For our ongoing look at the judiciary, a few topical court cases

- Federal judge strikes down FTC rule banning noncompete agreements.

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday struck down the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements, finding that the agency exceeded its authority with a rule that would have voided contracts that bar workers from moving to rival employers.

In a 27-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ada Brown found that the FTC lacked the statutory authority to issue the rule, which would have taken effect Sept. 4. In reaching her decision, Brown wrote that the “FTC’s promulgation of the Rule is an unlawful agency action.”

- NFL scores huge victory in 'Sunday Ticket' case after judge overturns $4.7 billion verdict against league.

The NFL scored a huge victory in court on Thursday when U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez decided to overturn the $4.7 billion verdict against the league that was handed out back in June.

During a hearing on Wednesday in Los Angeles, the league asked the court to throw out the verdict, and after thinking things over for 24 hours, Gutierrez granted the league's wishes.

In his judgement that came out on Thursday, Gutierrez said that two expert witnesses who talked about the financial ramifications of 'Sunday Ticket' used "flawed methodologies."

"The court agrees that Dr. Rascher's and Dr. Zona's testimonies based on their flawed methodologies should be excluded," Gutierrez wrote. "And because there was no other support for the class-wide injury and damages elements of the plaintiffs' claims, judgement as a matter of law for the defendants is appropriate."

- Former staffer of Congressman Troy Nehls sues office, alleging homophobic work environment.

A gay former staffer of Houston area U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls has sued the congressman's office, alleging a homophobic workplace.

Alex Chadwell worked at Republican congressman's office from 2021-2023 as a legislative correspondent and field representative. Chadwell also worked on Nehls’ campaign in 2019, according to the lawsuit.

While Chadwell worked at the office, he alleges that he was subjected to offensive comments about being gay and gay people in general from Nehls, his chief of staff and special adviser, according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Friday. Chadwell said he was told that the office would never support LGBTQ+ issues and that gay people shouldn’t be let into the military. Those colleagues also made offensive remarks, such as “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” and that gay people would all go to hell, according to the lawsuit.

- Supreme Court’s ‘shadow docket’ returns with a vengeance.

In coming days, the high court is expected to tackle short-fuse challenges to President Joe Biden’s latest effort to reduce student debt and to cut planet-warming pollution by limiting power plant emissions. And the court must decide whether Arizona, a presidential battleground, may require thousands of people to prove their US citizenship before voting this year. Also pending is a fight over Biden’s requirement that family planning clinics that receive federal public health funding provide referrals for abortions for patients who request it.

The court’s emergency docket – the “shadow docket,” to critics – is where the justices deal with questions that need resolution faster than the months it can take to submit briefs, hear oral arguments and draft formal opinions on its regular docket. The cases usually deal with the narrow question of what will happen as that underlying legal process plays out. But the orders can have significant and immediate real-world consequences.

From GovTrack: A liberal circuit court struck down Trump’s travel ban. This bill would divide that court into two.

Extreme checking and balancing - perfectly constitutional though.

- Click here for the article.

Mere days after President Trump signed a controversial executive order temporarily banning U.S. entry for immigrants or refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, it was struck down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This put national focus on that court, which encompasses both some of the most progressive and conservative states, yet generally issues liberal decisions — making it despised many Republicans.

A new bill in Congress could make it less likely for that court to issue decisions like striking down the Trump executive order.

(Rather than appeal to the Supreme Court as he originally promised, Trump plans to issue a revised executive order that his administration believes is more likely to withstand judicial scrutiny.)

Why many Republicans hate the 9th Circuit Court

Below the Supreme Court on the judicial hierarchy, there are 13 “circuit courts,” which decide cases of federal law in different geographical areas of the country. The Supreme Court takes up cases where two or more lower courts disagree, as well as other cases that raise consequential or novel constitutional issues.

The 9th Circuit Court covers the west coast and covers more than 20 percent of the U.S. population. It encompasses left-leaning states like California, Hawaii, and Oregon, and Washington, but also right-leaning states like Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. But its judges clearly lean left: of the 44 judges serving on the court, 28 were appointed by Democratic presidents, and only 16 by Republicans.

From the National Law Journal: Order to Reveal Detainee Names May Grow List of Plaintiffs Challenging Travel Ban

More checking and balancing of the Trump Administration from the courts.

- Click here for the article.

A Brooklyn judge's ruling for the Trump administration to produce a list of travelers who were detained under a controversial travel ban it issued in January may help plaintiffs' attorneys in the New York case challenging the ban to grow their clients' ranks.

