The Justice Department has won a small but significant victory in the campus free-speech case of Young America’s Foundation and Berkeley College Republicans v. Napolitano. Justice didn’t have to get involved in the case, but it did so and has helped the cause of free speech. Justice’s work in the…
When diversity morphs into discrimination.
In the course of a week in early March, one of President Trump’s longest-serving aides, Hope Hicks, resigned. One of the president’s most capable economics advisers, Gary Cohn, threatened to resign—and soon did. Son-in-law/presidential adviser Jared Kushner had his security clearance downgraded,…
More than 200 players have been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Membership in the hall is a confirmation of baseball greatness, and when teams convene in late winter in warm climes to prepare for the new season, prospects who possess evident talent become subjects of fan enthusiasm, even…
It’s a bit disconcerting that a church would see litigation as an acceptable way to pursue its mission here on Earth. Yet last fall the Archdiocese of Washington sued the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, and we must say that it did so on pretty good grounds.
A major theme of the Trump administration lies in its effort to discipline the regulatory state, with the Justice Department playing a key role. In November Attorney General Jeff
Senator Mike Lee, the Utah Republican, is vice chairman of the little known Joint Economic Committee. Congress created the committee in 1946, its job basically to review economic conditions and recommend policy improvements. Economic concerns dominated in those post-war years, but today, Lee told…
Among the many reasons to give the book Scalia Speaks for Christmas are its collected speeches on religion. And of these speeches, my favorite is “Being Different,” which the justice gave in 1992 to the Judicial Prayer Breakfast Group, an informal gathering of judicial officers in the Washington,…
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump admired President Obama’s willingness to go around Congress and make law on his own authority. So it was reasonable to think that Trump, too, might become a unilateralist. But that isn’t happening.
As Jonathan Adler writes here at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Judge Roy Moore is “constitutionally illiterate” on some basic issues. He also happens to be biblically illiterate in a crucial particular.
In case you haven’t finished reading the 429-page House Republicans tax bill, go to pages 427 and 428 to see what it proposes to do regarding the Johnson Amendment. Passed in 1954 and named for its chief sponsor, Senator Lyndon Johnson, the amendment prohibits politicking by tax-exempt nonprofits,…
Of all the professional sports, Major League baseball has the broadest range of players from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds: In 2015, more than 230 foreign-born players from 17 countries played the game at its highest level.
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.
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.”
“The American university was once the center of academic freedom,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions in his speech at the Georgetown Law Center this week. It was “a place of robust debate, a forum for the competition of ideas.” But over the years it has become “an echo chamber of political…
Comes this week from the Brookings Institution a new survey by John Villasenor demonstrating that undergraduate students at four-year colleges and universities have no idea what the First Amendment means.
Barbecue is a Southern food, and a special one. The food writer Jeffrey Steingarten says it is “simply the most delectable of all traditional American food." It originated in the 18th century in eastern North Carolina with whole-hog barbecue, in which the entire pig is cooked. While that tradition…
Give the Trump Education Department credit for rescinding the Obama Ed’s “Dear Colleague” letter of 2011 and opening a discussion about the meaning of Title IX. Under that law, “No person shall . . . on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected…
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was so disturbed by the clash of protesters in Charlottesville that he made a policy decision he may have to reverse: In a speech at the State Department on August 19, he repudiated hatred and racism before addressing what he called “a great diversity gap” in…
I’ll remember Mike Cromartie as a fellow Christian and my friend. I met Mike in the early 1980s. We were roughly the same age and had some of the same interests—at the top of the list, politics and religion. Mike became a master of evangelical Christianity and its involvements in politics in his…
President Trump thinks the Gorsuch appointment to the Supreme Court is one of his biggest achievements of his presidency. Another major success may await him: the redirection of the lower federal courts, such that there will be more Republican than Democratic appointees, and thus a more…
President Trump’s statement on Charlottesville caught my attention roughly halfway through: “We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal,” he said. Trump was invoking the Declaration of Independence, which indeed set forth that truth, and on which we were founded as a…
Students for Fair Admissions is at it again.
The Justice Department is pushing back against a New York Times article that claimed it was preparing to investigate and sue universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against applicants not of the preferred race or ethnicity.
The New York Times has noticed that, as President Trump faces “the sort of politically charged investigation that dogged Bill and Hillary Clinton when they were in the White House in the 1990s, he has consciously adopted a strategy from the Clintons’ playbook.”
