2025-12-10 05:49:48
Three South Carolina voters with disabilities, represented by the NAACP, filed a lawsuit on Friday against the state’s election commission and Republican attorney general Alan Wilson to challenge rules that limit how disabled voters can receive voting assistance, and who is eligible.
South Carolina only allows voters “who are unable to read or write or who are physically unable or incapacitated from preparing a ballot” to receive ballot assistance, limiting that assistance to an immediate family member or “authorized representative”—and imposes felony penalties on any individual who helps more than five voters by either requesting or returning an absentee ballot.
The three voters challenging the law currently live in nursing homes, where many residents rely on staff members they trust to help them vote.
They contend that South Carolina’s draconian voting restrictions violate Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which commits to protecting the right for “any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write” to receive such assistance from a person they choose.
The Voting Rights Act has come under consistent attack by GOP-governed states, particularly in the wake of Republican upset losses and near-losses; those attacks have largely been upheld by the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, which has gutted some of the act’s crucial provisions and opened the door for an unprecedented wave of anti-voter state statutes.
The new suit calls for the court to permanently block South Carolina from enforcing these limits and order the state’s election commission to oversee the revision of voter guidance to comply with the VRA.
The South Carolina attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment; the state’s election commission said that it does not comment “on active legal matters.”
As my colleague Julia Métraux wrote last year, polling stations are failing disabled and chronically ill voters in both Democratic- and Republican-leaning areas: “What may be accessible to some disabled people may not be for others. That’s why it’s crucial to move towards more accessible options.”
2025-12-10 05:40:29
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a case that could unravel the final remaining limits on the ultra-rich writing unlimited checks to their preferred federal candidates, opening the door even wider to political corruption. The liberal justices were clearly opposed to further weakening campaign finance rules, a path long-favored by the court’s Republican wing and that the Democratic-appointed judges have been dragged down kicking and screaming. Today’s oral arguments were no exception. If the court’s majority is going to make it even easier for the Elon Musks of the world to buy elections and reap the rewards, the dissenters will at least call it out.
Every few years, the GOP majority pushes us closer and closer to a system of election by oligarchs.
The Federal Election Campaign Act limits how much money individuals can give to federal candidates in hopes of limiting quid pro quo corruption—deals like, for example, I give you a million dollars and you give me a subsidy. Likewise, FECA limits the amount that parties can spend in coordination with a candidate, an acknowledgement that unlimited coordinated spending would effectively greenlight large donations to the candidate from a single source. For this reason—despite the court’s steady erosion of campaign finance law—for now unlimited donations must go to vehicles like super PACs, which are technically barred from coordinating with candidates, while donations to parties and candidates remain subject to Congressionally-set limits.
In 2022, the Republican Party arms that work to elect Senate and House members, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, alongside then-Senate candidate JD Vance and another Ohio Republican candidate, challenged these coordinated spending limits as a violation of the party’s First Amendment free speech rights.
The case is a partisan brawl. The Republican litigants are opposed by Democratic committees seeking to keep the limits in place. Republicans have recently relied more heavily on the unlimited spending of super PACs; a decision in their favor would allow the party to bring that massive but uncoordinated super PAC spending in-house and let donors write large (but still limited) checks to the parties to spend in open coordination with GOP candidates.
Elon Musk, for example, used his own PAC in 2024 to funnel upwards of $300 million to Republican candidates, mostly Donald Trump. In return, he got to spend months dismantling the federal government, investigations against his companies were dropped, and new contracts were awarded. If Republicans win the case, next time, Musk could donate some of that directly to the GOP to spend in direct consultation with Musk’s preferred candidates.
During oral arguments, attorney Noel Francisco, a former solicitor general during Trump’s first term, argued on behalf of the Republicans that eliminating the coordination limits would not increase the actuality or appearance of quid pro quo corruption, claiming no such corruption has ever occurred. Justice Sonia Sotomayor indignantly schooled him on the relevant history.