Eastern District Judge Carol Bagley Amon ruled on Tuesday that the government has until 5 p.m. on Thursday to submit the names of all those held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents under the Trump administration's executive order from 9:37 p.m. on Jan. 28, when Eastern District Judge Ann Donnelly issued a ruling to stay deportations, to 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 29.

In a news release, Healy Ko, a law student intern for Yale Law School's Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, said Amon's order was an "important step in the fight to repair the damage done" by the executive order.

"We are aware of reports that CBP officers deliberately ignored the court's order in the hours after the decision came down, and are confident that the court's decision will help to identify individuals that were unlawfully removed and provide them a chance to return to the United States," Ko said.

In addition to counsel from Yale Law, the plaintiffs are also represented by the National Immigration Law Center, the International Refugee Assistance Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.

The Justice Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Amon's order partially granted a motion to compel filed by the plaintiffs, who include doctors, refugees and students affected by the order. The plaintiffs have also moved for class certification, but there has been no ruling on the motion.

The plaintiffs' motion to compel also contained a proposed order for the government to return any individuals who were removed from the United States as part of the order.

- Click here for the Judge Amon's Wikipedia page.

From the Texas Tribune: Federal court blocks Texas fetal remains burial rule

For our look at federalism.


- Click here for it.

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks ruled Texas cannot require health providers to bury or cremate fetuses, delivering another blow to state leaders in the reproductive rights debate.

The ruling comes more than a month after the Texas Department of State Health Services slated the mandate to go into effect Dec. 19. Lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued in December to stop the rule, won a temporary restraining order to halt its implementation, and earlier this month Sparks delayed his decision, saying he needed more time to review the evidence.

The agency initially released the proposed burial rule in July just days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Texas’ abortion provider restrictions. The rule announcement spurred intense debate between reproductive rights groups and anti-abortion groups.

During two public hearings, department leaders heard stories of abortions, miscarriages, and general grief over losing a baby. While anti-abortion groups argued that the rule was a means to bring human dignity to the fetuses, reproductive rights advocates said the rule was another way for Texas to punish women who chose an abortion, saying the cost of the burials would be passed on to patients, making abortions harder to obtain for low-income Texans.

From Bloomberg: Sept. 11 Widow Sues Saudi Arabia Following Congress Override

The first lawsuit authorized by Congress related to 9/11 has been filed.

- Click here for the article.

A woman widowed when her husband was killed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 sued the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia just two days after Congress enacted legislation allowing Americans to sue foreign governments for allegedly playing a role in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Stephanie Ross DeSimone alleged the kingdom provided material support to al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, in a complaint filed Friday at a U.S. court in Washington. Her suit is also filed on behalf of the couple’s daughter. DeSimone was pregnant when Navy Commander Patrick Dunn was killed.

Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked airliners used in the attack were Saudi nationals. One jet struck the Pentagon, seat of the U.S. military, two destroyed the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York while another crashed in a Pennsylvania field as its passengers fought back against the hijackers.

A U.S. commission that investigated the 2001 attacks said in a 2004 report that it “found no evidence that the Saudi government, as an institution, or senior officials within the Saudi government funded al-Qaeda.” Long-classified portions of a congressional inquiry that were released in July found the hijackers may have had help from some Saudi officials.

The kingdom has previously denied culpability. Its embassy didn’t immediately reply to an e-mailed message seeking comment on the suit.

An official at Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the state-run Saudi Press Agency on Sept. 29 that the U.S. Congress must correct the 9/11 bill to avoid “serious unintended consequences,” adding the law is of “great concern” to the Kingdom.

DeSimone, who is suing for wrongful death and intentional infliction of emotional distress, is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

The case is DeSimone v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 16-cv-1944, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

More fallout:

- 9/11 bill is a global blunder that will weaken US efforts abroad.
- Congress Has Itself to Blame for 9/11 Bill.

From Jurist: 'Sister Wives' family appeals polygamy ruling to Supreme Court

From the cutting edge of equal protection.

Polygamist got a boost when the Supreme Court ruled that the "fundamental" right of marriage could not be denied to same sex couples under equal protection clause. If sexual orientation is protected, might polygamy?

If the Supreme Court accepts the case we will find out. The question is whether a compelling public purpose is served by the limit.

- Click here for the article.

