Biden names panel to weigh bigger Supreme Court, fulfilling vow
President Joe Biden on Friday named a panel to study reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court, such as adding justices or instituting term limits, fulfilling a campaign vow as progressives push to add more liberals to the conservative-leaning court.
Liberal activists have been urging an expansion of the Supreme Court to offset the 6-3 conservative majority created by three appointments by former President Donald Trump. The right-wing tilt has opened the possibility the court could overturn the constitutional right to abortion and roll back gay rights, though so far the justices have moved slowly on those issues.
The White House announced Friday that Biden will sign an executive order to form the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. Biden named a bipartisan group of law professors, former judges and others familiar with the legal system and asked them to issue a report within 180 days of first meeting.
Chairing the panel are Bob Bauer, a New York University law school professor and former White House counsel and Yale Law School Professor Cristina Rodriguez, former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.
Among the issues the commission will look at are “the court’s role in the Constitutional system,” turnover and length of service, and how the court selects cases.
The Constitution doesn’t say how many justices the court must have, but Congress has left the number at nine since 1869.
—Bloomberg News
Piney Point wastewater releases to Tampa Bay slow substantially, state says
TAMPA, Fla. – The flow of wastewater to Tampa Bay from the old Piney Point phosphate plant site dropped significantly by late Thursday, according to the Department of Environmental Protection, and a dive team identified a possible source for the leak that spurred an emergency in Manatee County.
An estimated 202 million gallons of polluted water have been discharged to the bay through Port Manatee, the state said. Crews had been draining water from the reservoir at a rate of 38 million gallons per day as of Wednesday. Some is being kept in other storage at Piney Point.
Flows to the port slowed to less than 5 million gallons a day by Thursday afternoon, according to a Department of Environmental Protection estimate. The discharge had actually stopped as of about 5 p.m., said Weesam Khoury, a spokeswoman for the agency. Regulators were hoping to get two companies in place at Piney Point to start removing some nutrients from the water before having to restart releases.
Their goal, Khoury said, is to lower levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the wastewater, which are a concern for Tampa Bay. Excess nutrients could cause algal blooms that then lead to fish kills.
The reservoir has been leaking for more than a week.
—Tampa Bay Times
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have called police to their California home 9 times in as many months
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have experienced a challenging start to their new lives in California, having to call authorities to their Montecito home nine times over the course of just as many months.
The famous couple moved to their Golden State residence with their 1-year-old son Archie in July 2020, after reportedly living with their friend, Tyler Perry, in his $18 million Los Angeles mansion. They also briefly lived in Vancouver, Canada, after announcing they would be stepping down from their roles with the royal family.
During their first month in their new neighborhood, officers were called four times to the property, including three times for “alarm activations” and once by phone request, according to information obtained under the Freedom of Information laws by the Telegraph.
Police in August responded to the home for a “miscellaneous priority incident,” and then again in November 2020 and February 2021 for alarm activations.
Sheriff’s deputies also responded to calls from the couple on both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day for reports of a man trespassing on the property, who was later identified as Nickolas Brooks, Vanity Fair reported. Police said the Ohio man drove more than 2,300 miles to the home.
—New York Daily News
Slavery reparations study set for House Judiciary markup
WASHINGTON — A bill to study paying reparations to descendants of slaves will be considered in the House Judiciary Committee next week, paving the way for a possible vote on an issue that has become increasingly mainstream in recent years of racial reckoning.
The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday will mark up and vote on a bill from Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee that would establish a commission to examine the role of federal and state governments in slavery and racial discrimination from 1619 to present day. The commission would recommend remedies, including possible payments to make up for centuries of lost wealth.
“Today, we still live with racial disparities in access to education, health care, housing, insurance, employment and other social goods that are directly attributable to the damaging legacy of slavery and government-sponsored racial discrimination,” Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, said in a statement Friday. “The creation of a commission under H.R. 40 to study these issues is not intended to divide, but to continue the efforts commenced by states, localities and private institutions to reckon with our past and bring us closer to racial understanding and advancement.”
The late Rep. John Conyers of Michigan initiated the argument for reparations in Congress with a 1989 bill to study the issue. In the 32 years since the measure was first introduced, it has never been brought to the floor for a vote, although the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on Jackson Lee’s bill in 2019 and in February.
—Bloomberg News
