Clik here to view.
Strange time for Thomas’ wife to want apology
“Hell hath no fury like a wife whose husband has been publicly scorned,” noted Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. But what motivated U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Virginia...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stop playing politics with judicial nominations
Chief Justice John Roberts urged lawmakers from both parties to end their hypocritical bickering and approve the nomination of more federal judges. “Each political party has found it easy to turn on a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Justices’ proper place wasn’t at Koch gatherings
It’s not surprising that Charles and David Koch, the executives of Wichita-based Koch Industries, might have wanted conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to speak...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Health care law may come down to Kennedy
Monday’s ruling on the health care reform law now evens the score — with two federal judges saying the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and two saying it is OK. The inevitable outcome of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thomas’ remarkable silence
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is approaching five years without having spoken during a court argument. In the past 40 years, no other justice has gone an entire term, much less five,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Court made correct decision on offensive Phelpses
As offensive as the Phelps protesters are, they have a right to express their views. So the U.S. Supreme Court was correct in ruling 8-1 today against a Maryland father who sued members of Topeka’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Free speech for jerks
“Even jerks are protected by the First Amendment.” — From a Wall Street Journal editorial about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision supporting the Phelps family’s right to protest at military funerals
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pro-con: Did high court get it right on Phelps protests?
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 (Alito dissenting) in favor of free speech at the expense of giving a legal victory to a repugnant group. While the Westboro Baptist Church hates what they view as both...
View ArticleClik here to view.
High court should expedite health reform ruling
Former Kansas Attorney General Robert Stephan wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hurry up and weigh in on the constitutionality of the health reform act, much as the court expedited Bush v. Gore in 2000....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Schmidt right about need for court to act
The constitutional challenges to the health reform law would have played out without Kansas’ help, which is why Attorney General Derek Schmidt should have followed his predecessor in keeping Kansas and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pro-con: Should there be a check on the courts?
No doubt the court must check the president and the Congress when they exceed their powers. But who is checking the court when it violates the Constitution? Under a system of judicial supremacy, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pro/con: Should Supreme Court uphold health care law?
Two years ago, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a landmark, once-in-a-generation legislation that was decades in the making. Having lost...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Judgment day begins on health care law
Oral arguments began today before the U.S. Supreme Court in the challenge to the federal health care law. Kansas is one of the states opposing the law. Attorney General Derek Schmidt wrote a commentary...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Obama should have kept quiet about Supreme Court
President Obama shouldn’t have suggested Monday that U.S. Supreme Court justices would be guilty of “judicial activism” if they disregarded the will of Congress and overturned the federal health care...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Several Kansas officials backing Arizona law
The Kansas Legislature and Gov. Sam Brownback have wisely shown little interest in Arizona-type legislation to combat illegal immigration. But several state officials have signed on in support of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sebelius says there’s no post-Obamacare contingency plan
Given how the oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act seemed to go, shouldn’t the Obama administration have a backup plan ready in case the U.S. Supreme Court declares the law unconstitutional?...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kansans favor public prayers
Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court nixed school-initiated prayers as a violation of the First Amendment, 74 percent of Kansans think that public schools should open their day with either a spoken...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arizona ruling no victory for either side
It was a big stretch for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to call the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on her state’s immigration law “a victory.” The high court tossed out much of the law, which Kansas Secretary of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s official: Obamacare is constitutional
After all the contentious debate, the U.S. Supreme Court has finally settled it: The federal health care law is constitutional, including the individual mandate. But the politics of the law are far...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pro-con: Was court’s health care ruling correct?
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the core of the Affordable Care Act is good news for the court and the country. Chief Justice John G. Roberts was statesmanlike in choosing to side with...
View Article