A polygamous family on TLC's "Sister Wives" [media website] reality TV show filed a request [cert. petition, PDF] on Monday with the US Supreme Court in an attempt to legalize polygamy. Kody Brown and his four wives filed the appeal after the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit [official website] threw out a constitutional challenge [opinion, PDF; JURISTreport] to Utah's anti-bigamy laws [text]. They specifically want the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision upholding part of Utah's polygamy law banning cohabitation with other partners even when the man is only legally married to one woman.

In 2014 a judge for the US District Court for the District of Utah [official website] refused to dismiss the case as moot and proceeded to the merits, striking down [JURIST report] portions of Utah's anti-bigamy statute. While polygamy is recognized in most of Africa and the Middle East, it is illegal in most of North and South America, Europe and China. In 2005 the US District Court for the District of Utah rejected a similar lawsuit[JURIST report] brought against Utah's Anti-Bigamy Statute, reaffirming the 1879 US Supreme Court case Reynolds v. United States [opinion, text], which upheld a conviction under an anti-polygamy law as constitutional.

Lots of links to follow above.

- Click here for the 10th Circuit Court's refusal to rehear the case - which is why they are taking it to the Supreme Court.

The Catholic News Agency doesn't think the Supreme Court will approve polygamy - assuming they even take the case.

- Click here for that.

From 538: Tighter Restrictions Are Losing In The Battle Over Voter ID Laws

The federal courts are checking state legislatures.

- Click here for the article.

The struggle over who can vote on Election Day is becoming more heated in courtrooms, judges’ chambers and statehouses across the country, paralleling the intensity of the presidential race. And at the moment, the side that wants fewer voting restrictions seems to be winning.

The battle began in earnest after 2010, when several Republican state legislatures began tightening identification requirements on voters. It has reached a new level in the 2016 election, when voters in 17 states faced new restrictions that ranged from photo ID requirements to cutbacks on early voting and same-day registration. Republicans said the laws were necessary to prevent fraud; Democrats and voting rights advocates said the restrictions were really designed to reduce participation by minority groups and young voters who traditionally support Democrats.

“It’s the biggest rollback of voting since Jim Crow,” said Jonathan Brater, an attorney at NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, which compiled the list of restrictions.1

But in just the past few weeks, several of these laws have been blocked or overturned by federal judges. On Monday, a District Court judge issued a preliminary injunction against a voter ID law in North Dakota. In the previous 10 days, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ID law in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a law in North Carolina, and a District Court judge in Wisconsin ruled that elements of the law there were unconstitutional. There is also major voting-law litigation ongoing in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio and Virginia.

From the Texas Tribune: Courts Rebuff Texas Bid to Slow Foster Care Reform

An area of conflict between Texas and the national government - one that does not involve the environment!

- Click here for the article.

The state of Texas lost two intermediate battles Monday in its fight to block a federal judge's efforts to reform a foster care system that she found has violated children's civil rights by subjecting them to rampant neglect and abuse.

A higher court rejected Attorney General Ken Paxton's request to stop the appointment of "special masters" by U.S. District Judge Janis Jack of Corpus Christi to oversee reforms.

Jack quickly appointed two masters favored by children’s rights advocates: Francis McGovern, a Duke University law professor, and Kevin Ryan, partner at the New Jersey nonprofit Public Catalyst, which advocates for child welfare. Jack rejected candidates nominated by the state.

The masters are expected to study the system and recommend changes, such as hiring more caseworkers to work with foster children and heightened oversight of foster group homes.

“This is a tremendous day for thousands of children in Texas state foster care,” said Paul Yetter, the lead attorney for long-term foster children and their advocates who brought the lawsuit that prompted Jack's ruling. “After years of unsuccessful attempts to address the failings of an undeniably broken system, meaningful reform can finally take root.”

From Wikipedia: Judicial appointment history for United States federal courts

- Click here for a terrific graph outlining presidential appointments to the Supreme Court term by term.

From Scotusblog: How the politics of the next nomination will play out

Here's a look at the interests behind and motivating the individual who have the power to check and balance each other.

- Click here from the article.

This post substantially revises and supersedes my earlier one on how the political parties will likely approach the Scalia vacancy, in which I had concluded that Ninth Circuit Judge Paul Watford was the most likely nominee. On reflection, I think that Attorney General Loretta Lynch is more likely. I also think that the Republicans will eventually permit the nomination to proceed on the merits and reject it on party lines.

