Latest news with #10thCircuit
Reuters
29-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Judiciary asks Trump to skip 10th Circuit nomination, allowing court to shrink
July 29 (Reuters) - The federal judiciary has a pitch for U.S. President Donald Trump for the next time a seat opens up on one of the 12 regional federal appeals courts, one that history suggests may go unheeded: Don't fill it. The U.S. Judicial Conference in a report, opens new tab released last week detailing the results of its closed-door meeting in March said the judiciary's policymaking body agreed to recommend the president and U.S. Senate do nothing the next time a seat opens up on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision reaffirmed prior recommendations it had made dating back to 2017 when Trump was first in office to effectively shrink the 10th Circuit in order to deal with what it describes as low per-judge caseloads on the appeals court. The Judicial Conference similarly in March agreed to recommend leaving unfilled the next vacancies to emerge on the district courts in the Southern District of West Virginia, the Eastern District of Michigan, and the District of Wyoming. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the recommendations. But experts say Trump is likely to disregard them, just as he did in his first term when he appointed two new judges to the 10th Circuit and Democratic President Joe Biden did when he named another two to the same court. "No president would intentionally pass up the opportunity to make an important appellate nomination," Robert Luther, who worked on judicial nominations while serving in the White House Counsel's Office during Trump's first term, said in an email. Such vacancies in Trump's second term are far from hypothetical, as two appointees of Republican President George W. Bush are now eligible to take senior status: U.S. Circuit Judges Harris Hartz, 78, and Timothy Tymkovich, 68. Any appointment to that court could add to Trump's legacy of putting a conservative stamp on the judiciary. He secured appointment of 234 judicial nominees in his first term, and the Senate has confirmed four more since January. The 27-member Judicial Conference, which is headed by Chief U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, makes such recommendations to leave vacancies unfilled every two years based on a biennial survey of judgeship needs, based on what it says are "consistently low per-judgeship caseloads." Russell Wheeler, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks judicial nominations, said he was unaware of a president ever following the Judicial Conference's vacancy recommendations. "I suspect the Conference is aware that these recommendations are likely to be ignored, but makes them anyway partly to present itself as a careful steward of public funds," he said. The 10th Circuit hears appeals in cases from Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. It currently has seven appointees of Democratic presidents and five Republican appointees. Over the last eight years, 10th Circuit case filings have held steady at around 1,700 to 1,800 annually, with the exception of a slight drop off in 2021, said Chris Wolpert, its clerk of court. Courts that have previously appeared on the Judicial Conference's do-not-fill list for vacancies can often fall off it with no explanation. Such was the case with the Western District of Oklahoma, which was first assessed in 2019 as having too few cases per judge and was again most recently in 2023. The Southern District of West Virginia took its place in 2025's list. Luther, who is now a professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, said "caseloads can change overnight with new legislation or administration policies, just as court staffing can change equally fast based on retirements or health circumstances."
Politico
01-07-2025
- Business
- Politico
State PBM regulation hits a SCOTUS roadblock
Programming note: We'll be off this Friday but will be back in your inboxes next Monday. Driving the Day STATES DEALT A PBM BLOW — The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider an appellate court's 2023 decision overturning portions of an Oklahoma law regulating pharmacy benefit managers, raising questions about the implications for state actions to rein in the companies' business practices. The 10th Circuit appeals court ruled that federal laws regulating private employer-sponsored health plans and Medicare's drug benefit preempt the 2019 state law's provisions that aimed to bolster independent pharmacies' bargaining power with PBMs, which help negotiate retail drug prices between drugmakers and payers. Community pharmacies have long panned the middlemen — which are responsible for 80 percent of the market — for steering customers toward pharmacy chains they own. Nearly three dozen states and Washington, D.C., plus