This is a general "catch-all" thread for the decisions that are now becoming public ~

Sooz

VERY disappointing and aggravating, but not terribly surprising ~ ~ I have not yet read thru the full decision, linked below ~ Sooz

Supreme Court Guts The Voting Rights Act
Sahil Kapur- June 25, 2013, 10:30 AM

The Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision on Tuesday gutting a centerpiece of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which has long been used to preemptively snuff out discriminatory voting laws.

The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, overturns Section 4 of the law, declaring unconstitutional the formula used to identify which state and local governments with a history of racial discrimination are required to pre-clear any changes to their voting laws with the Justice Department or a federal court.

“Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to pre-clearance,” Roberts wrote.

The ruling is a major blow to civil rights advocates as it is widely believed that Congress, which currently uses data from as far back as the 1970s to determine that formula, will not be able to pass a new formula into law. As a result, the ruling has the practical effect of neutering the pre-clearance requirement.

The decision frees up those jurisdictions to change their voting laws without supervision. But the federal government still has the power to target a voting law in court, after it is passed, if it is suspected of having a discriminatory effect on a particular racial group.

“Our decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in §2. We issue no holding on §5 itself, only on the coverage formula. Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Such a formula is an initial prerequisite to a determination that exceptional conditions still exist justifying such an ‘extraordinary departure from the traditional course of relations between the States and the Federal Government.’ … Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”

The four other Republican-appointed justices joined Roberts’ majority opinion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissent, joined by the three other Democratic-appointed justices.

“It is well established that Congress’ judg­ment regarding exercise of its power to enforce the Four­teenth and Fifteenth Amendments warrants substantial deference,” Ginsburg wrote. “When confronting the most constitutionally invid­ious form of discrimination, and the most fundamental right in our democratic system, Congress’ power to act is at its height.”

The outcome reflects the deeply skeptical line of questioning by the five conservative justices, who questioned whether times have changed so much that the Voting Rights Act now unnecessarily discriminates against the mostly southern jurisdictions subject to the pre-clearance requirement.

Prior to oral arguments, advocates warned that ruling against the preclearance requirement or formula would mean a huge blow to the rights of minorities to vote, describing mischievous tricks that jurisdictions may be able to use to discriminate against their ability to participate fairly in elections.

The Voting Rights Act has been reauthorized by Congress four times, most recently in 2006 for a period of 25 years, and its constitutionality previously upheld by the Supreme Court four times, most recently in 1999.

SHELBY COUNTY, ALABAMA v. HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-ruling.php?ref=fpa

Ian Millhiser knows his stuff ~ he is editor of the "Justice" blog on ThinkProgress and, if memory serves, a practicing attorney who has argued a number of USSC cases ~ Sooz

BREAKING: Supreme Court Kills Key Prong Of Voting Rights Act
By Ian Millhiser on Jun 25, 2013 at 10:19 am

Earlier today, the Supreme Court declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional. Section 4 is the formula which determines which jurisdictions are subject to “preclearance” under the law, meaning that new voting laws in those jurisdictions must be reviewed by the Justice Department or a federal court before they can take effect. Although today’s opinion ostensibly would permit Congress to revive the preclearance regime by enacting a new formula that complies with today’s decision, that would require a functioning Congress — so the likely impact of today’s decision is that many areas that were unable to enact voter suppression laws under the Voting Rights Act will now be able to put those laws into effect.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2210121/breaking-supreme-court-kills-key-prong-of-voting-rights-act/

Another terrible decision in favor of "big business" ~ ~ Sooz

Generic Drug Companies Get Even More Immunity From The Roberts Five
By Nicole Flatow on Jun 24, 2013 at 5:19 pm

Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling immunizing drug companies from lawsuit for egregious injuries wasn’t terribly surprising for those who have been following along. Two years ago, in a case called PLIVA v. Mensing, the U.S. Supreme Court held that generic drug companies were largely immune from lawsuits alleging their failure to warn of harmful consequences. On Monday, in a 5-4 ruling along ideological lines, the court extended this holding to apply to other types of claims against generic drug manufacturers, and held that a federal statute precluded suit by a woman who incurred burns on 60 percent of her body and was rendered legally blind by an alleged drug defect.

This ruling was a predictable addition to the line of cases immunizing big business from liability, but it was not an inevitable follow-up to PLIVA. In conjunction with two other rulings Monday that stomped on workplace protections for minorities and women, this decision brings the top corporate lobby’s win rate before the U.S. Supreme Court term to 13-3. With one case remaining in which the Chamber of Commerce weighed in, it is clear that however that final case is decided, big business won very big at the expense of the little guy.

