Supreme Court
Washington Post: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice and legal pioneer for gender equality, dies at 87
By Robert Barnes and Michael A. Fletcher
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court and a legal pioneer for gender equality whose fierce opinions as a justice made her a hero to the left, died Sept. 18 at her home in Washington. She was 87.
The death was announced in a statement by the U.S. Supreme Court. She had recently been treated for pancreatic cancer.
Born in Depression-era Brooklyn, Justice Ginsburg excelled academically and went to the top of her law school class at a time when women were still called upon to justify taking a man’s place. She earned a reputation as the legal embodiment of the women’s liberation movement and as a widely admired role model for generations of female lawyers.
SCOTUSblog: Statements from Supreme Court justices on the death of Justice Ginsburg
By Katie Bart
The eight members of the Supreme Court, along with retired Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, released statements on Saturday addressing the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg…
Chief Justice John Roberts:
Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her – a tireless and resolute champion of justice.
Justice Clarence Thomas:
My wife, Virginia, and I are heartbroken to learn of the passing of our friend, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ruth and I first met when I began my tenure on the D.C. Circuit in 1990. With the exception of the brief period between our respective appointments to the Supreme Court, we have since been judicial colleagues. Through the many challenges both professionally and personally, she was the essence of grace, civility and dignity. She was a superb judge who gave her best and exacted the best from each of us, whether in agreement or disagreement. And, as outstanding as she was as a judge, she was an even better colleague – unfailingly gracious, thoughtful, and civil.
Through her loss of her wonderful husband, Marty, and her countless health challenges, she was a picture of grace and courage. Not once did the pace and quality of her work suffer even as she was obviously suffering grievously. Nor did her demeanor toward her colleagues diminish.
The most difficult part of a long tenure is watching colleagues decline and pass away. And, the passing of my dear colleague, Ruth, is profoundly difficult and so very sad. I will dearly miss my friend.
Virginia and I will keep her family in our thoughts and prayers.
Wall Street Journal: Trump to Make Supreme Court Nomination Friday or Saturday
By Natalie Andrews
President Trump said he would nominate a Supreme Court pick on Friday or Saturday and has five women under consideration to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as Senate Republicans lined up behind him and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), rejecting Democrats’ calls to let the winner of the presidential election make the pick.
Mr. Trump maintained that the replacement of Justice Ginsburg, who died Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer at the age of 87, should happen swiftly. “We won the election and elections have consequences,” he said Monday morning on Fox News. “We have plenty of time.”
The president’s list has been narrowed to two leading candidates, according to people familiar with the matter: federal appellate judges Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, and Barbara Lagoa of the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.
The president said he has three other people to choose from, though declined to name them. He said he was looking for someone who is young and could serve on the court for a long time. “We’re looking for a good person.”
Wall Street Journal: Amy Coney Barrett Is Again a Top Contender for Supreme Court Nomination
By Brent Kendall
From the moment President Trump selected Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court in 2018, Judge Amy Coney Barrett became a front-runner for any future high court vacancy that might arise during his presidency.
Judge Barrett, 48, a member of the Chicago-based Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2017, has a reputation for possessing a first-rate legal mind and solidly conservative views.
“She’s very highly respected,” Mr. Trump said Saturday. The president said he planned to choose a woman to fill the seat vacated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday at the age of 87, and Judge Barrett is at the center of the conversation.
The president indicated he will review other candidates as well, including Judge Barbara Lagoa, a federal appellate judge who previously served on the Florida Supreme Court, the first Cuban-American to do so.
A finalist when Mr. Trump chose Justice Kavanaugh, Judge Barrett interviewed with the president in 2018 and impressed him and his advisers. But she also had been on the appellate bench less than a year after 15 years teaching law. That short experience, and the prospect that she could spark a particularly bitter confirmation fight over abortion rights in a closely divided Senate, were among the factors the White House considered at the time, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Courts
Wall Street Journal: WeChat Ban Blocked by Federal Judge in Ruling Against Trump Administration
By Sebastian Herrera Katy Stech Ferek
A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s executive order curbing Americans’ use of WeChat, upholding a motion from users of the popular Chinese-owned messaging and e-commerce app.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler entered an order Sunday for a preliminary injunction blocking the federal ban on U.S. downloads and other functions from going into force as scheduled for 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
The ruling is a victory for WeChat’s owner, Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., and the U.S. WeChat Users Alliance, the nonprofit organization representing several mobile app users that filed the motion against the Trump administration in August. The group, which has said it isn’t affiliated with Tencent, said it consists of users who rely on WeChat for business and personal reasons.