In thinking about how to respond to the vacancy on the Supreme Court, the administration has two priorities. First, fill the Scalia seat by getting a nominee confirmed. The stakes could not be higher: the appointment could flip the Supreme Court’s ideological balance for decades. Second, gain as much political benefit as possible and exact as heavy a political toll as possible on Republicans, particularly in the presidential election. Precisely because of the seat’s importance, this is the rare time that a material number of voters may seriously think about the Court in deciding whether to vote at all and who to vote for.

Those priorities reinforce each other. The Republican Senate leadership has staked out the position that no nomination by President Obama will move forward. Because Republicans hold the Senate majority, they have the power to refuse to hold confirmation hearings before the Judiciary Committee and/or a floor vote on the nominee. So, any effort to replace Scalia is dead on arrival unless the political dynamic in the country forces Republicans to change their minds and allow the nomination to proceed.

Not surprisingly, Republican priorities are the exact opposite. Fundamental conservative legal victories over the past two decades hang directly in the balance. To take just one example, Ted Cruz is exactly right to say that a more liberal replacement for Justice Scalia is very likely to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent recognition of a Second Amendment right to possess firearms or at least render it a nullity as a practical matter. There are dozens of other examples. Conversely, a Republican appointee would not only preserve those victories but continue the Court’s steady move to the right.

From the NYT: Before Scalia’s Death, a Clash Between G.O.P. and Obama Over Appellate Judges

Checks and balances, and the struggle over the future of the Judiciary.

- Click here for the article.

The vow by Senate Republicans to block whomeverPresident Obama nominates to fill the sudden vacancy on theSupreme Court presages a prolonged election year struggle, but the clash is less a new front against the White House than an escalation of a battle that had begun at the appeals court level before Justice Antonin Scalia died.

Since Republicans took control of the Senate in January 2015, the process that would enable Mr. Obama to fill vacancies on the 12 regional federal courts of appeal has essentially been halted. Mr. Obama has managed only one appointment because Republican senators have refused to sign off ahead of time on nominees for judgeships in their states — a traditional step before a president makes a nomination.
In the weeks before Justice Scalia’s death, influential conservativegroups and commentators called on Senate Republicans to ensure that Mr. Obama appointed no more appeals court judges.

Among those commentators was Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia and a prominent commentator. He said in an interview Monday that conservatives could not compromise over any appointments to the upper ranks of the judiciary — including the appeals courts, which get the last word on matters the Supreme Courtdoes not review and often serve as a breeding ground for future justices.

A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law Antonin Scalia

One article on Scalia argues that this book marks "the high point of his intellectual influence across party lines." I offer it because the link to it in the Princeton University Press contains a statement that seem to succinctly explain his approach to interpreting the Constitution.

- Click here for the link.

We are all familiar with the image of the immensely clever judge who discerns the best rule of common law for the case at hand. According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge like this can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve the desired aim--"distinguishing one prior case on his left, straight-arming another one on his right, high-stepping away from another precedent about to tackle him from the rear, until (bravo!) he reaches the goal--good law." But is this common-law mindset, which is appropriate in its place, suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative.

In exploring the neglected art of statutory interpretation, Scalia urges that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history. In his view, it is incompatible with democratic government to allow the meaning of a statute to be determined by what the judges think the lawgivers meant rather than by what the legislature actually promulgated. Eschewing the judicial lawmaking that is the essence of common law, judges should interpret statutes and regulations by focusing on the text itself. Scalia then extends this principle to constitutional law. He proposes that we abandon the notion of an everchanging Constitution and pay attention to the Constitution's original meaning. Although not subscribing to the "strict constructionism" that would prevent applying the Constitution to modern circumstances, Scalia emphatically rejects the idea that judges can properly "smuggle" in new rights or deny old rights by using the Due Process Clause, for instance. In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals.

From USA Today: Chief Justice John Roberts seeks to limit role of courts

Opportunities to bring lawsuits forward are being limited. Fewer people are felt to posses "standing" to sue.

- Click here for the article.

By siding with the Supreme Court's liberal wing on two major cases last week, Chief Justice John Roberts lent credence to conservatives' concerns that they can't count on his vote. But as he moves into his second decade as the nation's 17th chief justice, Roberts is proving to be strikingly consistent in one area that conservatives applaud. He wants to close the courthouse doors to challengers with tenuous legal grounds or claims, thereby limiting the role of the judicial branch he leads.

That desire has been on display regularly during the first half of the high court's 2015 term, both in rulings Roberts joined and in those he opposed. At nearly every opportunity, he voted to limit plaintiffs' access — demanding that they prove being harmed, back up their challenge with facts, and opt for arbitration over litigation.
The chief justice wrote the court's first decision of the term, ruling Dec. 1 that a California woman had no right to sue the Austrian national railroad in a U.S. court for severe injuries she suffered on a train platform in Innsbruck.

