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May 15, 2024 | 
lawfaremedia.org | Daniel Byman |Evan Zoldan
In its lawsuit currently before the D.C. Circuit, TikTok asserts that Congress’s effort to prohibit its use in the United States under its current ownership is unprecedented. But that’s not quite right. TikTok’s basic argument—that it has been targeted by legislation due to suspicions of its disloyalty—is surprisingly common.
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Mar 1, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Nancy Watzman |Jerry Dickinson |Evan Zoldan |Douglas Keith
State supreme courts issue hundreds of decisions every year affecting voting rights, reproductive care, protections related to the criminal justice system, and other state constitutional rights. With so much at stake, accessing information about these proceedings — dockets, briefs, opinions — should be simple. But, often, it’s not so easy. Every state has its own system and practices for public access to case information.
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Feb 12, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Jerry Dickinson |Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot |Evan Zoldan |Jonathan L. Marshfield
Both historical and recent decisions show the Court’s willingness to apply state supreme courts’ reasoning to interpret the Constitution. When the U.S. Supreme Court struggles to find an appropriate source or applicable precedent when addressing vexing questions of federal constitutional law, it sometimes turns to state supreme courts for guidance.
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Feb 6, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot |Evan Zoldan |Jonathan L. Marshfield |Martha Davis
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday in an appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision barring Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot. But the lawsuit, Anderson v. Griswold, is far from the only effort to remove Trump from a state’s ballot. To date, there have been at least 50 such actions before courts or election officials filed across 35 states.
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Jan 24, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Evan Zoldan |Jonathan L. Marshfield |Martha Davis |Marcus Gadson
Single-subject requirements were used to strike down a Missouri law criminalizing homelessness and also helped undermine attempts to protect abortion access in other states. A recent Missouri case illustrates how state constitutional single-subject clauses can be used to prevent perverse policy outcomes — while also raising questions about how such provisions might be used to limit key ballot initiatives this year. In Byrd v.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Evan Zoldan |Martha Davis |Charles Gardner Geyh |Jonathan L. Marshfield
This article is the second in a State Court Report series on the major questions doctrine in the states. The first can be found here. The Texas Supreme Court has gestured toward the adoption of a major questions doctrine based on the federal model — but a close look at the state’s law and institutions reveals that the doctrine may not be a good fit for Texas. In West Virginia v.
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Nov 20, 2023 | 
statecourtreport.org | Evan Zoldan |Alicia Bannon |Emily Lau |Sarah Kessler
State courts should hesitate before adopting the federal major questions doctrine under state law. Despite heated debate over its provenance and wisdom, the controversial “major questions doctrine” is now part of the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretive toolkit. In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Court limited the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants. And in Biden v.
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Nov 15, 2023 | 
statecourtreport.org | Emily Lau |Alicia Bannon |Evan Zoldan |Sarah Kessler
It has been over 30 years since the U.S. Constitution was last amended. Prior to that, it had only been amended 16 times since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. Compare that to state constitutions, which were collectively amended nearly 70 times in 2022 alone. Yet, despite frequently voting on whether to amend their state constitutions, Americans pay comparatively little attention to the role state constitutions play in shaping government, promoting democracy, and granting rights.
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Oct 26, 2023 | 
statecourtreport.org | Alicia Bannon |Evan Zoldan |Emily Lau |Martha Kinsella
As the U.S. Supreme Court reconsiders Chevron deference, almost all state courts continue to recognize the importance of agencies’ expertise in policymaking. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases this term about how much deference federal courts should give to the expertise federal agencies have in administering statutory directives — possibly upending a decades-old standard of review established by a unanimous Supreme Court. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v.
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May 5, 2023 | 
bnanews.bna.com | Evan Zoldan
Disney’s lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other Florida officials, alleging it was targeted by the legislature, bears striking similarities to an unsuccessful 2019 complaint brought by Huawei Technologies. Huawei’s lawsuit was dismissed without a trial. Does this result suggest that Disney’s suit, rooted in the same basic allegation of legislative targeting, is doomed to the same fate? Not necessarily.