“You keep saying there’s no evidence of this kind of coordination resulting in a quid pro quo or the appearance thereof,” Sotomayor told Francisco. “But the whole campaign finance law is based on just such evidence… The dairy industry channeled millions of dollars to President Nixon through the Republican Party and its committees. The industry landed a $100 million subsidy from President Nixon in return. Was there a quid pro quo? There certainly was an appearance of quid pro quo. That’s what started the entire campaign finance reform legislation.”
“If there’s not direct evidence, it’s because our umbrella is working,” Sotomayor continued, referring to a famous dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which she analogized striking down a law that works to block bad behavior to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
A few minutes later, Sotomayor noted the gobs of money that Trump and President Joe Biden both raised in 2024 through committees jointly run with the parties. When Francisco responded that this enormous fundraising didn’t lead to any—or even the appearance of—quid pro quo corruption, Sotomayor brought up an obvious rejoinder from that election: Musk.
The best argument the Republicans’ lawyer had was to pretend he didn’t understand the question.
“You mean to suggest the fact that one major donor to the current president, the most major donor to the current president, got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration does not give the appearance with pro quo?” she pressed.
Francisco feigned ignorance. “Your Honor, I’m not 100 percent sure about the example that you’re looking at, but if I am familiar, if I think I know what you’re talking about, I have a hard time thinking that his salary that he drew from the federal government was an effective quid pro quo bribery,” Francisco said with a chuckle. “Maybe not the salary, but certainly the lucrative contracts,” Sotomayor responded.
It was a striking moment. It appeared that the best argument that a talented lawyer had in the face of clear evidence of corruption was to pretend he didn’t understand the question. This refusal to see what is apparent will be likely resurface if the conservative justices decide to jettison yet more restrictions on billionaires influencing elections—even as it stares them in the face.
While the case was technically over the First Amendment and the definition of speech, there was very little talk about that. Instead, several GOP appointees voiced concerns that political parties have been weakened thanks to the rise of super PACs, and that allowing unlimited coordinated spending by parties would restore the parties’ power by encouraging donors to send their money there. Francisco embraced the argument. But it is obvious why this reasoning was maddening to the liberals.
First, that’s not a First Amendment determination, but a policy preference, and pushing one through is not what the court is supposed to do—though that isn’t likely to stop the GOP-appointed majority. Second, the only reason super PACs have so much money is that the Supreme Court lifted outside contribution limits, first in 2010’s Citizens United and, again, in a 2014 case called McCutcheon. Francisco’s argument that the court needs to unravel yet more of Congress’ rules because its meddling has already messed things up is not a strong one. It’s a bait and switch: Now that you gave us what we wanted, you actually have to give us more of what we want.
Indeed, Francisco acknowledged that if his GOP clients win and the limits are lifted, they will soon be back before the court asking for even more. And this time, the logic of any restrictions on campaign donations will be in Constitutional jeopardy.
Attorney Roman Martinez, whom the court appointed to defend the limits because the Trump administration declined to do so, called out that risk, and how this case would cascade into a total erosion of campaign finance law. “This wolf comes as a wolf,” he said, quoting a 1988 dissent by the late Antonin Scalia that is beloved by conservatives.
Francisco, Martinez said, “has basically told you that they’re going to keep litigating to knock down every single one of the restrictions, and that includes the limits on donors to candidates directly.” Martinez continued to lay out this dark future: “It’s going to leave the donor with the ability to give infinite money to the party… and then the party can make unlimited coordinated expenditures—which, by the way, aren’t just about speech. It’s paying the electric bill, it’s paying the florist bill, it’s paying the pizza bill. It’s any expense that the campaign wants.”
The Republican majority has a history of aiding the GOP, and this case may become just the next example. But several of the conservative justices were mostly mum on Tuesday, leaving the outcome a little unclear. It’s possible the court could, to avoid the appearance of another win for Republicans ahead of the midterms, dismiss the case on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing. But if the court continues as it has, both in its support for the GOP and its ultra-wealthy benefactors, then they will likely make it easier for the two to work together.
