Supreme Court

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PHOENIX — Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is moving past the threats that came after she announced she would vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Strange bedfellows in a case before SCOTUS on Wednesday, which involves the president declining to exercise a lawful power in an international environmental dispute.

Strange bedfellows in a case before SCOTUS on Wednesday, which involves the president declining to exercise a lawful power in an international environmental dispute.

Let us go back to the turn of the 20th century.

Courts are more often recognizing the arguments of religious-freedom advocates.

The Senate majority leader talked to THE WEEKLY STANDARD about judicial confirmations, the midterm elections and Democrats wanting to change the rules.

“In what world would that happen in?” Nick Miller, Season 5, Episode 22.

Cutting off funding for Senate candidates and elevating Michael Avenatti are just two examples.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he has no idea how a key vote will go on Friday morning for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Julie Swetnick's allegations gave the judge the fire he needed.

So here's the thing about internet memes ...

Term limits for SCOTUS, anyone? In addition to TMQ, this week it's Tuesday Morning Courterback.

Term limits for SCOTUS, anyone? In addition to TMQ, this week it's Tuesday Morning Courterback.

Term limits for SCOTUS, anyone? In addition to TMQ, this week it's Tuesday Morning Courterback.

Michael Avenatti said Monday evening that his client, Julie Swetnick, did not witness first-hand Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh allegedly spiking the punch at high school parties in the early 1980s. But he knows a woman who claims to have seen the act, and while she is willing to speak to…

Vote is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Christine Blasey Ford delivered sincere testimony and deserves respect and empathy. But the burden of proof was not met.

"People want fame, they want money, whatever."

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

We still don't have any corroborating witnesses to either of the accusations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Understanding where the burden of proof really rests.

The promises of yesteryear blossom into the cruel satire of today.

SCOTUS nominee rails against ‘character assassination’ in letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Woman tells the New Yorker the nominee exposed himself to her at a party at Yale in the early 1980s.

It’s almost like they would rather delay and disrupt the process for political reasons.

Can conservatives 'win' if Trump withdraws the nomination?

Is Trump's adviser going rogue, or have we seen this show before?

Senate minority leader Charles Schumer called for a halt to the confirmation proceedings in response, but a spokesman for Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley said a committee vote this week had not been delayed.

Her actions should be met with skepticism.

Ixnay

And spikes one more argument against his nomination

Sorry, liberal activists

“Cancel Brett Kavanaugh,” they reasoned.

Colorado turns up the heat on America’s most controversial baker.

'If this were a court of law' Democrats 'would be held in contempt.'

No amount of vetting can predict how Brett Kavanaugh, or any other nominee, will perform as a Supreme Court justice

Hearings on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are set to begin in early September, so expect several rounds of breathless revelations about the man’s past. Consider an AP story this week headlined “At Yale, Kavanaugh Stayed Out of Debates at a Time of Many.” The story’s lead: “It was the 1980s…

The deeper issue in the Kavanaugh confirmation fight

A letter to Senate Judiciary Committee members Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein stands in contrast to a similar letter from Yale law students.

Mitch McConnell has not forgotten the painful lessons of the Bork nomination.

Senate Dems request thousands of trivial Kavanaugh documents. Nice try.

Grassley, citing Dem opposition, says: “I question the sincerity of demands for more documents.”

Kentucky senator had expressed reservations about the judge's record on surveillance and data collection.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to nominate federal judges “in the mold of” Antonin Scalia, and he has lived up to his word. Neil Gorsuch was a superior pick to replace the late Justice Scalia in 2017. And the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme…

So Brett Kavanaugh is now part of the story. Kavanaugh, from that part of the swamp known as Bethesda, Md., is President Trump’s nominee for the seat vacated by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, and if, as advertised, he is a constitutionalist, the country will be closer…

When President Trump announced last Monday that he had chosen Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy, his little speech rang out like a starter pistol. Instantly every activist, party hack, and ideological mainchancer bolted from the blocks, issuing petitions and press releases and formal…

The line between politics and entertainment grows blurrier with each passing hour. Consider: As the battle over President Trump’s second Supreme Court nomination began to take shape, millions of conservatives in search of expert analysis tuned into . . . Tomi Lahren.

