Former NRA lobbyist was ‘disgusted’ by Wayne LaPierre’s spending habits

MANHATTAN (CN) — A former top lobbyist for the National Rifle Association said Thursday that he was “disgusted” to learn that the group’s longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre put more than $250,000 in luxury clothing expenses on the NRA’s tab.

Christopher Cox was once viewed as the likely successor to LaPierre. He ran the NRA’s lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) from 2002 to 2019. During that time, he was effectively second-in-command behind LaPierre, and was one of the most recognizable faces at the NRA.

But on Thursday, Cox testified against his former employer in New York’s civil case against LaPierre and the NRA. New York Attorney General Letitia James is accusing LaPierre of using the NRA as his own “personal piggy bank,” drawing funds from various arms of the nonprofit to back personal expenses. 

Cox on Thursday recalled discovering that LaPierre was running expenses through the ILA. As the ILA’s executive director, he asked a peer to review those expenses. He was denied.

“Nobody sees those,” Cox claimed he was told. 

LaPierre’s errant spending habits created an “unhealthy” relationship with the NRA’s outside PR firm, the Oklahoma-based Ackerman McQueen, Cox claimed. LaPierre is accused of using Ackerman McQueen to book flights, vacations and other personal expenses, then paying them back using the NRA’s donor money.

“I believe it was untouchable and unhealthy,” Cox said of LaPierre’s unquestioned relationship with the firm.

Cox claimed that he routinely clashed with Ackerman McQueen over the firm’s work with the NRA. At the time, he said he couldn’t understand why LaPierre was so steadfast in backing their projects, which Cox called “arrogant” and “tone-deaf.”

“I thought Ackerman McQueen was not strategic in their messaging,” Cox told the court. “I thought they overcharged for the product they were delivering… I don’t think anyone battled with that agency more than I did.”

When Cox voiced these concerns, he said LaPierre shut them down vehemently. 

“I’ve only heard Wayne LaPierre use profanity twice,” Cox said, claiming that both were times that he questioned Ackerman McQueen’s work.

Cox and LaPerre didn’t always see eye-to-eye when it came to strategy. Seven years before he resigned, Cox reportedly urged the NRA to take a subtler approach to gun advocacy following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. LaPierre opted for a different route and pushed for armed security guards in schools. 

“I didn’t always agree,” Cox testified, which he said was okay at the time. “But I started to have questions and growing concerns, particularly over the final two years, that ultimately led to my departure in 2019.”

Cox said the lack of financial compliance started to bother him. He said he was unsettled to learn of LaPierre’s yacht trips and vacations from NRA vendor David McKenzie.

“It’s inappropriate to accept things of value from vendors,” Cox said.

He added that he knew LaPierre tended to fly private. Despite the defense’s claims that LaPierre did so for safety, Cox didn’t buy it.

“I think this was something that was not necessary for the betterment of the NRA,” Cox said.

But in 2019, reports started to circulate that LaPierre had billed more than $250,000 in luxury clothing to the NRA.

“It was one of the final straws for me,” Cox said. “I was floored. I was extremely disgusted.”

Cox claimed that he drafted his letter of resignation that same morning. 

“I was tired of the infighting,” he said. “I was tired of just the overall chaos.”

Before he officially resigned, Cox was placed on administrative leave over accusations that he was attempting a coup against LaPierre. Cox said he was “devastated.”

“I was so pissed off,” Cox said. “I never had any intention of running against Wayne LaPierre. It was absurd.”

Cox said that, initially, he did expect to eventually replace LaPierre. As their relationship soured, however, Cox said that those aspirations waned.

“He kept saying, ‘You’re the future of the organization, you’re going to take over,’” Cox said.

LaPierre was largely responsible for moving the NRA farther to the political right. Prior to his leadership, the organization was not inherently a political one, and focused more on general gun safety and advocacy. Cox said he hoped to make the organization less polarizing if given the reins. 

“I was not going to go out and throw red meat underserved to the American people,” he said Thursday. “I thought I could do it in a way that was not so controversial.”

