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As attention has been focused on the coronavirus, the Supreme Count has been busy issuing rulings in various cases this week. Former Attorney General joined Dave Ross on Seattle’s Morning News for a quick SCOTUS update.

Former AG McKenna: Federal emergency powers in ‘uncharted territory’

SCOTUS case 1

In the first case discussed, the court ruled that federal employees get more protection than the rest of us when it comes to age bias.

“This is a classic case of statutory interpretation focused on differences in the language that Congress chose to use in the statute that prohibits age discrimination,” McKenna said. “In the language applying to federal civil servants, they provided a higher level of protection than workers in the private sector or workers for state local governments enjoy.”

SCOTUS case 2

“The Roman Catholic Diocese in Washington, D.C., wanted to put ads on buses celebrating Christmas, and when they weren’t allowed to do so, they sued,” McKenna said. “But the reason they lost is, I think, a pretty good reason, which is that the transit agency banned all issue oriented ads on its rail and bus system.”

The ads actually weren’t rejected for religious reasons, but rather a broad policy that prohibits all issue oriented advertising.

SCOTUS case 3

The final case played out this week in Wisconsin. The court ruled that the presidential primary would go on as scheduled, despite Democrats’ attempts to postpone it because of the pandemic.

“This is the first coronavirus related Supreme Court decision,” McKenna said. “It happened in a hurry, of course, because the governor of Wisconsin apparently decided that he wanted to stop the election and postpone it. That was struck down by a lower court. But at the same time, the state decided it was going to extend the deadline for returning absentee ballots. The Republicans in Wisconsin challenged that one week extension for returning absentee ballots. That ended up going to the Seventh Circuit, which agreed with the state in allowing the extension.”

Then that was appealed on an “emergency basis” to the Supreme Court, which overturned the lower courts ruling to extend the date.

“Now, the decision was straight party lines, if you will. It was the conservatives versus the liberals. With the conservatives siding with the Republicans in Wisconsin in saying that the date for returning an absentee ballot could not be extended. The liberals on the court went the other way.”

There was one piece about this ruling that stuck out to McKenna.

“The thing that struck me as kind of odd and something they ought to re-visit in Wisconsin is why people can request an absentee ballot up until the Friday before the election. I mean, you know, the argument that the Democrats made, which is common sense, is that a lot of people didn’t get their ballots in time to vote. But that’s almost, seems to me, guaranteed if you could request a ballot on the Friday before Tuesday election. So they really ought to revisit that policy.”

President Trump cited this ruling to slam the idea of voting by mail in a recent briefing, saying it’s a recipe for fraud.

Washington state leads charge to get US to vote by mail in November

“I’m not aware of any such evidence from kind of an objective, nonpartisan source, no,” McKenna said. “And here in Washington state, where we’ve had vote by mail for quite a while, I just haven’t seen it. Neither have our Republican secretaries of state who have been big supporters of vote by mail.”

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