The early numbers make sense based on what we know about partisanship and history.

Trump manages to pick a Supreme Court nominee that appeals both to the establishment and the Deplorables.

Do Democrats know what a judge does?

“They can probably create some bumps in the road,” Senate majority whip John Cornyn said of Democrats in opposition, “But they can’t stop it.”

Old center-right policies get caught in the web of opposition to something new.

Asked by Shannon Bream about the upcoming fight over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska delivered, as is his habit, a brief seminar on civics: “A judge’s job is not to be making social policy for America,” he said. “A judge’s job is to defend the…

(1) Naming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is the least Trumpiest thing Trump has done so far (tied with his appointment of Neil Gorsuch.) The often-erratic president followed a highly un-erratic path to this pick, outsourcing the vetting to groups such as the Federalist Society and working…

It was 8:30 p.m., and hundreds of people were yelling incoherently back and forth at each other in front of the Supreme Court. Most were there to oppose President Donald Trump’s pick to succeed retiring Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, Brett Kavanaugh. (You can read more about Kavanaugh…

Let the hearings begin.

Data show that people tend to support nominees who espouse “Original Intent,” defined as judges who “look to the intent of the drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution to reach conclusions about its meaning.”

Data show that people tend to support nominees who espouse “Original Intent,” defined as judges who “look to the intent of the drafters and ratifiers of the Constitution to reach conclusions about its meaning.”

There’s a pretty good reason Brett Kavanaugh is likely to be President Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh appears to meet the president’s three criteria better than the other finalists.

For what seems like the hundredth time since President Trump took office, Sen. Susan Collins is in a bind. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement has provided Trump with the opportunity to appoint another conservative to the Supreme Court—provided he can manage to get one through a closely-divided…

She wasn't even on the panel.

Anthony Kennedy’s retirement has sparked a free-fall panic among progressives, Democrats, and others who for five decades have enjoyed the fruits of rule-by-judiciary on the nation’s most contested social issues. Left-of-center commentators have proclaimed that Roe is dead, that Kennedy’s famous…

If John F. Kennedy’s presidency was, for Democrats, a kind of three-year “Camelot,” then Anthony M. Kennedy’s three-decade tenure on the Supreme Court was also, for Democrats, a kind of judicial Camelot. A place where progressive rights could be created and protected, safe from the people outside…

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

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Democrats will go to war against Trump’s court pick, without much hope of success.

Anthony Kennedy was not a great Supreme Court justice, but not a bad one either. If you were to rank the 113 justices so far, he would be somewhere in the middle, probably the upper middle. On the Supreme Court for 30 years, which is a long time as the lives of justices go, Kennedy, who will be 82…

The Utah senator is on President Trump's short list to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill already voted against Gorsuch, and Josh Hawley plans to exploit that.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Yes, elections have consequences.

The absurd logic of hyper-individualism is upon us.

Time is running out to confirm top federal judges in 2018.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Reading into "current understandings" of the document would allow our constitutional rights to be sacrificed to the gods of political correctness, political expediency, and political fear.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

In Sierra Pacific v U.S., the court can undo an injustice committed by the DoJ.

Liberals love the First Amendment’s “freedom of speech” clause. They rightly remember their forerunners—liberal journalists, civil rights activists, religious and political dissidents—and venerate the constitutional right that eventually vindicated these brave citizens. Yet it’s striking how often…

Nino would not approve.

"Forcing a pro-life group to advertise for abortion has to be unconstitutional.” That’s the beginning (emphasis added) of the opening brief in NIFLA v. Becerra, now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. Thirty strong amicus briefs have been filed—by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the…

The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday morning in a case set to undo a seminal 40-year-old precedent that required all public sector employees to pay their union a “fair share fee” whether or not they’d elected to join.

"If unions are so good and doing such a great job, why do they have to force people to pay them?" That’s the question Mark Janus, an Illinois child services specialist, posed to assembled reporters on Friday. It’s the Supreme Court who will give him an answer. His case will be heard on Monday.

