Supreme Court to Hear Congressman's Challenge to State Ballot-Counting Law
The Supreme Court said on June 2 that it will consider a congressman's challenge to an Illinois law that allows ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day to be counted.
A victory for the petitioner, Rep. Michael Bost (R-Ill.), could open the door to more lawsuits being filed in other states against the late counting of ballots.
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37 minutes ago
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Two Mercer County towns among Tuesday elections
bramwell — Voters will decide two town elections next week in Mercer County. The elections are set for Tuesday, June 10, in Bramwell and Athens. They are among 77 towns and cities across the Mountain State that hold an election Tuesday. In the town of Athens, the races are uncontested with two candidates vying for two seats on town council, according to Athens Town Clerk Debra Shorter. The candidates are incumbent council member Travis Pace and candidate James Blankenship. Incumbent Athens Mayor Timothy Peak also is running unopposed for re-election. The situation is different in Bramwell where the races for mayor, recorder and town council are all contested. Grant Bennett, the current mayor of Bramwell, is being challenged by former Mayor Louise Stoker and candidate Rodney Holcomb. Susan Lance Troutner, a current town council member, and Lathe Ellis are running for town recorder. Eight candidates are vying for four seats on the Bramwell Town Council, according to Bennett, who was answering the phone Friday at town hall. They include incumbents Jackie Shahan, Dennis Marcello, Charles Hawthorne and Kelley Murphy Eller and candidates Don Thompson, Perry Love, Elizabeth Brown Tillery and Sharon Workman, according to a legal advertisement copy of the ballot published in the Daily Telegraph. In all, 77 towns across West Virginia will hold an election Tuesday, according to West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner. Warner said some municipalities with contested races will receive a compliance visit on Election Day from an authorized representative of the Secretary of State's Office. 'My office will have more than a dozen individuals visiting municipal elections throughout the state on Election Day, June 10th,' Warner said in a statement Friday. 'These compliance visits are intended to ensure that polling locations are safe, secure and following the protocols in place to help every interested and eligible voter cast a ballot.' Warner said the visits are educational in nature to assist the clerks or recorders in charge of the elections, as well as the poll workers at each location. Trained members of the Elections Division, the WVSOS Field Team, or the Investigations Division will conduct the compliance visits, according to the Secretary of State's office. Contact Charles Owens at cowens@
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Religion cases spark both unanimity and division at Supreme Court
Religious rights are sparking both unanimity and deep divisions on the Supreme Court this term, with one major decision still to come. On Thursday, all nine justices sided with Catholic Charities Bureau in its tax fight with Wisconsin. But weeks earlier, the court's 4-4 deadlock handed those same religious interests a loss by refusing to greenlight the nation's first religious charter school. Now, advocates are turning their attention to the other major religion case still pending this term, which concerns whether parents have the First Amendment right to opt-out their children from instruction including books with LGBTQ themes. 'The court has been using its Religion Clause cases over the past few years to send the message that everything doesn't have to be quite so polarized and quite so everybody at each other's throats,' said Mark Rienzi, the president and CEO of Becket, a religious legal group that represents both the parents and Catholic Charities. The trio of cases reflect a new burst of activity on the Supreme Court's religion docket, a major legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure. Research by Lee Epstein, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, found the Roberts Court has ruled in favor of religious organizations over 83 percent of the time, a significant jump from previous eras. The decisions have oftentimes protected Christian traditions, a development that critics view as a rightward shift away from a focus on protecting non-mainstream religions. But on Thursday, the court emerged unanimous. The nine justices all agreed that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment in denying Catholic Charities a religious exemption from paying state unemployment taxes. Wisconsin's top court denied the exemption by finding the charity wasn't primarily religious, saying it could only qualify if it was trying to proselytize people. Catholic Charities stressed that the Catholic faith forbids misusing works of charity for proselytism. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored Thursday's majority opinion finding Wisconsin unconstitutionally established a government preference for some religious denominations over others. 'There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,' Sotomayor wrote. The fact that Sotomayor, one of the court's three Democratic-appointed justices, wrote the opinion heightened the sense of unity. 'She's voted with us in several other cases, too, and I think it just shows that it is not the partisan issue that people sometimes try to make it out to be,' said Rienzi. However, Sotomayor's opinion notably did not address Catholic Charities' other arguments, including those related to church autonomy that Justice Clarence Thomas, one the court's leading conservatives, endorsed in a solo, separate opinion. Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, which filed a brief backing Catholic Charities, similarly called the unanimity an 'encouraging' sign. 