As has been a frequent practice by the Roberts Court, the five-justice majority found that federal law trumped state law protecting patients, over protestations from the four dissenting justices that both federal and state law could co-exist. Interpreting a federal law requirement that generic drug companies simply follow the warnings and design of the brand name drug, the court held that generic companies cannot be held liable for its flaws. This means that a generic company that distributes a dangerous product has no obligation to simply stop selling that drug, and can go on dispensing the potentially dangerous substance with immunity. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, the court justified its holding through “an implicit and undefended assumption that federal law gives pharmaceutical companies a right to sell a federally approved drug free from common-law liability.”

The majority holding in this case overturned a $21 million verdict — upheld by the appeals court — for the plaintiff’s alleged injuries. Now, the company owes nothing. With 80 percent of U.S. prescriptions filled by generics, this ruling not only wipes away generic manufacturers’ responsibility to halt the sale of dangerous products; it also impacts safety for the great majority of consumers.

According to a Public Citizen report released Monday, much of the safety information about a drug emerges after FDA approval, once the drug enters the market. And it is often not the case that the FDA revisits approval. As Justice Stephen Breyer explains in his dissent, it is “far more common for a manufacturer to stop selling its product voluntarily after the FDA advises the manufacturer that the drug is unsafe and that its risk-benefit profile cannot be adequately addressed through labeling changes or other measures” than for the FDA to formally withdraw approval based on new information.

In the wake of the PLIVA decision, members of Congress had asked FDA to revise its regulations in ways that will now be doubly essential to consumer safety. In the absence of clarity from Congress or the FDA, today’s decision paves the way for a whole lot of malfeasance.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/24/2206411/generic-drug-companies-get-even-more-immunity-from-the-roberts-five/

And another terrible decision! ~ ~ Sooz

How The Supreme Court Stomped On Workers’ Rights Today
By Ian Millhiser on Jun 24, 2013 at 12:20 pm

Monday was a great day for sexual harassers and for bosses who retaliate against workers claiming discrimination. The rest of us did not fare so well in the Supreme Court. While most Court watchers will likely focus on the narrower-than-expected decision in the Fisher affirmative action case, the most lasting impact of today’s decisions likely will be the twin blows struck against women and minorities in the workplace. Taking advantage of employees just became a whole lot easier.

The first case, which we previously labeled the “scariest pending Supreme Court case that you’ve probably never heard of” made it significantly easier for many people’s bosses to racially or sexually harass them and get away with it. Though the law provides fairly robust protection to workers harassed by their supervisor, the Court’s 5-4 decision in Vance v. Ball State University defined the term “supervisor” very narrowly. Under today’s decision, your boss is only your “supervisor” if they have the power to make a “significant change in [your] employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.”

The problem with this definition of the word “supervisor” is that it cuts out many individuals who exercise significant power to direct fellow employees — potentially including the power to intimidate those employees against reporting their actions to their employer — just so long as those individuals don’t actually have the power to fire or demote anyone. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion lists several examples of now-no-longer-supervisors under Vance. One of them is a senior truck driver who coerced a female subordinate into unwanted sex with him. At oral argument, Justice Elena Kagan gave the example of a secretary whose boss “subjects that secretary to living hell, complete hostile work environment on the basis of sex.” Under today’s decision, the secretary’s boss is not her “supervisor” if the power to fire her rests with the “Head of Secretarial Services.” Don Draper can proposition his secretary with near impunity, so long as Joan Harris is the only one empowered to fire her.

To be clear, a victim of harassment may still sue their employer if the company was “negligent in permitting [] harassment to occur,” but this safeguard will mean little to workers who are so intimidated by their not-a-supervisor-according-to-Justice-Alito that they are afraid of what will happen if they report harassment to more senior management. Moreover, as Ginsburg writes in dissent, “anyone with work experience would immediately grasp” that a person does not have to be able to fire someone in order to exert significant control over them, to use this power to create a hostile work environment or even to demand that the worker be sexually available to them. Justice Samuel Alito, and the four conservatives who joined his majority opinion, apparently did not grasp this fact.

In a second case, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, the same five conservative justices gave employers a freer hand to retaliate against victims of discrimination who report that they have suffered discrimination. Nassar, which involves a physician of Middle Eastern descent who claims that his recent employer withdrew a job offer after he complained about an allegedly racist supervisor who said that “Middle Easterners are lazy,” nixes what are known as “mixed motive” retaliations claims under a key anti-discrimination law. Under the mixed motive framework, an employer cannot automatically escape liability for retaliation if racism, sexism or a similar improper motive was only one of several factors driving a decision to retaliate against an employee.

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion rests heavily on a similar case, Gross v. FBL Financial Services, where the five conservatives killed mixed motive lawsuits in age discrimination cases. As we explained when that decision was handed down, mixed motive suits are important because they force an employer to reveal what they were actually thinking at the time that they fired or demoted an employee. Without this framework, employees are faced with the nearly-impossible task of proving that the sole thing on their boss’ mind was discrimination at the time that they decided to take action against a worker.