We started down this road with Citizens United, and every few years since, the court’s GOP majority has pushed us closer and closer to a system of election by oligarchs. The rich do not spend billions of dollars on elections out of the goodness of their hearts, but because presidents and representatives will return the favor. We’ve already seen it happen this year. We’re getting pretty close to where this road ends. Whether or not this case takes us another mile toward an oligarchic free-for-all, we’re already in the bad place.
2025-12-09 22:28:43
A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.
The saga of Olivia Nuzzi consuming the polimedia-sphere has prompted me to think about my own journalistic failing regarding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. No, I didn’t become smitten by RFK Jr. while covering the anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theory–spewing oddball. Nor did I not report what I knew about him during the confirmation process that landed this deceitful promoter of disinformation and fake science in a position to oversee our public health system. But at a critical time, I did not succeed in drawing attention to an important story about Kennedy. And that haunts me.
Allow me, dear reader, to explain.
While I was chasing several stories about Kennedy after Donald Trump tapped him to head the Department of Health and Human Services (see here and here), a source who was once close to Kennedy told me that the scion had at least twice settled cases brought against him by women who claimed he had engaged in misconduct. In one of these instances, this source said, Gloria Allred, the famous attorney, supposedly represented the woman.
When covering famous people, it is not uncommon to encounter gossip and tips about bad personal behavior, and this was not a surprising lead. A babysitter who had once worked for Kennedy had accused him of sexual assault. Her allegation had appeared in a Vanity Fair article. In a subsequent text to her, Kennedy said, “I read your description of an episode in which I touched you in an unwanted manner. I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.” That was not a denial.
I contacted Allred by email and asked if she had handled such a case. I noted that we could talk off the record, if she preferred. Her reply was short: “Sorry. No comment.” I tried her again. Silence.
I pursued other avenues and reached out to Kennedy intimates who might have been in a position to know of any settlements. I found no one with first-hand knowledge, and one person who would likely have been aware of such an arrangement did not respond to my many calls, texts, and emails.
“I have no other comment unless I receive a subpoena, and even then I would have to consider what I would say,” Allred replied.
While doing this, I came across an article published in the Daily Mail a few months previously in which Allred said of Trump’s Cabinet appointees, “I think all nominees should be asked, ‘Have you entered into any confidential settlement with a person who accused you of sexually inappropriate behavior? And if so, will you agree to release the person with whom you settled from the non-disclosure clause from which he or she agreed?’” Coincidence? Or did she know something specific?
As Kennedy’s confirmation hearings were beginning, I pestered Allred again, emailing her that I had just read an “interesting article” and linking to the Daily Mail piece with her highly relevant comment. This did not change her stance. She replied, “I stand by my quote in the Daily Mail article. I believe that all cabinet nominees should be asked if they have entered into settlements with women (or men) who have made allegations against the nominee involving inappropriate sexual conduct. I have no other comment unless I receive a subpoena, and even then I would have to consider what I would say.” Did that mean she had something to say? Or was this merely legal boilerplate?
As I continued to investigate, I contacted members of the two Senate committees holding hearings on Kennedy’s appointment, as well as their staffers, and I asked if they were aware of any such cases or settlements. Had anything come up during their research and preparation for the hearings? No one had any concrete information.
After the first of the two hearings, which was conducted by the Senate Finance Committee, Democrats on the panel sent Kennedy a list of written questions. It included these queries:
Yes or no, have you ever reached a settlement agreement with an individual or organization that accused you of misconduct or inappropriate behavior?
Yes or no, have you ever agreed to or been subject to a non-disclosure agreement with any individual or organization?
The following day, during the hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) raised the issue of personal misconduct with Kennedy. She referred to the former babysitter’s allegation. Kennedy denied the accusation, contradicting his response to the babysitter. Murray then asked, “Are there any other instances where you have made sexual advances toward an individual without their consent?” Kennedy replied, “No.”
As to the queries about reaching a settlement following an allegation of misconduct or inappropriate behavior and being a party to a non-disclosure agreement, Kennedy answered in each case with one word: “Yes.”