Neal Katyal is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells. He has served as acting solicitor general of the United States and orally argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court. Also, he appeared in House of Cards, playing himself. That’s a pretty…

The new year is shaping up to be one of reckoning for public-sector unions. Just a few days before Christmas, Janus v. AFSCME got its slot on the calendar of the Supreme Court—which, with Neil Gorsuch on the bench, is not stacked in labor’s favor.

Was Samuel Alito worth the Iraq war?

One day in October, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton approached Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor to pitch the majority leader an idea: In the tax reform bill, Republicans should repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, the tax penalty most Americans lacking federally approved health insurance must pay.…

Two years ago, when the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry, Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the court stressed that recognition of such of right would affect no one but the same-sex couples who marry. “Indeed,” Kennedy and his four colleagues stressed in…

On his way out the door, Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), left a parting gift for President Trump. Announcing his immediate resignation on Black Friday—when Americans are traditionally more focused on recovering from their tryptophan hangovers or…

Asked about allegations Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore dated and engaged in appropriate conduct with teenage girls several decades ago, Alabama state senator Dick Brewbaker commented, “I do not buy the idea that suddenly because it’s now the U.S. Senate, she felt like she had to come…

What role does the Bible play in Americans’ lives? A century ago the answer to that question would have been straightforward: It was the most important book in the home, perhaps read daily, and the place where major events in a family’s history (births, deaths, marriages) were recorded. It was…

Asked about allegations Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore dated and engaged in inappropriate conduct with teenage girls several decades ago, Alabama state senator Dick Brewbaker commented “I do not buy the idea that suddenly because it’s now the U.S. Senate, she felt like she had to come…

The biggest scandal that nobody is talking about has nothing to do with the Donald Trump White House or the connection between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Russia dossier. It involves New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat, who stands accused by the federal government of bribery,…

The biggest scandal that nobody is talking about has nothing to do with the Donald Trump White House or the connection between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Russia dossier. It involves New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat, who stands accused by the federal government of bribery,…

Justice Scalia was a terrific writer. And he thought about the craft, and what it requires. A short speech titled “Writing Well,” given to a group of legal writers who were giving him a lifetime achievement award, is fantastic.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford, a case in which University of Wisconsin professor William Whitford and a group of plaintiffs (all Democratic voters in the state) contend that the drawing up of Wisconsin’s state legislative districts was an…

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford, a case in which University of Wisconsin professor William Whitford and a group of plaintiffs (all Democratic voters in the state) contend that the drawing up of Wisconsin’s state legislative districts was an…

The upcoming Supreme Court case most threatening to the Democratic establishment will revisit the 40-year-old ruling that created public-sector unions as we know them today.

Published last week, Scalia Speaks is a collection of the justice’s speeches edited by his son Christopher and the lawyer Ed Whelan. The book has six parts, the first of which is “On the American People and Ethnicity.”

Before Jack Henry Abbott, there was Edgar Smith.

Before Jack Henry Abbott, there was Edgar Smith.

“When I was in law teaching,” recalled Antonin Scalia in a speech just days before his 1986 nomination to the Supreme Court, “I was fond of doing what is called ‘teaching against the class’—that is, taking positions that the students were almost certain to disagree with, in order to generate some…

The victory of Roy Moore, a populist and religious fundamentalist, in the Alabama Senate primary last week can be seen in two different ways: continuity with the recent past of GOP politics and a radical break from it.

“To preserve our civil liberties,” Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch remarked in an address last week, “we have to constantly work on being civil with one another. . . . In a very real way, self-governance turns on our ability to try to treat—to try at least to treat—others as our equals, as…

Excerpts from the keynote address by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch at a luncheon celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fund for American Studies, Washington, D.C., September 28

I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed reading a collection of speeches. This may be due to the fact that most or maybe all I’ve read are political, and political speeches, even those authored by literate and capable politicians, lose their significance almost immediately. But perhaps the more important…

The victory of Roy Moore, a populist and religious fundamentalist, in the Alabama Senate primary last week can be seen in two different ways: continuity with the recent past of GOP politics and a radical break from it.

