Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to block a ruling from the state’s Supreme Court allowing mail-in ballots received three days after November 3 to be counted if they are postmarked on that day. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in June challenging several aspects of the state’s [...]
A federal judge on Friday blocked the state of Texas from eliminating straight-party voting, a system where a voter could vote for all the Democrats or Republicans on a ballot by checking a single box. In the order, US District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo said the main reason for preventing the law is to eliminate [...]
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request to allow law school graduates to work as attorneys immediately, without taking the bar exam. The decision concerned an emergency petition filed on September 9 by Pilar Escontrias and Donna Saadati-Soto, two leaders in the group United for Diploma Privilege and aspiring practitioners in California. The [...]
A federal judge on Tuesday declined to stay his own ruling that Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s size limits on gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic are unconstitutional. Judge William Stickman ruled last week that Wolf’s restrictions on gatherings, his order to close “non-life-sustaining” businesses and his order directing Pennsylvania residents to stay at home were unconstitutional. [...]
Amnesty International reported Monday that authorities in Venezuela, El Salvador and Paraguay have held tens of thousands of people in inadequate state-run quarantine centers. The report deemed the facilities to be a “form of repression.” Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March, detention centers in Venezuela, El Salvador and Paraguay have held thousands of people [...]
The US House of Representatives voted Monday in favor of legislation that would amend the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act and restore the ability of the federal government to charge health insurers under antitrust laws. This bill, HR 1418, is part of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2019, which was cosponsored by dozens of Democrats [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest in the US District Court for the District of New Mexico on Monday alleging that a rule imposing more strict COVID-19 capacity requirements on private schools than public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. New Mexico’s COVID-19 rules limit public school [...]
US District Judge Marrero in Manhattan ordered the US Postal Service (USPS) Monday to treat all election mail as first-class mail or priority mail express and to pre-approve all overtime that has been or will be requested between October 26 and November 6. “The entire world is now in the grip of a catastrophic pandemic [...]
A Michigan state Court of Claims ruling on Friday held that absentee ballots must be counted as long as they were postmarked by November 2 and received within fourteen days. The case was brought by a group of Plaintiffs including the Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans. The plaintiffs requested injunctive relief in three different issues. [...]
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals issued an order Tuesday granting in part to allow law school graduates to practice in Washington, DC, without having sat for the bar exam. The order grants the request in part and states that the court is preparing emergency rules to be released by Monday, September 28. These [...]