But LaPierre didn’t resign until earlier this month, more than four years after Cox left and just days before the civil corruption trial was set to begin. Cox now runs his own government consulting firm out of Alexandria, Virginia. He’ll return to the witness stand on Friday to finish his testimony.

from Courthouse News

Biden brings congressional leaders to White House at pivotal time for Ukraine aid and US border deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has convened top congressional leaders at the White House to press for his $110 billion national security package at a pivotal time as senators narrow on a landmark immigration deal that could unlock the stalled aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.

The sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate leaders, including the chairmen of influential national security committees, could make or break the political trade-off that has been simmering for weeks as lawmakers have failed, so far, to reach a compromise over Biden’s broader aid package.

Ahead of the meeting, Johnson, in a first big test of his new speakership, said he needs to see “transformative” changes to restrict the record number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of any deal for the overseas wars.

“I will tell the president that I’ve been seeing it consistently since the moment I was handed the gavel,” said Johnson, R-La.

“The border is a catastrophe. It has to be addressed. And you’re gonna see House Republicans standing and fighting on that Hill,” he said.

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Biden is convening the lawmakers at the start of an election year when border security and the wars abroad are punctuating the race for the White House as he faces a potential rematch against Republican Donald Trump with control of the presidency and Congress all at stake.

It comes as Congress is about to quickly approve temporary funding to avoid a government shutdown, postponing the annual spending battles, but as the supplemental aid package sits undone during the immigration and border talks.

The White House called the meeting with lawmakers — including Johnson, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., — to focus on Biden’s national security supplemental request, and particularly the need to help Ukraine.

“Today’s meeting is about Ukraine,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “That’s what we’re going to focus on in this discussion.”

Biden, a longtime leader in U.S. foreign policy, finds himself confronting a new generation of Republican lawmakers who have little interest in engaging abroad or supporting vast American military aid or actions around the world.

Led by Trump, the former president who is the GOP’s front-runner for the nomination, a growing number of the Republicans in Congress are particularly hostile to helping Ukraine fight Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who along with U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met this week with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Davos, said Washington is determined to keep supporting Ukraine, and “we’re working very closely with Congress in order to do that.”

Ahead of the meeting, McConnell announced the package could be ready for a vote as soon as next week, and Schumer sounded a similarly optimistic note — though negotiations continue.

Johnson, since taking the gavel in October, signaled he personally believes in supporting Ukraine as it works to expel Russia. He met privately with Zelenskyy during the Ukrainian president’s whirlwind tour of Washington last month seeking aid before the year-end holidays.

But the speaker leads an ambivalent House GOP majority that wants to extract its own priorities on the U.S.-Mexico border in exchange for any overseas support.

The speaker has insisted any border security deal must align with the House-passed strict border security bill. He told lawmakers in a private meeting over the weekend that they could probably get their priorities enacted with a Republican president, though the speaker did not mean that to preclude not taking action now, said a Republican leadership aide familiar with the call.

But senators, even fellow Republicans, say the House approach is a nonstarter that would never find the bipartisan backing in both chambers needed for approval.

Instead, a core group of senators led by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma has been meeting privately for weeks with Biden’s top advisers, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to develop a border security package that could actually be signed into law.

Lankford told reporters late Tuesday that he hopes to prepare bill text as negotiations try to wrap up soon.

McConnell told GOP senators privately last week they should take the deal Lankford is producing, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the closed meeting.

“This is a unique moment in time,” said the No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.

“It’s an opportunity to get some really conservative border policy that we haven’t been able to get for 40 years,” he said. “And so we’ll see. I mean, it may or may not happen, but I think you got to take a run at it.”

The broader security package includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, which is mainly used to purchase U.S. weaponry to fight the war and to shore up its own government operations, along with some $14.5 billion for Israel, about $14 billion for border security and additional funds for other security needs.

Biden opened the door to a broader U.S.-Mexico border security package late last year and the changes being discussed could be difficult for some Democrats who oppose strict restrictions on immigration.

Schumer said negotiations over the border security package have made progress in recent weeks and he was “hopeful that things are headed in the right direction.”

Schumer said he expects the meeting with Biden will reinforce that the national security package is urgent and “any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have support from both sides of the aisle.”

