Justice Elena Kagan warns Supreme Court can forfeit legitimacy when overturning precedent
CBSN
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on Monday cautioned that courts look political and forfeit legitimacy when they needlessly overturn precedent and decide more than they have to.
Speaking less than three months after a five-justice conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade's constitutional guarantee of abortion access, Kagan said the public's view of the court can be damaged especially when changes in its membership lead to big changes in the law.
She stressed that she was not talking about any particular decision or even a string of rulings with which she disagreed.
More than 2 million federal employees face a looming deadline: By midnight on Thursday, they must decide whether to accept a "deferred resignation" offer from the Trump administration. If workers accept, according to a White House plan, they would continue getting paid through September but would be excused from reporting for duty. But if they opt to keep their jobs, they could get fired.
More employees of the Environmental Protection Agency were informed Wednesday that their jobs appear in doubt. Senior leadership at the EPA held an all-staff meeting to tell individuals that President Trump's executive order, "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which was responsible for the closure of the agency's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office, will likely lead to the shuttering of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well.
In her first hours as attorney general, Pam Bondi issued a broad slate of directives that included a Justice Department review of the prosecutions of President Trump, a reorientation of department work to focus on harsher punishments, actions punishing so-called "sanctuary" cities and an end to diversity initiatives at the department.