Supreme court

May 29, 2007 -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Women’s Caucus Chair Mame Reiley issued the following statement following the Supreme Court’s decision to limit workers’ ability to hold employers accountable:    » read more »

May 17, 2007 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. –“The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate our country’s public schools was not only a victory for African Americans, but a triumph for the soul of an entire nation.

"While this courageous decision opened doors for me and millions of my fellow Americans, many of today’s schools remain divided by resources and opportunities, and we must push forward until all children are afforded an equal chance to succeed.”

Source: Senator Barack Obama

High Court’s Announcement Lets Stand Lower Court Ruling That Blocked Thousands of Facilities from Increasing Pollution

WASHINGTON (April 30, 2007) --This morning the Supreme Court refused to entertain pleas by the Bush administration EPA and industry to resurrect a Clean Air Act loophole that the federal appellate court in Washington struck down unanimously in March 2006.    » read more »

Statement of Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club

April 30, 2007 -- Today the Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision that coal-fired power plants must follow clean air rules by declining to hear industry and Administration efforts to retool the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review program. NSR requires plants to install modern pollution safeguards when updating the rest of their facilities.    » read more »

New Rule Defies Unanimous Supreme Court Decision

WASHINGTON (April 25, 2007) -- The Environmental Protection Agency today issued a supplemental rulemaking proposal that would allow coal-fired power plants across the country to increase their toxic emissions – thereby crippling a key provision of the Clean Air Act, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Specifically, the proposal would exempt coal-fired power plants from installing modern-day pollution controls when upgrading their facilities and increasing their annual pollution.    » read more »

Federal Abortion Ban Gives Politicians Green Light to Practice Medicine

NEW YORK — On Wednesday, April 25, Planned Parenthood supporters will hold rallies and demonstrations to express outrage over the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to uphold the federal abortion ban. On April 25, the third anniversary of the largest march in Washington, DC, history, the landmark March For Women’s Lives, the women’s health movement will once again send the message to elected officials that women’s health must be protected.    » read more »

April 18, 2007 -- Washington, DC - "This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account.    » read more »

April 18, 2007 -- “I am truly shocked by this decision. This is a major strike against a woman’s right to choose. And the effective elimination of the health exception in my view will put women’s lives in jeopardy.

This decision clearly demonstrates the real impact on privacy rights that has occurred through President Bush’s efforts to nominate judges whose views are out of the mainstream of American legal thought.    » read more »

April 18, 2007 -- "The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 outlawed the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion except in limited circumstances where the procedure is necessary to protect the life of the mother. The Act represented a small but vital step in protecting the most vulnerable among us, the unborn children. The partial birth abortion—or, as clinically known, "intact dilation and evacuation"—procedure is one that no civilized society can tolerate.    » read more »

ROE v. WADE

Opinion of the United States Supreme Court
Decided January 22, 1973

MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring.    » read more »

In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.    » read more »

In this ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory. In 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court. The odds were in their favor. They had lived with their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort Snelling, then in the free Territory of Wisconsin.    » read more »

This Supreme Court decision forbade states from enacting any legislation that would interfere with Congress's right to regulate commerce among the separate states.

Robert Fulton’s 1807 invention of the steamboat was highly significant, but its application would have been severely limited had the Supreme Court not ruled against the monopoly in interstate steamboat operation in Gibbons v. Ogden. In this decision, Chief Justice John Marshall’s Court ruled that Congress has the power to “regulate commerce” and that Federal law takes precedence over state laws.    » read more »

This Supreme Court Case addressed the issue of Federal power and commerce.

In the landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down one of his most important decisions regarding the expansion of Federal power. This case involved the power of Congress to charter a bank, which sparked the even broader issue of the division of powers between state and the Federal Government.    » read more »

The decision in this Supreme Court Case established the right of the courts to determine the constitutionality of the actions of the other two branches of government.    » read more »