'If they can find a way to do that, they want to do that. And that's why I think you have the opinion written the way that it was. It was written that way so that every justice could feel comfortable signing off on it,' said Gardner. Supporters and critics of the court's decision agree it still poses repercussions on cases well beyond the tax context — and even into the culture wars. Perhaps most immediately, the battle at the Supreme Court will shift from unemployment taxes to abortion. The justices have a pending request from religious groups, also represented by Becket, to review New York's mandate that employers' health care plans cover abortions. The regulation exempts religious organizations only if they inculcate religious values, meaning many faith-based charities must still follow the mandate. And for the First Liberty Institute, it believes Thursday's decision bolsters its legal fights in the lower courts. It represents an Ohio church that serves the homeless and an Arizona church that provides food distribution, both embroiled in legal battles with local municipalities that implicate whether the ministries are religious enough. Thursday's decision is not the first time the Supreme Court has unanimously handed a win to religious rights advocates. In 2023, the First Liberty Institute successfully represented a Christian U.S. Postal Service worker who requested a religious accommodation to not work on Sundays. And two years earlier, the court in a unanimous judgment ruled Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause by refusing to refer children to a Catholic adoption agency because it would not certify same-sex couples to be foster parents. 'People thought that was a very narrow decision at the time, but the way it has sort of been applied since then, it has really reshaped a lot of the way that we think about Free Exercise cases,' said Gardner. It's not always kumbaya, however. Last month, the Supreme Court split evenly on a highly anticipated religious case that concerned whether Oklahoma could establish the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school. The 4-4 deadlock meant the effort fizzled. Released just three weeks after the justices' initial vote behind closed doors, the decision spanned one sentence. 'The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,' it reads. Though the deadlock means supporters of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School are left without a green light, they are hoping they will prevail soon enough. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's third appointee to the court, recused from the St. Isidore case, which many court watchers believe stemmed from her friendship with a professor at Notre Dame, whose religious liberty clinic represented St. Isidore. But Barrett could participate in a future case — providing the crucial fifth vote — that presents the same legal question, which poses consequential implications for public education. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court still has one major religion case left this term. The justices are reviewing whether Montgomery County, Md., must provide parents an option to opt-out their elementary-aged children from instruction with books that include LGBTQ themes. The group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents suing say it substantially burdens their First Amendment rights under the Free Exercise Clause. At oral arguments, the conservative majority appeared sympathetic with the parent's plea as the court's three liberal justices raised concerns about where to draw the line. 'Probably, it will be a split decision,' said Gardner, whose group has filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of parents in California. But he cautioned, 'you never know where some of the justices will line up.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jesse Watters Trots Out Dehumanizing Analogy for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Return
Fox News host Jesse Watters criticized the Trump administration for bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, saying the wrongly deported man's return was like taking a rental car to the car wash. 'I don't think they should have brought him back,' Watters said on The Five, shortly after news broke that Abrego Garcia is facing two counts of human smuggling in Tennessee. 'This is a national security situation. The guy is a designated terrorist. He belongs somewhere else. What are we going to do? We're going to spend two years and $50 million trying this guy and imprisoning this guy, feeding him, giving him healthcare, and then flying him home?' Watters said incredulously. 'This is like renting a car and taking it to a car wash before you return it,' he added. 'What's the point? It's not your car, and it's going back anyway.' Attorney General Pam Bondi said Abrego Garcia would first serve time in a U.S. prison if convicted, then be removed from the country once again. Garcia had been held in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center even after the Trump administration admitted his deportation was an 'administrative error.' When the Supreme Court ordered that it 'facilitate' his return, the White House insisted that it was powerless to do so. Friday's events proved the administration was lying, The Five co-host Jessica Tarlov said Friday. '[White House Press Secretary] Karoline Leavitt—as well as other members of the administration, from the president himself to Kristi Noem—lied to the American people when they said they couldn't bring him back,' Tarlov said. 'Well, I guess you could get him back.' Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, made the same point. 'Today's action proves what we've known all along—that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' he told The New York Times. 'It's now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the Constitution guarantees to all persons.' Abrego Garcia was sent to Tennessee, where the indictment was filed in May and unsealed Friday. The Times reports that an imprisoned man's information about Abrego Garcia moved the case forward. Prosecutors couldn't agree how to proceed, however, and one ended up resigning.
