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The Supreme Court tackles homeless right to sleep outside
Is sleeping like breathing? Do Americans have a Constitutional right to sleep? In April, Supreme Court justices heard a case involving homeless encampments and whether cities that don’t provide shelter space can arrest or fine people for sleeping outside. At oral arguments, they asked philosophical questions about the idea of sleeping and whether or not providing space to sleep qualifies as “cruel and unusual” punishment under the 8th Amendment of the Constitution.
Legal expert Emily Bazelon joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to unpack some of the biggest cases before the Supreme Court this year. Former President Trump’s legal woes are front and center in the news, but many other major issues are at stake during this court term, including homelessness, gun rights, free speech on social media, and the power of federal agencies to interpret laws.
One case in front of the Court this year that isn’t generating a lot of headlines but will have a big impact on the daily lives of Americans involves the landmark 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defence Council decision that provides the legal bases for government agencies like the EPA, SEC, and FDA to interpret laws how they see fit if they are ambiguous. At oral arguments, the Court’s conservative majority seemed skeptical of allowing the Chevron ruling as it stands to remain in place, which will fundamentally change the way the federal government operates.
“One way to think about these agencies is that they keep us safe. They make sure the water is clean and that the air is clean,” Bazelon explains. “Another way to think about them is they're intruding on corporate profits and taking up too much power.”
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
Supreme Court will rule on abortion rights once again. What’s at stake now?
“The [abortion pill case] affects women across the country, it’s not state by state,” Bazelon stresses, “It’s the FDA’s authority to allow pills to be shipped everywhere and other rules that have made abortion pills more accessible for women in blue as well as red states.”
A group of doctors is challenging the Food and Drug Administration's authority to allow doctors to prescribe abortion pills without an in-person visit with a patient and for those pills to be sent through the mail. Bazelon explains that this group of plaintiffs is unusual in that they haven’t yet experienced direct harm from the FDA’s ruling, which you usually need to prove has happened before a case makes it all the way up to the highest court in the land. Four female justices are also on the bench this year, a historic high-water mark. Could that make a difference in the way justices rule on either case?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
The US Supreme Court’s “upside-down” logic in Trump immunity case
2024 is certain to be a historic year for the US Supreme Court: In June, SCOTUS will issue rulings on former president Donald Trump’s immunity claims in charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith involving Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Emily Bazelon joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to unpack the legal arguments at the heart of the case and what caught SCOTUS experts off-guard during oral arguments.
Like in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case that ultimately handed the election win to George W. Bush, Court watchers had expected the justices to issue a narrow ruling in the Trump case. But during arguments, the conservative justices asked questions that seemed more interested in raising hypotheticals about whether limiting the scope of immunity might restrict a president’s power too much. With Trump again on the ballot in 2024, the stakes could not be higher. Will the justices make a limited ruling or wade into the politics of the US presidential election with, as Justice Gorsuch put it, “a ruling for the ages”?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
- The case against Trump's big lie ›
- Trump's Jan. 6 trial could now hurt his re-election bid ›
- Is Trump immune? SCOTUS dives into uncharted waters ›
- Trump's immunity claim: US democracy in crisis ›
- Supreme Court divided over Trump’s absolute immunity claims ›
- How the Supreme Court immunity ruling changes presidential power - GZERO Media ›
The major Supreme Court decisions to watch for in June
In June, the US Supreme Court will begin issuing decisions on cases involving everything from reproductive rights to gun ownership to homeless encampments to former president Donald Trump’s criminal cases. Yale Law School Lecturer and staff writer at the New York Times Magazine Emily Bazelon joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to unpack some of the biggest cases on the docket this year and what’s at stake in some of the major decisions expected to come down next month.
This year’s SCOTUS term comes at a time when approval for the Court is at an all-time low. As of September of 2023, a record 58% of Americans disapproved of how the Court handles its job. That follows multiple ethics scandals involving Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and a string of conservative decisions, including the 2022 Dobbs decision striking down the right to abortion, increasingly out of step with public opinion. With the Court wading into the 2024 election and former President Trump’s immunity claims, it risks being seen by the public as even more partisan and politicized.
“As an American, I want to have a good faith belief in the justices’ approach,” Bazelon says, “After a certain number of cases come out in particular ways, you start to feel like cynicism is realism about the Court."
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
Who cares if the Supreme Court justices like each other?
Yale legal scholar and New York Times Magazine staff writer Emily Bazelon wants to have faith in the Supreme Court. "I want to have a good faith belief in the justices' approach to these cases” she tells Ian Bremmer in a new episode of GZERO World. But in a wide-ranging conversation in which Bazelon and Bremmer preview the major cases facing the Supreme Court this spring, Bazelon confesses that the past few years have tested her faith.
“After a certain number of cases come out particular ways, you start to feel like cynicism is realism about the Court."
And Bazelon is not alone. Public faith in the Supreme Court is at record lows, thanks to its rightward tilt and ethical questions surrounding the conduct of Justice Clarence Thomas. And that’s a problem, Bazelon says, not just for America but for the justices themselves. “They all have an incentive to protect the institution, the liberals as well as the conservatives. They don't want to see Americans lose total faith in the Court. That's not good for them and their job security and their collective legacy.”
