Wisconsin Democracy Campaign: Wisconsin Supreme Court decision allows Department of Natural Resources board member Frederick Prehn to stay on, curtailing governor's power.
As (dissenting Justice Rebecca) Dallet explained, “Allowing Prehn to continue serving in office indefinitely makes him the final authority on whether he remains in office—not the legislature, which specified by statute that his term expired over 13 months ago, and not the governor, who the legislature gave the authority to nominate a replacement. One unelected official should not be able to dictate his term in office over the will of the people's elected representatives.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Supreme Court says conservation group has no standing to challenge Kohler Co. land swap for golf course. In dissent, Justice Jill Karofsky blasted the majority's "textualism" approach as a "rhetorical smokescreen obscuring a result-oriented analysis." Justices Rebecca Dallet and Ann Walsh Bradley joined the dissent. Slate: Effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision restricting Environmental Protection Agency authority. In yet another major blow to democratic constitutionalism, the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia v. EPA that the Clean Air Act does not give EPA authority to regulate the power grid as a whole. The decision will likely limit the EPA’s authority to address climate change across the board. But the issue is even broader. The opinion undermines the federal regulatory state that Congress has established—with the court’s blessing—over the past 200 years. Using a legal rule of its own invention that defies the intent of Congress, the court has struck at the heart of government agencies’ ability to protect the public. Slate: Why the end of the U.S. Supreme Court's term was even worse than you may have thought. Consider the issues that SCOTUS has resolved this term—the first full term with a 6–3 conservative supermajority. The constitutional right to abortion: gone. States’ ability to limit guns in public: gone. Tribal sovereignty against state intrusion: gone. Effective constraints around separation of church and state: gone. The bar on prayer in public schools: gone. Effective enforcement of Miranda warnings: gone. The ability to sue violent border agents: gone. The Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases at power plants: gone. Vast areas of the law, established over the course of decades, washed away by a court over a few months.... We barely had time to recover from West Virginia and Texas before the Supreme Court dropped the judicial equivalent of an atomic bomb. In its final orders list before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the court, it announced that it will hear Moore v. Harper next term. It is impossible to overstate the threat that Moore poses to American democracy. The case asks the court to adopt the “independent state legislature” theory, which holds that state legislatures have near-limitless power over their state’s election law. State courts are shut out, as are election boards and maybe even the governor. State constitutional limits on voter suppression, including gerrymandering, are void. Independent commissions tasked with redistricting are illegitimate. The Sacramento Bee: California Senate fails to pass anti-slavery amendment in time for November ballot. The amendment, which requires voter approval, would delete language in the constitution that bans forced labor, except as a form of punishment. Lawmakers can vote on the bill this year, but it would not go to voters until 2023 at the earliest. . . . Four states have removed language in their state constitution that appeared to have allowed slavery or involuntary servitude. The list includes Rhode Island in 1842, Colorado in 2018, and Nebraska and Utah in 2020. Voters in Oregon and Tennessee later this year are expected to consider similar measures. Marijuana Moment: Federal pardon attorney talks mass clemency for those with nonviolent cannabis offenses.
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