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By LISA MASCARO and SEUNG MIN KIM Associated Press

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

from Courthouse News

Transgender teens appeal to 10th Circuit for access to gender-affirming care in Oklahoma

DENVER (CN) — Transgender teenagers asked the 10th Circuit on Wednesday to overturn a lower court’s order and block an Oklahoma law preventing them from accessing gender-affirming care recommended by their doctors and approved by their parents.

“One need only read the declaration from Brandon Boe’s parents to see how parents grapple with it, but ultimately it is the parents’ decision,” argued Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, on behalf of the families. Boe is the pseudonym of one of the teens who brought the case.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed SB613 on May 1, 2023, banning access to gender-affirming care for minors whose gender identity differs from their biological sex. Doctors who violate the law face felony charges and discipline from the state licensing board.

The law was one of 84 considered by state legislatures last year limiting access to medical care and other aspects of society for transgender people.

The treatment is prescribed specifically to transgender people suffering from anxiety and depression triggered by gender dysphoria.

Five anonymous transgender children and teens between 12 and 17 who thrived under the treatment sued the state, along with their parents and a medical provider.

U.S. District Judge John Heil III, a Federalist Society associate appointed by Trump to Oklahoma federal court, denied an injunction to the youth in October, prompting an appeal.

“This is a sex-based classification on its face,” Gonzalez-Pagan argued. “The state can regulate medical care, but they must justify that sex-based classification. This is a situation where puberty blockers can be provided to any group except these.”

U.S. Circuit Judge Harris Hartz grappled with the idea that a law could discriminate on sex if it treated young men and women equally. Hartz, a George W. Bush appointee, pulled guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which reversed decadeslong precedent protecting a woman’s access to an abortion.

“There’s a statement in the recent decision of Dobbs which I think you just wrote off without addressing,” Hartz said. “The undergoing of a procedure only one sex can undergo doesn’t automatically trigger heightened scrutiny unless the regulation is a mere pretext, etcetera, and that’s what we’re talking about here — you can’t remove the testicles from a woman.”

Gonzales-Pagan clarified that the issue was mainly of accessing hormonal treatment, not surgery.

U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Phillips, appointed by Obama, followed up on the question of Dobbs’ guidance.

“Under each law, no minor can obtain hormones or puberty blockers to transition to another sex,” Phillips said. “It’s an across-the-board regulation — it’s not saying only boys or only girls can get it, so help me to understand.”

Gonzales-Pagan explained the Oklahoma law discriminates between cis-gender and transgender youth, treating someone born male who identifies as male and is seeking testosterone treatment differently from someone born female who identifies as male and is also seeking testosterone treatment.

“Here no procedure is banned for everybody. Here it is not banning the provision of hormones for everybody, here it is banning that care solely for a particular group: when a minor has a gender inconsistent with their birth sex,” Gonzales-Pagan explained. “Here gender transition and the ability to transition to another gender is a proxy.”

In several instances, Hartz grappled with the weight of the decision in the court’s hands.

“This is a real difficult issue, because you have kids who are suffering greatly and you don’t want to do permanent harm to them, and each side thinks it is preventing permanent harm to the child,” Hartz said.

Turning to Oklahoma state attorney Garry Gaskins II, Hartz asked why parents shouldn’t be trusted to make the decision for their children.

“The Legislature doesn’t think minors can make these decisions, but there are many decisions that are made of minors that have that effect — religion and schooling — so why isn’t the parent allowed to exercise that authority?” Hartz asked.

Gaskins urged the court to respect the democratic process of the state Legislature.

“Federal courts must resist the temptation to substitute their views for the will of the Legislature,” Gaskins said. “Sound government usually benefits from more rather than less debate, from more rather than less input, from more fair-minded polices than less.”

Dozens of states submitted amicus briefs both in support of and against the law. New York actor Elliot Page led an amicus brief alongside dozens of other transgender professionals and scholars in defense of the treatment. The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with dozens of other medical organizations, also issued a brief in support of the treatment.

To date, the Sixth Circuit and the 11th Circuit have sided with states laws banning gender-affirming care for minors, while the Ninth Circuit recently decided to take up the issue en banc.

