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Appeals court rules Trump can fire board members of independent labor agencies
Lawyer Blog News |
2025/03/28 22:46
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An appeals court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump can fire two board members of independent agencies handling labor issues from their respective posts in the federal government.
A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed to lift orders blocking the Trump administration from removing Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.
On March 4, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that Trump illegally tried to fire Harris. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that Trump did not have the authority to remove Wilcox.
The Justice Department asked the appellate court to suspend those orders while they appeal the decisions.
President Joe Biden nominated Harris to the MSPB in 2021 and nominated Wilcox to a second five-year term as an NLRB member in 2023.
Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, said the administration likely will succeed in showing that the statutory removal protections for NLRB and MSPB members are unconstitutional.
“The Government has also shown that it will suffer irreparable harm each day the President is deprived of the ability to control the executive branch,” Walker wrote.
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was nominated by Republican President George H.W. Bush, wrote an opinion concurring with Walker. Henderson said she agrees with Walker on many of the “general principles” about the contours of presidential power under the Constitution.
Judge Patricia Millett, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, wrote a dissenting opinion. She said her two colleagues on the case “rewrite controlling Supreme Court precedent and ignore binding rulings of this court, all in favor of putting this court in direct conflict with at least two other circuits.”
“The stay decision also marks the first time in history that a court of appeals, or the Supreme Court, has licensed the termination of members of multimember adjudicatory boards statutorily protected by the very type of removal restriction the Supreme Court has twice unanimously upheld,” Millett wrote.
Government lawyers argued that Trump had the authority to remove both board members. In Wilcox’s case, they said Howell’s “unprecedented order works a grave harm to the separation of powers and undermines the President’s ability to exercise his authority under the Constitution.” They also argued that MSPB members like Harris are removable “at will” by the president.
Wilcox’s attorneys said Trump couldn’t fire her without notice, a hearing or identifying any “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office” on her part. They argued that the administration’s “only path to victory” is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to “adopt a more expansive view of presidential power.”
Harris’ attorneys claimed the administration was asking the appeals court to ignore Supreme Court precedent.
“Make no mistake: The government’s radical theory would upend the law,” they wrote. “It would jeopardize not only this board, but also the Federal Reserve Board and other critical entities, like the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
The five-member NLRB lacked a quorum after Wilcox’s removal. The three-member MSPB enforces civil rights law in the workplace.
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Trump signs order designating English as the official language of the US
Lawyer Blog News |
2025/03/02 16:07
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President Donald Trump signed on Saturday an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.
The order allows government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English.
It rescinds a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.
“Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society,” according to the order.
“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream,” the order also states. “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.”
More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.
For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded.
Within hours of Trump’s inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website.
Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Saturday, it was still not restored.
The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.
Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021.
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Small businesses brace themselves for potentially disruptive TikTok ban
Lawyer Blog News |
2025/01/02 03:41
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A looming TikTok ban could affect the millions of small businesses that use the short-video social media app to help them grow their business.
Desiree Hill, owner of Crown’s Corner Mechanic in Conyers, Georgia, started her business solo as a mobile mechanic. Sharing videos of her work on TikTok helped spread the word and she became so popular she was able to open a 9,000 square foot brick and mortar shop with five employees 18 months ago.
“Every day I get at least two to three customers that have seen me on TikTok, watched my videos and wanted to become a customer,” she said.
Though TikTok has been around only since 2016, small business owners use the platform in a variety of ways, from growing a customer base to advertising and marketing, as well as selling goods directly from the site.
According to TikTok’s own estimates, small businesses on TikTok would lose more than $1 billion in revenue in a single month if the ban goes into effect.
The Justice Department ordered the app’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban by Jan. 19, citing security concerns. The Supreme Court will take up the matter in January. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has asked the Supreme Court for a delay.
If a ban does occur, small businesses will have to migrate to other platforms to find their customers. Instagram Reels, SnapChat and YouTube Shorts are alternatives. The good news is brands likely already have a presence there. But it may be harder to reach teens that have made TikTok their preferred social media app.
Another alternative is to build a strong database of customers that opt in to providing contact emails or phone numbers. That lets owners reach out directly to customers with promotions and other marketing messages.
But Crown Corner Mechanic’s Hill said she is worried that other sites may not have the reach that TikTok does. She has a presence on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, but it’s not the same, she said. |
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TikTok asks Supreme Court to temporarily block law that could ban site in U.S.
Lawyer Blog News |
2024/12/15 14:47
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TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agreed to sell it.
Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged the justices to step in before the law’s Jan. 19 deadline. A similar plea was filed by content creators who rely on the platform for income and some of TikTok’s more than 170 million users in the U.S.
