Supreme Court

Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law, and Timothy D. McBride, PhD, professor of public health, both at Washington University in St. Louis, are available for expert commentary on the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act decision.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care act has prompted some interesting and provocative issues about – and between – the president and the judicial branch, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and former clerk for retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. “These alarmed reactions reflect historical ignorance,” he says.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have a major impact on the presidential campaign, says Timothy D. McBride, PhD, health economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “The health reform legislation was the signature piece of social legislation passed by President (Barack) Obama’s administration in his first term,” he says. How the court’s decision will influence the election could be quite complex, says McBride. The court is hearing arguments in the case March 26-28

The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an important victory for religious liberty says First Amendment expert John Inazu, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Hosanna-Tabor is a welcome reminder that the Court has not lost sight of ‘the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.’”

In the case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas is contesting a federal court’s redrawing of the state’s electoral district lines for the upcoming primary election. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas must get preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice before it can institute any voting changes. “This case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to weaken or even strike down Section 5,” says Gregory Magarian, JD, election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “If Texas wins, even if the Court stops short of striking down Section 5 altogether, it will mark a major change in the law. The Supreme Court will essentially be saying that racial voting discrimination by state officials is no longer a problem that justifies a federal remedy.”

This summer, the Supreme Court will rule whether to allow the district court certification of the class action gender bias case against Wal-Mart. While much of the attention has focused on the enormous size of the class, the impact of the case is likely to be felt across a range of class action and employment discrimination cases, says Pauline Kim, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis and employment law expert. 

“The retirement announcement of Justice John Paul Stevens does not come as a big surprise, but it is still a sad day,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, former Stevens clerk and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The Supreme Court is losing a great jurist and a great man.” Magarian calls Stevens a “pragmatic populist” because of the way he approached his decisions with the court. “Stevens always has been very focused on what a Supreme Court decision is going to do to an ordinary person,” he says. “He’s never written an opinion just to make a point or put on a show.” 

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn campaign spending limits for corporations “strikes a serious blow against efforts to stem the dominance of corporations in our political process,” says Gregory  P. Magarian, J.D., constitutional and election law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.  “The Court overruled a longstanding decision that had struck a sensible, carefully drawn balance between the self-interest of corporations and interests of integrity and fairness in the political process.“

An expert on the Second Amendment says that gun owners and sellers should not be sweating bullets over Barack Obama’s election as president. Despite Obama’s record on gun control, David T. Konig, Ph.D., a professor of history in Arts & Sciences and a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be an issue that Obama will address as president early in his term — if at all.

GibsonA 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting the right of judicial candidates to speak freely about controversial issues opened the door for state judicial election campaigns to become increasingly nasty, bitter and politicized. However, the Court’s decision has not directly damaged the court system’s legitimacy in the eyes of citizens, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.