Power

Gavel Drop: Conservatives to Pressure Senate Democrats on Trump Supreme Court Nominees

With Donald Trump sworn in as president, conservatives are going to spend millions in support of his picks for the nation's highest court.

On the heels of Republican obstruction of Merrick Garland's U.S. Supreme Court nomination, conservatives are launching a massive. big-money campaign to force Democratic approval of President Trump's nominees to the bench.

Welcome to Gavel Drop, our roundup of legal news, headlines, and head-shaking moments in the courts.

Conservative groups are planning an unprecedented spending push targeting Senate Democrats and pressuring them to hold hearings to approve President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominations.

There is some hope that partisan gerrymandering can get struck down in the courts. Slate‘s Mark Joseph Stern explains here.

For now, the Roberts Court will not hear a challenge to Texas’ strict voter identification law, though the Court indicated it could reconsider that decision after the case finishes working its way through the federal appeals court.

During the confirmation hearings of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for attorney general, many of his supporters cited Sessions’ previous prosecution of a Klu Klux Klansman as proof he has a better-than-reported record on race relations. Turns out Sessions would have dropped the case if he could have.

It also turns out that Sen. Sessions has a history of blocking Black judges from confirmation, too.

In Baltimore, a hearing about policing reforms proposed after Freddie Gray’s April 2015 death has been postponed to allow the Trump administration time to be briefed on the agreement between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice.

A Georgia appeals court gave a win to transgender rights, ruling that two transgender men can legally change their names after a lower court had ruled such name changes would be confusing and considered a type of fraud.

Meanwhile, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a challenge to a Houston ordinance that provides same-sex spousal benefits to municipal employees. Conservatives hope the case will provide an opportunity to challenge the scope of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision affirming marriage equality.

A West Virginia mother has sued her public school district, arguing the district’s practice of putting public school kids in Bible classes is unconstitutional.

Missouri State University officials will settle a lawsuit with a former graduate student who claimed he was kicked out of the school’s counseling program for refusing to counsel gay students.