It was a different crowd today at the Supreme Court. The number of children on the courthouse steps may have exceeded the number of adults, and the voices on the microphones were speaking English and Spanish. United States v. Texas is about different things for different people. For some it is about keeping families together, for others executive overreach, and for about half of the states it is about “standing” to sue the federal government.
There is outright theft and then there is getting paid for doing the job but not following all the rules. The former may be the subject of a False Claims Act claim but what about the latter? The Supreme Court will hear argument on that question next week.The False Claims Act (FCA) allows private individuals to sue on behalf of the United States to recover money that has been defrauded from the federal government. While the Supreme Court has yet to rule whether states and local governments can bring FCA claims, local governments, but not state governments, can be sued for making false claims against the federal government.
Perhaps the Supreme Court’s midterm has come and gone. The Court will only hear argument in 10 more cases and the term will end June 30. But the Court has issued decisions in less than half of the cases of the term so far. So now might be just the time to take stock of the Supreme Court’s term as it relates to the states.
In a 6-2 decision the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel includes allowing a criminal defendant to use untainted substitute assets to hire an attorney, rather than freezing them for forfeiture to the government after conviction. The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief arguing for the opposite result in Luis v. United States. State and local governments—police departments in particular—receive criminal asset forfeitures. Any many state forfeiture statutes allow freezing of substitute assets.
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Associationcould have turned public sector labor law upside down. In an unsurprising move the Supreme Court issued a non-precedential 4-4 opinion affirming the lower court’s decision by an equally divided Court. This opinion continues the status quo. Had Justice Scalia not died in February this case almost certainly would have had a different outcome.
As promised, President Obama has nominated someone to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. If this wasn’t an election year Merrick Garland would be a surprising choice. He is known as a moderate, is older (63), a white male, and has been a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for almost 20 years. If it wasn’t an election year Senate Republicans would probably be racing to confirm him.
So the million dollar question (other than who will fill Justice Scalia’s seat) is what will happen to undecided Supreme Court cases heard or to be heard this term. The short answer is it depends and in all instances isn’t entirely clear.
The Supreme Court may currently be on recess but that did not stop it from issuing a stay preventing the Clean Power Plan regulations from going into effect until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court if it chooses to, rules on the regulations.
The Friday before and the Tuesday after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day the Supreme Court accepted a total of nine cases, including a challenge to the President’s executive order allowing undocumented parents of children who are citizens to remain in the United States. United States v. Texas will be heard this term and decided by the end of June. Oral argument will be held next term in some of the other cases accepted mid-January. Four of the eight cases accepted, in addition to the immigration case, affect state and local governments. While I will write more about each of these cases later, for now, below is a brief synopsis of them.
It was a typical oral argument at the Supreme Court in a “big” case. Protesters outside with opposing messages tried to out yell each other, but everyone inside was listening to Justice Kennedy. In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association the Court will decide whether to overrule a nearly 40-year old precedent requiring public sector employees who don’t join the union to pay their “fair share” of collective bargaining costs. More than 20 States have enacted statutes authorizing fair share.
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