D.C. gun ruling again raises an issue the Supreme Court has been reluctant to review

Seated from left, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, and Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. Standing behind from left, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr., Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch pose for a portrait in the east conference room of the building of the Supreme Court.

‘Repeal and replace’? Try ‘tweak and move on’

Two Junes ago, when the Supreme Court upheld, 6-3, a challenged provision of the Affordable Care Act, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, vented: "Congress wrote key parts of the act behind closed doors. ... Congress passed much of the act using a complicated budgetary procedure known as 'reconciliation,' which limited opportunities for debate and amendment, and bypassed the Senate's normal 60-vote filibuster requirement.

Justice Gorsuch Delivers

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has had a rough couple of weeks. Yet, however many setbacks he might suffer over health care reform or other parts of the Republican agenda, he knows he has already won the biggest fight of all: the theft of a Supreme Court seat from President Obama, the installation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the preservation of the court's conservative majority for years to come.

Supreme Court rules for church in case involving rubber playground surfacing

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources violated the rights of a Lutheran church school when it denied a grant for the church to install a rubber playground surface at the school, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 7-2 decision. In 2012, the Trinity Lutheran Church Child Learning Center in Columbia, Mo., applied to the DNR for a grant to replace pea gravel playground surfacing at the school with a pour-in-place rubber surface, under Missouri's Scrap Tire Program.

Supreme Court order unlikely to deter voting restrictions

The Supreme Court's refusal to breathe new life into North Carolina's sweeping voter identification law might be just a temporary victory for civil rights groups. Republican-led states are continuing to enact new voter ID measures and other voting restrictions, and the Supreme Court's newly reconstituted conservative majority, with the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch , could make the court less likely to invalidate the laws based on claims under the federal Voting Rights Act or the Constitution.

Supreme Court removes North Carolina law that critics say disenfranchised blacks

The U.S. Supreme Court put the final nail in the coffin of North Carolina's strict voter-identification law on Monday, rejecting a Republican bid to revive the measure struck down by a lower court for intentionally aiming to suppress black voter turnout. The justices left in place a July 2016 ruling by the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that voided the law passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor.

Supreme Court rejects appeal over NC voter ID law

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal to reinstate North Carolina's voter identification law, which a lower court said targeted African-Americans "with almost surgical precision." The justices left in place the lower court ruling striking down the law's photo ID requirement and reduction in early voting.

Five plead guilty in Supreme Court protest

Five people who disrupted a session of the U.S. Supreme Court by shouting their disapproval of the court's campaign finance rulings pleaded guilty Thursday after losing their bid to overturn a 1949 law restricting public protest at the court. The defendants, members of an organization called 99Rise, stood and spoke one by one just after the court was gaveled into session on April 1, 2015, about a year after the justices struck down overall limits on campaign contributions.

Highs and lows of Trump’s first 100 days

Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump looks on during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017. Protesters stream onto Independence Avenue at the Women's March on Washington during the first full day of Donald Trump's presidency, Jan. 21, 2017 in Washington.

Sandra Day O’Connor makes this year’s ‘Time 100’

Sandra Day O'Connor on this year's 'Time 100' First woman Supreme Court justice, an El Paso native, makes Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Check out this story on ElPasoTimes.com: President Trump, James Corden and Simone Biles are just a few of the names that made it on their annual list.

As the freshman Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch will have…

Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., and fellow justices watch as Neil Gorsuch signs the Constitutional Oath after Roberts administered the Constitutional Oath in a private ceremony, Monday, April 10, 2017, in the Justices' Conference Room at the Supreme Court in Washington. Start by making him take notes and answer the door at the justices' private meetings.

Gorsuch sworn into Supreme Court, vows to serve Constitution

President Donald Trump praised new Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch during a public White House ceremony on Monday as a jurist who will rule "not on his personal preferences but based on a fair and objective reading of the law." In a Rose Garden ceremony, Trump said Americans would see in Gorsuch "a man who is deeply faithful to the Constitution of the United States" and predicted greatness for the 49-year-old former appeals court judge from Colorado.