Trump is no mere apprentice when it comes to manipulating the media in his favor. Two days after a federal grand jury charged Donald Trump with three conspiracies for his attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory, culminating in the January 6, 2021, insurrection, 38 Democratic members of Congress urged the U.S Judicial Conference to… Read more »
A federal indictment stemming from the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected this week. If you’re having trouble keeping track of the indictments — both current and future — against Donald Trump, you’re not alone. Trump has been indicted in New York state court for attempting to hide hush money payments to… Read more »
The rejection of the “independent state legislature” doctrine means fights against gerrymanders and racist laws can proceed. Chief Justice John Roberts has historically not decided cases in a way that protects voting rights. In 2013, he authored Shelby v. Holder, which drove a stake through the heart of the Voting Rights Act. And in 2021, he… Read more »
Five House seats may well shift to Democrats in the wake of “Allen v. Milligan.” After leading the charge for years to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Chief Justice John Roberts did a stunning about-face and spearheaded its preservation in Allen v. Milligan. The 5-4 majority opinion, written by Roberts, held that Alabama’s congressional map… Read more »
John Wilkes, Adam Clayton Powell, and Julian Bond were elected, excluded and returned to the legislature. On March 30, three days after a man armed with two legally purchased assault weapons killed six people at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, more than 1,000 high school and college students marched to the State Capitol and… Read more »
For the first time in the history of the United States, a committee of Congress has recommended to the Department of Justice that it prosecute a former U.S. president. The bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol unanimously referred four federal criminal charges against Donald Trump to the… Read more »
On December 7, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could deliver control of elections to partisan state legislatures and spell the end of state court oversight of voting rules — a form of judicial review that has been in place for more than two centuries. As a result, protections for the right… Read more »
Recent exposés have uncovered an emerging pattern of improper lobbying of right-wing Supreme Court justices by wealthy evangelicals. They reveal serious threats to the independence of the judiciary. But equally alarming is that the Supreme Court is unconstrained by a code of judicial ethics. From 1995 to 2018, the right-wing evangelical nonprofit Faith and Action… Read more »
During the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in Merrill v. Milligan, a case that could deal a severe blow to the Voting Rights Act, Ketanji Brown Jackson powerfully rebutted right-wing attacks on voting rights by using her own “originalist” analysis of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to explain why congressional district maps cannot constitutionally be drawn in a “race-neutral”… Read more »
Donald Trump’s installation of three radical right-wingers on the Supreme Court is already yielding frightening victories for religious zealots and racists. Last term, the court’s conservative majority revoked the constitutional right to abortion from half the population in the United States. This term, it is poised to eviscerate voting rights for people of color and legalize election… Read more »