As Justice Ginsburg points out in dissent, Kennedy’s opinion relies on a law Congress enacted to strengthen the law’s protections against retaliation in order to undermine them. Once again, Ginsburg is also forced to explain that the conservative justices ignore the way workplaces actual function. Quoting Sen. Clifford Case (R-NJ), Ginsburg warns that Kennedy’s “sole cause” rule leaves the law’s protection against retaliation virtually meaningless. “[I]f anyone ever had an action that was motivated by a single cause, he is a different kind of animal from any I know of.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/24/2202021/how-the-supreme-court-stomped-on-workers-rights-today/

Reactionary twits.
Am I ever glad I left the US.

Finally, some excellent decisions ~ DOMA is struck down, which by extension means that states can no longer rely on DOMA to disallow marriage equality ~ thank you, Justice Kennedy! ~ and Prop 8 was dismissed for lack of standing, giving California the green light to resume embracing marriage equality ~ I confess I was VERY nervous about these two decisions given the other very disappointing decisions in this thread ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original ~ Sooz

Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act
By Steve Benen - Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:07 AM EDT

In a breakthrough legal victory, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this morning that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. In a 5-4 ruling, the court majority said the anti-gay law is discriminatory: "DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty."

The decision was written by Justice Kennedy, who was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. More soon.

First Update: The full ruling is online here (pdf); the Scotusblog description of the case is here; and previous MaddowBlog coverage is here.

Second Update: From the ruling: DOMA is "unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment."

Third Update: Pete Williams' initial read suggests this ruling is "broad" enough for marriage-equality proponents "to attack laws in other states."

Fourth Update: Some of the reach of the ruling will depend on a deeper analysis of the decision itself, but keep in mind that the end of DOMA will have significant consequences. The Defense Department, for example, ended DADT, but could not apply equal benefits to gay servicemembers because of this law. Now that it's been struck down, it's no longer an issue.

Fifth Update: It's worth clarifying that the DOMA ruling does not extend marriage equality to all 50 states, but rather, as Amy Howe explained on Scotusblog, that "same-sex couples who are legally married will be entitled to equal treatment under federal law-- with regard to, for example, income taxes and Social Security benefits."

Sixth Update: The other major Supreme Court case on gay rights was a challenge to California's Prop 8. In this case, Chief Justice John Roberts and the court majority punted on procedural grounds, saying the defendants lacked the standing needed to defend the case in court. The full ruling is online here (pdf).

Seventh Update: From Scotusblog's summary of this morning's Prop 8 ruling in Perry: "After the two same-sex couples filed their challenge to Proposition 8 in federal court in California, the California government officials who would normally have defended the law in court declined to do so. So the proponents of Proposition 8 stepped in to defend the law, and the California Supreme Court (in response to a request by the lower court) ruled that they could do so under state law. But today the Supreme Court held that the proponents do not have the legal right to defend the law in court. As a result, it held the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the intermediate appellate court, has no legal force, and it sent the case back to that court with instructions for it to dismiss the case."

Eighth Update: The Prop 8 ruling was 5-4, but not along traditional ideological lines. The majority included Justices Roberts, Scalia, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Kagan. An unexpected combination, to be sure.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/06/26/19153041-supreme-court-strikes-down-defense-of-marriage-act?lite

Sooz edit to add "Eighth Update".

Prop 8 was referred back to CA for lack of standing.

Gay marriage is legal (again) in CA.

Supreme Court Guts The Voting Rights Act...

What a shame but not surprising. The 5 justices are loved by the Koch brothers.
This is wrong for so many reasons but it is definitely a ways to suppress many voters and I think that's what they wanted.

A damning critique that identifies a BIG problem ~ for me, this exposes a strong reason to eliminate life-time appointments ~ AND, given the age and health of several current USSC justices, a very strong reason to keep the presidency and the Senate "blue" ~ Sooz

The Progress Report
The Roberts Corporate Court Strikes Again
By CAP Action War Room on Jun 27, 2013 at 5:59 pm

The Powerful Over the People

Yesterday, we celebrated two landmark Supreme Court rulings advancing LGBT rights, but a closer look at the rest of the Supreme Court term reveals a wide variety of troubling rulings. These rulings may be on different issues, but they all have a common theme: whenever possible the High Court’s conservative wing puts the interests of the powerful above those of the people. This term the Supreme Court has issued rulings attacking voting rights, consumer rights, workers’ rights, and more.

