Quote:The Supreme Court ruled on Friday 6-3 in favor of Maryland parents who brought forth a case against Montgomery County Board of Education members over LGBTQ books being read in class to their children.

"Parents challenging the Board’s introduction of the 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, are entitled to a preliminary injunction," the court stated.

"Today, we hold that the parents have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction. A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses 'a very real threat of undermining' the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill," Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.

"The Board’s introduction of the “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion. The parents have therefore shown that they are likely to succeed in their free exercise claims. They have likewise shown entitlement to a preliminary injunction pending the completion of this lawsuit."

"In the absence of an injunction, the parents will continue to be put to a choice: either risk their child’s exposure to burdensome instruction, or pay substantial sums for alternative educational services. As we have explained, that choice unconstitutionally burdens the parents’ religious exercise, and '[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.'"

The parents, who come from a broad range of religious backgrounds, filed their case against the school after their ability to opt their children out of the readings was removed. The parents’ case saw dozens of organizations and officials file amicus briefs in support, including 25 state attorneys general.

The high court was requested to rule on whether "public schools burden parents' religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out."

In their petition to the court, the parents said that the board continued to allow parents to opt their children out of "analogous instruction in the sex education unit of state-mandated health classes, including for high schoolers," but would not allow them to opt their young students out of the book readings.

During arguments before the court in April, attorney Alan Schoenfeld, who represented Montgomery County Public Schools, claimed that "the record makes clear that the school district did try to honor the opt-out, and at some point it became infeasible." He said that after the books were brought into the classrooms, "there was high absenteeism in some schools. For example, dozens of students being opted out, I think Mr. Baxter said the average size of an elementary school in Montgomery County is 700 students. So each grade is 125."

Schoenfeld said, "If you have dozens of students walking out, making arrangements for those students to have adequate space and supervision and alternative instruction I think is infeasible."

Justices narrowed in during arguments on the question of exposure versus coercion as it relates to exposing students to new ideas. Schoenfeld said, "I think that the line that we advocate between exposure and coercion is the relevant one. And there may be circumstances where, given the age of the student or given the particular presentation of information in the classroom, a plaintiff may be able to make out a case that their child is being coerced."

Link

(06-27-2025 09:55 AM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  

Good news.

(06-27-2025 10:46 AM)hburg Wrote:  

(06-27-2025 09:55 AM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  

Good news.

yep. groomers took a serious hit today.

Prog filth today

I suggest the plaintiffs set the stage now for the inevitable bullying and intimidation. The Dem school system is responsible for the safety and well being of all children under their charge, not just the children they favor. Failure to protect all children should be met with the harshest penalties allowed by law.

The 2016 election was by far the most consequential election since Reagan in 80.

Not hard to figure out we have 3 Communists sitting on the SCOTUS. And one of them is has children. I'm sure those kids go to Catholic private school.

Supreme Court rules 6-3 in favor of Congress outsourcing power to agency-selected nonprofit

Quote:In a 6-3 ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court sided with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a case filed against it over its administration of a program to deliver telecommunications services to underserved communities.

"The question in this case is whether the universal-service scheme—more particularly, its contribution mechanism— violates the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine, either because Congress has given away its power to the FCC or because the FCC has given away its power to a private company. We hold that no impermissible transfer of authority has occurred," Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court.

"Under our nondelegation precedents, Congress sufficiently guided and constrained the discretion that it lodged with the FCC to implement the universal-service contribution scheme. And the FCC, in its turn, has retained all decision-making authority within that sphere, relying on the Administrative Company only for non-binding advice. Nothing in those arrangements, either separately or together, violates the Constitution."

She wrote that when Congress amended the Communications Act in 1996, "it provided the Commission with clear guidance on how to promote universal service using carrier contributions. Congress laid out the 'general policy' to be achieved, the 'principle[s]' and standards the FCC must use in pursuing that policy, and the 'boundaries' the FCC may not cross."

"Our precedents do not require more. Nor do they prevent the Commission, in carrying out Congress’s policy, from obtaining the Administrator’s assistance in projecting revenues and expenses, so that carriers pay the needed amount. For nearly three decades, the work of Congress and the Commission in establishing universal-service programs has led to a more fully connected country. And it has done so while leaving fully intact the separation of powers integral to our Constitution."