Justice Clarence Thomas isn’t known for being particularly chatty on the bench, preferring to listen to arguments at the Court rather than engaging in the noisy sparring that some of the supremes seem to think passes for being judicious. Thomas doesn’t go out of his way to draw attention to…

“When I was in law teaching,” recalled Antonin Scalia in a speech just days before his 1986 nomination to the Supreme Court, “I was fond of doing what is called ‘teaching against the class’—that is, taking positions that the students were almost certain to disagree with, in order to generate some…

The Supreme Court on Monday canceled scheduled oral arguments on President Donald Trump’s travel ban after the White House released new immigration standards that supersede it.

In a major victory for religious freedom, the Supreme Court ruled today that states cannot exempt churches from benefiting from state programs solely because they are a church.

The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration’s revised travel ban its first legal victory on Monday, agreeing unanimously to consider the ban this October and allowing the ban to go partially into effect until then.

After Neil Gorsuch was confirmed, most of America moved on to Russia, North Korea, the tax plan, and Rodrigo Duterte. But a small universe of Republican legal thinkers moved on, instead, to war-gaming the next Supreme Court vacancy.

The Senate is unique among American political bodies in that its very rules and traditions have often been the basis for consequential oratory. Such was the case on Thursday, when South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham delivered a 3,000-word speech on the chamber's elimination of the 60-vote…

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was asked at his weekly press conference on Tuesday if he was confident Republicans had the votes necessary to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by eliminating the Senate minority's ability to filibuster Supreme Court nominees.

Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, who spoke on the Senate floor for 15 hours Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in opposition to the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, said in an interview three years ago that he supported eliminating the 60-vote procedural threshold for High Court…

Less than two weeks before the 2016 elections, Virginia senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said that he would support eliminating the 60-vote hurdle to confirm Supreme Court nominees in order to get Judge Merrick Garland on the court.

It now appears increasingly likely that 41 or more Democratic senators will take the unprecedented step this week of filibustering a qualified Supreme Court nominee. As William Kristol wrote in the following WEEKLY STANDARD editorial, Senate Republicans shouldn't hesitate to defend the Constitution…

Another veteran Republican senator is ready to thwart an unprecedented filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday morning that he will try to lead fellow Senate Democrats to block an up-or-down vote on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The Democratic leader demanded a new nominee (who takes a liberal approach to constitutional…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his expected plans to vote "no" on Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court and promised that Republicans would have to overcome a Democratic filibuster in order to seat him.

Backed by several letters from his former law students refuting a claim that he advocated employers probing the family planning of female job candidates, Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch explained to a senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee that he facilitated classroom discussion of…

Utah senator Mike Lee had a wish for Neil Gorsuch: "You are not a politician, which means that the acrimony, duplicity, and ruthlessness of today's politics are still foreign and unfamiliar to you. May that continue to be true."

Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch has been well-received on Capitol Hill ahead of the start of his confirmation hearings next week, raising the possibility that Democrats won't filibuster his nomination.

Later this month, the Senate Judiciary Committee convenes hearings on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. Although the Committee will have a lot of legitimate issues to consider, some outsiders are trying to interest it in two unusual topics: natural…

Researching the record of a Supreme Court nominee—for, say, a WEEKLY STANDARD essay—is always a daunting task, because the nominees tend to be federal judges with long paper trails. But the lift seems much lighter when the nominee is a felicitous writer. And Judge Neil Gorsuch certainly qualifies.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell says President Trump's approval rating would be "10 to 15 points higher if he allowed himself to stay on message."

Contrary to recent mythology, there has never been a Senate tradition of filibustering nominees to the Supreme Court. Only once in history has there been a clear attempt to filibuster a first-time nominee to the Supreme Court, as in the case of the 2006 Samuel Alito confirmation. This recent, and…

In his excellent rundown of yesterday's ruling by the Ninth Circuit refusing to reinstate President Trump's immigration executive order, National Review's David French noted something rather curious about the court's rationale. In essence, the court said that Trump's campaign rhetoric was an issue…

In nominating Neil Gorsuch to be the next Supreme Court justice, President Trump could not have found a judge who more starkly dramatizes the constitutional crossroads at which the nation now finds itself. For eight years, the Obama administration and its proponents pressed their progressive…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Jay Cost on the fight over Neil Gorsuch.

