Just because the Supreme Court didn’t strike down the “papers please” provision in Arizona’s SB1070 before implementation doesn’t mean that the provision is in the clear. The Supreme Court gave stringent guidelines for how to proceed in seeking proof of citizenship from arrested suspects, and said they would hold open future challenges to the law. [...]

I’ve been expecting a lawsuit somewhere down the road related to the President’s recess appointments from late last year. At some point, either the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the National Labor Relations Board were bound to issue a ruling that the subjects affected didn’t like, and they would resort to claiming that the recess [...]

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in a meeting with journalists today, announced her support for using the 14th Amendment solution to surmount the debt limit. During last year’s debt limit debate, many commentators observed that the 14th amendment comes in conflict with the notion of a debt limit, as it says, “The validity of the [...]

As the situation in Greece is just too depressing to contemplate, let’s divert our attention for a moment to the other two big global elections yesterday. In France, Francois Hollande’s Socialists took an absolute majority in Parliament, meaning Hollande will have a fairly easy time implementing his agenda. The question that will now be answered [...]

A three-judge panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has affirmed a ruling declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, bringing the case one step closer to an ultimate resolution at the Supreme Court. In an opinion written by Judge Mike Boudin, a George H.W. Bush appointee and former deputy assistant Attorney [...]

Not every politician is great on every issue, granted. But with Carl Levin of late, there’s been quite a swing. On the one hand, his Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations delivered Goldman Sachs on a silver platter to the Justice Department (it’s currently sitting in a conference room, untouched). He has jumped on JPMorgan Chase’s massive [...]

House Republicans believe that a technical error in the Senate’s handling of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act allows them to reject that bill, giving them a tactical advantage as the long-running skirmish nears an endgame. Brian Beutler reports that the House GOP determined that the Senate version of the bill had a [...]

Attorney General Eric Holder has responded to a conservative judge’s demand for a three-page paper on the Administration’s commitment to judicial review. The response can be seen here. The first notable thing is that Eric Holder himself signed the letter. The judge, Jerry Smith, asked DoJ lawyer Dana Lydia Kaersvang, who was arguing in front [...]

The general take I’m hearing from people inside the courtroom today is that Solicitor General Donald Verrilli blew it during arguments on the health care law’s individual mandate. I wasn’t in the courtroom, so I can only go by other people’s takes: In the first hour of a two-hour hearing, the court’s liberal justices were [...]

Today’s Supreme Court arguments really get to the crux of the matter. They concern the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the part of the law that forces Americans in the individual marketplace with the ability to pay (there is a hardship exemption) to either purchase health insurance or pay a penalty. The mandate, according to [...]

Many cheered when the Obama Administration intervened and refused to pre-clear Texas’ draconian voter ID legislation. And given the risk to disenfranchisement of particularly minority voters, it was the right thing to do. But a pernicious by-product of this has now been realized: Texas, in its response, will seek to invalidate Section 5 of the [...]