several pharmacy organizations, joined the case as 'friends of the court' on the side of Oklahoma, illustrating state-level interest in overseeing how PBM practices affect where patients pick up their prescriptions. Several states have considered PBM bills in recent years as congressional efforts to police the industry have floundered. Reaction: 'We are disappointed, but hopeful that the Court will take up this issue in the near future and clarify that States can indeed regulate PBMs in the way envisioned by Oklahoma's laws in question,' Leslie Berger, a spokesperson for Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, said in a statement. B. Douglas Hoey, CEO of the National Community Pharmacists Association, said the group is 'very disappointed' the Supreme Court didn't act to 'reinforce' a unanimous 2020 decision upholding Arkansas' regulation of PBM reimbursement practices — a ruling widely seen as giving states more leeway to act amid Congress' silence. 'Now the lower courts are divided, and the states are confused about what they can do to protect patients and small-business pharmacies from the unfair, anticompetitive practices of the PBMs, higher drug costs and from PBMs overruling doctors' prescribing decisions,' he said. PBMs celebrate: The PBMs' lobbying group, which challenged Oklahoma's law, applauded the high court's denial of Mulready v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association and suggested it portends a similar fate for similar laws in other states. 'In recent months, various businesses and unions have joined to challenge state restrictions on health benefit in Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Tennessee,' PCMA general counsel Jack Linehan said in a statement. 'These cases and the Mulready decision send a powerful reminder that overbroad state laws are not only illegal, but they boost healthcare costs for businesses and their workers.' NCPA said the 10th Circuit's decision likely stands for now, but only for the six states covered by that court. 'States contemplating PBM reform should not be dissuaded,' it said. PBMs have taken Arkansas back to court — this time over a new law that would prevent them from owning pharmacies like CVS in the state. IT'S TUESDAY. WELCOME BACK TO PRESCRIPTION PULSE. No more excess humidity in D.C. would be great. Send tips to David Lim (dlim@ @davidalim or davidalim.49 on Signal) and Lauren Gardner (lgardner@ @Gardner_LM or gardnerlm.01 on Signal). In the courts MORE DENIALS — Federal courts have rebuffed two attempts by anti-vaccine activists to challenge past losses. The Supreme Court also denied on Monday a bid by Children's Health Defense — the group founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — to have its censorship case against social media giant Meta heard. The group alleged that the owner of Facebook and Instagram colluded with the federal government to deplatform its content. And the U.S. Court of Federal Claims denied CHD attorney Rolf Hazlehurst's motion to reopen his son's case claiming that childhood vaccines caused his autism. Judge Edward H. Meyers signed the order Thursday, according to the court docket, but the document is not yet public due to court rules that embargo the release of decisions until parties decide whether to request the redaction of any medical or otherwise private information. Mary Holland, CHD's president and CEO, said the group is disappointed by both decisions. 'It is our understanding that Mr. Hazlehurst is already evaluating the next steps,' she said in a statement. Separately, she said 'the problem' the organization presented in its Meta case 'has lessened' — seemingly a nod to Kennedy's ascension to power within the federal government. 'The censorship-industrial complex agreements of the past seem to have gone by the wayside, at least for now, and for that I am grateful,' she said. In Congress A BBB ORPHAN DRUG WIN? Drugmakers notched a win in the GOP megabill Monday, David writes. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough allowed an expansion of Medicare's drug-price negotiation exemption for orphan drugs to include medicines that treat multiple rare diseases to remain in the package. She initially ruled that it violated the so-called Byrd rule — which limits what can pass with a simple majority during the reconciliation process — over the weekend. The decision means the policy remains in the underlying GOP reconciliation package being debated by the Senate. Pharma Moves Parexel, a clinical trial consulting company, has hired two FDA alums — Dr. Lola Fashoyin-Aje as senior vice president and head of regulatory oncology, cell and gene therapies and Tala Fakhouri as vice president of consulting for artificial intelligence and digital policy. Fashoyin-Aje was director of the Office of Clinical Evaluation within the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, while