The three people involved in effecting the termination of FBI director James Comey last week were President Donald Trump and the two highest officers in the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Constitution vests in Trump the executive…
The three people involved in effecting the termination of FBI director James Comey last week were President Donald Trump and the two highest officers in the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Constitution vests in Trump the executive…
In case you didn't notice, the star performer in the Judiciary Committee today was the nominee himself, Judge Neil Gorsuch.
J. Harvie Wilkinson III is a lawyer whom President Reagan appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. As a judge who writes for his court, Wilkinson is, of course, a legal writer; but here he has written for a general audience. His topic is the 1960s, a decade he knows…
J. Harvie Wilkinson III is a lawyer whom President Reagan appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. As a judge who writes for his court, Wilkinson is, of course, a legal writer; but here he has written for a general audience. His topic is the 1960s, a decade he knows…
In nominating federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, President Trump has made an excellent choice. Assuming there is nothing in Gorsuch’s record that is disqualifying, the Senate should confirm him posthaste.
With his aggressive executive action on immigration, President Obama has struck a constitutional nerve in the body politic. The first lawsuit challenging the president’s action was filed last week by a coalition of 18 states led by Texas. Oklahoma is about to file, and other states may do so as…
The Fall 2016 issue of the Claremont Review of Books features a review well worth your time by Jeremy Rabkin, a professor at the splendidly named Antonin Scalia Law School (previously the George Mason University Law School). The professor has written on Randy Barnett's new book, Our Republican…
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…
As the seventh game of the World Series continued deep into the night last week, three things happened that were unusual, three things that make baseball the remarkable game it is. They had to do with rain, a meeting, and a player—three reasons the Cubs won the game, and thus the series.
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…
The death this week of Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton's first attorney general, recalls the era of the failed independent counsel law. The law was passed in 1978, and Congress declined to reauthorize it in 1999, when Reno was still the attorney general. A product of Watergate and the infamous…
On election eve, just how long are the odds that Evan McMullin will be our next president? The former CIA agent and independent conservative candidate has ballot access in just 43 states—32 in which his name is actually on the ballot and another 11 that allows his name to be written in. Despite the…
In a case awaiting review by the Supreme Court, the Pacific Legal Foundation has filed a friend-of-the-court brief making an argument for one of the nation’s fundamental principles—the equal protection of the law.
It's been more than a week since Originalists Against Trump issued their public statement opposing the election of Donald Trump. William Baude of the University of Chicago Law School and Stephen Sachs of Duke Law School organized the project; both worked on drafts of the statement, and Sachs also…
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.
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.
Back in the day, I threw papers for the Dallas Times Herald, the city’s afternoon daily. I was 12 years old when I took over a route of about 50 papers. I folded the papers and put them in a canvas bag about twice as big as a beach bag. I walked the blocks, pitching papers. Sometimes I'd ride my…
In 1965, Michael Novak was a young academic living in Los Angeles when Stanford University hired him for a teaching position. He was a Dodgers fan, and as he wrote in his fine book, The Joy of Sports (1976), he moved his young family to Palo Alto only to discover that he couldn't tune in the…
Kenneth Woodward's new book Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama is out, winning a positive review from D.G. Hart in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal: "His subject is how Americans get religion, and the author's own formation as a Catholic both…
Last week the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. The Clean Power Plan, as it is called, is central to President Barack Obama's overall…
Last week the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. The Clean Power Plan, as it is called, is central to President Barack Obama's overall…
Donald Trump used his visit this week to the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland to speak further to the matter of judicial selection for the Supreme Court. Last May the candidate said he would name judicial conservatives to the Court, and he released a list of 11 such jurists, all of them…
Last January at Liberty University, Donald Trump told the audience that as president he would "protect Christianity." Since then he has reiterated that promise. And last week, at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit, he declared his intention this way: In "a Trump administration our…
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…
The great lefthander Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched a perfect game 51 years ago Friday. It was at home against the Chicago Cubs. As usual, Vin Scully called the game. Scully, who is now 88 years old, will conclude his 67-season run as the voice of the Dodgers in a game on October 2…
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Facebook has been experimenting with its hiring policies "to help diversify its largely white, largely male workforce." Thus, two years ago the company began to incentivize in-house recruiters by offering them 1.5 points "for a so-called 'diversity hire'—a black,…
Being a baseball fan, and in particular a fan of the Braves even before they moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta; and being also a fan of Braves pitcher John Smoltz, who joined the team in 1989 and retired in 2009, all but the last of those 21 seasons spent with Atlanta, I could not resist listening to…
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Facebook has been experimenting with its hiring policies “to help diversify its largely white, largely male workforce." Thus, two years ago the company began to incentivize in-house recruiters by offering them 1.5 points "for a so-called 'diversity hire'—a black,…
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal to sell or rent housing "because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status or national origin." The provision prohibits the disparate treatment of individuals because of race or any of the other forbidden grounds it identifies, as when a real…
Summer ends with Donald Trump having spent the year’s hottest months pursuing evangelical voters by advocating repeal of the so-called Johnson amendment. His pursuit of evangelicals is understandable: Trump can't win the White House without them—lots and lots of them. But the Johnson amendment?