In the dissent, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Congress "alone as access to the pockets of the people," and that "The Constitution affords only our elected representatives the power to decide which taxes the government can collect and at what rates."

"Today, the Court departs from these time-honored rules. When it comes to 'universal service’ taxes, the Court concludes, an executive agency may decide for itself what rates to apply and how much to collect. In upholding that arrangement, the Court defies the Constitution’s command that Congress 'may not transfer to another branch ‘powers which are strictly and exclusively legislative.’"

Supreme Court Punts on Louisiana Racial Gerrymander Case, Setting Up Possible 2026 Midterm Chaos

Quote:The U.S. Supreme Court issued an unusual order Friday, scheduling the closely watched Louisiana redistricting case, Louisiana v. Callais, for reargument rather than deciding it this term. The move prompted a sharp dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas, who argued the Court was avoiding a necessary constitutional confrontation.

The case centers on Louisiana's congressional map, which includes two majority-Black districts out of six total seats. The map was created after federal courts ordered the state to add a second majority-Black district to comply with the Voting Rights Act (VRA), but was later challenged as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

Louisiana found itself in what Thomas described as an impossible situation. The state initially drew a map with only one majority-Black district, despite Black residents comprising roughly one-third of Louisiana's population. After federal courts ruled this likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Louisiana redrew the map to include a second majority-Black district stretching "some 250 miles from Shreveport in the northwest corner of the state to Baton Rouge in southeast Louisiana."

However, a three-judge federal panel ruled 2-1 that this compliance map itself violated the Equal Protection Clause by making race the predominant factor in redistricting.

Thomas' Scathing Dissent
"States do not know how to draw maps that survive both constitutional and VRA review," Louisiana argued in its brief, highlighting the legal bind facing redistricting authorities nationwide.

In his dissent from the reargument order, Thomas argued the Court had a constitutional obligation to resolve the case promptly, particularly because Congress requires the Court to exercise mandatory jurisdiction over redistricting challenges.

"Congress requires this Court to exercise jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to congressional redistricting, and we accordingly have an obligation to resolve such challenges promptly," Thomas wrote. "That resolution is particularly critical here, as these cases highlight the intractable conflict between this Court's interpretation of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

He described the Court's VRA jurisprudence as a "disastrous misadventure" and expressed hope "that this Court will soon realize that the conflict its §2 jurisprudence has sown with the Constitution is too severe to ignore."

Complicating the 2026 Midterms
Because the map drew a second majority-minority district, Democrat Cleo Fields was able to pick up a congressional seat from outgoing Rep. Garrett Graves, making the Republican majority under Speaker Mike Johnson, also from Louisiana, that much narrower. Conservatives and legal groups in Louisiana were hoping to see the Supreme Court rule the current map, which is erratically drawn in the shape of a backslash across the state from Baton Rouge in the southeast to Shreveport in the northwest, was racially gerrymandered and thus unconstitutional.

The state's argument supporting the map, which was notably pushed by Republican governor Jeff Landry and passed through the Republican House and Senate, was that racial considerations were minimal and instead the map focused on avoiding political complications for incumbents like Johnson and Rep. Julia Letlow.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill was hoping for a decision, but welcomes the opportunity for Louisiana to be heard before the Court again.

"Although we hoped for a decision this Term," she said in a statement, "we welcome a further opportunity to present argument to the Court regarding the States' impossible task of complying with the Court's voting precedence."

But with the reargument scheduled for next term, that all but ensures Fields' district and seat are safe for the 2026 midterms.

1st Amendment: Supreme Court Rules on Free Speech Coalition vs. Paxton

Quote:On Friday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Free Speech Coalition vs. Paxton, a case that has some wide-ranging implications for free speech, the First Amendment, and the limits of each. The Supreme Court has upheld an earlier decision by the Fifth Circuit, affirming the Texas statute, in a 6-3 ruling, with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissenting.

The heart of the Court's decision, penned by Justice Clarence Thomas, reads:

The power to require age verification is within a State’s authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content. H. B. 1181 is a constitutionally permissible exercise of that authority.

