The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18 has shaken up the 2020 election and is sure to plunge an already dramatic election year into a raging political firestorm. Already dealing with riots, massive forest fires, economic problems and a global pandemic, the United States now faces an election that might actually be the most important in many people’s lifetimes — and not just in the way that the line has been previously employed for the sake of political rhetoric to get voters to the polls.

A conservative replacement will be appointed soon. US President Donald Trump will reportedly nominate a woman to SCOTUS this coming week.

RBG’s Record

Ginsburg took her seat on SCOTUS in 1993 under President Bill Clinton and served there almost three decades. She was often part of the dissenting opinions as conservatives held a 5-4 voting majority for many years, bolstering the image of her as a feisty fighter and underdog.

RBG was a committed progressive who was staunchly in favor of abortion rights and legislating for increased labor protections and rights protections for women and minorities. Her dissenting opinions became well-known for their fiery conviction about gender equality, including landmark rulings on a women’s right to administer estates and get survivor benefits when their husband died.

Cases such as these and more made RBG into a feminist and progressive icon as she rose up the ranks and became prominent in the national eye.

Who Will Trump Pick?

Trump will most likely select Barbara Lagoa or Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacant SCOTUS seat. Both picks have various advantages. Both are socially conservative, devout Catholics, but there are some compelling reasons in favor of each from the right-wing perspective.

Barrett works for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago since being put there by Trump in 2017 and previously clerked for Justice Scalia. She’s a former law professor who is believed to be committed to overturning landmark abortion ruling Roe vs. Wade. 

Lagoa has more judicial experience than Barrett and was put on the 3rd District Court of Appeals by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2006. She moved to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th District in 2019 under orders from Trump. Lagoa is conservative, but is not as strongly opinionated on Roe vs. Wade. As a Cuban-American from Miami, however, she could also help solidify Trump’s growing support among Hispanic Americans and help him win the key state of Florida.

Left characterizations of Barrett as a “Catholic extremist” tend to tip the scales in favor of her being chosen by Trump. Furthermore, choosing Barrett would allow Trump to jeopardize much of the media and Democratic party’s emphasis on Biden’s Catholic faith. Is Hunter Biden also a “Catholic extremist” for having a large family? Is Biden a “good Catholic” for being liberal but Barrett is a “bad Catholic”? These are exactly the kind of litmus tests that will further sink the already disastrously falling support for Democrats among Hispanics and other portions of the electorate.

Republicans Want to Fill RBG’s Seat ASAP

Trump is promising that RBG’s seat will be filled quickly, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has pledged to confirm Trump’s appointee, although there’s no guarantee that will happen before election day on November 3. In order to confirm the pick the Republicans would have to be singularly unified without losing more than three party member confirmation votes.

Senators do not like being pressured on SCOTUS appointees and generally like to take their time to make a lifetime appointment to the vitally important court, and there’s a chance that the GOP could lose more votes than it could afford from Senators who are already finishing up their political career anyway, don’t support the pick, and don’t care any longer about the political suicide of not voting to confirm a new conservative justice.

Regardless, progressive fury at the perceived Republican hypocrisy will be intense. President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in the spring of 2016 was declined by the Republican-controlled Congress who insisted that the presidential election must be finished before a SCOTUS nomination could move forward. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch was put in the seat in 2017.

McConnell wouldn’t move forward then on the other party’s pick, but he will now on his own party’s selection.

This should not surprise anyone, particularly as federal politics has slid into an all-out brawl in the past few years and Democratic tactics have become increasingly intense and gloves-off as they seek to oust Trump from office. There is no reason to expect the GOP to play fair or adhere to standards of political civility at this point.

Biden has already emphasized that the nomination should not take place until this presidential election is decided, but has declined to put out a list of who he would potentially nominate were he to become president. It is also possible that Democrats will put through some legislation to make it easier to pass laws in the Senate and allow them to possibly expand the Supreme Court and end the impending Republican power play.

More Possible Choices to Replace Ginsburg

Although reports say Trump has narrowed it down to Barrett or Lagoa, other women on the shortlist include Bridget Bade from the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Martha Pacold from the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Sarah Pitlyk from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, deputy White House counsel Kate Todd, Joan Larsen of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Britt Grant of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and Allison Jones Rushing of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

It is always possible that Trump will go with one of these women instead, as he is known for his unpredictability and has already changed his mind on a SCOTUS pick, having previously remarked he’d put Senator Ted Cruz in but recently announcing that it will be a woman instead.

Political Calculus

The Republicans could have held off on naming a replacement in order to further intensify the election and boost evangelical and socially conservative turnout. Making the 2020 election a referendum on Roe vs. Wade and whether the GOP would get the chance to put a conservative on the bench under a re-elected President Trump would have strongly enthused many right-leaning voters.

However, naming a replacement now has several advantages for the GOP. Firstly it can be seen as another feather in Trump’s cap and another win for voters to reflect on when they cast their ballot. Secondly, the Democratic party and left-leaning electoral meltdown that is sure to come as a replacement is named and vetted will likely provide unrest, dramatic rhetoric and behavior that will actually decrease support for the Democrats in crucial swing states and boost Republican voter turnout.

RBG’s reported statement prior to her death that she wishes above all that a replacement not be appointed until a new president is “installed” will further inflame angry progressives and intensify their threats and accusations of rank hypocrisy from Republicans for their previous refusal to allow Garland to proceed forward onto SCOTUS.

Various celebrities and establishment liberal figures have already made outlandish and possibly illegal statements inciting violence and promising that they’ll die before they allow the GOP to put in a replacement for RBG and “burn the entire f–ing thing down,” in the words of TV host Reza Aslan, for example.

What’s Next?

If Trump nominates Barrett the media and national uproar will be considerable. The hearings will be intensely partisan and bitter, but the election would be clearly tipped in Trump’s favor. Even a less contentious pick than Barrett is likely to result in a meltdown by coastal elites and progressives. Look for late night talk shows and other broadcast mediums for coastal folks to go absolutely bonkers, and don’t be surprised to see increased street-level agitation and unrest.

The United States is now in the unenviable position of melting down over race relations and politics with a contentious Supreme Court hearing on the horizon. No matter what happens, the death of RBG is likely to go down as a pivotal point in US history and what comes next is likely to be dramatic on the political and popular level.

Trump got a major boost in 2016 with the chance to fill the Supreme Court with a conservative justice, and his later appointments of Gorsuch to replace Scalia and Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy helped bring many evangelicals and social conservatives over to his side and see him as a winner who gets things done. The death of RBG is likely to be what wins Trump the 2020 election and assists his administration in reshaping the federal bench to become more conservative across the board.

L'articolo RBG’s Death and the 2020 Election proviene da InsideOver.

US President Donald Trump has heard arguments in the Supreme Court on whether he should be allowed to keep his financial records secret. This court case represents the biggest challenge to the US President’s powers since President Richard Nixon was forced to comply with a court’s subpoena for tape recordings made during the Watergate scandal in 1974, and then again in 1997 when the Supreme Court unanimously decided that a sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton should proceed.

Trump Has Refused to Release His Tax Records

Throughout his presidency so far, Trump has refused to distribute records that could reveal his family fortunes and the work of his family company.

A ruling is expected within weeks. This issue is significant because Trump is the first US President who has refused to release his tax returns. However, by not doing so the Biden campaign could use them against the President in November.

Should the President be Granted Immunity?

The President’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to block the subpoenas, which are orders to hand over evidence. They argue that Congress had no authority to issue the subpoenas. His lawyers also believe that he should be granted immunity because of his executive position as President.

Lower courts in Washington and New York ruled against Trump in all cases, yet those decisions have been put on hold pending a final court ruling.

Two House of Representatives committees have demanded financial transcripts from two banks that did deals with Trump- Deutsche Bank and Capital One. They also want to see records of his dealings with Mazars, the President’s accountants.

The payments made by Michael Cohen to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film star Stormy Daniels are also being investigated.

This Whole Issue Concerns the Balance of Power

This whole issue raises concerns over the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches in the US, with conservative judges keen to protect the executive branch while liberal judges intend to rein him in. Even though conservative judges make up the majority on the Supreme Court, he should not count on their support as all the judges Nixon and Clinton appointed voted against them.

Trump lawyer William S. Consovoy argued that the Supreme Court has been restricted from conducting investigations into private citizens in the past. In the 1880 case Kilbourn v. Thompson, the Supreme Court blocked the House’s request for records concerning a private real-estate transaction in D.C. because the case was a judicial matter, not a legislative one. During the 1957 case Watkins v. the United States, the justices ruled against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) when it tried to force a labor organizer to name former Communist Party members.

Trump Must Release His Tax Returns

But as the New Republic’s Matt Ford argues, Trump is not a private citizen anymore. Congress’s request is directed at the Treasury and the IRS, not him personally. For the sake of honesty and transparency, and to avoid being scrutinized on this issue in November, the President should release his tax returns to the House. This is because the House would be able to evaluate the information and they would not have to release his returns to the public, even though people deserve to know about them.

This is not an attempt to harass Trump by his political opponents, but rather an opportunity to ensure that the President is obeying the law. For example, in 2017 Trump reported that his Irish golf business had revenues of $14 million, while a separate report to Irish regulators discovered that the business lost about $2 million.

The returns could also shed some light on Trump’s $400 million spending spree on real-estate during the 2000s. It remains unclear how he obtained that money and why he decided to spend it.

The President is not above the law and if the Supreme Court rules in favor of requesting to see his tax returns, he must release them.

L'articolo Has the Time Come for Trump to Release His Tax Returns? proviene da InsideOver.

The first Monday in October is the single most important day in American jurisprudence. It’s the day the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) convenes to begin hearing legal arguments that will go on to shape every facet of American life.

As each court is known by the Chief Justice’s name, 7 October began the 15th year of the Roberts Court marking the first time in 50 years that the court has had a “reliable” conservative majority.

After the tumultuous appointment of President Trump’s nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the court has come under close scrutiny. It’s been thought that many of the cases from 2018 weren’t too controversial, presumably to help Justice Kavanaugh get his footing.

For the cases on the 2019 docket, the training wheels are off. The court will be hearing and deciding upon a number of critical cases this year.

The Roberts Court wasted no time in flexing its conservative muscle by vacating the decision of a lower court in Michigan who had ruled that “34 of the state’s voting districts were specifically designed to disadvantage Democratic voters, deliberately diluting the power of their vote to ensure a particular partisan outcome.” This is legalese for what is known as gerrymandering. The Michigan lower court also stated that gerrymandering was a “pernicious practice that undermines our democracy.”

The 5-4 decision cut right along ideological lines, and saw Chief Justice John Roberts invoke the “Political Question Doctrine” – which states that political questions are beyond the reach of the federal courts.

The conservative majority court determined that it was “constitutionally permissible for voting districts to be drawn with the specific intent to disadvantage voters of a particular political ideology.” At the same time, Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged that the “ruling may enable increasingly inequitable political representation.”

In a case that clearly indicates Justice Kavanaugh’s “honeymoon” period is over the court is set to review Louisiana abortion laws. Since abortion providers were still appealing the initial decision which said that providers of abortion in Louisiana must have admitting privileges to a nearby hospital, SCOTUS voted 5-4 in February to delay the law from taking effect until the appeals have been exhausted.

This Louisiana law is remarkably similar to the Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. At the time, the court found the driving distance between the abortion clinic and any nearby hospital posed an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional right to access an abortion.

Aside from the courts’ conservative majority today, the difference between the Louisiana law and Texas law is driving distance. Since Lousiana is a smaller state, the driving distances between the clinic and hospital wouldn’t be as burdensome as it was in Texas.

The court is expected to hear arguments for this early next year with their decision being rendered in July 2020. If that timing gives you pause, it should. This will be a hot button decision, delivered at the peak of what promises to be a fiery election cycle; all but ensuring it will become even more combustible.

While Roe v. Wade may still be the law of the land, this Louisiana case is opening the door for other states to sidestep around overturning Roe v. Wade. If SCOTUS votes along ideological lines, it would blast open the door for other states to follow suit and therefore making the procedure extremely arduous, if not impossible, state-by-state.

More succinctly, this decision alone will re-shape women’s reproductive rights for decades.

SCOTUS also faces its biggest Second Amendment case in ten years. At stake is whether or not New York City’s ban on transporting a “licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or outside city limits is consistent with the Second Amendment.”

Shortly after New York City learned SCOTUS would hear the case, they reversed the ban and the state legislature immediately wrote a new law prohibiting New York City from reinstating the ban. Even though the city has asked the Court to dismiss the case, the fact that they decided against all the dismissal submissions is setting off alarms among gun-control advocates.

All of this prompted Justice Sonia Sotomayer to opine that the court is “bending rules in order to achieve conservative outcomes.”

Also at stake is the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. This Obama-era program has helped over 700,000 immigrants avoid deportation and get them permits for work. It’s also been a thorn in President Trump’s side since he was sworn in.

Overturning this would fall right in line with his anti-immigration position and his delight at wiping out anything President Obama accomplished.

One of the first cases they heard this session was Ramos V. Louisiana, which questioned whether “the Fourteenth Amendment fully incorporates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a unanimous verdict.” In other words, can juries convict criminals without a unanimous verdict.

The Fourteenth Amendment also appears in Kahler v. Kansas, which is asking whether the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments permit a state to abolish the insanity defense.

The court is also dipping its toe into the issue of LGBTQ rights. Since President Trump reversed President Obama’s protection of transgendered individuals its raised the issue of whether their protection falls under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court must decide whether this 1964 act protects people from discrimination in the workplace if they are gay or transgender.

However, of the 44 cases the court will hear this session, perhaps none may be more important than the potential case facing Chief Justice John Roberts. Should the House of Representatives vote to impeach President Trump, it would then move to a trial in the senate. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roberts would be responsible for presiding over the trial in the Senate.

If the Supreme Court of the United States continues to vote along ideological lines, as is expected, the conservative majority will have a profound impact on America. Not only will American progressives be in for a reckoning but so will all American citizens.

Regardless of what one may think of the way President Donald Trump governs, or doesn’t govern, his legacy will be how he and the Republicans have shaped The Supreme Court and the lower courts in the United States.

Without question, these appointments and their respective decisions will impact the way American’s live for decades.

L'articolo The Supreme Court and the Sculpting of America proviene da InsideOver.