Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the rising pressure on Sen. Susan Collins over her vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. There is considerable anger over Collins maintaining that she would never vote for a nominee hostile to Roe v. Wade but refusing to acknowledge the widespread view of Kavanaugh as not only hostile to the reasoning of Roe but appointed by a president who promised only to nominate an anti-Roe justice. As with Neil Gorsuch, Collins appears inclined to vote for Kavanaugh despite her oft-repeated pledge. She insists that she is comfortable after Kavanaugh told her that Roe is “settled” law. However, many have put Collins’ position as falling somewhere between hopeful thinking and willful blindness. As discussed below, the unsettling thing about settled law is that only five votes make anything truly settled on the Court.
Adding to the political dimension are polls showing that the hearings did not produce a bump for confirmation. The latest polling shows 38 percent in favor of Kavanaugh and 39 percent opposed.
Here is the column: Continue reading “A Bill Comes Due: Susan Collins Faces Rising Demands To Fulfill Her Promise To Vote Against A Presumed Anti-Roe Nominee”
Yesterday, we 
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing and the opening statement of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse attacking the conservatives on the Supreme Court as a virtual ideological cabal. I have always found Whitehouse an articulate and insightful member of the Congress. He was not alone in these attacks. However, I found the attack on the current justices to be unwarranted and distorted. There is a tendency when you disagree with a decision like Hobby Lobby to conclude that the motivations of the justices must therefore be raw politics. The possibility that the justices, including Justice Kennedy, are following a coherent jurisprudential view is dismissed in favor of partisanship.
Below is my column in The Hill on the continuing promotionals for “The Notorious RBG.” I have long been a critic of this trend toward celebrity justices and the discomfort over these campaigns is not simply about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The culture of the Court is changing and I do not believe it is changing for the better.
In a brief exchange with Judge T.S. Ellis III, former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort 
Controversial FBI official Peter Strzok has been 
Lost in the mix of Manafort and other news, there is a significant development in Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Mueller has referred a number of cases to the Southern District of New York for possible prosecution, including reportedly case involving longtime Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta and his work for his former firm, the Podesta Group and former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, a former partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. It is not clear if charges would emerge from these cases but the referral further decentralizes the investigation.
In one of the most troubling orders issued by a court in years, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter issued an 
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the latest rationale for opposing any nominee of President Donald Trump: that any nomination or confirmation must wait until the completion of the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It is a claim being voiced by both politicians and academics despite the absence of constitutional or historical support.
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the legacy and vision or Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. The departure of Kennedy will leave the Supreme Court more calcified and rigid in its ideological division. 
For decades, law professors have discussed the 1944 decision in Korematsu v. United States as one of the most disgraceful and indefensible opinions ever issued by the United States Supreme Court. Yet, the Court has continued to cite Korematsu and has never expressly disavowed its denial of basic constitutional rights to Japanese Americans. In a virtual aside by the majority in 
According to