"Federal Transgender Bathroom Access Guidelines Blocked by Judge" is the headline atop a New York Times story. Here is how the case came to be, where it stands now, and why it is important:
Dansby Swanson went 2-for-4 last night. OK, so who is Swanson, and why am I writing about him?
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, President Obama published a piece in the Wall Street Journal lamenting "congressional inaction" on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. We have heard that term before, of course. Obama has often used congressional inaction…
"It might may (sic) no difference, but for [Kentucky] and [West Virginia] can we get someone to ask [Sanders's] belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern…
"Our Constitution is great. But it doesn't necessarily give us the right to commit suicide, okay?"
Let’s make America great again, you say? We'd settle for making the Constitution great again. That's been a goal of Republicans for years, and it's a worthy one. It is essential, in fact, to making America great again.
From the Republican party platform: "Merit and hard work should determine advancement in our society, so we reject unfair preferences, quotas, and set-asides as forms of discrimination."
Under Article V of the Constitution, a constitutional amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress or by a special convention called by Congress on the application of two-thirds of the state legislatures. Thus, Congress controls one path for proposing amendments,…
In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. One of the Republicans re-elected that year was Mike Pence, for a sixth term. During his campaign, Pence gave major speeches about the presidency and the Constitution, a key point of which was that President Obama was a poor…
Last month a federal district judge in Wyoming invalidated an Interior Department rule setting stricter standards for hydraulic fracturing ("fracking," in commin parlance) on public lands. The decision dealt a blow to the Obama administration's environmental agenda, and news coverage focused on…
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…
Last week, the FBI made its recommendation to the Justice Department not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information while secretary of state. Attorney General Loretta Lynch quickly accepted it, announcing that she was officially closing the case with no charges filed.
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…
"That’s the good thing: As a president I can do whatever I want." Those are President Obama's words. He may have meant it as a joke, but it's true enough: He, or any president, can do whatever he wants, even unwise things—provided they are legal.
As we reported here earlier this week, a coalition of Asian-American organizations has asked the Department of Education to investigate the admissions policies at Brown University, Dartmouth College, and Yale University. The coalition says the policies discriminate against Asian-American applicants…
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…
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.
Justice and Education department officials Friday sent a “significant guidance letter" to educators throughout the country advising that public schools should allow transgender students to use the bathroom and locker facilities of their choosing—the one for boys (and men) or the one for girls (and…
Still on Donald Trump's to-do list is carrying out a promise he made two months ago—that he'll release a list of people that, if elected president, he'd choose from in filling Supreme Court vacancies. Trump is drawing up such a list in order to ease concern among conservatives that he might pick a…
Of the 54 Senate Republicans, only 2—Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine—support holding hearings this election year on President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Kirk, but not Collins, also says he would consider voting for the nominee, making…
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:
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…
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 late justice Antonin Scalia thought his best opinion was his dissent in Morrison v. Olson, a case decided on June 29, 1988, when he was finishing just his second term on the Supreme Court. At issue was the constitutionality of the independent counsel law, first passed in 1978. By a vote of…
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.
In 1998, Justice Antonin Scalia attended the funeral service for Justice Lewis Powell at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. At the luncheon afterwards Scalia looked for the church's pastor, the Rev. James Goodloe. Unable to find him, Scalia wrote Goodloe a letter telling him…
As political Washington wonders who will (sooner or later) replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died during his sleep a week ago, the more pressing question really is who will replace him in the mirth department. Scalia was that good at humor, and many of his most memorable quips came from the bench…
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.
Soon after Ed Meese was sworn in as attorney general in early 1985, he organized a group within the Justice Department whose purpose was to advise him, and ultimately President Reagan, on who would be the best candidates to select for the Supreme Court, in the event seats opened. There were about…
First published November 13, 2006, and re-published today as news breaks of Antonin Scalia's passing:
The Supreme Court has granted a stay of a final rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. The rule aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants fueled by fossil sources. It has the dull title, "Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric…
From the Washington Post: Chief Justice John Roberts is worried about how the public sees the Supreme Court. In a recent speech celebrating Law Day at New England Law-Boston, Roberts discussed (among other things) the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees, namely how it has evolved—or…
In few cases in its long history has the Supreme Court had occasion to interpret Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides that the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." This year it may have another. We'll know by the end of the Court's term in June,…
As Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott spoke with evident pride about how many times he’d sued the federal government. The total came to 31, and invariably the lawsuits challenged actions that Abbott believed violated federal statutes or the Constitution. Now, as Texas governor, he is no longer in…
The Constitution provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." But, as Gary Scott Smith of Grove City College writes in his new book, Religion in the Oval Office, "Throughout American history many citizens have…
Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a rookie who ranks 99th in seniority, gave his maiden speech on the Senate floor in November. Normally, senators use such speeches to discuss why this or that legislation is needed. Sasse, a former college president and a historian by training (Yale Ph.D.) who has…
A few days before the opening of its new term, the Supreme Court accepted for review a case from Texas that could prove one of the Court’s most important this year—provided that the justices actually get to decide it.
The day after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Attorney General Loretta Lynch attended a dinner in Washington held by the Muslim Advocates, a Muslim-rights organization. Lynch made no direct mention of the attacks but addressed the Justice Department's responsibilities in light of what she…
Next month the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, one of the most important cases this term. In 2008 Fisher, a white high school senior in Texas, applied for admission to the university and was turned down. She sued the school, claiming that its…
Ben Carson remains in the presidential race notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that the retired neurosurgeon and first-time-candidate-for-any-office wouldn’t last this long. Indeed, the most recent polls show Carson leading Donald Trump in Iowa, which kicks off the presidential primary season…
Some 45 municipalities and communities make up Westchester County, the prosperous, heavily Democratic jurisdiction just north of New York City whose most famous residents are Bill and Hillary Clinton. Like many localities across the country, Westchester has long been a recipient of federal housing…
During the debate in Las Vegas, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Jim Webb how, if were he elected, “he would not be a third term for Obama.” Webb said that “there would be a major difference between my administration and the Obama administration,” and it would concern “the use of executive authority.”
Consider that in Republican Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, we have a presidential candidate who during his high school years in Houston was among several students who met twice a week to read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers and the even more…
In his powerful dissent from Obergefell v. Hodges, the case in which the Supreme Court redefined marriage to include same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of their faith” and that if they “exercise their religion in…
Most summers I’ve had a fruit and vegetable garden, but rarely has my summer reading included much about gardening other than nursery catalogues and seed packets and basic how-to articles. This year has been different. My Summer in a Garden by Charles Dudley Warner, first published in 1870, has had…
Wikipedia defines “startup accelerators” as “fixed-term, cohort-based programs that include mentorship and educational components and culminate” in a “demo day” on which hopeful entrepreneurs make pitches to prospective funders. On August 4, President Obama hosted his own demo day, recasting it to…
Ted Cruz, who in 1996 clerked for then-chief justice William Rehnquist and is now a first-term senator and GOP presidential candidate, has assumed the leadership of conservatives aiming to rein in a Supreme Court they fault for imposing on the country rights not found in the Constitution. This is…
Terry Eastland reviews Barton Swaim's The Speechwriter for the Wall Street Journal:
Ye who are disappointed in the Supreme Court this term, take heart: Its plainly wrong decision in the housing case from Texas, handed down last week, was not as bad as it might have been.
