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Nov 15, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | John Surico |Gabriella Sanchez |Miriam Seifter |Martha Davis
As New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announces she’s reviving the program, litigation over the plan is ongoing. If there’s a window for New York City to implement congestion pricing, it’s narrowing. The reelection of Donald Trump to the White House could spell doom for a proposed charge for motorists entering Manhattan’s Central Business District (below 59th Street), meant to fund $15 billion worth of mass transit upgrades.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Michael Milov-Cordoba |Eli Savit |Alicia Bannon |Gabriella Sanchez
State lawmakers frequently change judicial election rules with the goal of putting partisan or ideological allies on the bench. With nearly a quarter of the country’s 344 state supreme court justices on the ballot this year, those changes could have big implications in November’s election. The changes include making nonpartisan elections partisan, altering the composition of judicial nominating commissions, redrawing judicial districts, or creating new courts with jurisdiction over specific cases.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
brennancenter.org | Dave Roos |Gabriella Sanchez
The Constitution was written more than two centuries ago when slavery was the law of the land in half of the United States and women had few legal rights. In the first 160 years of the Court’s existence, the justices tended to reflect these biases, largely ruling to defend the interests of businesses and the wealthy elite rather than the general public. But in the 1950s and 1960s, a change came.
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Jun 5, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | David Brown |Douglas Keith |Gabriella Sanchez |Chihiro Isozaki
Cyberattacks targeting state and local courts are growing in frequency and intensity, as hackers attempt to steal sensitive data, demand ransoms, and sow chaos. Over the last 18 months, court systems and related agencies like public defenders, prosecutors, and county clerks have been forced offline in Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi, Colorado, and Ohio. The worst recent attack, on the Kansas court system last October, took four months and millions of dollars to overcome.
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May 24, 2024 | 
statecourtreport.org | Douglas Keith |Gabriella Sanchez |Alicia Bannon |Chihiro Isozaki
More data and further scholarship is needed to devise policies for promoting a state bench that adequately represents the varied background of the public. State supreme courts across the United States fail to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. This lack of diversity mirrors and perpetuates broader systemic inequalities within our judicial system.
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Jan 29, 2024 | 
brennancenter.org | Joanna Zdanys |Gabriella Sanchez |Alice Clapman |Spencer Reynolds
Today the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law announced that Kimberley D. Harris and Christine A. Varney have been elected Co-Chairs of the Center’s Board of Directors. Kimberley D. Harris is Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation and General Counsel of NBCUniversal. In this role, Harris oversees all international government and regulatory affairs for Comcast, supporting the company’s businesses worldwide.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
brennancenter.org | Gabriella Sanchez |Douglas Keith |Martha Kinsella
A new online portal is making it easier for law students to seek state court clerkships — and, in the long run, it aims to increase diversity on the bench. Court Opportunity Recruitment for All, or CORA, serves as a hub for courts to post and applicants to explore clerkships, externships, and internships within state judicial systems.
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Nov 27, 2023 | 
statecourtreport.org | Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot |Gabriella Sanchez |Mary Ziegler |Anthony Sanders
The plaintiffs include 20 women who were denied abortion care and two doctors who say Texas’s abortion bans prevent them from meeting their ethical obligations. The Texas Supreme Court hears oral argument Tuesday in a case seeking to clarify what counts as a “medical emergency” under the state’s abortion bans. The plaintiffs also raise claims under state constitutional guarantees to equal rights, freedom from discrimination, and due process.
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Oct 13, 2023 | 
brennancenter.org | Faiza Patel |Spencer Reynolds |Gabriella Sanchez |Michael German
This article first appeared at Emerging from the first of a planned series of listening sessions on AI on September 13, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer reported that, during the closed-door meeting, every single person in attendance—mostly CEOs of tech companies and some civil society representatives—raised their hands when he asked if “government is needed to play a role in regulating AI.” Lawmakers and witnesses also expressed support for AI regulation during hearings held this past...
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
statecourtreport.org | Sarah Kessler |Gabriella Sanchez |Michael Milov-Cordoba |Douglas Keith
An unusual state court procedure allows the attorney general to undo trial court rulings just by filing an appeal. Since the beginning of August, trial courts in Texas have issued four major rulings about the constitutionality of state statutes, only to have each of those decisions immediately undone by the state’s attorney general.
