Kids suing the government over climate change aren’t giving up
More Of This
After a federal judge dismissed a landmark climate lawsuit filed by 18 California children against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the youth plaintiffs plan to amend and resubmit their allegations, their attorneys say.
The children — who have lost homes in wildfires, suffered health problems from breathing polluted air, missed weeks of education due to climate change-related school closures and been forced to ration tap water due to unprecedented droughts — sued the EPA for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by allowing pollution from burning fossil fuels to continue despite knowing the harm it poses to kids.
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The secretive legal network that took down Roe v Wade
Stay Vigilant
It happened almost by accident, over cocktails. Exactly the kind of accident that Leonard Leo intended to happen at his Federalist Society’s annual conference — a three-day gathering of the conservative tribe and a strategy session for right-wing lawyers, officials and judges that drew both big names and those who had lower profiles but were no less ambitious.
Nine days after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the halls of the Mayflower Hotel, just blocks from the White House, were adorned with twinkling Christmas lights and abuzz with the possibilities of a future that had changed overnight. Hillary Clinton, the woman the anti-abortion movement feared more than perhaps anyone, had failed to win the presidency. And Leo and the conservative legal movement that he worked for years to create were about to reclaim power. With that power would come the chance to do what seemed unthinkable until this moment: strategize to take down Roe v. Wade.
For more than 40 years, a passionate band of conservative and mostly Christian activists tried to find ways to undermine the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion and revolutionized America. But they had been losing.
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On the 70th anniversary of Brown v Board, Justice Thomas says it was a bad decision
Less Of This
The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision on Thursday in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP is a devastating blow to the fight against racial gerrymandering. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the conservative supermajority guts a series of precedents that guarded against racist redistricting, granting state legislatures sweeping new authority to sort their residents between districts on the basis of skin color.
And yet, as bad as Alito’s opinion was, it didn’t go far enough for Justice Clarence Thomas, who penned a solo concurrence demanding a radical move: The Supreme Court, he argued, should overrule every precedent that limits gerrymandering—including the landmark cases establishing “one person, one vote”—because it has no constitutional power to redraw maps in the first place. And he places much of the blame for the court’s allegedly illegitimate intrusion into redistricting on a surprising culprit: Brown v. Board of Education.
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Federal Judge has some advice for SCOTUS Justices
Speaking Of...
Judge Michael Ponsor is a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 after serving 10 years as a federal magistrate judge.
The controversy about the decision to fly an upside-down American flag outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito recalls St. Paul’s admonition that while some things may be lawful, “not all things are helpful.”
I can offer no opinion as to whether the flag display at the justice’s house was unlawful. I won’t even opine whether my flying the flag upside-down at my house would have constituted a violation of the code of ethics that binds me and all federal judges — except the justices.
To me, the flag issue is much simpler. The fact is that, regardless of its legality, displaying the flag in that way, at that time, shouldn’t have happened. To put it bluntly, any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then and in that way was improper. And dumb.
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A Dark Comedy about the Nonprofit sector
Special Theater promotion for ChangeLawyers
Shotgun Players presents Best Available, A New Play Written by Jonathan Spector · Directed by Jon Tracy
“City Repertory Theater company launches a search for a new artistic director. Who is the best available candidate? Rising star and hometown hero Jonathan Spector interviewed dozens of theater makers to create this satirical tale. This play is especially for anyone who loves theater or who wants to peek behind the curtain and see the underbelly of show business. Some subjects are much too serious to be dramas.”
Tickets & Info >
Transgender Law Center hiring Legal Fellow
The position is within the Border Butterflies project and will provide direct legal support to LGBTQ asylum seekers living in the United States.
The Border Butterflies Project aims to support LGBTQ asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border with legal, humanitarian, post-detention, and organizing support. This position, which can be performed remotely anywhere throughout California, will be hosted by Transgender Law Center.
Apply >
