackle each issue below and discuss what this means for US climate policy. But one thing that should be clear is that this is a fairly minimalist decision since it applies only to the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions from existing facilities and not to environmental regulations more broadly. While it doesn't leave the EPA with an obvious next step, it leaves avenues for regulating new power plant construction. Why now? As described in our … [Read more...] about How carbon emissions got caught up in a Supreme Court showdown

Update 6/30/2022: The Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental protection agency came out today, limiting the agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions. Read the ruling and dissent here, and read more about what the ruling means for climate action here . Our original article continues below. This week, the Supreme Court is expected to decide a major climate case that could determine what tools the federal government can use to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency , started out years ago as a battle over how much authority the EPA has to force power plants to cut down their pollution — but it’s turned into a bigger fight over how much power federal agencies have to enforce all kinds of regulations. With the Biden administration’s climate plans relying on drastically slashing CO2 emissions from power plants, the case is being closely watched by environmentalists. The Supreme Court’s … [Read more...] about The Supreme Court just decided a major climate court case

The Supreme Court has turned down a request to revisit a decades-old libel ruling, despite a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. This morning, the court denied a petition to hear Coral Ridge Ministries Media v. Southern Poverty Law Center , in which an evangelical Christian ministry accused the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of falsely designating it as an anti-LGBTQ hate group. If it had overturned the ruling, the Supreme Court would have greatly increased the odds of public figures winning libel cases in the future. Instead, the decision delays (but likely won’t end) a long-running push to expand the scope of defamation law. Coral Ridge Ministries Media v. SPLC hinges on the “actual malice” standard — a protection that means public figures must show a false statement was made knowingly or with reckless disregard for its truth in order to win a defamation case. In 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals determined the SPLC hadn’t acted with actual malice when … [Read more...] about The Supreme Court says it won’t consider rewriting defamation law… yet

On Thursday, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case that will severely hamper the ability of the US to limit its carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. In an unusual move, the court kept a case alive that was focused on an emissions plan formulated by the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency—even though that plan was discarded and replaced by both the Trump and Biden administrations. In its ruling, the Supreme Court determined that the EPA has only been granted the power to control emissions from existing facilities—it cannot force utilities to shift to different, cleaner-generating technologies. This will make it extremely difficult to use the Clean Air Act to compel a shift from coal to renewables, and it raises questions about whether the Clean Air Act can be used to set effective climate policy at all. Twists and turns The case is a product of a legal back-and-forth that started nearly two decades ago. During the Bush administration, the EPA decided that the … [Read more...] about Supreme Court severely limits the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions