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Supreme Court rejects states' challenge to Colorado pot law
Press Release |
2016/03/20 22:35
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The Supreme Court has rejected an effort by Nebraska and Oklahoma to have Colorado's pot legalization declared unconstitutional.
The justices are not commenting Monday in dismissing the lawsuit the states filed directly at the Supreme Court against their neighbor.
They argued that Colorado's law allowing recreational marijuana use by adults runs afoul of federal anti-drug laws. The states also said that legalized pot in Colorado is spilling across the borders into Nebraska and Oklahoma, complicating their anti-drug efforts and draining state resources.
The Obama administration had sided with Colorado, despite the administration's opposition to making marijuana use legal.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have heard the states' lawsuit.
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Chief justice remembers Scalia's 'irrepressible spirit'
Press Release |
2016/02/20 14:43
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Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday remembered the late Justice Antonin Scalia as a friend and colleague of "irrepressible spirit" as the Supreme Court resumed work for the first time since Scalia's death.
"He was our man for all seasons and we will miss him beyond measure," Roberts said in brief remarks after the court's eight remaining justices took the bench.
Roberts recounted Scalia's humble roots in New Jersey, his graduation at the top of his class at Georgetown University and his stellar performance at Harvard Law School. As a top attorney at the Justice Department, Roberts said Scalia argued his first and only case before the Supreme Court in 1976.
"He prevailed, establishing a perfect record before the court," Roberts said to laughter.
Scalia became the 103rd justice confirmed to the high court in 1986, Roberts noted, and wrote 292 majority opinions for the court.
"He was also known on occasion to dissent," Roberts said to more laughter.
The high court is resuming work just two days after the justices and thousands of dignitaries, friends and family mourned his loss at a funeral Mass in Washington.
The void created by Scalia's death was visible on Monday. His chair, in its usual place to the right of Roberts, was draped in black wool crepe, which will remain until next month.
Only in late March do the justices plan to switch seats in line with their seniority on the court. Justice Anthony Kennedy is now the longest-serving member of the court, with 28 years of experience.
President Barack Obama has vowed to nominate a candidate to take Scalia's seat, but Senate Republicans, backed by their party's presidential contenders, have pledged to block anyone Obama puts forward. Republicans have said the choice should await the next president.
Scalia's sharp questioning of lawyers transformed arguments into lively sessions in which the justices sometimes seemed to be talking to each other, rather than to the lawyers arguing before them. |
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Appeals court refuses to halt power plant rules
Press Release |
2015/09/09 23:02
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A federal appeals court has refused to halt the Obama administration's new clean air standards for power plants while opponents wage a legal challenge.
The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday rejected an emergency request from 15 states and Peabody Energy Corp. to temporarily block the sweeping plan that would require states to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants.
West Virginia and other coal-reliant states have been leading opposition to the plan, which would mandate a 32 percent cut in emissions nationwide by 2030.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the White House have said they believe the limits are legal and rejected an earlier request to put them on hold.
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Court scraps Dutch data retention law, cites privacy concern
Press Release |
2015/03/12 12:12
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A judge scrapped the Netherlands' data retention law Wednesday, saying that while it helps solve crimes it also breaches the privacy of telephone and Internet users.
The ruling by a judge in The Hague followed a similar decision in April by the European Union's top court that wiped out EU data collection legislation it deemed too broad and offering too few privacy safeguards.
The Security and Justice Ministry said it was considering an appeal.
Under the Dutch law, telephone companies were required to store information about all fixed and mobile phone calls for a year. Internet providers had to store information on their clients' Internet use for six months.
The written judgment by Judge G.P. van Ham conceded that scrapping the data storage "could have far-reaching consequences for investigating and prosecuting crimes" but added that this could not justify the privacy breaches the law entails.
The judge did not set a deadline for disposing of the data.
Privacy First, one of the organizations that took the government to court, said the ruling "will bring to an end years of massive privacy breaches" in the Netherlands.
The government said after last year's European court ruling that it would amend its law. |
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Anxiety over Supreme Court's latest dive into health care
Press Release |
2015/02/04 10:52
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Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme Court.
This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states.
Obama's law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have access to it on the job. Without financial assistance with their premiums, millions of those consumers would drop coverage.
And disruptions in the affected states don't end there. If droves of healthy people bail out of HealthCare.gov, residents buying individual policies outside the government market would face a jump in premiums. That's because self-pay customers are in the same insurance pool as the subsidized ones.
Health insurers spent millions to defeat the law as it was being debated. But the industry told the court last month that the subsidies are a key to making the insurance overhaul work. Withdrawing them would "make the situation worse than it was before" Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
The debate over "Obamacare" was messy enough when just politics and ideology were involved. It gets really dicey with the well-being of millions of people in the balance. "It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary.
The legal issues involve the leeway accorded to federal agencies in applying complex legislation. Opponents argue that the precise wording of the law only allows subsidies in states that have set up their own insurance markets, or exchanges. That would leave out most beneficiaries, who live in states where the federal government runs the exchanges. The administration and Democratic lawmakers who wrote the law say Congress' clear intent was to provide subsidies to people in every state. |
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