Justice Samuel Alito. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump’s four years in the White House were, in many ways, a revolution interrupted. They transformed the federal judiciary and led to the fall of Roe v. Wade, the end of many gun laws, and a sweeping transfer of power away from the elected branches of government and toward a Republican-controlled judiciary.

Yet while Trump’s single presidential term remade much of US law, it did not allow the judiciary’s most reactionary elements to declare total victory.

This June the Court will likely hand several high-profile defeats to the conservative movement. Even this Court is unlikely to ban the abortion drug mifepristone, for example. It’s also likely to reject a decision, by three Trump judges, which threatens to trigger a second Great Depression.

While there is daylight between the median justice on the Supreme Court and the most reactionary minds on lower courts, US democracy is still in extraordinary peril. The Court has thus far tripped over itself to protect Trump from any criminal consequences for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and the unelected justices are widely expected to transfer a tremendous amount of policymaking authority to themselves, at the expense of the two elected branches of government.

The federal courts, in other words, are increasingly anti-democratic and increasingly eager to consolidate power within themselves, but not nearly as anti-democratic as they will become if Trump gets to appoint more judges.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear's upcoming trip to neighboring Tennessee to speak out against that state's sweeping abortion ban is the latest sign that the Democrat known for defeating Donald Trump-backed rivals is looking to improve his party's prospects in GOP territory and build up his own name recognition.

Beshear — who campaigned against his state's near-total abortion ban in winning reelection last year — will speak next month at an event called “Championing Reproductive Freedom.” He will be joined by Hadley Duvall, a college student featured in a TV ad that linked Beshear's GOP challenger last year to Kentucky's strict abortion law, which bans abortions except when carried out to save the mother’s life.

Beshear's reelection — in a state that otherwise has trended toward the GOP — burnished his image as a rising national Democratic star. The governor said Monday that abortion looms as a powerful issue for his party, provided “it is grounded in a rejection of extremism.”

“Like Kentucky, Tennessee has some of the most extreme laws in the country, where victims of rape and incest don’t have the necessary options," Beshear said in a phone interview. "I think that the voters in Tennessee, just like in Kentucky, have enough basic empathy to believe that goes way too far.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (C) talks to reporters with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (2nd L), both active members of the Republican Attorneys General Association. ( Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)


If you sit down and talk with Republicans, which I advise against doing, you will notice that they justify nearly every one of their awful policies with a call to states’ rights. They say they want to take power away from national representatives in Washington, D.C., and redistribute it to state and local governments, which, they claim, are best equipped to determine the best policies for their constituents’ particular, parochial concerns. They use this appeal to “federalism” to shield them from moral accountability for their disastrous actions. Republicans will say, for instance, that their intention is not to take away abortion rights but merely to let the states decide when a person can be forced to give birth against their will.

They are lying, of course. We know this because whenever Republicans get the power to impose their views by national fiat, they happily do so, states’ rights be damned. Republicans are for local control right up until a local prosecutor declines to deport an immigrant or a city council decides to ban assault weapons.

Still, “states’ rights” remains their battle cry, and few things expose the full measure of their antipathy toward democratic norms and civil rights than what they do with the power they’ve given to the states.

Most people are aware of the horrors that await when Republicans take control of statehouses and governors’ mansions. For recent examples, consider Greg Abbott’s murder moat in Texas, or Glenn Youngkin’s crusade against abortion rights and Pornhub in Virginia. Fewer, however, recognize the horrors that lie in store when Republicans commandeer the machinery of the law. Put simply, whichever rights the Supreme Court does not succeed in obliterating, Republican-controlled state courts and Republican attorneys general eagerly chisel away, state by state.

Republican AGs play the critical role. They are the people who, under their own authority, can bend the law to their will and weaponize it against vulnerable communities. There are currently 27 of them, and they include future Newsmax hosts like Kansas AG Kris Kobach, who finds his joy in suing to stop Joe Biden’s student debt relief program; Florida AG Ashley Moody, who spends her days fighting whatever “wokeness” conspiracy exists in her head at any given moment; and Texas AG Ken Paxton, who has effectively decided to make up his own immigration laws and enforce them at the point of a gun.

Having argued landmark privacy cases before the Florida Supreme Court, I’m saddened to see the court rule that a woman’s ability to have an abortion is no longer protected under the Florida Constitution. As a lover of the rule of law, the sadness is in watching the court devolve into a third political branch of government, where decisions appear to be based upon the personal beliefs and political agendas of the justices and the governor who appoints them.

Respect for the law depends upon the public perceiving that judicial determinations are based upon underlying legal principles rather than a court’s current personnel.

Our governor appointed supreme court justices with reported anti-abortion credentials, leading pundits to predict that the court would deliver on that agenda. Unfortunately, the Florida Supreme Court did little to dispel that notion. Not only is its opinion legally unpersuasive, but worse, justices use their opinions to trumpet their pro-life/anti-abortion beliefs.

In 1980, Florida voters adopted a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into their private lives. For decades our Florida courts have ruled that this “right to privacy” pertains to decisions regarding abortion. But now, the majority delves into history and finds that Floridians were clueless in 1980 that the amendment pertained to abortion.

Beyond its foray into history, the majority undermines its opinion with contorted logic. To this court, abortion is not a matter associated with the right to privacy because an abortion, as a “medical intervention,” requires “both the presence and intrusion of others.” According to the court’s logic, the presence of third parties renders a decision to end a pregnancy no longer a “private” matter. Perhaps a woman can retain her right of privacy by choosing to perform her own abortion?

This fanciful logic is dangerous, as it could be applied to other privacy rights.