A largely unnoticed story about Carly Fiorina is that she is the daughter of a man who was one of the finest lawyers of his generation. His influence on her, she says, is “huge.” Asked in an interview whether he would be surprised by her bid for the Oval Office, Fiorina said he “probably would be,”…
In his new book on the Constitution, Senator Mike Lee, the first-term Utah Republican, recalls his decision to run for the upper chamber in 2010. “It bothered me that even in the Republican Party, far too many elected officials have been reluctant to engage the public in a meaningful constitutional…
The most notable exchange during the argument last month in the same-sex marriage case before the Supreme Court, Obergefell v. Hodges, likely occurred between Justice Samuel Alito and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
Senator Rand Paul has entered the presidential sweepstakes as a Tea Party favorite and limited-government constitutionalist—i.e., one who believes Congress should not pass legislation unless it has the constitutional authority to do so.
America’s freight railroads get to continue their argument with Amtrak, America’s passenger rail service.
President Obama wants explicit legislative authorization to use military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The administration has sent a draft of an AUMF to Congress, which has begun hearings that could last a while.
In case you haven’t noticed, the Constitution is being amended—though not according to the process our supreme law actually provides for. Which is, first, that two-thirds of both houses propose the amendment and, second, that the amendment then be ratified by the legislatures of three-quarters of…
In one of the biggest Supreme Court cases of the year, Justice Antonin Scalia seems destined to cast the critical vote. Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, argued late last month, concerns the Fair Housing Act of 1968, specifically its prohibition…
Our first national government—the one established by the Articles of Confederation—was notoriously weak. Congress wasn’t much good at administering the laws it passed or at conducting foreign affairs. The government lacked what the Framers of the Constitution said it sorely needed: energy. As James…
In Grutter v. Bollinger, decided in 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor upheld race preferences in higher education but also declared they must have “a termination point.” So when a lawsuit against preferences in admissions is brought, there is a presumption that they could be terminated, perhaps…
This, the “concise edition” of Liberty and Union, is an abridgment of a larger, two-volume work. It contains a glossary of legal terms (“writ,” for example, is a court order), tables of cases, a list of the 118 (so far) justices of the Supreme Court, and the texts of the Declaration of…
Let us now praise famous men, or at least one good federal judge, as some recent work of his demonstrates. Jeffrey Sutton is this judge, and he sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which includes the states of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Earlier this month he…
With Republicans in control of the Senate for the first time since Barack Obama took office, the president may find it harder to appoint left-wing lawyers to judgeships. Whether he compromises on some of his nominees, including any to the Supreme Court, may depend on the willingness of the new…
Last winter President Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development published a regulation pursuant to the Fair Housing Act that defines discrimination as actions or policies that while neutral and nondiscriminatory in their intent have a disparate impact, shown through statistics, on a group…
During his confirmation hearing in early 2009, Eric Holder declared he would not politicize the Justice Department. Yet throughout more than five years in office, the attorney general has done just that—without objection from President Obama, who obviously paid no heed to Holder’s promise. Indeed,…
In case you’ve not been paying attention, an issue for House Republicans as the midterm elections draw near is what to do about a president they believe has offended the Constitution by usurping legislative power and failing to carry out his duty to faithfully execute the law.
On August 15, a grand jury in Travis County, Texas, shocked the Lone Star State when it handed up an indictment of Governor Rick Perry, a likely candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. According to the grand jury, Perry abused his power in 2013 when he attempted to get the county’s…
Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin is the affirmative action case that won’t go away. It’s been to the Supreme Court once and may return. It is a case that could well turn on a failure to define terms—“critical mass” being the critical term.
On the topic of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the contraceptive mandate case decided on the last day of the recent Supreme Court term, the Democrats are fighting mad. They don’t like the decision. No, they despise it. Indeed, their rhetoric on Hobby Lobby has become so misleading, even strange, that the…
On a wide range of matters, including health care, energy, immigration, foreign policy, and education, says House speaker John Boehner, President Obama has ignored some statutes completely, selectively enforced others, and at times created laws of his own, thus failing to “take care that the laws…
The other day a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that a First Amendment challenge to an Ohio law should be heard in the lower courts. While the decision may have seemed a minor one, it represents an important advance for freedom of speech.
In NLRB v. Noel Canning, whatever the differences between the bare majority of five justices led by Justice Breyer and the four dissenters for whom Justice Scalia wrote, there is no question between the contending sides that President Obama acted unconstitutionally in making three ostensible recess…
In our episodic “national conversation about race,” perhaps it is time to take notice of Rothe Development Corporation of San Antonio, Texas, which, you could say, has been having its own conversation about race—in the federal courts. Rothe is a government contractor that has now brought two…
I happen to like fried chicken. I like just about everything about it. I like being in the store and looking for the right chicken. I like cutting up the chicken, and then preparing the pieces for frying, and then frying them in the big pan we use for that purpose. And I like eating my portion. I…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Casual Podcast, with Terry Eastland reading his casual "Fry, Fry Again."
