Tag: U.S. Supreme Court

Blue State Gun Control Laws in Jeopardy After Supreme Court Ruling

Arizona Sun Times Staff
An unloaded handgun sitting on the center console of a vehicle with the magazine clip next to it

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on New York’s anti-concealed carry law has broader ramifications for similar gun control laws across the country, many of which can now be challenged by Second Amendment advocates.

Politico reports that some of the states with gun control laws that may now be in jeopardy after the ruling include California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. Such states and jurisdictions also have laws in place that similarly try to restrict the ability of residents to carry handguns in public, in what is known as a “may-issue” approach.

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U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade: ‘The Constitution Does Not Confer a Right to Abortion’

Susan Berry, PhD

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that created a right to abortion nationwide, and now returns issues about abortion to the individual states.

In the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, released Friday, that was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

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Teachers’ Unions Condemn Supreme Court Decision Upholding Religious Freedom and School Choice

Susan Berry, PhD

National and state teachers’ unions condemned the Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday that held a Maine tuition assistance program that bars families from using the taxpayer funds for religious schools is in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Union officials denounced the ruling as one that “attacks public schools,” “erodes democracy,” “harms students,” and undermines “the separation of church and state.”

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Supreme Court Rules Maine Law Excluding Religious Schools from Tuition Assistance Is Unconstitutional

Susan Berry, PhD

In a major decision for religious freedom and school choice, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a Maine law that barred taxpayer tuition assistance funds from families choosing religious schools.

The Court ruled, 6-3, in Carson v. Makin, the Maine law that governs its tuition program’s exclusion of religious schools, while accepting other private schools, is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and is, therefore, unconstitutional.

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Supreme Court Dismisses GOP Lawsuit to Make It Harder for Migrants to Stay in the U.S.

Arizona Sun Times Staff

The Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday that sought to increase restrictions on illegal aliens entering or seeking to stay in the U.S.

The lawsuit argued that Republican Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and 12 other states suing had the right to defend the rule, which was reversed by the Biden administration. The Supreme Court’s dismissal means the high court is not willing to weigh in on whether the states can fight to reinstate the Trump-era rule, leaving in place a lower court ruling that favored the Biden administration.

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Nancy Pelosi Justifies Not Passing Bill to Increase Security to Supreme Court Justices: ‘No One Is in Danger’

Susan Berry, PhD

Despite the arrest Wednesday of an armed man who allegedly claimed he intended to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended not passing a House bill seeking to increase security for the justices’ homes, and gruffly responded to a reporter, “I don’t know what you’re talking about … nobody is in danger.”

On Thursday – just one day after 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home and then charged with attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice – Pelosi was about to leave her weekly press conference when she responded brusquely to a reporter who shouted out to her, “You said the justices are protected, but there was an attempt on Justice Kavanaugh’s life.”

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Armed California Man Arrested Near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Home Allegedly Told Police He Wanted to Kill Kavanaugh

Susan Berry, PhD

An armed California man arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home Wednesday allegedly told police officers he wanted to kill Kavanaugh in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in the Mississippi abortion law case that could overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fox News has reported the suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske of Simi Valley, California, and had been carrying a gun, knife, and pepper spray when arrested in Montgomery County, Maryland.

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Second Amendment Foundation Sues over Washington’s High-Capacity Magazine Ban

The Center Square

The Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson and several other officials, challenging the state’s ban on large-capacity magazines for handguns and rifles.

Senate Bill 5078 prohibits the sale of gun magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds, along with the manufacturing, distribution or import of such magazines in Washington.

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What Bill Maher Didn’t Know: U.S. Among Most Radically Pro-Abortion Nations and Most Pro-Lifers Are Women

Susan Berry, PhD

HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher said during his show Friday he was shocked to discover several facts about abortion he never knew until after the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in the case that ultimately could overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that created a right to abortion.

Maher said until the media frenzy over the leaked draft opinion indicating the Supreme Court could be poised to uphold the right of states to regulate abortion, he was unaware the United States keeps company with the likes of China, North Korea, and a couple of other countries that allow unlimited abortion, and that most pro-life individuals are women.

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Polls Show Majority of Americans Agree with Overturning Roe v. Wade

Susan Berry, PhD

Despite the narrative of the abortion industry and its political and media allies, several recent polls show the majority of Americans agree the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade and return decisions about abortion to the states.

Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner observed a YouGov poll published last week found 64% of Americans believe the Mississippi law that is at the center of the Supreme Court case – one that bans abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy – is either acceptable, as is, or not restrictive enough.

