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High court: Rhode Island mail-in voters don't need witnesses
Attorney News |
2020/08/12 23:47
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday left in place an agreement that allows Rhode Island residents to vote by mail through November's general election without getting signatures from two witnesses or a notary.
State officials had agreed to suspend the witness requirement because of the coronavirus pandemic. They have said that fulfilling the requirement, which has been in place since at least 1978, results in close contact between voters and others, which could expose people to the virus.
The high court rejected an effort by the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Rhode Island to put the agreement on hold, noting that “no state official has expressed opposition.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the Republicans’ request.
Rhode Island allows voters to request to vote by mail for any reason, and the coronavirus has resulted in an enormous increase in mail-in voting. Nationwide, a surge in voting by mail is expected for the November general election because of the pandemic, and money to help the Postal Service process the anticipated increase has been a sticking point in talks for a virus relief package. President Donald Trump said Thursday he opposes additional funding.
Rhode Island is one of approximately a dozen states that require mail-in ballot envelopes to be signed by one or more witnesses or a notary. Republicans in Rhode Island argued that witness requirements deter voter fraud, though elections experts say voter fraud is rare. And they said the state is already allowing 20 days of early voting that will reduce the number of people who go to the polls on Election Day and has put in place other protections for voters and poll workers.
The case arose after Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, in April suspended the so-called two witness requirement for the state’s June 2 presidential primary.
In July, the American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit on behalf of Common Cause Rhode Island, the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island and others in an effort to extend the suspension.
State officials ultimately agreed to keep the requirement suspended for the Sept. 8 primary and Nov. 3 general election. Republicans objected, but a judge approved the agreement. |
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Justice Ginsburg says cancer has returned, but won’t retire
Attorney News |
2020/07/19 15:15
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer, but has no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.
The 87-year-old Ginsburg, who has had four earlier bouts with cancer including pancreatic cancer last year, said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing lesions on her liver and she will continue chemotherapy sessions every two weeks “to keep my cancer at bay.”
“I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that,” Ginsburg said in a statement issued by the court.
Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, is the senior liberal justice on a court that leans conservative by a 5-4 margin. Her departure before the election could give President Donald Trump the chance to shift the court further to the right.
Ginsburg’s history with cancer goes back more than 20 years. In addition to being treated without surgery for a tumor on her pancreas last year, she also underwent surgery for colorectal cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer in 2009 and lung cancer in December 2018.
Dr. Alan Venook, a pancreatic cancer specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who is not involved in Ginsburg’s care, said that “clearly, she’s got incurable disease now” because of the spread to her liver.
On average, patients with advanced pancreatic cancer live about a year, but the fact that her disease took so long to recur from her initial pancreatic cancer surgery in 2009 and previous treatments “suggests that it’s not been growing rapidly,” he said.
“She’s above average in many ways.” and has done remarkably well with all her treatments so far, Venook said. “There’s no reason to think she would die imminently.”
Asked earlier this week about a possible opening on the court before the election, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said the president would act quickly if any opening were to arise. Meadows commented after news that Ginsburg had left the hospital after receiving treatment for an infection, which she said Friday was unrelated to the cancer.
“I can’t imagine if he had a vacancy on the Supreme Court that he would not very quickly make the appointment and look for the Senate to take quick action,” Meadows said, adding that he didn’t want any comment to be seen as wishing Ginsburg “anything but the very best.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said that if there were to be a vacancy on the court during this year’s election cycle, the Republican-controlled Senate would likely confirm a nominee selected by Trump.
Ginsburg said she was disclosing her cancer treatment now because she is satisfied “that my treatment course is now clear.”
Venook said the chemotherapy drug Ginsburg said she is getting, gemcitabine, is one that’s often used. Immunotherapy, which Ginsburg’s statement said she tried unsuccessfully, has not worked well for pancreatic cancer, Venook said.
Ginsburg said a medical scan in February revealed growths on her liver and she began chemotherapy in May.
“My most recent scan on July 7 indicated significant reduction of the liver lesions and no new disease,” she said. “I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment.” |
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Supreme Court upholds cellphone robocall ban
Attorney News |
2020/07/07 17:08
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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a 1991 law that bars robocalls to cellphones.
The case, argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, only arose after Congress in 2015 created an exception in the law that allowed the automated calls for collection of government debt.
Political consultants and pollsters were among those who asked the Supreme Court to strike down the entire 1991 law that bars them from making robocalls to cellphones as a violation of their free speech rights under the Constitution. The issue was whether, by allowing one kind of speech but not others, the exception made the whole law unconstitutional.
Six justices agreed that by allowing debt collection calls to cellphones Congress “impermissibly favored debt-collection speech over political and other speech, in violation of the First Amendment,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote. And seven justices agreed that the 2015 exception should be stricken from the law.
“Americans passionately disagree about many things. But they are largely united in their disdain for robocalls,” Kavanaugh noted at the outset of his opinion.
During arguments in the case in May, Justice Stephen Breyer got cut off when someone tried calling him. Breyer said after he rejoined the court’s arguments: “The telephone started to ring, and it cut me off the call and I don’t think it was a robocall.”
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High court won't hear abortion clinic 'buffer zone' cases
Attorney News |
2020/07/03 04:42
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The Supreme Court on Thursday turned away pleas from anti-abortion activists to make it easier for them to protest outside clinics, declining to wade back into the abortion debate just days after striking down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics.
The justices said in a written order that they would not hear cases from Chicago and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where anti-abortion activists had challenged ordinances that restrict their behavior outside clinics.
As is usual, the justices did not comment in turning away the cases. The order from the court noted Justice Clarence Thomas would have heard the Chicago case.
The Supreme Court has since the late 1990s heard several cases involving demonstration-free zones, called buffer zones, outside abortion clinics. Most recently, in 2014, the justices unanimously struck down a law that created a 35-foot protest-free zone outside Massachusetts abortion clinics. The court said Massachusetts’ law, which made it a crime to stand in the protest-free zone for most people not entering or exiting the clinic or passing by, was an unconstitutional restraint on the free-speech rights of protesters.
On Thursday, one of the two cases the court declined to take up involved an ordinance passed by the city counsel in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital, in 2012 that made it illegal to “congregate, patrol, picket or demonstrate” in a zone 20 feet from a health care facility. Anti-abortion activists sued, arguing that the ordinance violates their free speech rights. Lower courts have upheld the ordinance, however, ruling it doesn't apply to “sidewalk counseling,” where individuals who oppose abortion offer assistance and information about alternatives to abortion to those entering a clinic. |
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Supreme Court doesn’t wade into Texas mail-in voting battle
Attorney News |
2020/06/27 16:56
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request by Texas Democrats to allow all of the state’s 16 million registered voters to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.
The denial is not the end of the ongoing battle over mail-in voting in Texas, but it remains a loss for Democrats who made the emergency ruling request while the original case is tied up at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor urged the lower court to consider the case “well in advance of the November election.” Voting by mail in Texas is generally limited to those 65 or older or those with a “sickness or physical condition” that prevents voting in person.
For months, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has fought expanding mail-in balloting during the pandemic, saying fear of contracting the virus is an insufficient reason. A federal judge in Texas sided with Democrats in May, but that decision is on hold pending appeal.
Early voting in Texas begins Monday for primary runoff elections that had been postponed to July over coronavirus fears, but Texas is now one of the nation’s coronavirus hotspots as confirmed cases reach record levels and Gov. Greg Abbott reimposes restrictions.
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