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AFJ Special Reports
The 2012-13 Supreme Court Docket
In recent years, the Supreme Court has decided numerous highly controversial cases, often by 5-4 margins, which have served to roll back the clock on decades of progressive jurisprudence. This term could bring more of the same. Read More »
Unfinished Business: Judicial Selection During the Remainder of the Obama Presidency
As President Obama finishes his first term and looks forward to his second, the cumulative effects of Republican senators’ ceaseless obstruction of judicial nominees is evident: the President will complete his fourth year in office with more vacancies and judicial emergencies than when he was inaugurated and with far fewer confirmations than his two predecessors had at the end of their first terms. In short, while the President has enjoyed some major judicial selection victories—most notably his appointments to the Supreme Court—his first term has largely been a missed opportunity to fully staff the lower federal courts. Given the current situation, the President has a significant amount of unfinished business to complete during the remainder of his presidency. Read More »
State of the Judiciary: Judicial Selection At the Beginning of President Obama’s Second Term
As President Obama’s second term begins in earnest, there is room for hope that the Administration and the Senate will finally be able to make some headway in reducing the historic backlog of unfilled judicial vacancies. The President has, over the last year, significantly increased his nomination pace, putting pressure on the Senate to act to confirm his nominees. Moreover, the Senate has recently changed its rules to allow for the swifter consideration of district court nominees, potentially allowing for an easier confirmation process. Read More »
The Thurmond Rule
The Thurmond Rule is not a formal Senate procedure or a bipartisan agreement, nor has its meaning or parameters been clearly articulated. In fact, as shown below, over the last 30 years confirmations of district and circuit court nominees have continued well into presidential election years under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. Read More »
2011-12 End of Term Report
The 2011-12 U.S. Supreme Court term will be best remembered for the Court’s landmark ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), in which it upheld the constitutionality of the Act but opened the door to placing future limits on Congress’ ability to regulate interstate commerce and to impose conditions on federal grants to the states. That decision, however, was far from the only ruling of major significance this term. The Court issued a number of important decisions that reflect its continuing bias in favor of corporate interests and against the rights of everyday Americans, demonstrating that Chief Justice John Roberts’ One-Percent Court was once again open for business. Read More »
Progressive Values in the Balance: Previewing the 2012-2013 Supreme Court Term
In recent years, the Supreme Court has decided numerous highly controversial cases, often by 5-4 margins, which have served to roll back the clock on decades of progressive jurisprudence. This term could bring more of the same. The Supreme Court 2012-2013 term is already packed with cases with the potential to restrict corporate accountability and limit everyday Americans’ civil rights and access to justice. Moreover, the Court may also agree to consider challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, California’s Proposition 8, and the Voting Rights Act. In short, the Court’s decisions this term could have disastrous consequences for the ability of consumers, victims of discrimination, human rights plaintiffs, and others to get a fair day in court. Read More »
AT&T Aftermath: How the Supreme Court Ensured Companies Can Cheat and Get Away With It
In the landmark case of AT&T Mobility v. Concepción, the Roberts Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act’s favorable treatment of contractual arbitration clauses preempts state laws aimed at protecting consumers and employees from unconscionable class action waivers. As a result, AT&T was able to avoid legal and financial consequences of defrauding thousands of customers out of $30 for supposedly “free” phones, simply by including a provision in their service contracts that mandated arbitration and forbade class actions. This ruling left customers with no recourse to recover their money from the company, because no one could reasonably be expected to bring an individual claim to recoup $30. And, as widely feared, the case has already had wide-ranging impact on the ability of consumers and employees to vindicate their rights in court and recoup ill-gotten gains from companies. Alliance for Justice has been tracking cases in the aftermath of AT&T v. Concepción, in which consumers, employees and other individuals have been forced into arbitration and denied the right to proceed collectively against powerful corporations. Read More »
The State of the Judiciary: Judicial Nominations During the First Three Years of the Obama Presidency