Looking for issues to push in this year’s congressional elections, Senate Democrats are proposing a constitutional amendment that would enable government at the federal and state levels alike to heavily regulate campaign contributions and expenditures. The effort is driven by the Democrats’ intense…
On March 24, World Vision, one of the nation’s best-known Christian relief and development nonprofits and one of the world’s largest charities, announced that it would no -longer exclude from employment, on its stateside staff of 1,100, Christians who are in legal same-sex marriages. Two days…
"As Justice Harlan observed over a century ago, ‘our Constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.’ . . . The people of Michigan wish the same for their governing charter. It would be shameful for us to stand in their way.”
"This is the best Supreme Court, if you’re interested in a free society and in the ability of Americans to participate in the political process with a minimum amount of government restrictions. In fact, this is a great Supreme Court.”
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with executive editor Terry Eastland on the recent ruling by the supreme court in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.
Leslie H. Southwick of Jackson, Mississippi, is (or rather, was) “the nominee,” and here provides an account of his quest to become a judge on a particular federal court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which sits in New Orleans. President George W. Bush nominated him to that court…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD Books & Arts Podcast with Philip Terzian, on the March 24, 2014 issue of the magazine's B&A section. Joining him is executive editor Terry Eastland, to discuss his recent review, Ordeal by Congress, which was a memoir by Judge Leslie Southwick on his road to confirmation to the…
In a speech the other day to state attorneys general, the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, offered an ideal job description for himself and his state counterparts: “not merely to use our legal system to settle disputes and punish those who have done wrong, but to answer the kinds of fundamental…
In his State of the Union speech in January, President Obama said he was planning a new initiative to help “more young men of color facing tough odds to stay on track and reach their full potential.” Last week, Obama launched “My Brother’s Keeper.” In essence, the president will use the power of…
Last month the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The vote broke along party lines, 10-to-8. Over the weekend Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania became the first Democrat to oppose Adegbile. “I will not vote to…
President Obama and Senate Democrats have gone to great lengths to secure the appointment of executive-branch officers and judges and thus help advance his policies and programs. Obama has made recess appointments in a way no president before him did, an action now being challenged in National…
Under our Constitution, a government agency may not act beyond the authority given it by Congress. Indeed, as the Supreme Court has said, “an agency literally has no power to act . . . unless and until Congress confers power upon it.”
Dr. Brian Lee is pastor of Christ Reformed Church, a small church in downtown Washington, D.C., which he founded six years ago. Lee knows something about a topic not ordinarily discussed at his church, that of “legislative prayer.” As we’ll see, he has his doubts about it.
The biggest political story in our domestic politics since 2009 has been, as it will be for the foreseeable future, health care. One part of this story is ripe for telling now: the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—also known as Obamacare. That effort, you’ll recall, came in…
A question: Are Texas and all its agencies and local governments breaking the law? The answer is that they probably are, according to the Obama administration and its Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, isn’t waiting for the EEOC to investigate and…
On November 5, Republican Rob Astorino was reelected executive of upscale Westchester County, which lies directly north of New York City, between the Hudson River and Long Island Sound. Back from a week of postelection beachifying in Puerto Rico, Astorino is already thinking about running for…
“Detroit civil rights lawyer Shanta Driver made a last-minute decision to argue in a high-profile Supreme Court affirmative action case on Oct. 15 in part, she said, because so few African-Americans appear before the justices.”
Among the first cases heard by the Supreme Court in its new term is one from Michigan. The state stands accused of violating the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee by requiring equal treatment in public-university admissions decisions. Michigan has committed no such violation. Yet to judge…
President Obama may have been distracted by Syria, but his domestic presidency proceeds apace, seeking what he heralds as “the transformation of the United States.” Especially is this true at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which aims to remake neighborhoods all across America,…
When I asked Mike Lee, the freshman Republican senator from Utah, how he identified himself politically, he said, “A constitutional conservative.” Note the adjective “constitutional.” It’s not surprising that the senator uses it.