Two weeks later, he joined the court's 6-3 majority ruling that California customers cannot join a class action lawsuit against satellite TV provider DIRECTV because a federal law favoring arbitration over litigation trumps state law.

. . . In a report on Roberts' first decade as chief justice, the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center found him uniformly stingy on standing and generous on forced arbitration. "He has repeatedly emphasized that the role of the courts should be limited, that they’re not there to solve policy debates," says Elizabeth Wydra, the group's president.

Roberts' preferences and his court's precedents are starting to filter down to lower federal courts. In the year ending Sept. 30, the number of cases filed at federal appellate, district and bankruptcy cases all declined, following a trend begun several years ago. The Supreme Court has seen a 13% drop over five years. To liberals, the trend is ominous. Brian Wolfman, co-director of the Supreme Court litigation clinic at Stanford Law School and former director of Public Citizen Litigation Group, says the trend from class action lawsuits toward arbitration penalizes consumers and workers who cannot afford to sue on their own.

"The consumer is effectively shut out from the civil justice system, and the employer or the corporation is effectively creating its own law," Wolfman says.

Also worth a look: Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court at 10, defying labels.

From Randy Barnett: The Original Meaning of the Judicial Power

In a 2004 article, Barnett tackles the claims that the framers of the Constitution did not define judicial power to include the power of judicial review. It became common to think that the power originated with John Marshall's decision in Marbury v. Madison. Looking through the history of the time, Barnett argues that an originalist approach to the use of the terms suggests that the intent was for the judiciary to have that power.

Dual credit students might find this to be a helpful look at this approach to constitutional interpretation, and how lawyers and scholars still wrestle with the meaning of the Constitution.

- Click here for the article.

In this article, I intend to lay to rest any doubt that, at the founding, the judicial power of the United States included the power of judicial rzeview. I hope to refute any claims that judicial review was invented in Marbury v. Madison, or that, because it is contrary to the original meaning of the Constitution, it must be justified by some nonoriginalist interpretive methodology. I will do so, not by discerning the shadowy and often counterfactual “intentions” of the founding generation, but by presenting as comprehensively as I can what the founders actually said during the constitutional convention and in state ratification conventions, and immediately after ratification. These statements, taken cumulatively, leave no doubt that the founders contemplated judicial nullification of legislation enacted by the states and by Congress. In short, I shall demonstrate once and for all that the original meaning of the “judicial power” in Article I, includes the power of judicial nullification.at least is.

Schwartz, et al v. Cruz

Here is a link to the document filed challenging Senator Cruz's eligibility to hold the office of the president - apart from actually running for it of course. 2305 students should expect to pour over this in class.

- Click here for it.

It was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas Houston Division - click here for the office.

The lawsuit was filed by Houston lawyer Newton Boris Schwartz, Sr. - I can't much on him at the moment. The suit claims that he has filed it:

. . . Individually and/or as (b) Class Representative and/or (c) on behalf of all eligible qualified 50 states and nationally United States Registered, eligible and Qualified Voters for Voting in: (1) all 50 State Caucus and primaries in 2016; (2) the 2016 Texas Primary elections; and (3) General National 2016 Electoral Presidential and Vice president election on November 1, 2016.

The court is pretty picky about standing - who can file a suit and why, is that person suffering an actual harm - so I'm curious whether they would recognize his right to file the suit.

The suits asks for a declaratory judgement - which can be defined as follows:

A binding judgment from a court defining the legal relationship between parties and their rights in the matter before the court. A declaratory judgment does not provide for any enforcement, however. In other words, it states the court's authoritative opinion regarding the exact nature of the legal matter without requiring the parties to do anything.

Here is what they are asking the court to do:

This procedural Declaratory Judgment prays for an declaratory Judgment of the (1) status (2) qualifications and (3) eligibility or ineligibility of defendant for election to the office of the President and vice President of the United States under Article II, Section I, Clause 5 as original enacted and adopted and ratified by the requisite number of then thirteen states and not amended or repealed to date.

It is undisputed, by all legal scholars, there is no U S Supreme Court decision or precedent: determinative of the following agreed facts of this case and controversy. “Natural born citizen” has never been defined. This a case of first impression. Harvard professor Laurence Tribe on January 11-12, 2016 national including CNN media program opined “…this question is completely unsettled…”.

