TeaPartyWire.com – Tea Party News by and for Tea Party Members

By Sam Baker and Jonathan Easley
The Hill
06/25/12 10:40 AM ET

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday tossed out most of Arizona’s controversial immigration law.

The court upheld the most controversial part of the law, which allows law enforcement officials to verify a person’s legal status when they’re stopped on suspicion of committing a separate offense.

But the court sided with the Obama administration on three of the four specific challenges, and said the “show me your papers” section could be challenged again when it is implemented.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, reading the majority opinion from the bench, said the requirement could not be invalidated now because the state has not have a chance to implement it. There is therefore no clear evidence that it conflicts with federal law, Kennedy said.

Although detaining people solely to check their immigration status would “raise constitutional concerns,” he said, the requirement “could be read to avoid these concerns.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor signed on to Kennedy’s decision.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito concurred in part and dissented in part.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case because she worked on immigration matters during her time as solicitor general.

The decision overall appears to be a victory for the Obama administration, which sued the Arizona Legislature over provisions of the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, known as SB 1070.

It argued that immigration law is foreign policy and therefore under federal, rather than state, jurisdiction.

Read more: The Hill

TV camera crew protect themselves from the sun during a stakeout at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington June 21, 2012 (Credit: REUTERS/Jose Luis Magana ).

Source: Reuters.com

By Joan Biskupic

Posted: June 24th, 2012

During a break from the crush of last-minute opinion-writing, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an audience of 1,000 people last week at a Washington legal convention: “It is flood season at the court.”

For the rest of the country it has been more like a drought, a stretch of weeks without any word in the most closely watched cases – the blockbuster challenges to President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan and Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

The immigration case was heard on April 25, the last day of oral arguments, the healthcare case over the course of three days a month before that. It seems the justices are going for maximum drama as they push these cliffhangers to the end of June. What’s more likely, as seasoned court-watchers know, is that justices are still ironing out the final details of resolutions to the most complex questions they have faced in decades.

Of the 60 signed rulings that have been handed down in the cases heard during arguments in the October-to-April term, many were reached by a unanimous or nearly unanimous vote. In the final days, Ginsburg told the group, “the sharp disagreement rate will go up.” She was speaking about what generally happens at the court – although it might have seemed she was letting slip a clue about the current deliberations.

Read More: Reuters.com

Source: WashingtonPost.com

By: Robert Barnes

May 21st, 2012

Has anything changed in the world of campaign finance that might give pause to the five members of the Supreme Court who decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission exactly 28 months ago Monday?

Or, to be more precise, has anything changed in the mind of at least one of them?

The court faces that question in a flurry of contradictory arguments prompted by a decision by the Montana Supreme Court late last year.

In upholding a 100-year-old state law, the Montana justices seemed to be openly defying Citizens United’s holding that the First Amendment grants corporations, and by extension labor unions, the right to spend unlimited amounts of their treasuries to support or oppose candidates.

The Supreme Court has already blocked the Montana decision, and the justices may simply set their counterparts in Helena straight by summarily reversing the finding.

But pressure is being applied — by members of Congress and nearly half the states, not to mention Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer — to at least let Montana make its argument.

Read More: WashingtonPost.com