After three years of the Obama presidency, Republican senators‘ relentless, unprecedented obstruction of judicial nominees has created the almost unimaginable possibility that by the end of the president‘s first term, the overburdened federal courts may have more vacancies than when his presidency began. Republicans‘ goal has been clear from the start: to keep as many seats as possible vacant for a future Republican president to fill. Indeed, this is the strategy that they employed at the end of the Clinton Administration, when they kept 67 seats vacant. Read More »
The State of the Judiciary: Judicial Selection During the Remainder of President Obama's First Term (May 2012)
As President Obama nears the home stretch of his first term, the cumulative effects of Republican senators’ ceaseless obstruction of judicial nominees and election-year politics will likely mean that President Obama will finish his first term with more vacancies and judicial emergencies than when he took office and with far fewer confirmations than his two predecessors had at the end of their first terms. This will be the case even if the Senate confirms several dozen nominees over the remainder of the Congress. Read More »
Hostile Environment: How Activist Judges Threaten Our Air, Water, and Land
Our nation’s environmental protections constitute one of this country’s most significant accomplishments of the second half of the twentieth century. Through years of effort, visionary leaders and environmentalists have successfully translated public support for protecting natural resources—our air, water, and land—into effective and far-reaching legislation. Enjoying widespread popular support and bipartisan endorsement in Congress, these statutes ave been strengthened in both Republican and Democratic administrations, and they have survived repeated, industry-funded rollback attempts. Read More »
Roberts Court Overreach Memo
New analysis by AFJ shows that in its most recent term the Roberts Court continued its trend of bending the law in order to drive its pro-corporate agenda. Read More »
2010-11 Overreach Report: How the Corporate Court Bends the Law to Favor the 1%
It has been well documented that the “Corporate Court” consistently pursues a political agenda that favors powerful corporate interests and the wealthy at the expense of everyday Americans. What is less well known is that in order to reach these pro-corporate outcomes, certain justices have proven strikingly willing to engage in judicial activism by overreaching and twisting the law. The Supreme Court‟s pro-corporate shift is the result of a decades-long campaign by special interest groups to elevate corporate profits and private wealth over individual rights and personal freedoms. Since John Roberts became Chief Justice in 2005, the Supreme Court has demonstrated a readiness to do whatever it takes to interpret the law in a way that protects powerful interests. Read More »
Fact Sheet: Filibusters, Secret Holds, and Obstruction of Judicial Nominees
Under the Constitution of the United States, the President and the Senate share responsibility for filling federal judicial vacancies. The President nominates people to judgeships, and the Senate confirms them. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans have used unprecedented tactics to delay President Obama’s nominees, to dramatic effect. At this point in his first term, President Obama has had fewer nominees confirmed—and his nominees have taken longer to be confirmed—than President Bush’s nominees at a comparable point in his presidency. Read More »
The State of the Judiciary: President Obama and the 111th Congress
One of the most important aspects of a president’s legacy is the nominations he makes to the federal bench. A president’s other policies and programs, no matter how laudatory, may be undone by subsequent administrations and Congresses. But federal judges enjoy lifetime appointments, and dramatically shape the outcome of decisions on a host of issues that directly affect the lives of everyday Americans. Against that backdrop, President Barack Obama had a very uneven record with judicial nominations during the 111th Congress. Read More »
The Changing Face of the Federal Circuit Courts (pdf)
President Obama’s appointees to the federal circuit courts of appeals have been the most diverse in American history. Fifty percent of his nominees have been people of color and 40 percent have been female. Notably, 90 percent of the judges the Obama nominees are replacing are white and 80 percent are male—a harbinger of significant changes coming to the federal judiciary. Although only 20 of the President’s 32 nominees to the circuit courts have been confirmed at this stage in his presidency due to the historically slow pace of Senate action, his track record holds the promise of a federal court system that more closely reflects the diverse nature of the American people. With 10 nominees pending in the Senate for the 17 circuit court seats currently vacant, the president has an opportunity to make significant additional strides in reshaping the appellate bench. Read More »