Murray did not question him about any other allegations or settlements. I bugged Allred again and asked what she thought of this exchange. Her answer was terse: “That was not the question I suggested should be asked of a cabinet nominee.”
With the hearings now behind him, Kennedy replied to the long list of written questions the senators had submitted. As to the queries about reaching a settlement following an allegation of misconduct or inappropriate behavior and being a party to a non-disclosure agreement, he answered in each case with one word: “Yes.” He supplied no further explanation. The tip had been accurate.
I contacted Kennedy and asked, “Will you disclose what those agreements were? What was the misconduct? Who were the individuals or organizations that accused you? Did this involve women who accused you of personal misconduct? Will you release anyone who has an NDA with you related to any of those settlements from that NDA?” He did not respond. But Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller and MAGA advocate who was then serving as a spokesperson for Kennedy, shot back: “As a matter of policy, we don’t respond to Mother Jones.”
I thought Kennedy’s acknowledgment of these settlements—and his reluctance to explain further—was a story that warranted widespread notice. But no Democratic senator raised a fuss. Once again, I reached out to Allred. Crickets.
The senators did follow up with another written question they sent to Kennedy:
Please describe the nature of the financial settlements (including total amounts) and non-disclosure agreements reached and what these agreements involved. Please also indicate how many of these settlements and non-disclosure agreements you have signed.
RFK Jr. replied:
Twice, I have been targeted by frivolous, unfounded allegations, which I strenuously denied at the time and continue to deny. I entered into confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements to prohibit these individuals from continuing to make these allegations.
This was not a full answer. The Senate Democrats had asked for the total amounts of the settlements, and Kennedy did not provide that information. Nor did this response indicate what “misconduct or inappropriate behavior” had been alleged. He was not being forthcoming.
Once more, I returned to Allred and asked if one of these cases did indeed involve a client of hers, would that client care to challenge Kennedy’s characterization. Allred replied, “I have not stated that I have a client in this matter, but if I did have one the client would be informed about all of your requests and questions.”
What was most surprising was that Senate Democrats dropped the matter.
It was clear: If Allred represented such a client, that woman had no interest in saying anything. Hardly a surprising circumstance. One could easily imagine the assault that would befall a person who might violate an NDA and come forward with allegations about Kennedy. Possibly my original source had been wrong about the Allred connection. Allred never confirmed to me that she had such a client. But if I had to guess…
And that was it.
What was most surprising was that Senate Democrats dropped the matter. After Kennedy refused to provide details about these cases of alleged misconduct, there were no further efforts to press him for more information. No press conferences with senators complaining that he was stonewalling them. He was off the hook. Perhaps he had been unfairly accused. Perhaps he had done something horrible. Kennedy would keep the public—and the senators who had to vote on whether to allow him to take this position of great responsibility—in the dark.
I wrote about all this (here and here), but Kennedy’s acknowledgement of these settlements received little attention elsewhere in the media. It seemed that in the second Trump era, the possibility that RFK Jr. had engaged in misconduct or inappropriate conduct did not matter. After all, Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth had been credibly accused of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and financial mismanagement, and he had won Senate confirmation to become secretary of defense. Such transgressions were apparently not disqualifiers in Trump 2.0. The Democrats appeared to have no appetite for demanding details about possible Kennedy misdeeds, and I did not unearth any further information on these episodes.
I failed to crack the case. Kennedy was confirmed and went on to implement calamitous policies at HHS, denigrating vaccines, pulling the plug on critical scientific and medical research, and increasing the nation’s (and the world’s) vulnerability to pandemics. If the specifics of his alleged misconduct had been revealed, might that have sunk his nomination and prevented the disaster he’s wreaking? We will never know.
2025-12-09 20:30:00
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Years of underfunding and new delays in federal grantmaking threaten buoys and ocean monitoring assets run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that protect fishermen, cargo ships and endangered species across the country. With key grant deadlines now passed and new awards still pending, regional operators warn that some of those services could go dark at the peak of hurricane season.