In particular, the Roberts Court chooses to side with powerful corporations at almost every possible opportunity. Even conservative-leaning Supreme Courts in the past have not sided with corporations as often. For example, in cases where the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce intervened, they won barely more than half the time under Chief Justice Rehnquist. Since Chief Justice Roberts and Alito joined the court in 2006, the Chamber has won 70 percent of its cases. Over the past two terms alone, the Chamber has prevailed in a whopping 88 percent of its cases. In fact, the Roberts Court is the most pro-corporate Supreme Court in more than six decades.

Here’s a few of the areas where the court trampled on the people at the expense of the powerful:

• Voting Rights: Just this week, the Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. As a result, six states are already moving forward with voter suppression laws that previously would’ve been held up or blocked entirely. If individuals cannot vote, they of course cannot vote for politicians who support progressive or populist policies or vote against those who are the tools of corporate special interests like polluters, insurance companies, and Wall Street banks.

• Workers’ Rights: In two decisions also handed down this week, the Court made it much harder for victims of workplace discrimination to seek justice. The first case severely limited the definition who counts as a supervisor, making it much easier for people to be intimidated out of taking action against harassment by their bosses. A second decision issued the same day made it much easier for corporations or supervisors to retaliate against individuals who complain about discrimination.

• Human Rights: In April, the Court severely limited a 200 year-old law that allowed individuals to use the U.S. civil court system to seek recourse for human rights violations committed abroad. Chief Justice John Roberts led a splintered court in ruling that several Nigerians alleging an oil company aided an abetted torture, arbitrary killings, and indefinite detention could not sue, because the corporate conduct occurred outside the United States. It is now essentially impossible to hold anyone accountable for such conduct.

• Consumer Rights: The Roberts Court has made a habit of issuing rulings that limit the ability of individuals to file class action lawsuits and/or seek justice outside the arbitration system that heavily favors corporations. The Court issued several such rulings this term, making it harder for individuals or even millions of individuals impacted by wrongdoing or some other harm to take on powerful corporations.

In addition, the Court ruled in favor of pharmaceutical companies, authorized what should be unconstitutionally intrusive police collection of DNA, undermined the rights of indigent defendants, and sided with big developers and trampled on “local community rights,” among other unfortunate decisions.

Based on the cases the Court has agreed to hear next term, it appears we may be in for more of the same. The Court will hear cases on abortion rights, housing discrimination, the separation of church and state, the ability of the president to fill executive vacancies in the face of Senate obstruction, affirmative action, and environmental laws, just to name a few potentially explosive decisions.

When the Court managed to rule against corporate interests and the powerful, it almost always came over the objections of Chief Justice Roberts and the other members of the Court’s conservative wing.

BOTTOM LINE: In spite of some bullets dodged and landmark victories, the Roberts Corporate Court continued to distinguish itself by overwhelmingly favoring corporate interests and the powerful over the rights and interests of individuals and the American people.

http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/the-roberts-corporate-court-strikes-again/

Interesting source providing this strong dissent ~ Sooz

Bush-Appointed Judge Slams Decision Striking Voting Rights Act — Court’s Reasoning Was ‘Made Up’
By Ian Millhiser on Jul 8, 2013 at 12:00 pm

If a leading conservative scholar and former judge were now on the Supreme Court instead of Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito, it is likely that the Voting Right Act would remain intact.

Judge Michael McConnell was a leading conservative law professor at the time President George W. Bush named him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2002 (he’s since left the bench to return to the legal academy at Stanford Law School). McConnell was also widely viewed as a possible Supreme Court nominee during the Bush Administration.

In an interview with NPR’s Nina Totenberg, McConnell has harsh words for the five conservative justices’ recent decision neutering much of the Voting Rights Act — labeling the reasoning that drove that decision “made up.”

Although the conservatives’ decision in Shelby County v. Holder never actually identifies the legal standard of review that led them to strike down the heart of America’s voting rights law, the opinion rests in large part on the fact that the Voting Rights Act applies some of its requirements “only to some States,” in what the Court labels as a “dramatic departure from the principle that all States enjoy equal sovereignty.”

As McConnell explains, however, “[t]here’s no requirement in the Constitution to treat all states the same,” adding that “[i]t might be an attractive principle, but it doesn’t seem to be in the Constitution.”

Judge McConnell is, of course, correct. The Fifteenth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” and it gives Congress “power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” One searches the Constitution in vain for language forbidding the Voting Rights Act application of some of its strongest medicine to jurisdictions judged to have the worst record of voter suppression.

Yet, while the legal assault on voting rights cannot be justified under the Constitution’s text, it has been quite a windfall for conservatives. At least six states are already moving forward with new voter suppression laws now that a key prong of the Voting Rights Act is no longer available to stop them. Texas announced that it would begin suppressing votes just two hours after the Supreme Court handed down its decision.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/08/2262691/bush-appointed-judge-slams-decision-striking-voting-rights-act-courts-reasoning-was-made-up/