Tag: Kagan, Elena

Woman’s Arrest After Political Dispute Prompts a Lively Supreme Court Debate

Sylvia Gonzalez, a 72-year-old city councilwoman in Castle Hill, Texas, was arrested in 2019 for misplacing a piece of paper after criticizing the city manager. The charges were soon dropped. Ms. Gonzalez resigned and sued city officials, accusing them of retaliation for exercising her First Amendment rights. But her case ran into the Supreme Court’s […]

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Supreme Court Rules for Immigrant in Case on Deportation Hardship Waiver

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that federal appeals courts may review many determinations by immigration judges about whether deporting someone would, in the words of a federal statute, result in “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a relative who is lawfully in the United States. The vote was 6 to 3, and the majority […]

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In Trump Cases, Supreme Court Cannot Avoid Politics

In major cases concerning former President Donald J. Trump, the Supreme Court has tried to put some distance between itself and politics. That fragile project does not seem to be succeeding. “If the court is trying to stay out of the political fray, it is failing miserably,” said Melissa Murray, a law professor at New […]

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Hours After Trump Argument, Cautious Reflections From Justice Kagan

“Another slow day at the office?” It was Thursday afternoon, and Justice Elena Kagan was settling in for a public conversation at the Library of Congress. She had agreed to it long before the Supreme Court scheduled an extraordinary special session for that morning, to hear arguments over whether former President Donald J. Trump is […]

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Lawyer for Colorado Voters Faced Tough Questions From His Former Bosses

It would be a daunting task for anyone making his first argument before the Supreme Court. As the lawyer representing a group of Colorado voters seeking to block former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot, Jason Murray, 38, stood before a skeptical majority in a high-stakes argument that could shape the course of the […]

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How to Steal the Presidential Election

What happens when you stress-test America’s system for electing a president? How well does it hold up? After the assault on the nation’s Capitol three years ago, we worked through every strategy we could imagine for subverting the popular will by manipulating the law. What we found surprised us. We determined that the most commonly […]

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Inside the Supreme Court’s Dismantling of Roe

At the Jan. 8 conference, the three liberals — Justices Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — and the chief justice opposed hearing the case. The five other conservatives voted in favor, according to a written tally and several people familiar with the discussions. They couldn’t avoid a case like this, Justice Kavanaugh told the […]

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Supreme Court Leans Toward Police Officer in Job Bias Case

The Supreme Court seemed inclined on Wednesday to allow a female police officer in St. Louis to sue for employment discrimination over a forced lateral transfer to another position in the police department. A ruling for the officer would open the courthouse doors to more employment discrimination suits, but it was not clear how many. […]

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We Waited 200 Years for This Supreme Court Ethics Code?

On first impulse, I was tempted to say something nice about the Supreme Court’s first-ever ethics code, which the justices released on Monday after years of pleas from the American public and lawmakers of both parties. But the most striking thing about the code was its resentful tone: call it the condescension of the unelected. […]

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The Supreme Court Is Not as Politicized as You May Think

With the start of the Supreme Court’s new term, we will see and hear much debate lavished on blockbuster cases — the controversial opinions that play an outsize role in the public’s perception of the court and that tend to split the justices, and the country, in predictably ideological ways. In recent terms, these include […]

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Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Disability Rights

The Supreme Court wrangled on Wednesday over the question of whether a disability rights activist could sue a hotel for violating a federal disability law, even if she never planned to stay there. Several justices appeared skeptical of the case itself and whether there was even a dispute to resolve. “This is like dead, dead, […]

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Justice Kagan Calls for the Supreme Court to Adopt an Ethics Code

Justice Elena Kagan said on Friday that the Supreme Court should adopt a code of ethics, saying that “it would be a good thing for the court to do that.” Her comment, part of a wide-ranging live-streamed public interview at Notre Dame Law School, came on the day ProPublica reported that Justice Clarence Thomas had […]

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