Since the early 1990s the New York Police Department has used a crime-prevention strategy that it calls “stop, question, and frisk.” Accordingly, officers stop and question a person based on reasonable suspicion and sometimes pat down the clothing of the individual to ensure that he is not armed.…
Is Obama lawless? House Republicans certainly think so. The issue involves the Affordable Care Act, under which employers with 50 or more full-time workers must provide health insurance in terms defined by the statute or pay a $2,000 penalty per employee. Known as the “employer mandate,” it was to…
Arguably the most important case the Supreme Court handed down this past term was United States v. Windsor, in which Justice Kennedy, writing for a five-justice majority, declared unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage for federal purposes. Largely neglected in…
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled against using race to determine public school assignments. Chief Justice Roberts concluded his plurality opinion with this eloquent statement: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
WEEKLY STANDARD executive editor Terry Eastland reviews the Supreme Court's decisions in Fisher v. University of Texas, United States v. Windsor, and Hollingsworth v. Perry.
My wife says the only thing I’ll plant is what I can eat. Not entirely true, I tell her. I point to certain things I’ve planted: the cluster of yellow iris in the side yard, the bunch of white iris in the backyard, and the large spread of irises of many colors in the front yard, under the crape…
Last month, in City of Arlington, Texas v. Federal Communications Commission, the Supreme Court’s five judicial conservatives divided on a question concerning the relationship between federal courts and federal regulators. Justice Scalia wrote the decision for a majority that included Justice…
This is the latest in the “edible series” of books put out by Reaktion Books, each of which explores the history and cultural associations of a particular food or drink. Written by Lorna Piatti-Farnell of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, Beef is number 33 in the series, its…
Late in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, my wife Jill and I were driving through Vienna, Virginia, toward Tysons Corner when we found ourselves in front of, and then beside, and then right behind an old gray Volvo wagon. The car caught our eyes, and quickly we realized why, for it wasn’t just…
Robert H. Bork, we all know, didn’t sit on the Supreme Court. His legacy thus cannot lie in votes cast and opinions written. You have to look elsewhere, and you certainly could begin with his earliest work at Yale Law School, which was in antitrust. In a series of law review articles and ultimately…
Our government is not a pure democracy but a constitutional republic, meaning that we govern ourselves in accord with the Constitution, which provides for a Supreme Court with the authority to review and strike down laws that are in conflict with the Constitution. In Cosmic Constitutional Theory,…
Born in Dallas on February 7, 1953, my sister Janie was a healthy baby, smart and fun to be around, the last of the three children in our family. She was Exhibit A in support of Carl Sandburg’s famous aphorism that a baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.
Let us now praise the Supreme Court. We know that Newt Gingrich thinks the judiciary needs rebuking, and we agree with him to a point. But sometimes—actually, often under Chief Justice John Roberts—the Court gets it right. And it did so last week unanimously in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical…
Among the cases the Supreme Court is being asked to take in its new term is one from Texas challenging racial preferences in college admissions. Alice Fisher was finishing her senior year at Stephen F. Austin High School in 2008 when she applied, unsuccessfully, for admission to the University of…
Last month, a unanimous Supreme Court held that a Pennsylvania woman named Carol Bond may challenge a federal law under which she was prosecuted, on grounds that Congress had exceeded its powers and intruded upon the sovereignty and authority of the states. Until Bond v. United States, it was…
Last week the Supreme Court reentered the business of dubious liberal policymaking with its decision in a case from California, Plata v. Brown. With Justice Kennedy writing for himself and four colleagues, the Court sustained a lower court’s order requiring the state to reduce the number of…
In a week when the news concerned taxes and spending, the Supreme Court happened to decide a case dealing with . . . taxes and spending. This was not a federal but a state case, from Arizona, and the good news is that in a 5-to-4 ruling the Court recognized its proper, limited role in our system…
At least it doesn’t involve a mandate. The Obama White House has launched something called “The President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge,” the point of which is to advance “Interfaith Cooperation and Community Service in Higher Education.” The White House is “encouraging”…
Whether House Republicans will succeed in limiting the national government is a question raised by a simple rule adopted on their first day in the majority. Under the rule, every bill when introduced must be accompanied by a statement citing the specific authority granted to Congress by the…
It may be startling to imagine the American presidency as a train that “has run off the rails.” But that’s the metaphor Indiana Republican Mike Pence chose in a speech he gave at Hillsdale College on September 20 titled “The Presidency and the Constitution.” Elected last month to his sixth term in…
Alas, Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is the latest politician to turn his attention to the Supreme Court. Leahy thinks the justices have more conflicts of interest than they acknowledge, and should recuse themselves more frequently than they do. He believes that…
In January, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court held that under the First Amendment Congress may not limit corporate and union funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections. The Court overturned one of its own rulings and a provision of the…
Justice Stevens turned out to be one of those Republican appointees to the Court who “grew” during his tenure. That was nowhere more evident than in cases challenging the legality of racial preferences. Consider that in the landmark Bakke case (1978), Stevens wrote an opinion joined by three other…
Regarding Obama v. SCOTUS majority in Citizens United, which continues to be a story at least in Washington: Count me among those who believe that a president may criticize an opinion by the Court. As Lincoln once said (though before he became president) a Supreme court decision is not a “thus…
The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions Edited
I didn't realize before I married Jill that our union meant we'd always own a dog or two.
