As discussed in a number of previous posts, the Roberts Court has demonstrated its conservative ideological bent, striking down laws passed by Congress and demonstrating a willingness to ignore long-standing precedent. It reached out last term in the Gross age discrimination case to decide an issue that hadn't been briefed and changed the law in a way that will make it much harder for older workers to prove that they were discriminated against in the workplace. In the Ricci fire fighters case, the Court reached out to decide the case on the merits - even though no employee had actually been injured -- so that it could reach the merits and change the law with respect to proving discrimination in so-called disparate impact cases. And, in the recently argued Citizens United case, the Court re-opened the briefing in the case to re-visit what had been a settled question about whether regulating corporate expenditures in candidate elections is constitutional.

Will this trend continue? And what does this mean for President Obama's initiatives on health insurance reform? Climate change? Financial regulatory reform? Asnoted in Adam Liptak's article in yesterday's New York Times, the Court's docket this term includes a number of cases likely to signal its future willingness to support government intervention to address structural problems in our economy. In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a case growing out of the Enron debacle, the Court will consider the scope of Congress' power to delegate regulatory responsibility to independent regulatory boards. The issue in Jones v. Harris Associates, concerns the role of courts in regulating executive compensation for mutual fund investment advisers. And in Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz v. United States, the issue concerns the scope of a federal law concerning lawyers' advice to clients considering bankruptcy. Dry? Perhaps. But what we learn in these cases, may well signal how far the Court is willing to go in supporting or, perhaps more likely, frustrating, efforts by the Administration and Congress to address serious structural problems in our economy.

You think Justices' legal ideology matters? Stay tuned.

It's the first Monday in October, and that means another Supreme Court term is upon us. In addition to cases addressing church-state separation and First Amendment protections, the Court will be hearing a load of cases relating to business and finance that could have broad implications for all Americans.

The justices’ decisions will be closely watched at a time when, constitutional scholars say, Obama administration initiatives are generating fundamental questions about the structure and limits of government power that will, in short order, reach the court.

“There will be major ways in which these interventions will produce legal and constitutional issues,” said Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge who is now director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.

And these aren't even the kinds of business cases we're used to talking about with relation to the Court.

In recent terms, the business docket was studded with cases about employment discrimination, federal pre-emption of injury suits and the environment. With the exception of a single employment case, all of those categories are missing.

In their stead, important questions about bankruptcy, corporate compensation, patents, antitrust and government oversight of the financial system will confront the justices.

The writing is on the wall. As any number of commentators have suggested, it’s pretty clear that no matter whom the President nominates for the next Supreme Court vacancy, the Republicans and their allies on the far right are going to fight. Indeed, as Jeff Toobin points out in his excellent article in The New Yorker, even the President’s mainstream nomination of David Hamilton for a seat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals – his very first judicial nominee – continues to languish because of unfounded attacks from the Right. As one White House official is quoted by Toobin: ‘If they are going to stop David Hamilton, then who won’t they stop.” 

As suggested in Toobin’s article, the Republicans claim it’s payback for the President’s votes against Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.  But as history is showing us, then-Senator Obama’s votes were the correct ones. The Roberts court is Exhibit A in far right judicial activism – not the balls and strikes umpiring we were promised by the Chief Justice.  In any event as Republican Senator Thune makes clear in yesterday’s Roll Call article, the only way for the President to avoid a fight is for him to nominate a conservative – anything else would meet significant resistance.

So the cards are on the table. If we’re going to have a fight, then let’s think boldly about the kind of Justice we need on the Court. And that means a Justice who understands that the law and the Constitution mandate protections for average Americans against the interests of the more powerful. It means a Justice who understands that the law and the Constitution protect important privacy rights. It means a Justice who appreciates that the law and the Constitution affect the realities of Americans’ everyday lives.  It means a Justice who respects the core constitutional values of justice and equal opportunity for all.  If we’re going to have a fight, let’s make it one worth having – let’s make it a fight for core constitutional values.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday, that the Obama administration this week will put in place a new review system to allow detainees held by the U.S. at a military base in Bagram, Afghanistan the ability to challenge their detentions.  While this is a small step in the right direction, the bigger issue is the administration’s decision to continue arguing against habeas corpus rights in the federal case brought by some of those same Bagram detainees now pending before the DC Court of Appeals. 

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 recognizing by a vote of 5-4 the habeas rights of detainees held by the U.S. at the military base in Guantanmo Bay, Cuba, and since Obama has declared that the Guantanamo detention center will be closed by the end of the year, all eyes have turned toward Bagram where hundreds of detainees are being held there without review. While both sides continue to argue the merits of whether the constitutional right of habeas corpus should apply to detainees held overseas by the U.S. in a zone of conflict, at least the administration now concedes what many of us have been arguing for years:  it is a basic human right that an individual cannot be deprived of their liberty without due process.  

