SCOTUS

In early 2009, as Barack Obama was about to take office, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, assembled his caucus at a retreat in West Virginia. There, he laid out his strategy for taking on the new president, who was sweeping into office on a tide of popularity, historical resonance and great expectations barely diminished by the economic free fall then underway.

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear its most important organized labor case of the year, Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association, a group of 21 state Attorneys General have announced a plan to officially support the labor union side. Among those taking the lead in the effort to file a brief in the case is New York AG Eric Schneiderman who, along with Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and a group of elected officials and many labor leaders, formally announced their plan on Sunday at New York City Hall.

As many have stated, marriage equality isn't the end of the fight for LGBT rights or civil rights more broadly, there isn't such thing as the end of that fight. We've seen too much over the past weeks and months to think that is the case. Even within the LGBT community, there are a litany of lines that are arbitrarily drawn, yet the results are all too real. Yet, for one day, love wins. And that makes this a good day. And for my fellow San Franciscans, what a happy #SFPride this will be.

Last week, an appeal was made to the Supreme Court in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (CTA), a case that could severely weaken the power of public sector unions. The case invovles a California elementary school teacher who does not want to pay $650 in annual “fair share fees” to the CTA for costs associated with collective bargaining and administration.

Dozens of couples are challenging Indiana's and Wisconsin's gay marriage bans in a case being heard Tuesday in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Looming large in the case is the issue of medical emergencies faced by same-sex couples.

The level of ignorance behind marriage equality's opposition in Virginia shouldn't be surprising, but the sheer bigotry might shock you.

More than half of privately insured women are getting free birth control under President Barack Obama's health law, a major coverage shift that's likely to advance. This week the Supreme Court allowed some employers with religious scruples to opt out, but most companies appear to be going in the opposite direction.

Home care workers in Minnesota, Maryland and Vermont fought long and hard for representative rights. So many of them are saying "pfft!" to the Supreme Court's anti-union Harris vs. Quinn decision.

Though not as damaging to public sector unions as a more aggressive decision would have been, a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday has dealt a significant blow to organized labor with 5-4 decision that again fell along the court's ideological divide.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday placed further limits on the Environmental Protection Agency's already-modest power to regulate power plant and factory emissions of greenhouse gases.