In the Northeast Channel, where warm, salty Gulf Stream waters collide with frigid meltwater from the Arctic, sensors that hung from a buoy like ornaments on a tree were stationed at the entrance to the Gulf of Maine. The sensors fed scientists and forecasters rare data from one of the Atlantic’s strangest crossroads.
But in 2022, the buoy’s operator, the Northeast Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS), was forced to pull it from the water as stagnant federal funding made routine servicing impossible. Faced with hard choices, the group prioritized buoys closer to shore that are more critical for marine safety over the Northeast Channel buoy, which primarily supported research.
Unlike many NOAA programs, the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS)—“the eyes of our ocean,” a network of regional associations that collect and track ocean data—enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. But year after year, federal appropriations have fallen short of what the program needs to properly service and maintain its buoys, sensors, gliders, and other equipment.
After the program was authorized by Congress in 2009, an independent study found that the program would need about $715 million to deliver on lawmakers’ vision. Since that study, the most the program has received is $42.5 million—a level it has effectively been stuck at for years.
That number was always ambitious and would require slow, steady growth, according to Kristen Yarincik, executive director of the IOOS Association, a nonprofit that represents the 11 regional IOOS associations. But flat funding in recent years, combined with inflation and rising equipment costs, has made routine servicing and upgrades increasingly difficult.
“If one of our buoys goes offline, I hear about it from fishermen [first]. What that tells me is that even a short outage really affects people.”
This year, federal appropriations may offer some relief, matching the IOSS Association’s $56 million request—but only if the money actually moves on time. IOOS regions operate on five-year cooperative agreements with NOAA; the current agreements, covering 2021–2026, end on June 30 for most regions.
IOOS sources say the next round of funding may be delayed by new layers of federal review within the Department of Commerce and the Office of Management and Budget. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Congress has not passed a full-year appropriations package, leaving agencies to operate under the president’s budget proposal, which zeroes out IOOS.
“It’s so important that Congress finalize a full-year appropriations package for 2026 as soon as possible,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), a member of the House Committee on Appropriations. “Both the House and the Senate have proposed a funding increase for IOOS Regional Observations, and it’s my sincere hope that both chambers will push the administration to adopt these spending levels.”
Regional associations say they need to submit proposals by the end of January. Because Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) to federal contractors are legally required to stay open for about 60 days, they need to have been published by the end of November to avoid problems next summer, according to Yarincik. “After that, the timeline, and therefore continuity of data collection, becomes at risk,” she said.
As of early December, those NOFOs still have not been released. The question now is how long awards will be delayed, and how long a funding gap may persist come July.
Once proposals are submitted, NOAA must still review, negotiate, and approve awards—a process that has been slowing under new rules requiring the secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, to personally sign off on grants over $100,000.
“They are a ways behind on this,” said Jake Kritzer, executive director of NERACOOS. According to Kritzer and Yarincik, NOFOs are typically published a year before the start date, making this round more than six months late. If a funding gap arises because of the delay, it would only exacerbate problems IOOS regional associations are already struggling with.
A funding gap next summer could hit just as hurricane season reaches its height.
In the Northeast, buoys lobstermen and cargo ships rely on are starting to show their age, Kritzer said. “Think of it like a car,” he said. “It may last 10 or 20 years, but over time the maintenance becomes more and more expensive.” And replacing an old buoy requires even more money up front.
While the Gulf of Maine has lost a number of buoys, those that remain aren’t being serviced frequently enough. Buoys that should be serviced five times a year may see only a single visit, according to Kritzer. As sensors float at different depths, salt and biofouling buildup can degrade data quality, and sometimes the instruments go dark for hours or even days.
“If one of our buoys goes offline, I hear about it from fishermen before our data guys or sensor technicians,” Kritzer said. “What that tells me is that even a short outage really affects people.”
Fishermen use subsurface temperature data to find the most cost-effective places to fish and rely even more on IOOS data to decide whether it’s safe to leave the dock at all.