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Abortion Activist Rants Outside Catholic Church: ‘I’m Killing the Motherf***ing Babies!’

Susan Berry, PhD

A woman dressed in a white bathing suit, stuffed in the front to make her appear pregnant, and with dolls hanging from it, ranted outside Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City Saturday, shouting, “I’m killiing the motherf***ing babies!” and “God killed his kid, why can’t I kill mine?”

The woman danced around outside the church in the rain, then complained, “My babies are all wet,” Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote at National Review, referring to this scene as “the most disturbing” of the pro-abortion protest that followed a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade.

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Joe Biden Stumbles Pro-Abortion Narrative: Admits It’s ‘A Child’ Who Is Aborted

Susan Berry, PhD

Many in the pro-life community say Joe Biden is the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history, but he bungled the narrative of the abortion industry that props up his presidency Tuesday by acknowledging it is “a child” who is aborted during the procedure.

The abortion industry and its political and media allies have done their best to dehumanize unborn babies, to strip them of any rights to personhood, and to attempt to nip in the bud any emotional attachment Americans may have to them by referring to them as “a clump of cells,” “the contents of the pregnancy,” and similar terms.

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Catholic Advocacy Group Calls on Biden to Publicly Condemn Pro-Abortion Activists’ Plan to Disrupt Masses and Protest at Homes of Supreme Court Justices

Susan Berry, PhD

CatholicVote issued a statement Thursday that calls upon President Joe Biden and other officials to publicly condemn the pro-abortion group “Ruth Sent Us” for organizing protests that urge people to target Catholic churches and disrupt Mass and outside the homes of the Supreme Court Justices this coming weekend.

“In the wake of the shameless leak of a draft opinion of the Supreme Court, pro-abortion groups are now threatening to disrupt Catholic churches and to protest outside the homes of Supreme Court justices this Sunday,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch said in the statement.

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Carrie Severino: Leaked Supreme Court Opinion ‘Outstanding,’ but ‘Latest Iteration of Left’s Shameful Campaign to Intimidate and Undermine Court’

Susan Berry, PhD

The president of Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) observed Tuesday on Twitter that while the leaked draft of the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in the Mississippi Dobbs abortion case is “outstanding” in that it “explicitly rejects” the notion that it is the Supreme Court’s job to legislate abortion, the breach once again reveals that “forces on the radical Left that seek to undermine the institution of the Court” are a bottomless pit when it comes to their demands.

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40 Pro-Life Leaders Expose Biden Supreme Court Justice Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ‘Pro-Abortion Extremism’

Susan Berry, PhD
Ketanji Brown Jackson

A coalition of nearly 40 national pro-life leaders sent a letter to the chairs of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Monday specifying the radical pro-abortion record of Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Led by the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), the coalition’s letter was addressed to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) as confirmation hearings began for Jackson, who was chosen by Biden following the announcement of his commitment to nominate a black woman to the nation’s highest court.

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Texas Supreme Court Strikes Major Blow to Abortion Providers’ Lawsuit Against Heartbeat Abortion Ban

Susan Berry, PhD
Infant with stuffed animal

The Supreme Court of Texas recommended Friday a lawsuit challenging the state’s “heartbeat” abortion ban should be dismissed since it is enforced by “private civil action,” and not state officials.

Justice Jeffrey S. Boyd concluded in the decision regarding the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, that state officials, such as medical licensing boards, cannot enforce the law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected

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National Pro-Life Leaders React to Biden Supreme Court Nominee Who Worked to Defend Partial Birth Abortion

Susan Berry, PhD

National pro-life leaders say President Joe Biden’s choice of Ketanji Brown Jackson to fulfill his promise to nominate a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court also fits his administration’s aggressive pro-abortion stance since Jackson has shown her support for “radical” and “extreme” abortion measures.

“Joe Biden is fulfilling his promise to only appoint justices who support the Roe v. Wade regime of abortion on demand up to birth – a policy so extreme only a handful of countries in the world hold it, including North Korea and China,” said Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement.

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Supreme Court to Hear Case of Woman Forced to Create Websites for LGBT Causes Against Religious Beliefs

Arizona Sun Times Staff

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of a web designer fighting a Colorado law that forces her to promote messages against her religious beliefs, the court announced Tuesday.

Lorie Smith of 303 Creative asked the court to review the 10th Circuits’ ruling that Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act requires Smith to engage in speech that violates her conscience, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing her.

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25 States Urge Supreme Court to Hear Case Challenging Maryland’s Strict Firearm Laws

The Center Square

Twenty-five states, led by Arizona and West Virginia, are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Bianchi v. Frosh, which challenges Maryland’s restrictive Firearms Safety Act of 2013.

