Here is this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
National Inquiries
Justice Samuel Alito claims stunning leak of opinion overturning Roe came from draft's critics
The claim, made without evidence, once again thrusts the second-most senior associate justice into a frenzy of speculation that has swirled around the court since the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. Conservatives outside the court have for months suggested that the leak was an effort to pressure the justices to reach a different conclusion. Liberals have speculated it was an effort to shore up wavering support for the draft.
Maybe Becoming President Takes More Than Just Being a Dick
DeSantis’ confrontational public persona and his reportedly off-putting interpersonal vibe have damaged his presidential hopes. We have seen reports that he eats pudding with his fingers, that he blows off donors and generally stinks at retail politics.
Political "polarization" isn't the real problem in America: One pole is a lot worse than the other
The concern, I think, shouldn't be "Oh! People are so far apart!" when it comes to whether we should accept certain people as citizens of whether we should diversify the economy. The concern should be that there are vastly unequal structures, and various groups that are looking to achieve political and social equality.
Tucker Carlson text contributed to his firing, report says: 'It's not how white men fight'
Text messages that helped lead Fox News to part ways with star host Tucker Carlson included one in which he declared that Trump supporters beating a protester was "not how white men fight," according to The New York Times.
Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio, 3 others guilty of Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy
A jury deliberated for seven days in Washington before finding Tarrio, 39, and other defendants guilty on 31 of 46 counts. The jury returned not guilty verdicts on five counts — including acquitting one member, Dominic Pezzola, of seditious conspiracy — and hung on 10 others. The result marked the third decisive victory for the Justice Department in three seditious conspiracy trials held after what it called a historic act of domestic terrorism to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.
Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition.
Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow.
The payments extended beyond that month, according to Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator at the school. Crow paid Martin’s tuition the entire time he was a student there, which was about a year, Grimwood told ProPublica.
The low cost (for a rich person) of sponsoring a Supreme Court justice
What’s remarkable about the relationship between Crow and Thomas isn’t only that Thomas has been so indifferent to reporting Crow’s generosity. It’s also that there are so many other extremely wealthy Americans who could leverage their wealth to build relationships with people in power for whom $100,000 is anything but pocket change.
Dick Durbin Wants Supreme Court Ethics Reform—And John Roberts to Get Out of His Way
Roberts’s refusal to police his justices’ conduct, would generate at least some bipartisan interest, right?
Wrong. Durbin’s call for those on the Court to be held to the same standard as other federal judges ran headfirst into political reality Tuesday, as Republicans rallied around Thomas and Gorsuch, and Graham dismissed the high-profile hearing as an “unseemly effort by the Democratic left to destroy the legitimacy of the Roberts Court.”
Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’
In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.
Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
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States Fights
Montana Republican suggests she would prefer daughter die by suicide than allow her to transition
Republican state Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe suggested during a floor debate that she would rather her daughter die by suicide than allow her to transition. Though Seekins-Crowe did not identify her daughter as transgender, she said that she was "one of those parents who lived with a daughter who was suicidal for three years."
North Carolina Gerrymander Ruling Reflects Politicization of Judiciary Nationally
The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled General Assembly to scrap the court-ordered State House, Senate and congressional district boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in Republicans’ favor for elections in 2024. The 5-to-2 ruling fell along party lines, reflecting the takeover of the court by Republican justices in partisan elections last November.
We’ve Solved the Mystery of Kyrsten Sinema
She says she’s guided by an unchanging set of “values”—she mentions freedom, opportunity, and security—that virtually all Americans share. When it comes to legislating, Sinema sees herself as “practical”—a dealmaker, a problem solver. And if taking every policy question on a case-by-case basis bewilders some in Washington, Sinema says it’s just her nature. Even in her private life, she tells me, she’s prone to slow, painstaking deliberation.
How DeSantis accidentally handed Disney a potent weapon against him
Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment.
Republican-controlled states target college students’ voting power ahead of high-stakes 2024 elections
Republican-controlled legislatures around the country have moved to erect new barriers to voting for high school and college students in what state lawmakers describe as an effort to clamp down on potential voter fraud. Critics call it a blatant attempt to suppress the youth vote as young people increasingly bolster Democratic candidates and liberal causes at the ballot box.
How South Carolina Ended Up With an All-Male Supreme Court
An abortion ban struck down. The lone female justice retiring. And a majority-male legislature rallying behind the one male candidate to replace her. This is how South Carolina ended up with an all-male Supreme Court as new abortion legislation looms.
Illinois set to become first state to end book bans
“In Illinois, we don’t hide from the truth, we embrace it and lead with it,” the governor said when the bill was first presented. “Banning books is a devastating attempt to erase our history and the authentic stories of many.”
The final version of House Bill 2789 passed the state Senate 39 to 19 after it was approved in March by the House on a 66 to 39 vote.
Florida lawmakers restrict pronouns and tackle book objections in sweeping education bill
The bill will broaden the state’s prohibition on teaching about sexual identity and gender orientation from kindergarten through third grade to pre-K through eighth grade, though in April the Florida Board of Education already expanded the restrictions to all public schools through high school.
It also targets how school staff and students can use pronouns on K-12 campuses. Specifically, the legislation stipulates that school employees can’t ask students for their preferred pronouns and restricts school staff from sharing their pronouns with students if they “do not correspond” with their sex. Under the bill, it would be “false to ascribe” a person with a pronoun that “does not correspond to such person’s sex.”
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Vocal Locals
Christian activists are fighting to glorify God in a suburban Texas school district
This coordinated and well-funded campaign to exalt God in the halls of the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, or GCISD, has divided local residents and raised alarm among religious liberty advocates who oppose what they view as a growing embrace of Christian nationalism in America.
Two Republicans Kicked Off County Election Board in North Carolina for Failing to Certify Results
This month, both Forestieri and DeHaan refused to certify a redo of a November 2022 municipal election. The new contest had been called after a poll worker allegedly made a mistake in telling voters that one of the four candidates had died, which could have swung a race decided by eight votes. (The results of the second race were the same as the first.)
Both elections were ultimately certified by the board’s three Democrats. But DeHaan’s and Forestieri’s refusals to certify, along with similar actions by conservative county election officials in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, exposed a weakness in the nation’s electoral system. If local officials failed to certify, the disruption could cascade and cast into dispute state and federal election outcomes, potentially allowing partisan actors to inappropriately influence them, according to election law experts.