“Maine lobstermen monitor the buoy readings and NERACOOS data products daily to understand sea conditions, make informed decisions about when it is safe to leave the dock, and be prepared for the conditions they will face at sea,” the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) said in a statement. “It directly impacts their ability to determine whether or not it is safe to go fishing.”
The association also noted that NERACOOS data helps protect lobster populations and other sea life, including endangered whales, from human impacts. Sensors that monitor algal blooms and zooplankton help ensure lobsters have enough prey to feed on. Water-quality monitoring tracks pollution that can harm marine life. And acoustic monitoring systems help keep ships away from migrating whales.
Cargo ships depend on that same real-time wave and wind data to plan safe transit in and out of port, avoid dangerous seas, and reduce costly delays. “Congress and NOAA should continue to fund and efficiently administer the IOOS and other navigation programs for the safe and efficient operations of our maritime industry,” said a representative from the American Association of Port Authorities.
IOOS data supplements the National Weather Service’s own observation networks, sharpening coastal forecasts for local communities. The National Weather Service can still draw on its radars, satellites and other federal, military and private data, but IOOS-backed tide gauges and wave buoys help monitor flood risk and storm surge—data that allows emergency management to make more informed decisions.
IOOS officials warn that if regional systems go dark, many coastal forecasts would become less precise and less locally tuned.
But the work that allows lobstermen to empty their traps, cargo ships to safely reach port, and coastal communities to get accurate flood warnings depends on steady funding.
Supplementary funding sources can help keep IOOS regions afloat if a funding gap is realized, but IOOS leaders warn even a one- to two-month lapse in federal support could delay maintenance and force key services to go dark.
If that happens, Yarincik said, “the availability of real-time data and accuracy of data products will be reduced, at a minimum, and this will impact navigational safety for commercial shipping, fishermen and recreational boaters; local flood monitoring for coastal communities; and weather forecasting, especially for hurricane intensity forecasts.”
IOOS helps supply the water-temperature data forecasters use to gauge how intense hurricanes may become. A funding gap next summer could hit just as hurricane season reaches its height, leaving lives and entire coastal communities vulnerable.
2025-12-09 07:29:26
Oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Monday over the president’s power to remove the commissioners of independent agencies left little doubt that its Republican-appointed justices are about to fundamentally reorder our system of government. They appear ready to eliminate most pockets of expertise and nonpartisanship that we rely on as stewards of important economic, political, scientific, and regulatory power.
They will do this, if this morning’s arguments are any indication, without grappling with the predictable and disastrous fallout, with the endpoint of their own logic, or the historical record to the contrary. Instead, the six Republican appointees appear ready to race headlong into a Trumpian future in which no agency or decision is beyond the reach of the precedent’s political cronies.
“You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed Monday, “and to take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent.”
FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, a Trump and Biden appointee whose case is now before the court, sued after Trump fired her in March for not aligning with his agenda, despite his being prohibited from removing commissioners except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
Slaughter’s case hearkens to the earliest days of the republic, when Congress first created independent agencies with limits on the president’s ability to remove the commissioners who run them. In their modern incarnation, beginning in the late 19th century, Congress has placed these agencies under the direction of a bipartisan group of commissioners who serve set, staggered terms and can only be removed for cause. The goal is to create expertise and independence, so that some of the government’s work is insulated from the abusive pull of political decision-making.
In 1935, a unanimous Supreme Court upheld the for-cause removal protections for independent agency commissioners in a ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor. But since taking office in January, Trump has removed the Democratic commissioners from several of these agencies, in violation of the Humphrey’s Executor precedent and multiple laws, seeking to eliminate their independence. He’s fired Democratic commissioners of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit System Protection Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the FTC’s Slaughter.
It wasn’t a mystery where this case was headed. For years, the Roberts Court has sought to weaken and undermine Humphrey’s Executor, to reshape the federal government as a quasi-monarchical institution in which the president controls everything in the executive branch. This goal is intellectualized through the unitary executive theory, an invention of Ronald Reagan’s administration—in which Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito both served—to arrogate more power to the White House when Democrats had an unshakeable hold on Congress.