In her 22-page order, Judge Beeler agreed with free-speech arguments raised by the user groups, saying she is convinced that “there are no viable substitute platforms or apps for the Chinese-speaking and Chinese-American community.”
“WeChat is effectively the only means of communication for many in the community, not only because China bans other apps, but also because Chinese speakers with limited English proficiency have no options other than WeChat,” she said in the order.
New York Daily News: Brooklyn lawmaker got student suspended as revenge for public criticism: lawsuit
By Shant Shahrigian
Brooklyn Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo and Medgar Evers College colluded to punish a student for publicly criticizing the lawmaker, a federal lawsuit claims.
The day after a contentious community board meeting on April 30, 2019, when student Sakia Fletcher took issue with Cumbo’s stance on a local development project, the college suspended Fletcher without warning, the suit claims.
And when Medgar Evers held a disciplinary hearing, a Cumbo staffer asked that it be behind closed doors – part of the evidence, Fletcher claims, that she was punished at the urging of the Democratic pol who serves as Council majority leader.
“You should not be afraid to speak up,” Fletcher told the Daily News. “You should not be afraid to disagree and to challenge the status quo, to challenge our leaders, to feel like your voice matters in these rooms where they say you should not be.”
“That’s what the lawsuit is really about,” she added.
Congress
New York Times: What’s at Stake in This Election? The American Democratic Experiment
By Dan Coats
Our democracy’s enemies, foreign and domestic, want us to concede in advance that our voting systems are faulty or fraudulent; that sinister conspiracies have distorted the political will of the people; that our public discourse has been perverted by the news media and social networks riddled with prejudice, lies and ill will; that judicial institutions, law enforcement and even national security have been twisted, misused and misdirected to create anxiety and conflict…
The most urgent task American leaders face is to ensure that the election’s results are accepted as legitimate…
[Congress] should create a supremely high-level bipartisan and nonpartisan commission to oversee the election. This commission would not circumvent existing electoral reporting systems or those that tabulate, evaluate or certify the results. But it would monitor those mechanisms and confirm for the public that the laws and regulations governing them have been scrupulously and expeditiously followed – or that violations have been exposed and dealt with – without political prejudice and without regard to political interests of either party.
Also, this commission would be responsible for monitoring those forces that seek to harm our electoral system through interference, fraud, disinformation or other distortions. These would be exposed to the American people in a timely manner and referred to appropriate law enforcement agencies and national security entities.
FTC
Politico: FTC’s Slaughter on Trump EO
By Leah Nylen
[Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter] sat down with me Thursday for an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators…
– On Trump’s EO: Slaughter agrees with FTC Chair Joseph Simons that political speech is outside the agency’s purview. “We are not the political speech police,” she said. Slaughter said tech’s liability shield – Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – is an “important area to consider reform,” but she rejects the idea that the law requires companies to be viewpoint neutral.
– On targeted advertising: Two of Slaughter’s colleagues have proposed the FTC use its unique research authority to conduct a study on targeted advertising. “I think it is a good idea,” she said…
– My interview with Slaughter airs next Saturday, Sept. 26 on C-SPAN.
Media
The Hill: MSNBC: Trump endangering journalists, undermining freedoms with comments about Velshi
By Rebecca Klar
MSNBC said President Trump is endangering journalists and undermining freedoms after he told a crowd at a rally that it was a “beautiful sight” when one of the network’s anchors, Ali Velshi, was shot with a rubber bullet during a protest over the death of George Floyd.
“Freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy. When the president mocks a journalist for the injury he sustained while putting himself in harm’s way to inform the public, he endangers thousands of other journalists and undermines our freedoms,” MSNBC said in a statement Saturday.
The network’s statement was in response to comments the president made at a rally in Minnesota late Friday.
“I remember this guy Velshi,” Trump said. “He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas, and he went down. He was down. ‘My knee. My knee.’ Nobody cared. These guys didn’t care. They moved him aside.”
“And they just walked right through. It was the most beautiful thing,” Trump added. “After we take all that crap for weeks and weeks, and you finally see men get up there and go right through them, wasn’t it really a beautiful sight? It’s called law and order.” …
“So, @realDonaldTrump, you call my getting hit by authorities in Minneapolis on 5/30/20 (by a rubber bullet, btw, not a tear gas cannister) a ‘beautiful thing’ called ‘law and order’. What law did I break while covering an entirely peaceful (yes, entirely peaceful) march?” Velshi responded.