U.S. Circuit Judge Joel Carson, appointed by Trump, rounded out the panel but did not speak during the hearing.

The hearing was held in a packed courtroom at the Byron White U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver and broadcast to 76 viewers via YouTube. The court did not indicate when or how it would decide the case.

from Courthouse News

Why ‘viability’ is dividing the abortion rights movement

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Reproductive rights activists in Missouri agree they want to get a ballot measure before voters this fall to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and ensure access. The sticking point is how far they should go.

The groups have been at odds over whether to include a provision that would allow the state to regulate abortions after the fetus is viable, a concession supporters of the language say will be needed to persuade voters in the conservative state.

It’s a divide that’s not limited to Missouri.

Advocates say the disagreements there and in other states where activists are planning abortion rights measures this year have resurfaced long-brewing ruptures among reproductive rights advocates. The divisions are most acute in Republican-leaning or closely divided states, where some worry that failing to include limits related to viability will sink the measures.

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The conflict has been especially sharp in Missouri, where dueling strategies have complicated efforts to push ahead with a ballot measure seeking to reinstate the right to abortion.

“The movement is grappling with its value system,” said Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, the Kansas City-based vice president of communications for the National Institute for Reproductive Health, which opposes viability clauses.

Viability is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. It’s generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy but has shifted downward with medical advances. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes viability language in legislation or regulations.

Some say it creates an arbitrary dividing line and stigmatizes abortions later in pregnancy, which are exceedingly rare and usually the result of serious complications, such as fetal anomalies, that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a constitutional right to abortion but also created a framework that allowed states to regulate abortions at certain points during pregnancy. Since the current court overturned it in 2022, “Roe is the floor, not the ceiling” has become a rallying cry for activists who vowed to rebuild access, especially for marginalized communities, according to Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, a group that opposes viability clauses.

Yet measures proposed for this year’s ballot in Missouri, Florida and Arizona have been replicating Roe’s viability framework, as did an Ohio constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion that passed last year.

Shortly after that election, a Black Ohio woman who miscarried in her bathroom was charged with abuse of a corpse. The amendment’s viability clause was cited as justification for allowing the case to move forward, though a grand jury ultimately dismissed the case.

The charges are part of a larger effort by anti-abortion forces in Ohio to use the viability clause to limit the reach of the amendment, said Merritt. Many of these efforts will wind up in Ohio’s largely conservative court system, she added.

“When you hand them the scalpel, you can’t turn around and be surprised when they start cutting,” Merritt said.

In South Dakota, the local Planned Parenthood affiliate has pulled out of ballot measure efforts for a proposal that allows lawmakers to restrict abortion after the first trimester. In a statement, the group said the proposal fails to protect abortion rights.

In Oklahoma, viability has been central to conversations about a potential ballot measure to repeal the state’s abortion ban, said Rebecca Tong, co-executive director of Trust Women, which provides abortion care. Tong said viability is “not something we want written into the Constitution in Oklahoma.”

But Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, said viability has not been a major focus in conversations around ballot measure language in a state that currently bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. The campaign recently reached the necessary number of verified signatures to qualify an abortion rights measure for this year’s ballot that includes a viability clause.

“Viability is the framework that Florida had used until the legislators started passing abortion bans,” Brenzel said. “What we know is that voters understand this, and we see it as clear and concise language that matches with what the standard was in Florida for a long time.”

Viability language in Florida’s proposed measure has already opened the door to a legal challenge from the state’s Republican attorney general, who has asked the state Supreme Court to keep the measure off the ballot because of vagueness over the meaning of the term.

A few states, including California and Vermont, have enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions without viability limits. Proposed amendments in Maryland and New York also don’t mention viability.

Missouri has found itself in the center of the national debate over the issue as abortion-rights groups have split over which of 11 versions of a measure to support for the ballot. The petitions have been tied up in court for months after being challenged by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

Complicating the effort is another initiative petition — one proposed by a Republican, strategist Jamie Corley. It would allow abortions up to 12 weeks into pregnancy and include exceptions for rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother until viability.

Corley said those restrictions are what’s feasible to pass in Missouri, where Republicans banned abortions except in medical emergencies.