This decision, then, upholds Texas's law requiring an age verification for viewers of "adult" content.

The dissent, written by Justice Kagan, reads in part:

The Texas statute before us (H. B. 1181) addresses speech understood in First Amendment law as “obscene for minors.” That label means the First Amendment does not protect the speech for minors. The State can restrict their access without fear of colliding with the Constitution. The trouble comes in the last two sentences’ italics. Speech that is obscene for minors is often not so for adults. For them, the category of obscene—and therefore unprotected speech—is narrower. See ante, at 8–10. So adults have a constitutional right to view the very same speech that a State may prohibit for children. And it is a fact of life—and also of law—that adults and children do not live in hermetically sealed boxes. In preventing children from gaining access to “obscene for children” speech, States sometimes take measures impeding adults from viewing it too—even though, for adults, it is constitutionally protected

This would appear to conclude that, because minors may find a workaround, or may be permitted by parents to view the content described, the law is somehow proscribed; that seems a bit of a stretch.

At the heart of this case is a Texas law passed by the legislature in 2023. The law, House Bill 1181, put in place a requirement for online pornography sites with more than a third of their content "harmful to minors" to verify the age of all users. The Free Speech Coalition, which represents the pornography and adult entertainment industry, challenged the law. A district court struck the age-verification requirement down, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, upholding the age verification. The original court had applied strict scrutiny, but the Fifth Circuit used a lower standard, called a rational basis review. The Fifth Circuit's decision stated in part:

There is an ongoing threat to the public—specifically Texas children and adolescents—by AYLO GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT, INC.’S and AYLO USA, INCORPORATED’S continuing violation of Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 129B. Consequently, as authorized by statute, the State of Texas, by and through Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, files this Original Petition and Application for Permanent Injunction asking the Court to order AYLO GLOBAL ENTERTAINMENT, INC. and AYLO USA, INCORPORATED to comply with Texas law and to impose civil penalties of up to $10,000 a day since September 19, 2023.

The Supreme Court then declined to block the Fifth Circuit's upholding of the law pending appeal, and then granted certiorari to examine the constitutional aspects of the case.

It would seem obvious that children are treated differently under the law than adults. Children are, after all, not in possession of the life experience, education, and judgment of adults, and therefore are not allowed to make decisions or do things that adults are allowed to do, in some cases, even where constitutional rights are concerned. The Second Amendment does not apply to minors in most instances, and while there is an argument to be made that the First Amendment protects "adult entertainment," apparently, the Supreme Court has decided that this protection does not extend completely to minors.

BREAKING: SCOTUS rules 6-3 HHS task force's guidance stems from presidential authority

Quote:The Supreme Court ruled on Friday in the case of Kennedy V Braidwood management that the staffers on the US Preventive Services Task Force can be appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and that the task force's guidance has presidential authority.

According to the opinion, the court ruled that the "Task Force members are inferior officers whose appointment by the Secretary of HHS is consistent with the Appointments Clause." The plaintiffs in the case had brought a challenge to the appointments stemming from a religious objection to the "requirement that insurers provide coverage for a drug that prevents the transmission of HIV," per SCOTUS blog.

Plaintiffs did not want to be forced to implement guidance from the taskforce, claiming that the task force did not have authority to determine what must be covered under employer sponsored healthcare plans. The plaintiffs argued that because the task force heads were not appointed by the president, they did not have that authority. However, the court ruled that because those members are within the chain of command—they must answer to the HHS secretary who answers to the president—their authority was permissible.

The decision was decided 6 to 3, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissenting. The majority opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The opinion stated that the Appointments Clause of Article II says that "Principal officers must be appointed by the President 'with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.'" Inferior officers need not be confirmed by the Senate after being appointed by the president or the executive branch's "principal officers."

SCOUTUS ruled, "Task Force members are inferior officers because their work is 'directed and supervised' by the Secretary of HHS, a principal officer, through two main sources of authority."

The case was originally brought against the Biden administration's HHS, however, the Trump administration continued the case in its appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that HHS has the power to fire task for members as well as reject recommendations, which is allowed when the task force members are deemed inferior officers.