On the first day of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Washington Post led with a story about how the hearings were "not just about" the nominee and the Senate's response to her. They were also about the struggle between the two parties over the direction of our courts.…
The most notable development in the Sotomayor hearings yesterday was her rejection of her sponsor's approach to judging. President Obama has made clear over the years that the rule of law, or legal process, is not enough to decide a small percentage of cases, and that in those cases judges have to…
Key passages from the judge's opening statement: "Throughout my seventeen years on the bench, I have witnessed the human consequences of my decisions. Those decisions have not been made to serve the interests of any one litigant, but always to serve the larger interest of impartial justice." And…
Last Monday, on the final day of its 2008-09 term, the Supreme Court decided its most controversial recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano. This concerned the now-famous claim by a group of firefighters--17 white and one Hispanic--that New Haven unlawfully discriminated against them on the basis of race.
In announcing her nomination to the Supreme Court last week, President Obama said Sonia Sotomayor has the "first and foremost quality" needed in a justice: "a rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law, an ability to home in on the key issues and provide clear answers to complex legal questions." He…
Now that Obama has picked Sonia Sotomayor to take the seat of the retiring David Souter, the summer promises to be really interesting. By the last week of June the Supreme Court will have decided Ricci v. DeStefano. This is the case alleging racial discrimination in employment on the part of New…
Blind Spot
Yesterday John McCormack posted here the clip of then candidate Obama declaring that George Bush used signing statements to "accumulate more power in the presidency." The implication of Obama's remarks was that Bush aimed to accumulate more power than the Constitution vests in the executive, that…
Notwithstanding the president's righteous campaign talk about how committed he is to the separation of church and state, White House aides are now in the business of vetting prayers said before Obama rallies by individuals whom they've asked to do the praying. Read this remarkable story by the…
A recent edition of Newsweek ran a photograph of Barack Obama that was taken in the White House the morning of January 20, just after the Obamas and the Bushes had finished coffee and were about to leave for the inauguration. The caption noted that Obama was fussing with his tie, which he was, but…
Surprisingly, President Obama didn't mention the Second Great Commandment--love thy neighbor as thyself--in his inaugural address. But he did this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast. Obama described it as "one law that binds all great religions together," quoting equivalents to the…
Barack Obama is the most religious Democratic president since Jimmy Carter. In announcing his campaign two years ago in Springfield, Illinois, he explicitly declared his Christian faith, and on the stump he regularly described himself as "a devout Christian." He made "religious outreach" a key part…
Among the first "directives" of this very young presidency is one Barack Obama has given himself. From a press release issued earlier today: I will also hold myself as President to a new standard of openness. Going forward, anytime the American people want to know something that I or a former…
This week the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Gary, Indiana, charging the city with racial discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. You can read the complaint here. The story in brief: Gary wanted to hire some Emergency Medical Technicians. It had 25 job…
Speaking of things that could kill a prayer, there is a new lawsuit by Michael Newdow (the guy who tried unsuccessfully to get "under God" struck from the Pledge of Allegiance) that takes aim at inauguration prayers as well as the practice (it started with George Washington) of a president's saying…
The other day I emailed a few questions to Rick Warren, who has accepted Barack Obama's invitation to give the inauguration prayer, and he's now responded. Warren says, among other things, that the invitation was "completely unexpected" and that "several dozen" other pastors would do "a better…
During his press conference today, Obama defended his choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation, as reported here, by saying that the country needs to "come together," even when there's disagreement on social issues. "That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about."…
Showing 200 of 529 articles. Use search to find more.