“Pro-life, anti-abortion voters, a lot of them are still OK with legal but limited access,” Corley said.

Some reproductive rights groups advocating for versions of a more permissive ballot measure with a viability clause raised concerns that anti-abortion forces would attack proposals without one by saying it was an attempt to legalize abortion “up until birth” or “abortion on demand,” terms considered misleading by medical experts.

Sarah Standiford, national campaigns director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said reproductive rights groups must balance their desire for the most expansive access with proposals that can withstand legal challenges and qualify for the ballot.

She acknowledged that such an approach “may ultimately advance a policy that is far short of the ideal.”

Other activists say they’re increasingly frustrated by compromises they see as based on fear and repeating past mistakes in Roe v. Wade that prevented abortion access for the most vulnerable, including people with higher-risk pregnancies, those with lower incomes, people of color and people living in rural communities.

“It is a restriction under the guise of reproductive freedom,” said Jennifer Villavicencio, senior director of public affairs and advocacy at the Society of Family Planning.

In Missouri, it’s yet to be seen how and if activists divided over viability will come together. To many, there’s a sense of urgency to restore at least some rights.

“Real lives are on the line, and that has to be part of these political considerations,” said Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri. “We have to consider both what is politically possible and also look at why that is possible in that moment.”

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By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and SUMMER BALLENTINE Associated Press

Fernando reported from Chicago.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. 

from Courthouse News

Senate bullish on expanding judgeships, but hurdles remain

WASHINGTON (CN) — Some of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top lawmakers said this week that they would be open to discussing proposed legislation aimed at creating dozens of new federal judgeships. But as the presidential election looms, a path forward for such a bill remains murky.

Congress, tasked with overseeing the federal judiciary, has left the number of judges overseeing district courts in stasis for more than two decades. Lawmakers last created a new district court judgeship in 2003 and haven’t significantly expanded district-level judgeships since the 1990s.

Experts have sounded the alarm about this judicial drought, which some argue has contributed to a crushing backlog of cases pending before federal district courts.

The U.S. Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s policymaking body, recommended in March 2023 that Congress pass comprehensive legislation adding 66 permanent federal judgeships to district courts across the country. The conference also suggested lawmakers tack on two extra permanent judgeships to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It wasn’t the first time in recent years that the Judiciary Conference has asked Congress to lighten the burden on federal courts. The group in 2021 urged Congress to add five judgeships in Oklahoma, after a Supreme Court ruling moved the venue for litigating crimes committed on Indigenous land from state courts to the federal docket

The needs expressed by the federal judiciary are real, said Carl Tobias, chair of the University of Richmond School of Law.

The Judicial Conference’s recommendations are “based on conservative estimates of case and workload,” he told Courthouse News during an interview Wednesday. “They’re not outlandish requests.”

A judgeships bill would address “the most dire circumstances in the judiciary,” Tobias said, pointing in particular to caseloads in jurisdictions like the Eastern District of California, which he said has been burdened “for decades” with double the national average.

Federal district courts in border regions like Texas, Arizona and southern California are also suffering from staffing shortages in the judiciary, he added.

Fortunately, there is at least one piece of comprehensive legislation in Congress aimed at expanding the federal judiciary.

Introduced in September by a bipartisan group of lawmakers including Delaware Senator Chris Coons and Indiana Senator Todd Young, the proposed bill would closely follow the Judicial Conference’s recommendations, adding 63 new district court judgeships and three more temporary positions.

“Too many Americans are being denied access to our justice system due to an overload of cases and a shortage of judges,” said Young in a statement at the time. “Our bipartisan bill will help address this shortage and ensure all Americans have the opportunity to have their day in court.”

If made law, the legislation — known as the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act or JUDGES Act — would direct the White House to appoint new judges in two batches, one in 2025 and another in 2029. Three temporary judicial appointments, two in the Eastern District of Oklahoma and one in the state’s northern district court, would be selected separately.

The bipartisan bill would also extend temporary judgeships in the Northern District of Alabama and the District of Kansas, and commissions an independent report on the status of “vacant or underused” federal courthouses.

