Everything you need to know about ranked-choice voting in one spot. Click to learn more!

Bold Justice: December 18, 2017

From Ballotpedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Bold Justice: News for the New Year

The Supreme Court is quiet until 2018, so we’re here to wrap up the year and look ahead to what’s coming up next!

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t hearing any arguments or issuing new orders. Check out other news from around the country and read about a election you oughta know, coming up next year. Let’s go!

News around the courts

  • Democrats in North Carolina went to court to try to preserve the state’s judicial primaries. Judicial selection in North Carolina is set to change with the 2018 election. Over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law eliminating judicial primaries in the state. Democrats argued that the elimination of the primaries violates the constitutional right to association--that is, the right of party members to choose their own candidates. Before the legislation passed, candidate filing deadlines for primaries were scheduled for February. As it stands, candidates will begin filing for the November 2018 general election in June 2018. No matter the outcome of the Democrats’ lawsuit, North Carolina’s elections in 2018 will be partisan for the first time since 2004. Legislation changing the elections from nonpartisan to partisan was passed in 2016.
  • The White House announced it would not move forward with its nomination of Brett Talley to a seat on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. It was also reported that the White House had decided not to move forward with the nomination of Jeff Mateer to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. On December 13, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley publicly urged the White House to reconsider Talley and Mateer’s nominations. Grassley's spokesperson stated, "Chairman Grassley has been concerned about statements made by nominees Mateer and Talley, and he’s conveyed those concerns to the White House." Grassley did not specify which statements he was referring to. It was previously reported that Talley had failed to disclose his wife's position in the Trump administration on his nomination paperwork.
  • Talley's nomination was approved by the Judiciary Committee on Nov. 9. He was one of four Trump nominees who was rated not qualified by the American Bar Association (ABA). Mateer, who received a "Substantial Majority Qualified, Minority Not Qualified" rating from the ABA, was awaiting a hearing before the Judiciary Committee. The ABA's ratings have been the subject of controversy in recent months. Opponents argued that the ABA is a partisan advocacy organization and that their ratings system is politically-motivated. Senator Ben Sasse argued that the ABA’s system was “advocacy disguised as objective analysis.” Proponents argued that the ABA acted as a neutral evaluator. Senator Dianne Feinstein argued that the ABA's rating was "the one legally-oriented counsel that we get." You can read more about the ABA ratings controversy here.
  • Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied the Trump administration’s request to delay her earlier injunction against denying admission to transgender individuals into the military. On Monday, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia denied the Trump administration’s request to delay her October 30 order blocking implementation of the administration’s memo regarding transgender people and military enlistment. On August 25, 2017, President Donald Trump signed a presidential memo instructing the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to prevent transgender people from enlisting in the military and requested that the department develop a plan to implement the ban by March 23, 2018. The memo also directed the DoD to stop paying for gender reassignment surgeries, unless the surgeries were already in progress. Trump directed Secretary of Defense James Mattis to decide how to handle transgender people currently serving in the armed forces.
  • Kollar-Kotelly ordered that transgender recruits be allowed to join the military beginning January 1, 2018. In response to the ruling, the Justice Department filed an emergency request with a Washington, D.C.-based federal appeals court asking to keep the ban in place.

An election you oughta know

This week, we’re highlighting a 2018 judicial race you oughta know: the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Current Justice Michael Gableman, whose term on the court expires July 31, 2018, has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2018, creating the first open race for the court since 2007. Currently, the partisan balance of the court is 5-2 with a majority of conservative justices. At the moment, three candidates (2 leaning liberal, 1 leaning conservative) have announced that they are running to fill the seat. The partisan balance will remain the same or narrow to 4-3 depending on outcome. Liberal justices have not held a majority on the court since the 2008 election won by Gableman. If the current candidate list holds, it would be the fourth time in the last nine SSC elections in Wisconsin that required a primary (2016, 2013, and 2011). The filing deadline for candidates is January 5, 2016. The primary election will take place on February 20, 2018, and the general election will take place on April 3, 2018.

Following the 2010 statewide elections, in which Republican Gov. Scott Walker was elected and Republicans won majorities in both legislative chambers, races for Wisconsin Supreme Court seats drew state and national attention. In 2015, challenger James Daley (conservative-leaning) and incumbent Justice Ann Walsh Bradley (liberal-leaning) sparred over the influence of the Republican Party on Daley's behalf. Bradley won re-election while voters also passed a ballot measure to change selection of the court's chief justice from seniority to election by the court's members. Longtime Justice Shirley Abrahamson (liberal-leaning) was the chief justice at the time and sued to block the amendment's implementation. The lawsuit was rejected and the amendment took effect, allowing the conservative majority to choose a different chief. Currently, 24 states choose a chief justice by peer vote and six choose a chief justice by seniority, although several states that use the peer vote method elect the most senior judge by tradition.

Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are selected through nonpartisan election for terms of 10 years. At the end of each judge's term, he or she must run for re-election to continue serving. Wisconsin holds judicial elections in April. While Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are nonpartisan, Ballotpedia collects information about the political affiliations of judges in order to provide insight into court decisions.

Thirty-two states will hold state supreme court elections in 2018. In total, 74 of the 344 seats on state supreme courts are up for election. Ballotpedia covers judicial selection in all 50 states. Learn more about state court selection here.

We #SCOTUS, so you don’t have to

The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear arguments in any cases this week. As of 9 a.m. Friday, the court has agreed to hear arguments in 55 cases so far this term; of those 55, the court has heard arguments in 25 cases. SCOTUS typically adds more cases throughout the term. In its previous term, SCOTUS heard arguments in 71 cases. The court will continue to hear arguments in cases this term through April of 2018 and will continue to consider new appeals.

SCOTUS trivia

Currently, there are nine seats on the U.S. Supreme Court. But that hasn’t always been the case. Your question: When the supreme court was first created, how many seats did it have?

Choose an answer to find out!

Federal court action

Confirmations Last week, the U.S. Senate confirmed three additional nominees. As of December 15, the Senate had confirmed 19 of President Trump’s judicial nominees.

Nominations President Trump did not submit any judicial nominations to the U.S. Senate last week.

Vacancies As of November 29, 2017, there were 144 vacancies in the federal judiciary out of 870 Article III life-term judicial positions. Of the 144 vacancies, 100 have had no nominee put forth yet. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and other outlets, an additional 21 judges have announced their intention to leave active judicial status during Trump's first term. Including the three nominees who were confirmed this week but have yet to receive their commissions, there are 44 pending nominations to life-term, Article III judicial positions. Check out the chart below to see vacancies of four years or more: center|500px

Committee action

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is not scheduled to hold any hearings. Last week, the Committee conducted nomination hearings for six judicial nominees:

Love judicial nomination, confirmation, and vacancies information? We figured. Our monthly Federal Vacancy Count, which is published on the last Wednesday of every month, monitors all of the faces, places, and spaces moving in, moving out, and moving on in the federal judiciary.

Or, if you prefer, we maintain a list of individuals nominated by President Trump.

A judge you oughta know

Every week, we at Ballotpedia want to highlight a federal judge or judicial nominee. We’re in our review of President Donald Trump’s list of 25 individuals from which he indicated he would choose nominees to fill Supreme Court vacancies. This week, let’s get to know Steven Colloton, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Colloton, a native of Iowa, served as associate independent counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel under Kenneth Starr from 1995 to 1996.

Looking ahead

We’ll see you in three weeks to #SCOTUS in 2018!

  • The Supreme Court’s next scheduled conference is January 5, 2018.
  • The Supreme Court’s first arguments in 2018 will be held on January 8.

Why subscribe to Bold Justice?

Stay on top of the whirlwind world of the federal judiciary


Need to stay on top of the whirlwind world of the federal judiciary of the United States?

Join us, counsel, as we lay the foundation for what happened this week in the world of federal courts. Our record will reflect the cases SCOTUS heard, which judges retired, which were nominated, and what important rulings come out of other federal courts. Call us as your next witness and get the most in-depth coverage of federal courts available to your inbox. Subscribe for free today.

Ballotpedia has been providing new areas of coverage, performing in-depth analyses, and developing new tools to help keep our readers in the know since 2006. This is one more resource to keep you informed—one that can be delivered to your inbox once a week.







Archive

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017


Why Bold Justice?

Well, there’s a story behind it, and we’re happy to credit Justice Samuel Alito for the inspiration. Back in October of 2014, Justice Alito joined his fellow Supreme Court Yale Law alumni, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, for a panel as part of the law school’s alumni weekend (video below). During the discussion, the moderator asked the audience if they could guess which of the three justices on the panel served as the inspiration for a coffee house to name one of their blends of coffee, Bold Justice. Justice Alito responded, “Obviously, it’s me.”

He went on to tell the story of how, during his days as a Third Circuit judge, his law clerks participated in a Newark, New Jersey, coffee shop’s year-long promotion wherein if customers sampled every blend for one year, the customers could then create and name a blend of coffee. Justice Alito described Bold Justice as a blend that was “designed for about three o’clock in the afternoon if you’re working and you’re starting to fall asleep, if you have this, it will jolt you awake.” A blend of courts and coffee: sounds perfect to us!

v • e
Ballotpedia-Logo-UPDATED-white background.jpg
Ballotpedia coverage by project
Federal
State
Local
Policy
News
Indexes


Retrieved from "https://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bold_Justice:_December_18,_2017&oldid=8438582"