They’re asking the court to ultimately strike down the law, which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld last September, in a brief filed with the Supreme Court in support of the petitioners.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Leads Coalition to Defend North Carolina’s Voter ID Law at the Supreme Court

Rachel Alexander

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is getting involved in another fight to combat election fraud, this time leading a coalition of eight other attorneys general in an amicus curiae brief at the Supreme Court regarding North Carolina’s voter ID law. They argued in Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP that North Carolina’s General Assembly should be able to defend the law in court instead of Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, since he opposed the law.

“It is incumbent on public servants to stand up and defend laws when others cower to political pressure,” Brnovich said in a statement. “I am proud that our recent win at the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ability of states to administer elections and pass laws to protect the results.”

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Texas Abortion Law Still in Effect as Supreme Court Sends It Back to State Court

Arizona Sun Times Staff

The Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans most abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy, is still in effect after the Supreme Court rejected a request to remand the law.

The justices sent the case back to a state court for procedural determinations, according to Fox News. Justices Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor dissented.

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Lawyer in Historic Vaccine Mandate Challenge Warns Larger Constitutional Issues Remain Unresolved

Admin

One of the lawyers in the historic U.S. Supreme Court case that blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate on private business is warning it is only a preliminary victory and the larger constitutional issues about government-compelled inoculations must still be litigated.

“In some ways, yesterday was a win of a major battle, but still leaves the war to be fought,” said Robert Henneke, executive director and general counsel at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which filed one of the original challenges in Texas against the vaccine mandate that was eventually consolidated before the Supreme Court.

“While it got to the right outcome for declaring the private employer vax mandate unlawful, it kind of misses the forest for the trees because it leaves these broader questions of federal power unresolved,” he told the John Solomon Reports podcast.

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Liberals Push for Court-Packing After SCOTUS Blocks Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

Admin

Liberal commentators took to social media to express their disappointment following the Supreme Court’s decision to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Thursday that Biden’s mandate, passed through the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), was unconstitutional, invoking the “major questions” doctrine and ruling that Congress did not grant OSHA the authority to issue the mandate.

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Biden’s Rough Week: Supreme Court Loss, Economic Woes, Pushback from Democrats

The Center Square

President Joe Biden saw a flurry of setbacks on a range of key issues this week, making it one of his toughest since taking office.

Biden addressed those difficulties in a speech Friday after losses in Congress, the Supreme Court, the court of public opinion and with the economy.

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Arizona Reps. Gosar, Biggs, and Lesko Join Brief Demanding SCOTUS Block Biden’s Vaccine Mandate on Large Private Employers

Rachel Alexander

Three Arizona members of Congress are joining in on a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees. Reps. Paul Gosar (R-04-Ariz.), Andy Biggs (R-05-Ariz.), and Debbie Lesko (R-08-Ariz.) along with 180 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate filed an amicus curiae brief in NFIB v. OSHA challenging the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to implement the mandate.

The members of Congress argued that the mandate violates federalism, encroaching on the states’ authority. “[T]he sudden ‘discovery’ of authority under the OSH Act confirms that it was never intended to displace state authority in this area.” They assert, “Congress did not give that power to an agency bureaucrat.”

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Appeals Court Reinstates Biden Vaccine Mandate for Businesses

Arizona Sun Times Staff

A federal appeals court on Friday night reinstated President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private companies with more than 100 workers, reversing lower court rulings and setting up a likely showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had the authority to Impose the mandate due to take effect Jan. 4.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Asks SCOTUS to Reinstate Arizona’s Ban on Aborting Fetuses with Genetic Abnormalities

Rachel Alexander

A federal appeals court temporarily blocked Arizona’s new law preventing abortions for reasons of genetic abnormalities like Down syndrome, and so Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to remove the injunction while he is appealing the decision on behalf of Arizona. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld the injunction, and it will be up to Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency appeals from the 9th Circuit, to rule on the request or have the full court decide. 

“Every society will ultimately be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable,” Brnovich said in a statement to Fox News. “I am proud to stand up for Arizona’s law protecting the unborn.”

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Should Roe v Wade Be Overturned, Arizona’s Abortion Restrictions Still Stand

Rachel Alexander

The U.S. Supreme Court appears very likely to uphold Missouri’s 15-week abortion ban, which will gut a significant portion of Roe v. Wade, leaving much of abortion regulation to the individual states. Roe v. Wade prohibited the states from restricting abortion before fetal viability, around 23 weeks. If the Supreme Court rules for Mississippi in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it is expected that 26 states will then start restricting abortion as early as 15 weeks, including Arizona, which already has an old law on the books.