Senate Judiciary Commitee chairman Chuck Grassley, who will play the key role in overseeing Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch's confirmation process, talked up his relationship with ranking member Dianne Feinstein in an interview with Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday night he has "very serious doubts" whether Judge Neil Gorsuch will meet his standard for winning confirmation to the Supreme Court. "The burden is on … Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to…

The nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court has thrilled conservatives, but it's also earning praise from some prominent liberal legal scholars.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with frequent contributor and Hoover Institution scholar Adam J. White on why Neil Gorsuch, Trump's pick for the vacant Supreme Court seat, is the best Trump could make.

In mid-October, when it seemed likely that Democrats would win the White House and a Senate majority, retiring Senate minority leader Harry Reid said that Senate Democrats would scrap the 60-vote hurdle for Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court nominee, just as they had done in 2013 for lower-court and…

West Virginia senator Joe Manchin said he won't block President Donald Trump's choice to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, who is scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.

It was a difficult weekend for the Trump administration as it sought to implement and defend its most controversial executive order to date, the travel ban. Fortunately for Trump, there's a chance to reset from the executive order fiasco with Tuesday night's announcement of his nominee for the…

To hear Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer tell it, Democrats intend to block the confirmation of any justice President-elect Trump nominates to the Supreme Court. They'll inherit guardianship of the eight-member panel they dreaded just last year—and, by God, they'll guard it with their lives.

The new minority leader in the Senate, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, said Tuesday he would "absolutely" attempt to keep open the Supreme Court seat once held by the late justice Antonin Scalia. "It's hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican…

December 12 is a significant anniversary for the high-tech industry: 36 years ago, Congress enacted the Computer Software Copyright Act. This law ended a debate by judges and government officials that raged for more than a decade about whether software should be protected under intellectual…

Republican members of Congress have introduced companion resolutions urging the newly opened Smithsonian musem of African-American history to include the achievements of Justice Clarence Thomas, the second (and currently only) black member of the Supreme Court.

Every November, the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies assembles at the Mayflower Hotel in downtown Washington. In even-numbered years, it has become tradition for leading conservative and libertarian lawyers to ponder how the recent election would affect the courts and the…

Over the weekend I received emails from two very smart conservative lawyer friends about who President Donald Trump should nominate to take the late Antonin Scalia's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The first mounted a strong argument for Joan Larsen—about whom I had known relatively little. When I…

President-elect Trump's advisers are indicating he will likely stick to the shortlists released during the presidential campaign when given the chance to name a Supreme Court nominee.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who received media interest amid President-elect Donald Trump's attacks on fellow Latino-American judge Gonzalo Curiel during election season, "demurred" from commenting on the campaign when asked Tuesday evening if she felt any apprehension about the result.

Soon after Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13, the battle over who should fill the Supreme Court vacancy commenced. Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, took the position that it shouldn’t be President Barack Obama but the next president—whoever Americans choose—who…

When Justice Scalia died on February 13, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell vowed not to process anyone President Obama might pick for the vacancy, arguing that the next president should make the nomination instead. Senate Republicans stuck to that position, and so the vacancy is now Trump’s to…

Being the one branch of government most removed from the chattering masses (the internet, in other words), the Supreme Court had never once held a live video webcast—until Friday afternoon, that is.

Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for a quarter-century. And Jeffrey Toobin has loathed him for nearly all twenty-five of those years. For more than two decades, the New Yorker author and CNN pundit has written of Thomas time and time again in only the most contemptuous terms.

Justice Clarence Thomas's critics have long slandered him as "lazy," simply because he only rarely asks questions during oral arguments. But such criticism is entirely misguided, especially when one considers that Justice Thomas is the Court's most prolific opinion-writer, year in and year out (as…

Below is an excerpt from this week's Kristol Clear newsletter, written by WEEKLY STANDARD editor Bill Kristol. Sign up here to receive Kristol Clear in your inbox every Monday morning.