Fakhouri was associate director for data science and AI in the Office of Medical Policy at the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Anindita 'Annie' Saha will take on the lead AI policy role at the FDA's drug division, according to an internal email reviewed by POLITICO. Saha is a 20-year agency veteran who will also keep her role as associate director for strategic initiatives at the Digital Health Center of Excellence within the FDA's device center. Saha replaces Fakhouri. Shara Selonick has joined the Senior Care Pharmacy Coalition, which advocates for long-term care pharmacies, as vice president of strategy and government affairs. She most recently was a public health adviser at the FDA. Document Drawer The Government Accountability Office published a report on its forum on 'reducing spending and enhancing value in the U.S. health care system. AbbVie is scheduled to meet with the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Tuesday to discuss the Health Resources and Services Administration's 340B rebate guidance. AHIP is scheduled to meet with OIRA on Wednesday to discuss the policy. WHAT WE'RE READING The Supreme Court's decision upholding the Affordable Care Act's coverage mandate for preventive services may now shift the legal landscape toward defining what constitutes 'evidence' underpinning federal recommendations, Lauren writes. Kennedy's influence over federal health regulation under a Republican president is being seen in a once-unlikely area — psychedelics as sanctioned mental health treatments, POLITICO's Erin Schumaker reports. A federal judge ruled last week that the Health Resources and Services Administration didn't violate the law by requiring Johnson & Johnson to get its approval before changing how it reimburses providers participating in a drug discount program, Stat's Ed Silverman writes.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A win for Utah and Oklahoma: Supreme Court tells EPA to back off
The U.S. Supreme Court favored Oklahoma and Utah against the Environmental Protection Agency in an 8-0 decision on Wednesday, with Justice Samuel Alito not participating. The case, Oklahoma v. Environmental Protection Agency, was a dispute that began over clean air obligations, but what ultimately brought it to the higher court was the issue of exclusive jurisdiction. In 2015, the EPA established new clean air obligations nationwide and required states to submit plans outlining how they would comply. Utah, Oklahoma and 19 other states had their plans to reduce pollution across state lines denied. Two years ago, both states separately took the EPA to court in their shared regional circuit court in Denver, Colorado. The federal agency countered the cases, combining them and arguing that they should be moved to the D.C. Circuit because the augmented air quality standards were a national change. The Colorado court allowed the transfer. The states disagreed, taking it to the Supreme Court. Just because the EPA published a single Federal Register notice to multiple states does not justify moving the cases to Washington, D.C., the states argued. Both Utah and Oklahoma want the cases returned to their shared 10th Circuit. And the Supreme Court agreed. 'The two SIP ( or state implementation plan) disapprovals here are undisputedly locally or regionally applicable actions. A SIP is a state-specific plan, so an EPA disapproval on its face applies only to the State that proposed the SIP,' the ruling said. 'EPA's and the Tenth Circuit's contrary arguments fail.' 'The Tenth Circuit erred in holding that petitioners' challenges should be reviewed in the D. C. Circuit. EPA's disapprovals of the Oklahoma and Utah SIPs are locally or regionally applicable actions. And, these cases are not ones where the 'nationwide scope or effect' exception applies,' Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion added. 'Accordingly, as with most locally or regionally applicable actions, petitioners' challenges can be heard only in a regional Circuit. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.' Following the ruling, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown and his office, including Utah Solicitor General Stanford E. Purser, who was on the defense team in the case, praised the ruling. 'The Court agreed with Utah's argument involving the Clean Air Act that local courts should handle local issues, and the federal government should collaborate with the states — not ignore their unique differences," Brown said in a statement to the Deseret News. 'I am also proud of Utah's Solicitor General, Stan Purser, for his critical role on the legal team that helped secure this win. ... We are also grateful to the Trump Administration's EPA for reconsidering its ruling that required litigation in the first place, and look forward to our continued partnership on behalf of Utah.'