The measure does not include the Judicial Conference’s recommended Ninth Circuit judgeships.

Coons and Young introduced similar legislation in 2021, but it fizzled and died before it could see a vote. Lawmakers in 2020 also urged their colleagues to draft a comprehensive judgeships bill.

This latest attempt has yet to hear debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but both Republicans and Democrats said this week that they would be open to broaching the subject of federal judgeships in the new year.

“The judiciary is short on judges,” Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal told Courthouse News on Thursday. “This is a longstanding need, and we should meet it.”

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who previously served as the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chair, said he had not yet made up his mind on the proposed legislation, saying that the details of how the new judgeships are distributed was important.

“But I think I’d just better admit that we need more judges,” Grassley added.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said Thursday that, while he wasn’t familiar with the proposed bill, Congress should also look at judgeships on U.S. Circuit courts. “I think we probably do need to think about expanding circuits,” he said.

Hawley also suggested that lawmakers consider breaking up the Ninth Circuit, which serves six states in the country’s western reaches plus Alaska and Hawaii, into “two smaller component circuits.”

“That circuit is massively huge, and the caseload is gigantic,” the Missouri Republican said. “It’s not efficient at all.”

Splitting up the Ninth Circuit has been a GOP policy objective for decades, said Tobias, who contended that Republicans have long disagreed with the court’s rulings.

“The problem is there is no feasible way to do that,” he contended, since California supplies more than half of the Ninth Circuit’s case docket and splitting the Golden State across two federal circuit courts “does not work.”

Coons signaled to Courthouse News Thursday that he was working to get his judgeships bill in front of the Judiciary Committee, which is led by fellow Democrat Dick Durbin.

“That’s a bill that I would love to see move,” he said, adding that he “recognize[d] there’s a lot of work to make progress” on the measure.

A spokesperson for Durbin’s office declined to comment on whether the Judiciary Committee chair would bring the bill up for a vote.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the panel’s Republican ranking member, did not return a request for comment on whether he would support such an effort.

Tobias meanwhile said he was skeptical that Congress would be able to pass a judgeships bill before November’s presidential election.

“I think the short answer is that it isn’t going to happen,” he said.

While he said it was encouraging that Judiciary Committee senators have some bipartisan interest in expanding the judiciary, Tobias cited growing partisanship across both houses of Congress as a potential impediment to proposed legislation.

“The dynamic just seems to me to be on a downward spiral,” he said. “Republicans will view it as giving Biden judges, more vacancies to fill.”

If there were ever a good time to pass a judgeships bill, though, it would be during an election year, Tobias said, while it’s still unclear which party will control the presidency come January. “Whoever is in the White House is going to get the benefit of it,” he said.

While the possibility of a friendly White House getting a slate of new judicial appointments could attract bipartisanship, Tobias worried it would work in the opposite direction. He predicted that Republicans would view any proposed judgeships legislation as handing more judicial vacancies to the Biden administration.

“I don’t think it’s enough to overcome the partisanship,” Tobias said. “I just don’t see enough of a good government mentality.”

from Courthouse News

Senate Republicans say SCOTUS should have final say in presidential qualifications

WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a bill that would cement the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of whether a presidential candidate can be removed from the ballot on constitutional grounds.

The measure, sponsored by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, comes after two states struck former President Donald Trump from their primary election ballots, citing the insurrection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

The Colorado Supreme Court in December ruled that the insurrection clause, which bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” against the U.S. government from holding elected office without congressional approval, disqualifies the GOP frontrunner, pointing to his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows followed suit days later.

Now, Senate Republicans — who have sharply condemned the move to disqualify former President Trump — have said that interpreting the insurrection clause and other constitutional provisions should be left to federal courts and ultimately the Supreme Court.

“Presidential elections are determined by the American people, not liberal political activists with a grudge,” Mullin said in a statement Thursday. “Right now, states like Colorado and Maine are working overtime to undermine American voters and kick President Donald Trump off the ballot.”

If made law, the GOP legislation would clarify federal law to block state courts and officials from adjudicating “disputes or questions of ballot eligibility” related to the Constitution’s insurrection clause.