But do the justices themselves get along? Bazelon couldn’t care less. “I'm personally mystified why they think we should care about that. I don't care whether they can be nice to each other when they're having lunch, whether they're collegial. I care about whether American law is going in a direction that makes sense to most Americans.” But at a time when the country itself could not be more divided, could collegiality in the highest court of the land be just the thing that Americans cling to?
Watch the full interview with Emily Bazelon on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television beginning this Friday, May 3. Check local listings.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
- Supreme Court divided over Trump’s absolute immunity claims ›
- US Supreme Court ends affirmative action in college admissions ›
- Why Clarence Thomas has eroded trust in the US Supreme Court ›
- US Supreme Court upends Roe v. Wade ›
- Ian Explains: Does it matter if Americans don't trust the Supreme Court? - GZERO Media ›
- The major Supreme Court decisions to watch for in June - GZERO Media ›
- The US Supreme Court, less trusted than ever, votes on major cases in June: Emily Bazelon on what to expect - GZERO Media ›
The justice system is broken. Juries still work.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and happy week to you, happy Monday. Just back from Singapore, and of course, I arrive in the United States and political insanity on a whole bunch of things. The thing that really struck me was the Rittenhouse acquittal. Kyle Rittenhouse, this young man who brings an AR-15 to riots and ends up shooting and killing two people, injuring a third, and found not guilty unanimously by the jury on all counts. And the country, as expected in these things... And this is by far the legal case that's gotten the most attention in years, and the response of the country is absolutely polarized, and so depressing to me.
One of the things I will say that I find most impressive about the United States and its political institutions is the jury system. I've served on juries. I'm sure almost every American I've spoken to, am speaking to now, has been called up for juries. It takes some time away from your work, but everyone participates, and it means that you have a jury of your peers. It means that average Americans, whatever that means, educated, not so educated, White, Black, male, female, doesn't matter. They all show up. And they get the instructions from the judge, and they do their best to follow the law as the law is written. And I am extremely confident having, no, not watched every day of the trial, but having read the summaries every day, that the jury ruled found not guilty appropriately.
Now, there are plenty of problems with the underlying self-defense laws, and that is something that the country needs to work on in my view, but that doesn't make the jury verdict inappropriate or illegitimate. If they had found guilty, that would've been illegitimate. I'm seeing a lot of people say, "Well, what would've happened if Kyle Rittenhouse had been Black? The jury would've found him guilty." I personally don't believe that. I actually think that, again, given the instructions the jury was given, they would've found not guilty for anyone. But if he had been Black, and if they had found guilty, that would've been, frankly, a miscarriage of justice. It doesn't happen that often these days in the jury system. I think there are other things you can point to.
Like if Kyle Rittenhouse was Black and brought an AR-15 into that environment, he wouldn't have walked by a bunch of armed police who would've waved at him and walked him through, offered him water. That wouldn't have happened. I mean, reality of structural racism in American police departments, Blacks are treated very differently than Whites are treated. Blacks with AR-15s in a violent environment are treated very differently than Whites with AR-15s. That's pretty clear to me.
It's obviously bad that the Republicans are lionizing him. Some, not all, some, but I mean several members of Congress saying, "We're going to offer the guy an internship." I mean, this is a kid whose parenting clearly is either nonexistent or radioactive horrible, who has taken provocative actions, incredibly stupid and dangerous actions that caused these deaths. And the reality of Tucker Carlson putting him on and members of the Republican Party supporting and promoting him the way they are will encourage more such vigilantism. I think that's a horrible thing, but that has nothing to do with the jury finding Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty.
And I think that for me, this is very similar to the election in 2020, where Biden won. It was clear that Biden won. It was a legitimate election. There was no ability to find any fraud, because fraud didn't exist. And frankly, about the only place that you found a more decisive judgment than the jury found to find Rittenhouse not guilty is the findings of all of the courts throwing out all of the claims of Trump and Giuliani and his supporters that the election was somehow stolen. And yet, we still have a majority of Trump voters, a disturbingly large percentage of the American population, 30%, 35% that still today believe that the election was stolen. And they are encouraged to think so by the former president, by many of his supporters in the Republican Party in Congress, by many of his supporters in the mainstream media on the right. And I have absolutely seen on the left similar sorts of behavior following the Rittenhouse verdict.
People are not going to be enormously comfortable with the fact that I'm saying this. In fact, I noticed on social media when I made the point of this comparison... I heard not just from trolls, but from actual known people, "You're a White man. You should shut up." That's insanity. You don't want a country like that. You want a place where whatever your color and creed or gender, you say what you actually believe. And I do believe that we have an environment that has become so politically divisive and toxic that a lot of people are scared to just articulate their legitimate position. I'm not pretending I have a monopoly on the truth. All I promise you is that whatever I think about a political issue, I'm just going to tell you honestly. If you agree with it, that's fine. If you don't agree with it, that's okay too. I mean, it doesn't define who I am, my political opinion on an issue, any more than my other attributes don't define who I am. We're complicated people, but increasingly we're not treating each other that way.
So anyway, that's my view on Rittenhouse. That's my view on the state of the country. And I hope everyone's doing okay and bringing the temperature down a little bit, and we try to engage a little bit more with each other. That's it. Talk to you soon.