This is the whole problem in a nutshell: The majority does not really think it is bound by its own logic.
This year, the GOP wing of the court has been so eager to overturn Humphrey’s Executor that it actually couldn’t wait for the chance to issue a decision to render the precedent a nullity in practice. Thus, since Trump began firing Democratic commissioners, in January, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stepped in to allow those firings to take effect while the litigation over them proceeds, even though the firings clearly violated both the law and Humphrey’s Executor.
Despite the obvious direction this court was moving, it was still unsettling to hear six justices completely unwilling to acknowledge and wrestle with the consequences of overturning a 90-year-old precedent that acts as a pillar of the separation of powers that endeavors to protect key government functions from the corrosive effects of partisan politics.
Take this exchange between Justice Elena Kagan, Solicitor General John Sauer, and Alito. Kagan began by pressing Sauer on the logical consequences of his argument that all the executive power rests with the president, such that he must be able to remove anyone engaged in executive branch functions. What about courts set up by Congress—separate from federal courts under the federal judiciary—such as the Tax Court and the Court of Federal Claims? What about civil servants and government employees?
Sauer demurred that laws protecting civil servants and other employees haven’t been challenged—yet.
“I know you haven’t challenged it,” Kagan responded. “It’s really, the question is, ‘Where does this lead? What does it take you to, given what your primary rationale is?”
Then Alito piped up to suggest that maybe the court could just blow up our system of government without thinking through these pesky details.
“Suppose we were to decide this case in your favor without reaching some of the agencies that have been mentioned, like the Tax Court and the Claims Court and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces,” Alito asked Sauer. “What would you propose that we say so as to reserve decision on those agencies?” Sauer happily responded that the court could simply say that it was withholding judgement on them.
An exasperated Kagan jumped back in. “Our logic has consequences,” she said. “Once you use a particular kind of argument to justify one thing, you can’t turn your back on that kind of argument if it also justifies another thing in the exact same way. And so, putting a footnote in the opinion saying we don’t decide X, Y and Z, because it’s not before us, doesn’t do much good if the entire logic of the opinion drives you there.”
This is actually the whole problem in a nutshell. The majority does not really think it is bound by its own logic. Next month, the Court is going to decide whether Trump can remove a governor of the Federal Reserve Board, a removal that could spook the markets and have more immediate and disastrous economic consequences than his takeover of the FTC.
And so the court appears poised to allow the president to take over the agencies it wants to transform into political entities, and preserve the independence of the ones it wants to keep independent, and use words like “uniquely structured” and “distinct historical tradition” to pretend this isn’t a consequentialist, results-driven exercise in hackery. On the other hand, if the justices want to embrace the logic that civil service laws violate the president’s executive power, then it will continue in this vein until it has replaced all experts and meritorious hires with cronies and nepo babies.
Just as the Republican justices avoided this logical incongruity, they also avoided the consequences of reordering some of the government, from an arrangement in which experts, scientists, and bipartisan commissions control at least some sensitive and technical decision-making to one in which political favoritism and corruption rule. Jackson pushed that issue repeatedly at oral argument.
The entire oral argument was infused with contempt for Congress’ authority and democratic legitimacy.
“My understanding was that independent agencies exist because Congress has decided that some issues, some matters, some areas should be handled in this way by nonpartisan experts,” she said. “So having a president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs, and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything, is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.”
Relatedly, Jackson continued, why should the president’s desire to control everything take precedence over Congress’ judgment that some functions should be run by independent agencies? “Given the history of the monarchy and the concerns that the Framers had about a president controlling everything,” she asked, why shouldn’t Congress’ judgment prevail?
Jackson returned repeatedly to the idea that Congress has the authority to create independent agencies, as well as to the idea that Congress oversees them. Justice Amy Coney Barrett portrayed independent agencies as “not answering to either the President or to Congress”; Justice Brett Kavanaugh called them “unaccountable” and worried that they cause “real-world problems for individual liberty,” though he didn’t name any. Sauer alleged a “power vacuum” in which independent agency commissioners exercise enormous control without answering to the president.