“A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,” lawyers for the companies told the Supreme Court.
President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a ban but then pledged during the campaign to “save TikTok,” said his administration would take a look at the situation.
“As you know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. His campaign saw the platform as a way to reach younger, less politically engaged voters.
Trump was meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly about them and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The companies have said that a shutdown lasting just a month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.
The case could attract the court’s interest because it pits free speech rights against the government’s stated aims of protecting national security, while raising novel issues about social media platforms.
The request first goes to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals from courts in the nation’s capital. He almost certainly will seek input from all nine justices.
On Friday, a panel of federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied an emergency plea to block the law, a procedural ruling that allowed the case to move to the Supreme Court.
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Court declines Biden’s appeal in Texas emergency abortion case
Lawyer Blog News |
2024/10/09 01:38
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A court order that says hospitals cannot federally be required to provide pregnancy terminations when they violate a Texas abortion ban will stay for now, the Supreme Court said Monday.
The decision is another setback for opponents of Texas’ abortion ban, which for two years has withstood multiple legal challenges, including from women who had serious pregnancy complications and have been turned away by doctors.
It left Texas as the only state where the Biden administration is unable to enforce its interpretation of a federal law in an effort to ensure women still have access to emergency abortions when their health or life is at risk.
The justices did not detail their reasoning for keeping in place a lower court order, and there were no publicly noted dissents. Texas had asked the justices to leave the order in place while the Biden administration had asked the justices to throw it out.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the decision “a major victory.”
The Biden administration argues that a federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, requires emergency rooms to provide abortions if a pregnant patient’s health or life is at serious risk, even in states where the procedure is banned. The law only applies to emergency rooms that receive Medicare funding, which most hospitals do.
The Supreme Court decision comes weeks before a presidential election in which Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has put abortion at the center of her campaign, attacking Republican challenger Donald Trump for appointing judges to the high court who overturned nationwide abortion rights in 2022.
“I will never stop fighting for a woman’s right to emergency medical care — and to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade so that women in every state have access to the care they need,” Harris said on social media Monday evening.
Texas’ abortion ban has also been a centerpiece of Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred ’s challenge against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cuz for his seat. At a campaign event over the weekend in Fort Worth, Texas, hundreds of Allred’s supporters broke out in raucous applause when he vowed to protect a woman’s right to an abortion. “When I’m in the Senate, we’re going to restore Roe v. Wade,” Allred said.
At a separate event the same day, in a nearby suburb, Cruz outlined a litany of criticisms against Allred, but didn’t bring up the abortion law.
Katie Glenn Daniel, the state policy director of SBA Pro-Life America, applauded the Supreme Court decision and pointed to data showing Texas doctors have been able to provide an average of about five abortions per month to save a patient’s life or health.
Still, complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion. Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.
In asking the Supreme Court to toss out the lower court decision, the administration pointed to a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues. At the time the Idaho case began, the state had an exception for the life, but not the health, of a woman.
Texas said its case is different, however, because the law provides some exceptions if a pregnant patient’s health is at risk.
Texas pointed to a state Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. Doctors, though, have said the Texas law is dangerously vague, and a medical board has refused to list all the conditions that qualify for an exception. ' |
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A court in Argentina orders the arrest of Venezuela’s president
Lawyer Blog News |
2024/09/24 13:25
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A federal court in Argentina on Monday ordered the “immediate” arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello for alleged crimes against humanity committed against dissidents.
The court order came in response to an appeal by Argentine prosecutor Carlos Stornelli after a previous ruling dismissed the complaint against both Venezuelan leaders.
Federal court members Pablo Bertuzzi, Leopoldo Bruglia and Mariano Llorens ordered that “the arrest warrants for Nicolás Maduro and Diosdado Cabello be executed immediately, and that their international arrest should be ordered via Interpol for the purposes of extradition to the Argentine Republic,” according to the resolution.
The order comes hours after Venezuela’s Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Argentina’s President Javier Milei amid a controversy between the two countries over the detention in Argentine territory — and delivery to the United States — of a cargo plane that Washington says was sold by a sanctioned Iranian airline to a Venezuelan state-owned company.
The tit-for-tat heightens the tensions between Venezuela and Argentina that have been brewing since far-right Milei assumed power in December and that has led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations.
The case against Maduro and his right-hand man was brought before the Argentine courts by the Argentine Forum for Democracy in the Region, FADER, in early 2023, taking into account Argentina’s jurisprudence on human rights and the principle of universal jurisdiction that allows action to be taken against crimes against humanity, even if they have been committed outside its borders.
According to the plaintiffs, a systematic plan of repression, forced disappearance of persons, torture, homicides and persecution against dissidents has been in place in Venezuela since 2014.
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