Having argued landmark privacy cases before the Florida Supreme Court, I’m saddened to see the court rule that a woman’s ability to have an abortion is no longer protected under the Florida Constitution. As a lover of the rule of law, the sadness is in watching the court devolve into a third political branch of government, where decisions appear to be based upon the personal beliefs and political agendas of the justices and the governor who appoints them.

Respect for the law depends upon the public perceiving that judicial determinations are based upon underlying legal principles rather than a court’s current personnel.

Our governor appointed supreme court justices with reported anti-abortion credentials, leading pundits to predict that the court would deliver on that agenda. Unfortunately, the Florida Supreme Court did little to dispel that notion. Not only is its opinion legally unpersuasive, but worse, justices use their opinions to trumpet their pro-life/anti-abortion beliefs.

In 1980, Florida voters adopted a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into their private lives. For decades our Florida courts have ruled that this “right to privacy” pertains to decisions regarding abortion. But now, the majority delves into history and finds that Floridians were clueless in 1980 that the amendment pertained to abortion.

Beyond its foray into history, the majority undermines its opinion with contorted logic. To this court, abortion is not a matter associated with the right to privacy because an abortion, as a “medical intervention,” requires “both the presence and intrusion of others.” According to the court’s logic, the presence of third parties renders a decision to end a pregnancy no longer a “private” matter. Perhaps a woman can retain her right of privacy by choosing to perform her own abortion?

This fanciful logic is dangerous, as it could be applied to other privacy rights.

In a case that has already ping-ponged around the federal court system, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Friday granted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s request to block the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new credit card late fee rule from going into effect.

In doing so, a trial court judge in the federal system issued a ruling that adhered to the law and precedent within his circuit, as he is obligated to do.

At the same time, however, Friday’s decision from Pittman — a Trump appointee to the Northern District of Texas — was a remarkable attack on the actions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the court to which all of his cases are appealed.

More than half of Pittman’s 12-page opinion is devoted to making as clear as possible his extreme dissatisfaction with the behavior of the Fifth Circuit in this case.

Pittman — referencing the Fifth Circuit’s earlier ruling that sent the case back to him — wrote that he “rejects the notion that [his court] did not act ‘promptly’ with respect to the Plaintiffs’ preliminary-injunction motion.”

As to the specifics of what he did with the Chamber’s challenge — and how the Fifth Circuit responded — Pittman later added, “[A] district court has broad discretion and inherent authority to manage its docket. … That’s what it did here, much to the apparent dismay of the Fifth Circuit.”

Pittman — a conservative judge — made a very public case Friday that the Fifth Circuit’s actions in the case encourage party manipulation of the court process.

Wisconsin is set to have a state legislative election unlike anything we’ve seen in Wisconsin in more than a decade. Now out from under the thumb of an extreme partisan gerrymander that gave Republicans outsized majorities in both the Senate and Assembly, the promise of more competitive races is on a fast-approaching horizon.

Earlier this week at a press conference in Milwaukee, Dianne Hesselbein, a state senator from Middleton and the new Democratic minority leader, shared some news about campaigns in the State Senate.

“For the first time in over 20 years, Senate Democrats have a candidate running in every single district this November,” she said. “We are fired up and ready to go.”

That’s a big deal. For years, the extreme partisanship of the maps stifled competition in these legislative races, leaving many incumbents running uncontested. In the 2022 election cycle, there were five State Senate races where no Democrat was running. Now, Democrats will be competing everywhere.

Not only will they have a candidate in all 16 races on the ballot this year, there’s going to be a greater level of funding for Democrats in these races than what we’ve seen before.

Chris “Law Dork” Geidner
@chrisgeidner

BREAKING: Judge Mark Pittman blocks the CFPB's credit card late fee rule under Fifth Circuit precedent re: CFPB's funding structure.

He does so, however, in a ruling that repeatedly challenges the Fifth Circuit's behavior in the Chamber's case. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.387342/gov.uscourts.txnd.387342.82.0_1.pdf

Amendment 4 has enough support to win in November, but there is a tight race ahead, according to a new Florida Chamber of Commerce poll.

About 61% of voters support the issue — enough to reach the threshold of 60% voter approval to pass — but 10% are still undecided or refused to answer. Twenty-nine percent surveyed opposed enshrining abortion protections in the state constitution, according to the poll.

The Chamber’s statewide poll had a margin error of +/- 4 percentage points. The survey was conducted April 28 to May 7 on the phone with likely voters, a group that included 223 Democrats, 256 Republicans and 130 others with no party affiliation.

The fight over Amendment 4 comes after Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect May 1. Pro-abortion rights advocates called it one of the most extreme abortion rules in the country, since many women don’t realize they are even pregnant at six weeks.

Earlier this week, abortion rights advocates said they are confident they have enough support to win in November, pointing to the bipartisan grassroots support from Democrats and Republicans alike who signed petitions to get the issue on the ballot.

Amendment 4 has enough support to win in November, but there is a tight race ahead, according to a new Florida Chamber of Commerce poll.

About 61% of voters support the issue — enough to reach the threshold of 60% voter approval to pass — but 10% are still undecided or refused to answer. Twenty-nine percent surveyed opposed enshrining abortion protections in the state constitution, according to the poll.

The Chamber’s statewide poll had a margin error of +/- 4 percentage points. The survey was conducted April 28 to May 7 on the phone with likely voters, a group that included 223 Democrats, 256 Republicans and 130 others with no party affiliation.

The fight over Amendment 4 comes after Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect May 1. Pro-abortion rights advocates called it one of the most extreme abortion rules in the country, since many women don’t realize they are even pregnant at six weeks.

Earlier this week, abortion rights advocates said they are confident they have enough support to win in November, pointing to the bipartisan grassroots support from Democrats and Republicans alike who signed petitions to get the issue on the ballot.