Online Speech Platforms
Wired: Democracy Will Only Work If the Social Media Giants Grow Up
By Ann Ravel
Protecting the 2020 election requires social media companies to act now.
To be sure, companies across Silicon Valley have taken some important steps. Facebook’s Voting Information Center, Twitter’s expansion of its civic integrity policy, and YouTube’s crackdown on videos using hacked materials are a strong start. But, as we saw in the wake of Trump’s “double voting” comments, their current actions don’t go nearly far enough. Unless platforms take additional, proactive steps soon, the United States will be caught flat-footed against disinformation and distrust-whether those seeds are planted by online trolls or the sitting president…
As Election Day nears, platforms should increase their efforts, including by growing their capacity to monitor electoral content, temporarily turning off harmful algorithms like Facebook Group recommendations that push users towards divisive content, and creating a Platform Poll Watchers program to serve as the first line of defense against disinformation. Just as election observers are deployed at the polls, social media companies would create specialized verification labels for state Election Directors and nonpartisan civil society groups, allowing them to promote credible information, flag specific pieces of misleading content, and counter-message false narratives in real time.
Platforms’ responsibilities don’t end when the polls close. The spread of disinformation as ballots are being counted has the potential to cause chaos and even incite violence.
Candidates and Campaigns
NYU Tandon School of Engineering: New Tool to Analyze Political Advertising on Facebook Reveals Massive Discrepancies in Party Spending on Presidential Contest
Transparency in political ads is vital to ensuring safe and fair elections, but transparency is difficult if advertisers are not required to disclose details about targeting and sources of funding. While TV broadcasters must disclose information about political ads to the public, Facebook, which is used by nearly 70% of Americans and is a source of news for many users, faces no such federal requirements.
Damon McCoy, professor of computer science and engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, and doctoral student Laura Edelson – the team behind the NYU Tandon Online Transparency Project – are bringing transparency to political advertising with the newly launched, first-of-its-kind tool NYU Ad Observatory.
Designed to help reporters, researchers, thought leaders, policy makers, and the general public easily analyze political ads on Facebook ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, the web-based tool allows users to search by state, as well as major political races, to identify trends in how ads are targeted to specific audiences and what messages are being used, who is funding each ad, and how much they are spending to disseminate them.
The States
WXXI: Connections: Is campaign finance misunderstood? (Audio)
By Evan Dawson and Megan Mack
When we talk about campaign finance, those in favor of reform say corporate money in politics threatens democracy. But two social scientists say the influence of cash in politics is misunderstood and reform is not a cure-all. University of Rochester professor David Primo and University of Missouri professor Jeffrey Milyo say despite what many Americans believe, super PAC spending doesn’t dominate campaigns. After analyzing decades of survey data from the public and experts, Primo and Milyo argue that changes in state-level campaign finance laws have little to no effect on attitudes toward government.
This hour, we talk about their research and their forthcoming book, “Campaign Finance and American Democracy: What the Public Really Thinks and Why it Matters.” Our guests:
- David Primo, Ani and Mark Gabrellian Professor of Political Science and Business Administration at the University of Rochester
Jeffrey Milyo, professor of political economics, law and economics, and health economics; and chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri
Lansing State Journal: A toilet and a sign: Statement or not, it may be illegal, Ingham County clerk contends
By Ken Palmer
A toilet perched on a front lawn, accompanied by a sign saying, “Place Mail In Ballots Here,” might be construed as a political statement of sorts.
However you interpret it, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said, it might be illegal.
“It’s solicitation of absentee ballots into a container,” Byrum said Friday evening. “Our election integrity is not a game. I expect everyone to act appropriately, and this is unacceptable.”
Byrum issued a statement with a photo of the display in Mason, saying she filed a police report about it with dispatchers on Monday.
Mason police contacted her on Wednesday and promised to call her after they’d spoken with the homeowner, she said.
Under Michigan election law, illegally taking possession of an absentee ballot is a felony punishable a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $1,000 fine, Byrum said. The statute language can be found here.
The display is set up in the front yard of a home on West Columbia Street near Mechanic Street…
In a telephone interview, Byrum noted that local clerks have received their initial shipment of absentee ballots, meaning it’s possible someone might have received their ballot and could put it into the front-yard receptacle.