Clarence Thomas began his tenure on the United State Supreme Court on October 23, 1991—25 years ago this Sunday. The associate justice recently joined Bill Kristol for an episode of Conversations that looks back at Thomas's life, his time on the Court, and issues of culture and society. Watch the…

A Supreme Court nominee must be confirmed by the Senate in order to be appointed by the president. But for months now the Republican-controlled Senate has refused to consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama's choice to fill the seat opened by the death of Justice Antonin…

In this down year for conservatives one bright spot has been the renaming of George Mason University's law school in honor of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with frequent contributor Adam J. White on the future of the Constitution and the Supreme Court in 2016, and the new 'Originalists Against Trump' letter.

The January 1973 issue of National Lampoon boasted a now-infamous cover: a man's hand aims a revolver at a wary dog, above the headline: "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog."

In this down year for conservatives one bright spot has been the renaming of George Mason University’s law school in honor of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.

Donald Trump included Utah senator Mike Lee, one of his toughest conservative critics, to his expanded list of possible Supreme Court nominees on Friday.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg again feels compelled to urge the Senate to vote on President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the seat held by the late justice Antonin Scalia. At an event this week for incoming law students at Georgetown University, Ginsburg said the Senate should vote on…

Pretty much the only reason conservatives have for supporting Donald Trump is the Supreme Court. "Think of SCOTUS!" is a superficially compelling argument. But only superficially.

People in the United States are experiencing a level of political discontent unseen in decades. Partisans on the right have long fought against the inexorable growth of big government, just as those on the left have always railed against the growing power of big business. This year, the sides have…

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent outburst against Donald Trump has been roundly criticized by people of all political stripes. Insofar as her comments suggested a clear bias about cases that could come before the Supreme Court, they were clearly a mistake and a departure from the norms of Court…

President Barack Obama opined that Republicans are on the verge of ruining the Supreme Court nominating process for all time, writing in the Wall Street Journal that their treatment of Merrick Garland "will effectively nullify the ability of any president from the opposing party to make an…

Since Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February, the Obama administration and its allies have insisted that a failure to confirm D.C. circuit judge Merrick Garland to replace him would result in chaos. In the absence of an odd number of justices, the story went, the Supreme Court wouldn't be able…

Here's a matter on which elites and the general public sharply differ: affirmative action in higher education. Recall that on June 23 in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin II the Supreme Court upheld the school's use of race in admissions. Leaders at UT-A and competitive schools across the…

In marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court, lawyers and writers have rightly celebrated the judge's remarkable judicial opinions, especially the concurrences in dissents in which JThomas criticizes the Court for failing to vindicate the…

In this week's issue, venturing a thumbnail sketch of Justice Thomas's brand of constitutional interpretation, I noted a significant difference between Justice Thomas and other conservative "originalists": Unlike many "first-generation" originalists, Thomas expressly interprets the Constitution as…

Evidently Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn't like that her colleague Sonia Sotomayor has recently surged past her to become the most popular Supreme Court justice among denizens of the Internet left. Justice Ginsburg granted an interview to the New York Times over the weekend seemingly designed to shore…

FBI Director James Comey's choice to recommend against the federal prosecution of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has spurred no shortage of commentary, to say the least—including THE WEEKLY STANDARD's editorial this week, "Hillary Skates."

What if the left threw a high-tech lynching and no one came? It happened this spring, although you probably didn’t notice. On April 16, HBO aired Confirmation, a docudrama version of Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 Senate confirmation hearings​—​more specifically, of Anita Hill's sexual harassment…

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday morning it would refuse to hear Stormans v. Wiesman, a case from the state of Washington where a family-owned pharmacy was objecting to a state regulation that forced them to prescribe the morning after pill, also known as "Plan B." Unlike traditional…

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer used logic frequently employed by pro-gun advocates to help justify his majority opinion in the Texas abortion clinic case decided Monday.

Writing for the Supreme Court in the Texas affirmative action case, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the school's use of race in admissions "can make a difference [as] to whether an application is accepted or rejected." The question for the Court, as Kennedy put it, was whether, "drawing all…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with the Hoover Institution's Adam J. White on the Supreme Court's rulings on President Obama's amnesty executive orders and affirmative action.