When Arizona was a territory, a law was passed in 1901 banning abortion. A.R.S. 13-3603 punishes the facilitation of an abortion with two to five years in prison. A woman who attempts to obtain one, whether successful or not, unless necessary to save her life, was penalized by one to five years in prison. That law was repealed this year by the Arizona Legislature. 

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Commentary: Court’s Legitimacy Depends on Overturning Roe v. Wade

RealClearWire

When the U.S. Supreme Court takes up Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization today, it will be asked to overrule Roe v. Wade, the court’s 50-year-old precedent that created a constitutional right to abortion.  Legions of commentators are turning out to defend Roe, claiming that the Supreme Court’s legitimacy depends on reaffirming it.  They are wrong.

The majority’s opinion in Roe has undermined the court’s legitimacy for nearly a half-century. Roe relied on dubious reasoning to remove a contentious policy issue from the reach of the American people, placing all abortion policy in the hands of the unelected and unaccountable judiciary. As a result, Roe has politicized the court and poisoned the judiciary. The most legitimate thing the Supreme Court can do is overrule Roe.

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Lawsuits Challenging Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Mount, Likely Heading to U.S. Supreme Court

The Center Square

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the Biden administration over three different vaccine mandates targeting private employees, federal employees and healthcare workers serving Medicare and Medicaid patients.

But lawsuits filed by 27 states over the private sector mandate is setting the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in because they were filed directly in five federal courts of appeals.

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Commentary: Democrats Repeat the Mistakes of 2016

Arizona Sun Times Staff
Donald Trump waving

As we get to the midpoint between the last presidential election and next year’s midterms, all political sides are expending extraordinary effort to ignore the 900-pound gorilla in the formerly smoke-filled room of American politics. This, of course, is Donald Trump.

The Democrats are still outwardly pretending Trump has gone and that his support has evaporated. They also pretend they can hobble him with vexatious litigation and, if necessary, destroy him again by raising the Trump-hate media smear campaign back to ear-splitting levels.

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U.S. Supreme Court to Reconsider Roe v. Wade

The Center Square
United States Supreme Court building

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it would hear a case in December that directly challenges the landmark 1973 abortion case Roe v. Wade.

The high court set Dec. 1 as the date it would hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which means a decision could be reached by June 2022. 

This case features a challenge to a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks. The case especially addresses the constitutionality of abortion bans that take effect before a fetus would be viable outside the womb. 

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U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Trump-Era ‘Stay in Mexico’ Policy

The Center Square

The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday denied the Biden administration’s request to stay a lower court’s ruling reinstating a former President Donald Trump’s “Stay in Mexico” policy.

The Trump-era policy requires immigrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico while they navigate the court system to legally gain admittance into the U.S.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Files Amicus Brief to Uphold Georgia ‘Election Integrity Act’

The Center Square
Attorney General Mark Brnovich

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced that he joined a coalition of 16 states in filing an amicus brief urging the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to uphold the state’s recently-enacted “Election Integrity Act of 2021.”

The attorneys general expressed their support for Georgia’s motion to throw out the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit against the new voting law, which Georgia said was based on “political posturing rather than a serious legal challenge.”

The “Election Integrity Act of 2021,” or Senate Bill 202, passed the legislature along party lines. Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga, signed the 98-page omnibus bill on March 25.

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U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Student in Free Speech Case

The Center Square
Tennessee Star

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of free speech rights for students outside of the classroom in a decision Wednesday.

The court sided with former Mahanoy Area High School student and cheerleader Brandi Levy in the case, formally known as Mahanoy Area School District v B.L., with a 8-1 decision in her favor. Mahanoy Area High School is located in Pennsylvania.

Levy, upset that she had not made her school’s varsity cheer team, posted on the social media site Snapchat a simple message with explicit language expressing her frustration.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Leads Challenge at SCOTUS Related to Hobbs

Rachel Alexander
Mark Brnovich

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed an amicus curiae brief Monday in the U.S. Supreme Court with 22 states signing on, demanding the court overrule a decision by the Sixth Circuit allowing state officials to surrender in lawsuits challenging state laws they don’t want to defend.  The move comes as Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is refusing to appeal adverse decisions striking down Arizona’s elections laws.

The brief relates to Kentucky v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, where Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear failed to appeal a court decision striking down a Kentucky law banning dismemberment abortions during the second trimester of pregnancy. Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron is trying to intervene in order to defend the law.

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