New York Post
06-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Federal judge approves Colorado's age limit for firearms purchases
A federal judge upheld Colorado's restriction on firearms sales requiring buyers to be 21 or older after Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and two people looking to purchase firearms sued Democratic Gov. Jared Polis. Chief U.S. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer agreed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit's decision that age-based requirements for purchase do not fall under the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. The 10th Circuit and Brimmer agree that the issue falls under a 'safe harbor' exclusion, placing it outside the scope of the Constitution. The only exceptions to Colorado's firearm purchase age restriction are for those in the U.S. Military and for peace officers. In both cases, the person must be making the purchase while on duty and is 'serving in conformance with the policies' of their respective agency. 'Governor Polis is committed to making Colorado one of the ten safest states, and common-sense laws encourage responsible gun ownership and keep people safe. For decades in Colorado, you had to be 21 to purchase a handgun, per federal law. The requirement to be 21 was expanded to rifles and shotguns with the signing of SB23-169, and Governor Polis is glad to see the court affirm that Colorado's common sense law does not infringe on Second Amendment rights. Governor Polis is confident this law has and will help keep Coloradans and our communities safe,' Polis' Communications Director Conor Cahill said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 3 A federal judge upheld Colorado's restriction on firearms sales requiring buyers to be 21 or older. REUTERS Brimmer acknowledged that Adrian Pineda and Matthew Newkirk — the two individuals under 21 who sued Polis together with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners — are part of 'the people' as written in the Second Amendment. However, he referred to the 10th Circuit's decision, saying it had resolved the case back in 2023, according to Courthouse News Service (CNS). The decision in Colorado comes in contrast to one issued by the Supreme Court in 2022 in which justices determined that New York issued unconstitutional requirements for carrying a concealed weapon in public. Then-President Joe Biden said he was 'deeply disappointed' by the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. He said that SCOTUS had 'chosen to strike down New York's long-established authority to protect its citizens.' 3 The only exceptions to Colorado's firearm purchase age restriction are for those in the U.S. Military and for peace officers. DmyTo – 'This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all,' Biden said in a statement at the time. He went on to reaffirm his commitment to reducing gun violence and making communities safer. 3 The 10th Circuit and Brimmer agree that the issue falls under a 'safe harbor' exclusion, placing it outside the scope of the Constitution. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Brimmer is also going against a decision made by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which struck down a federal restriction banning the sale of firearms to anyone below the age of 21. That court held that those aged 18 to 20 are protected under the Second Amendment, according to The Trace, an organization of journalists who report on gun violence in the U.S. 'The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds' firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban,' Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the opinion. Several states, including New York, Massachusetts, California, Florida, Illinois, Delaware and Vermont have raised the age for purchasing firearms, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. While some states have limited the age restrictions to handgun purchases, others have applied the restriction to any kind of firearm.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal judge approves Colorado law banning people under 21 from buying a gun
A federal judge upheld Colorado's restriction on firearms sales requiring buyers to be 21 or older after Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and two people looking to purchase firearms sued Democratic Gov. Jared Polis. Chief U.S. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer agreed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit's decision that age-based requirements for purchase do not fall under the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. The 10th Circuit and Brimmer agree that the issue falls under a "safe harbor" exclusion, placing it outside the scope of the Constitution. The only exceptions to Colorado's firearm purchase age restriction are for those in the U.S. Military and for peace officers. In both cases, the person must be making the purchase while on duty and is "serving in conformance with the policies" of their respective agency. Supreme Court Declines To Examine Appeals Over Maryland, Rhode Island Gun Control Laws "Governor Polis is committed to making Colorado one of the ten safest states, and common-sense laws encourage responsible gun ownership and keep people safe. For decades in Colorado, you had to be 21 to purchase a handgun, per federal law. The requirement to be 21 was expanded to rifles and shotguns with the signing of SB23-169, and Governor Polis is glad to see the court affirm that Colorado's common sense law does not infringe on Second Amendment rights. Governor Polis is confident this law has and will help keep Coloradans and our communities safe," Polis' Communications Director Conor Cahill said in a statement to Fox News Digital. Brimmer acknowledged that Adrian Pineda and Matthew Newkirk — the two individuals under 21 who sued Polis together with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners — are part of "the people" as written in the Second Amendment. However, he referred to the 10th Circuit's decision, saying it had resolved the case back in 2023, according to Courthouse News Service (CNS). Read On The Fox News App Debate Over Whether To Ban Handgun Sales To Teens Could Soon Head To The Supreme Court The decision in Colorado comes in contrast to one issued by the Supreme Court in 2022 in which justices determined that New York issued unconstitutional requirements for carrying a concealed weapon in public. Then-President Joe Biden said he was "deeply disappointed" by the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. He said that SCOTUS had "chosen to strike down New York's long-established authority to protect its citizens." "This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all," Biden said in a statement at the time. He went on to reaffirm his commitment to reducing gun violence and making communities safer. Brimmer is also going against a decision made by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which struck down a federal restriction banning the sale of firearms to anyone below the age of 21. That court held that those aged 18 to 20 are protected under the Second Amendment, according to The Trace, an organization of journalists who report on gun violence in the U.S. "The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds' firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban," Judge Edith H. Jones wrote in the opinion. Several states, including New York, Massachusetts, California, Florida, Illinois, Delaware and Vermont have raised the age for purchasing firearms, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. While some states have limited the age restrictions to handgun purchases, others have applied the restriction to any kind of article source: Federal judge approves Colorado law banning people under 21 from buying a gun
