Tag: U.S. Court of Appeals

Girls’ Stand Against Trans Participation in Sports Sets Up 2024 Legal Battle

The Center Square

Four high school female track athletes in Connecticut have stood against the influx of transgender athletes seeking to compete against girls in school sports, likely setting up a defining legal battle of 2024.

The U.S. Court of Appeals rescued the legal challenge, Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, in December after a lower court dismissed the case. Now, the case will be heard in federal district court and will be a defining moment in the ongoing debate, which has been ramped up by a string of injuries to female athletes at the hands of transgender athletes in recent months.

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Ohio Think Tank Asks Supreme Court to Kill Biden Student-Debt-Forgiveness Plan

Bradley Vasoli

A center-right policy-research center based in Columbus, OH is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to nix President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive almost $500 billion in unpaid student loans. 

Nebraska and six other states sued the Biden administration to stop the program that Congress never authorized. Last November, petitioners succeeded in getting a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit to pause implementation of the plan. The following month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and oral arguments have been scheduled for February 28. 

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Ohio’s Buckeye Institute Urges Circuit Court to Kill Biden Tax Mandate

Bradley Vasoli

The Columbus-based Buckeye Institute this week filed an amicus brief in the federal court case challenging the authority the Biden administration has asserted to limit state tax-reduction efforts. 

Opponents of the White House policy are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to rule in Texas v. Yellen that a provision of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) cannot condition states’ receipt of federal aid on accepting “ambiguous” federally prescribed tax policy. Plaintiffs and their supporters further argue that President Joe Biden and his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen cannot invoke their regulatory power to fix ARPA’s lack of clarity.

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No Chance of Winning’: Four Female Athletes Challenge Connecticut High School Transgender Policy

The Center Square

Four female athletes are locked in a legal battle over transgender athletes that could set major precedent for the same fight playing out in schools around the country.

The four female athletes appealed to a federal court over a Connecticut policy allowing high school males identifying as females to compete against girls. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit heard Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools this week, where the girls’ legal team argued the policy is unfair to girls and hands female sports victories over to transgender athletes.

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Supreme Court Hands Biden Admin Major Win for Climate Agenda

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The Supreme Court denied a petition from 10 Republican-led states Thursday requesting it to block a key Biden administration climate policy.

The decision ensures that President Joe Biden’s so-called “social cost” of carbon policy — which assigns an estimated dollar value or cost to every ton of carbon emissions, according to the Government Accountability Office — can remain in place and be used for future federal permitting processes. The high court rejected states’ April 27 petition without giving a reason or listing which justices opposed it, according to a one-page filing published on the Supreme Court docket.

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Trump Has Appointed Second-Most Federal Judges Through November 1 of a President’s Fourth Year

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President Donald Trump has appointed and the Senate has confirmed 220 Article III federal judges through Nov. 1, 2020, his fourth year in office. This is the second-most Article III judicial appointments through this point in all presidencies since Jimmy Carter (D). The Senate had confirmed 260 of Carter’s appointees at this point in his term.

The average number of federal judges appointed by a president through Nov. 1 of their fourth year in office is 200.

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Court Decides in Favor of the Trump Administration in Curbing Transgenders’ Service in the Military

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US Army

A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a Trump administration policy of restricting transgender people from serving in the military. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Friday that a lower court judge was wrong to block the Pentagon from implementing its plan to limit transgender people in the military. The lower-court judge had ruled the Trump policy most likely violated the constitutional rights of transgender recruits and service members. Pentagon pleased with decision However, in ruling for the Trump administration’s position, the appeals court said Friday that the military policy “appears to permit some transgender individuals to serve in the military.” It also said the plan relied on the “considered professional judgment” of “appropriate military officials.” Pentagon spokeswoman Jessica Maxwell told VOA that the Department of Defense was “pleased with the D.C. Circuit’s decision.” “As always, we treat all transgender persons with respect and dignity. It is critical that the department be permitted to formulate personnel policies that it determines are necessary to ensure the most lethal and combat-effective fighting force in the world,” Maxwell said. Friday’s ruling will not allow the Pentagon to implement its policy immediately, because other judges have…

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Here Are Three Cases to Watch at the Supreme Court

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by Elizabeth Slattery and Ashley Vaughan   The Supreme Court is back in session after a two-week break. The justices will hear arguments in a number of important cases, including ones dealing with coercive class-action settlements, using hovercrafts for moose hunting in Alaska, and Virginia’s ban on uranium mining. Here are three cases to watch closely in the coming weeks. Frank v. Gaos Is it fair for the majority of a class-action settlement to go to third-party recipients with ties to the defendant and the class attorneys? That’s what a district court approved in a suit alleging that Google violated users’ privacy when it disclosed users’ search terms to third parties. Google agreed to settle the case for $8.5 million, with more than $2 million going to the class attorneys, $1 million paying for administrative costs and “incentive payments” for the named plaintiffs, and the vast majority—over $5 million—going to third-party recipients. The federal district court, and then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on appeal, authorized this settlement because it would be impractical to distribute settlement funds to a class with an estimated 129 million members. These courts followed a doctrine known as cy pres, which…

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