Citizens United

Sessions Compares Citizens United To Landmark Civil Rights Case

Brian Beutler | June 29, 2010, 10:50AM

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

With all the discussion at Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing of the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, many Americans are probably in need of an easy primer to understand the decision, which holds that corporations, like individual citizens, can make unlimited political contributions. According to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the top Republican on the Judiciary committee, it's just like the time the Supreme Court desegregated public schools!

Last night, elaborating on his criticisms of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Sessions made the unusual comparison of Citizens United v. FEC to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

"[Marshall] was right on Brown v. Board of Education. It's akin in my view to the Citizen's United case. The court sat down and we went back to first principles--What does the Constitution say? Everybody should be equal protection of the laws," Sessions told me after a Senate vote last night.

Read more »

Supreme Court

GOPers Who Slammed Marshall's Activism Can't Name A Case Typifying It

Brian Beutler | June 29, 2010, 10:26AM

Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Republicans raised eyebrows yesterday when they criticized the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, as a way to attack nominee Elena Kagan, his former clerk. One would think that, to avoid any appearance of racial dog-whistling, the senators attacking Marshall's record would be able to name the decisions or opinions with which they so vociferously disagreed.

After the hearing broke last night, TPMDC asked three of the top Republicans on the Judiciary Committee which of Marshall's opinions best exemplified his activism. And while two of the three were careful to praise Marshall the man, none of them could name a single case.

Read more »

Supreme Court vacancy

Thurgood Marshall Takes Center Stage At Kagan Hearings (VIDEO)

Christina Bellantoni | June 28, 2010, 4:27PM

The late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Looks like Senate Judiciary Republicans have at least one unified talking point today: Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to ever serve on the Supreme Court, was an "activist judge." As Elena Kagan kept on her listening face, multiple senators slammed both Marshall's judicial philosophy and her service as his clerk in the late 1980s.

Ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) criticized Kagan for having "associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to redefine the meaning of our constitution and have the result of advancing that judge's preferred social policies," citing Marshall as his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., sat in the audience of the Judiciary Committee hearings.

Read more »

Supreme Court

RNC Defends Steele's Kagan Criticism

Ben Frumin | May 10, 2010, 4:33PM

RNC Chairman Michael Steele

The RNC isn't backing down from Michael Steele's strange criticism of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

Earlier today, Steele released a statement criticizing Kagan for citing (in a 1993 law review article) Thurgood Marshall's statement that the Constitution, as originally written, was "defective." Marshall was referring to the Constitution's treatment of slaves, and Kagan praised the Court for rectifying the inequity.

But in a blog post this afternoon, the RNC's Doug Heye is defending the group's chairman, and disputing how his comments have been interpreted today.

Read more »

Supreme Court

Steele Attacks Kagan For Citing Thurgood Marshall's Criticism Of Slavery

Ben Frumin | May 10, 2010, 3:06PM

RNC Chair Michael Steele

Earlier today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele released a statement about Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, criticizing the solicitor general for "her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective.'"

Just one problem -- Kagan was writing about comments made by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. And Marshall was referring to slavery.

Read more »