Let’s hope that the new process afforded to Bagram detainees in the end will be a meaningful one. 

Jeffrey Rosen’s op ed piece in the New York Times over the weekend, The Trial of John Roberts, echoes a theme noted by a number of commentators, one on which I posted last week: that the Supreme Court’s decision to open up long-settled law with respect to regulating corporate expenditures in candidate elections in the recently argued Citizens United case is a quintessential exercise in judicial activism. And it’s the kind of judicial activism that then nominee John Roberts pretended to foreswear through his claims to be an umpire, simply calling balls and strikes.  

Where I part company from Rosen, however, is in his analysis that Chief Justice Roberts “deserves credit for trying” to forge a broader consensus on narrower grounds, citing, in particular, last term’s Voting Rights Act case.  The cynic in me says that the decision was 8-1 to uphold Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and not 5-4 to overturn it, because the Chief Justice simply did not yet have the votes to do so. And Rosen’s reliance on greater unanimity on the Court with respect to upholding business interests – according to the Chamber 79% of these cases decided on margins of 7-2 better – is not, in my view, a reflection of Chief Justice Roberts’ forging consensus on narrow grounds. It’s a reflection of how conservative this Court really is, why the judicial philosophy of the next nominee to the Supreme Court really matters, and why it’s important to begin having that discussion now.

The Supreme Court is about to hear argument in a case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that should put an end to the myth advanced by Chief Justice Roberts at his confirmation hearing that he, as a Justice, is simply serving as an umpire, calling balls and strikes about what the law provides without any intention of influencing the direction of the law.  

After hearing oral argument last term, the Court postponed a decision in Citizens United, which involves the FEC’s attempt to treat an anti-Hillary Clinton movie as an impermissible “electioneering communication,” and ordered the parties to submit briefs that address the question of whether regulating corporate expenditures in candidate elections is constitutional. So instead of deciding the case in front of them, those who had been on the losing side in the past have reached out to redecide an issue that had been settled. 

Regardless of where you are on the merits of regulating express candidate advocacy by corporations – the issues of campaign finance regulation and the question currently being addressed by the Court are extraordinarily complex and weighty – it seems likely that those formerly in the minority, including Justice Roberts, seeing a change in the make-up of the Court (with Justice Alito replacing Justice O'Connor, who originally helped decide the quesiton), have seized a potential opportunity to re-make the law.  

So let’s be clear. Chief Justice Roberts isn't just calling balls and strikes: he's actually determining which pitches get thrown. 

Judges bring their own legal ideology to the table when they decide cases. It makes a difference whether the next nominee to the Supreme Court understands that the law and the Constitution mandate protections for average Americans against the interests of the more powerful. It makes a difference whether the next nominee to the Supreme Court understands that the law and the Constitution protect important privacy rights. It makes a difference that the next nominee appreciates that the law and the Constitution affect the realities of Americans’ everyday lives. It’s not just balls and strikes. Judicial philosophy matters.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in on this Saturday, and today President Obama hosted a reception to celebrate her confirmation and her new role.  His remarks are right on the money.

Justice Sotomayor's rise from humble beginnings to the height of achievement is yet another symbol of that faith -- faith that the American Dream still endures; faith that "equal justice under the law" is not just an inscription in marble, but an animating ideal of our democracy; faith that in this great nation, all things are still possible for all people.

This is a great day for America, and I know that all of us here are proud and honored to have been a part of it.

People For put out a statement last week when the Senate confirmed her nomination, but it doesn't hurt to say it again: congratulations, Justice Sotomayor.

In case you missed it: here’s a quick – albeit somewhat spliced – recounting of the day’s events.

From the right to choose to gay marriage, TV in the courtroom to yes, the inevitable “wise Latina” comment, Judge Sotomayor held her own, remaining composed and eloquent.

What happens next? The Judiciary Committee continues this evening to hear panels of experts from both sides on Judge Sotomayor’s qualifications for the highest court in the land. And then? A Tuesday committee vote and on to the full Senate.

Senator Jeff Sessions just doesn’t know when to stop. In an interview with CNN this afternoon, he complains that Judge Sotomayor’s responses to his questioning lacked “clarity”—unlike those of Justices Alito and Roberts.

Well, this seems pretty clear…

Amid questioning concerning her supposed “aggressive” judicial temperament and “bullying” courtroom demeanor, Judge Sotomayor today emerged from the tussle of the hearings a composed and careful speaker, unwilling to let pointed critiques ruffle her feathers.