It would be irresponsible to speculate as to whether Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had grown envious of her colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Internet celebrity. (The octogenarian Ginsburg was been widely feted as the "Notorious RBG," and there's even a popular line of t-shirts that sports…

President Donald Trump would take the Supreme Court seriously. He would appoint solid judicial conservatives to decide cases in accordance with the Constitution’s original meaning. He would not treat the federal courts frivolously, leveraging his judicial appointment power like a bargaining chip to…

This week Donald Trump delivered what he promised in March—a list of people he would consider as "potential replacements for Justice [Antonin] Scalia." Trump wants to ease concerns among Republicans and conservatives (two categories that largely overlap) about his commitment to "conservative…

On February 13, Justice Antonin Scalia died at a hunting lodge in Texas. That same day, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell made this announcement: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we…

In case there is any doubt as to the importance of the presidential election for the future of the Supreme Court, consider the court's decision Monday in Zubik v. Burwell.

Utah senator Orrin Hatch has contended in numerous speeches, op-eds, press releases, and television appearances that the Senate should not act this year to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court that resulted when Justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13. Instead, says Hatch, the Senate should…

Elections matter, affecting even the appointment of judges, as the Merrick Garland nomination demonstrates.

Here’s the read-out from Senator Grassley's office, on his breakfast this morning with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland:

Donald Trump said Wednesday morning that his legal appointments to the Justice Department and the Supreme Court "would look very seriously" at Hillary Clinton's email scandal.

Last week President Barack Obama nominated federal appellate judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s untimely death in February. Under the appointments clause of the Constitution, Garland won't take a seat on the Supreme Court unless the Senate approves his…

In what has become a spring tradition, Obamacare returns to the Supreme Court this month, the fourth time in five years. Fortunately for the religious nonprofits challenging the law’s contraceptive mandate—including the Little Sisters of the Poor, a monastic order that cares for impoverished…

Here's video of President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, appearing to mock Donald Trump at a moot court competition at Yale University in the fall of 2012:

President Obama evidently thinks he has a nominee who is confirmable by a Republican Senate that soon after Antonin Scalia's death made clear its intention to block anyone the president might nominate and thus let the voters decide in November who instead should select Scalia's replacement.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with frequent contributor Adam J. White on President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

A Supreme Court nominee is coming today from President Obama. The White House announced:

As debate continues about the president's eventual nomination to the Supreme Court — or, more specifically, as the President's proponents inside and outside the Senate grind their teeth over the fact that the Constitution doesn't actually require the Senate to spring into action when the President…

Senator Charles Grassley has responded to President Obama's post last week on SCOTUS blog titled "A Responsibility I Take Seriously." Which responsibility might that be? "The power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court," said the president.

This past Monday's business was briefly interrupted by the specter of BREAKING NEWS on the office television, featuring a photograph of Justice Clarence Thomas. For a fearful moment I wondered what the BREAKING NEWS might be – and was quickly reassured when I saw, from the crawl at the bottom of…

Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary committee, put it plainly. “There'll be no hearing, no votes until the next president," Graham said Tuesday as he left the first weekly GOP conference meeting since the death of Antonin Scalia.

Rarely has the United States been so neatly split as it is now. One party holds complete control of Congress while the other holds the presidency--a scenario that has happened only a quarter of the time since 1855.

To hear some on the left tell it, the Supreme Court would be hamstrung if it had to function for a year or more without a ninth justice. What to do in the event of a 4-4 tie? This would not have been viewed as a problem, however, by America's Founders, who created a Court with an even number of…

President Obama says he soon will nominate someone to fill the vacancy opened by the unexpected death of Supreme Court associate justice Antonin Scalia. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell says his chamber will block any nominee the president sends up.

"It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself fully as what it is."

In January, The Scrapbook was privileged to be in attendance at a speech Antonin Scalia gave to a small audience at Catholic University. We can’t claim to have known the man or even to have met him for more than a handshake, but Scalia was such a presence that even being in the same room with him…