Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is vowing to bring no “agenda” to the court, batting back senators’ questions Tuesday on abortion, gun rights and the November election, insisting she would take a conservative approach to the law but decide cases as they come.
Indiana Democrats are targeting the state attorney general’s race as their best chance to break the stranglehold Republicans have over state government.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett declared Monday that Americans “deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written,” encapsulating her conservative approach to the law that has Republicans excited about the prospect of her taking the place of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before Election Day.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has given parties just days to file briefs in an expedited appeal over a state law requiring election officials to receive absentee ballots by noon on Election Day. The court’s fast track positions it to rule on the matter just weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, while it issued a sharply divided opinion Thursday upholding a somewhat similar law in a Wisconsin case.
The Supreme Court might prefer to avoid politics, but politics has a way of finding the court.
Vice President Mike Pence faced considerable pressure at Wednesday’s debate to boost coronavirus-stricken President Donald Trump’s flagging reelection hopes, while California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris balanced her role as Joe Biden’s validator with her own historic presence as the first Black woman on a major party national ticket.
Indiana’s attorney general candidates are divided over how the Republican governor has used the state’s emergency powers law to impose a mask mandate and other coronavirus-related executive orders that have stirred discord among conservative voters.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling on the Justice Department to provide any missing materials from a questionnaire completed by Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Confirmation hearings for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge and Notre Dame law professor remain scheduled to begin next week.
The effort to allow all Hoosiers to vote by absentee ballot in the November presidential election has been blocked by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals which, in an echo of the state’s argument, found Election Day is too close to make any changes now. In a separate case, a judge temporarily stayed pending appeal an order blocking an Indiana law that requires absentee ballots be received by noon to be counted.
Democratic former Evansville Mayor and lawmaker Jonathan Weinzapfel said if elected attorney general, his actions would be based on policy, not politics, and Hoosiers’ best interests. Read Weinzapfel’s recent Q&A with Indiana Lawyer’s sibling publication, the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Republican former Congressman and Secretary of State Todd Rokita vows to continue a conservative approach but would emphasize partnerships if elected attorney general. Read what Rokita had to say in a recent Q&A with Indiana Lawyer’s sibling publication, the Indianapolis Business Journal.
The United States Supreme Court, already poised to take a significant turn to the right, opened its new term Monday with a jolt from two conservative justices who raised new criticism of the court’s embrace of same-sex marriage.
Attorney General Curtis Hill’s office is appealing a judge’s ruling that absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 must be counted. Meanwhile, the state acknowledged in its filing that election officials are taking steps to count those ballots if the judge’s order stands.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill could face a big bill from the disciplinary case stemming from allegations that he groped a state lawmaker and three other women during a party. The disciplinary commission has asked the Indiana Supreme Court to order Hill to pay more than $50,000 in costs related to the ethics investigation that resulted in his 30-day suspension.
The Supreme Court opens Monday a new term with Republicans on the cusp of realizing a dream 50 years in the making, a solid conservative majority that might roll back abortion rights, expand gun rights and shrink the power of government.
President Donald Trump was hoping for a Monday discharge from the military hospital where he is being treated for COVID-19, a day after he briefly ventured out while contagious to salute cheering supporters by motorcade in a move that disregarded precautions meant to contain the deadly virus that has killed more than 209,000 Americans.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett signed a 2006 newspaper ad sponsored by an anti-abortion group in which she said she opposed “abortion on demand” and defended “the right to life from fertilization to the end of natural life.”
During oral argument in the dispute over Indiana’s restrictions on absentee voting, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals panel focused on Hoosier voters by asking which of the proposed remedies would cause the least confusion and what remedies are currently available to the electorate.
President Donald Trump’s stark expectation that the Supreme Court will intervene to “look at the ballots” in what he calls a rigged election cast new questions Wednesday on the Senate’s rush to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the vacant seat before Nov. 3.
Indiana’s prohibition against no-excuse absentee voting goes before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday afternoon, with the plaintiffs trying to convince the appellate panel to reverse the district judge’s ruling and allow all registered Hoosier voters to cast their ballots by mail in the Nov. 3 presidential election. The federal appeals court will livestream oral arguments in the case.