The document goes in for another 73 pages - I've yet to gloss through it, but will soon.

The Conditional Motion for Preliminary Injunction on Implementation of 2013 Redistricting Plans for 2016 Election Cycle

A link in the Texas Tribune's story on the decision by federal judges to not require Texas' congressional districts to be redrawn prior to the 2016 election - click here for the story - has a link to the actual ruling.

Check it out if you wish.

- Click for it here.

Here's a chunk of the text highlighted by the Tribune:

“Even if movants could show a likelihood of success on the merits, the Court must balance the need to protect voting rights that may be affected by the 2013 plans with the need to avoid the adverse effect on voting rights that comes with delay and confusion during election time,” the three judges — Jerry Smith, Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez — wrote.

“If the Court enjoined the 2013 enacted plans and imposed yet another set of interim plans for the 2016 election, the shifting district and precinct lines would leave candidates in limbo, voters confused, and election officials with the burden of implementing new maps in a timely manner with very limited resources. It would be extremely difficult to implement new interim plans without tremendous interruption to the 2016 election schedule.”

From the Dallas Morning News: Obama names three Texas judges in apparent deal with Cornyn and Cruz

This ties into the previous post on Perry's appointees to the Texas judiciary. This refers to Obama's appointees to the federal judiciary - specifically the judges that will preside over some of the federal court's in Texas. Remember that in a federal system judges serve on all three levels of government, each having jurisdiction over the cases related to the laws on that level of government.

- Click here for the story.

Breaking a longstanding logjam, President Obama announced nominees for three vacant Texas federal court benches late Thursday.

If confirmed, U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman of San Antonio, Texarkana lawyer Robert Schroeder III, and Sherman Magistrate Judge Amos Mazzant III will all get lifetime jobs as U.S. district court judges.

“Any nominations are critically important, as Texas desperately needs to have as many of its nine district and two circuit vacancies filled,” said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who tracks nominations. “The judges are overwhelmed by crushing case loads and too few judicial resources.”

. . . Texas has more vacancies than any other state. The liberal group Alliance for Justice, lauding the nominations, accused Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of prolonging the crisis by “dithering.”

Cornyn aide Megan Mitchell said the senators recommended the picks to the president. Each had been screened by the senators’ Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee. Cornyn spoke to each nominee on Thursday, she said.

The informal process for selecting federal judges is called senatorial courtesy.

- Click here for the Wikipedia on it.
- And here for a more thorough look from justice.gov.

Will the courts have to determine what the term "reasonable rules" means regarding campus carry?

The Houston Chronicle writes today that SB 11 - the campus carry bill - might be on its way to court. When the bill passed, it contained an allowance that university presidents had the power to determine where guns can be carried, meaning that they can be banned from certain places like classrooms. Proponents of campus carry argue that this was not the intent of the original law and that presidents have limits on the extent of their power to ban concealed weapons.

- Click here for the story.

So this seems headed for the courts. What exactly does the term "reasonable rules" mean and how might the court determine what it means? Keep in mind that we have an elected judiciary. What might the fate be of a judge who decides either way? Are they really free to make an impartial decision?

- Click here for the legislative history of SB 11.
- Campus-carry bill passes, but neither side seems thrilled.

And for more on the story: Texas Tribune: Did You Think Campus Carry Was Settled Law?

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Cases Factor in New Supreme Court Term

The state of Texas is no stranger to the United States Supreme Court. Here is a look at the cases from Texas that will be heard there. It's 2015 session began yesterday. We've discussed these cases in class before so there are no big surprises here.

- Click here for the article.

From Gallup: Trust in U.S. Judicial Branch Sinks to New Low of 53%

But it still beats the legislative and executive branches.

- Click here for the article.

Americans have consistently had more trust in the judiciary than in the other two government branches, but trust in all three has trended downward in an era of widespread dissatisfaction with government. As recently as six years ago, the first year of the Obama administration, 76% said they trusted the judicial branch, 61% said they trusted the executive branch and 45% said they trusted the legislative branch.

The author notes that the decline has been mostly among Republicans.

The decline in trust in the judicial branch likely stems from the Supreme Court's controversial decisions this year to legalize same-sex marriage and uphold a key provision of the Affordable Care Act allowing Americans to purchase subsidized health insurance through federally run marketplaces.

Democrats cheered those decisions while Republicans criticized them. As a result, the Supreme Court's job approval rating among Republicansplummeted to 18% in July, shortly after the high court's term ended.