Instead, the measure said, such challenges to a candidate’s qualifications should be investigated first by a panel of judges on a federal district court, which would “make findings of fact” and send them to the Supreme Court. The high court would “consider the matter on an expedited basis before issuing a ruling on the findings of law,” the bill read.

The legislation would also strip federal funds for election administration from states where officials unilaterally declare a presidential candidate ineligible for office using the insurrection clause.

Tillis said in a statement Thursday framed his bill as a response to what he called “left-wing activists” who “make a mockery of our political system by scheming with partisan state officials and pressuring judges to remove [former President Trump] from the ballot.”

“This is an effort to silence Americans [and] their votes,” Florida Senator Rick Scott wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “It must be stopped.”

Despite Republicans’ insistence, it’s unlikely that the proposed measure would clear the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Trump, meanwhile, filed a suit last week challenging his disqualification from Maine’s primary election. The former president accused Secretary of State Bellows of being “a biased decisionmaker” and that she “failed to provide lawful due process.”

According to the Pine Tree State’s election laws, the secretary of state can rule on a candidate’s ballot eligibility.

Despite that, the Republican frontrunner’s legal team also argued that state officials have no authority to enforce the Constitution’s insurrection clause.

Other states, including Michigan and Minnesota, have refused to disqualify Trump from their primary ballots. Voters in Illinois last week petitioned the state’s elections board to strike the former president from their own primary election.

from Courthouse News

Midwest, Gulf Coast slammed by blizzards and nasty weather

OMAHA, Neb. (CN) — A winter storm swept across the central U.S. on Monday, shutting down much of the Great Plains and prompting the closure of major interstates, the cancellation of high school and college classes and warnings from officials to stay home.

Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed, as was Interstate 40 west of Amarillo, Texas. Officials shut down Interstate 80 in Nebraska between Grand Island and Lexington due to what the State Patrol deemed “whiteout conditions.”

“We have a big area of low pressure and usually what you associate with low pressure is your more stormy events,” said Michaela Wood, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska, near Omaha. “It’s bringing impacts to a good chunk of the country out here.”

The low pressure system drew cold weather down from Canada and moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico. “Where a lot of that meets is where you will get your snowfall,” Wood said.

The blizzard warning extended from northeast New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, western Kansas and several counties of south-central Nebraska. A winter storm warning extended from eastern Nebraska and Kansas across the Midwest to Wisconsin and Lake Michigan.

The closed interstates are major American east-west arteries.

“There are a lot of interstates closed,” Wood said. “In terms of freight and moving things around I imagine this will have quite an impact.”

Megan Williams, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, Louisiana, near New Orleans, said heavy rain and winds across Texas and the Gulf Coast were a result of the low-pressure system.

“We’ve got these scattered to numerous storms coming through Heavy rainfall and 60 mph winds,” she said Monday afternoon. “Later tonight we are expecting a line of storms to be moving though our area, and this will have the greatest potential to see severe weather with the potential for tornadoes.”

Back in the Plains states, forecasters expected high winds Monday night and into Tuesday, with the possibility of ground blizzards, making travel difficult if not impossible, even in areas like Omaha which were outside of the blizzard warning.

This could lead to situations on Tuesday where hapless homeowners try to clear their sidewalks or driveways only to have high winds blow more snow onto onto them. “In terms of snow removal, it’s going to be quite the 24 hours here.”

Six to ten inches of snow was expected in and around Nebraska’s largest city. Snow was expected to accumulate through midnight.

“The snow will keep accumulating through today until around midnight,” Wood said. “Tuesday evening and into Wednesday is when things should really start to clear up.”

Starting Tuesday the system will move east toward the Great Lakes and then on late Wednesday and Thursday toward the eastern seaboard.

“It will weaken a little bit as it goes but it is going to bring impacts throughout the week to a good amount of people,” Wood said.

On Monday there were also blizzard warnings in the Cascades of Oregon and Washington state, the result of a different low pressure system that was expected to move into Canada, Wood said, though they may eventually impact the Dakotas.

The National Weather Service does not name winter storms, but the Weather Channel does, deeming this one Winter Storm Finn.

from Courthouse News