“I really don’t understand why the agencies aren’t answering to Congress,” Jackson said. “Congress established them and can eliminate them. Congress funds them and can stop. So to the extent that we’re concerned that there’s some sort of entity that is out of control and has no control, I guess I don’t understand that argument.”
Indeed, the entire oral argument was infused with contempt for Congress’ authority and democratic legitimacy. The Republican-appointees prefer to give the president unlimited power than to allow Congress to create the agencies it sees fit; and they see Congressional oversight not as part of its constitutional function but as a problem.
Finally, though the conservative justices have spent decades touting their originalist methodology—which seeks the answer to constitutional and statutory questions in historical analogues and the Constitution’s original public meaning—they almost completely ignored the actual history of independent agencies. Since the Roberts Court began to move rapidly toward the unitary executive theory, historians and legal scholars have gone back to the archives to see whether there’s actually historical evidence for eliminating independent agencies and giving the president unfettered removal power. It turns out there are lots of historical examples of independent agencies and restrictions on presidential removals going back to the Founding era—as multiple amicus briefs in this case laid out.
“Independent agencies have been around since the founding,” Sotomayor said. “The Sinking Fund, the War Commission—we’ve had independent agencies throughout our history. So this is not a modern contrivance.”
But the conservatives saw our status quo—in effect, in some form, for 250 years—as the real threat. Chief Justice Roberts, for example, worried that Congress might get power-hungry and decide to transform federal agencies like the Department of Education into independent agencies run by independent commissioners. That example is far-fetched at the moment: Congress created the department and now is sitting idly by as Trump unilaterally dismantles it. Nevertheless, this seemed a bigger worry for the conservative bloc than the actual, predictable consequences of letting Trump get his hands on every pocket of independence: further self-enrichment, retribution, chaos, and the other tragedies that stem from clowns running the circus.
This is what it looks like when Supreme Court justices are completely unburdened by history, the logical conclusions of their own reasoning, and the real-world consequences of their own actions. And we are all along for the ride.
2025-12-09 05:57:31
Alina Habba has finally stepped down as New Jersey’s lead federal prosecutor after a three-month court challenge found her appointment without Senate confirmation illegal.
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concurred with a lower court ruling that Habba, formerly Trump’s personal attorney, was gifted the position of acting US attorney through a “novel”—and unlawful—“series of legal and personnel moves.”
Habba announced her resignation as acting US attorney for the District of New Jersey in a social media post Monday afternoon to “protect the stability and integrity of the office.” Habba, who helped defend Trump in his New York civil fraud case and defamation trials, has no experience as a prosecutor.
“But do not mistake compliance for surrender,” Habba wrote, announcing that she would continue to serve the Department of Justice as Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “Senior Advisor” for US attorneys.
It remains uncertain who will head the New Jersey US attorney’s office following Habba’s resignation.
Despite the earlier federal ruling on her position, Habba remained in her post after Bondi deemed her “Special Attorney to the Attorney General,” a title the White House has used in other attempts to force through other prosecutorial appointments without Senate confirmation.
Bondi wrote on X that the Department of Justice would “seek further review” of the decision against Habba and that she was “confident” it would be reversed. Bondi complained that “politicized judges” were pausing trials to “countermand the President’s choice of attorneys.”
Habba was only the first of Trump’s US attorneys to be embroiled in a court battle over their appointment. Judges have stated that circumventing Senate confirmation by placing acting US attorneys—and obvious Trump devotees—in lead prosecutor positions was illegal.
Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, met the same fate last month. Halligan’s criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were subsequently dismissed. In September and October, respectively, the US attorneys in Nevada and the Central District of California were also found to have been appointed illegally.
In a Monday statement posted on X about Halligan, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the judges of conducting an “unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility.”
Habba’s resignation may indicate that the Trump administration is nevertheless beginning to see such appointments as a losing battle.
