Legal News
Reports on lawmaking, constitutional issues, and court cases. The Daily Signal combines news reporting with conservative commentary and legal analysis.
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news
AG Bondi Explains Why Trump Admin Hasn’t Released Epstein Client List
President Donald Trump sharply criticized a reporter for asking a question about deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein amid the devastating Texas flash flooding that has killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Been talked about for years. You’re asking, we have Texas, we have this, we have… -
opinion
Judge Tries to Require Planned Parenthood Funding
The Left has long looked to unelected bureaucrats and judges, rather than elected legislators, to get its way. Having failed to elect a Democrat president or Congress, they are hoping Democrat-appointed judges will block executive orders and statutes that they don’t like. Rogue judges participating in this scheme are eroding the judiciary’s integrity and undermining… -
news
Conservative Churches Win Massive Concession in Court Case Against IRS
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Churches can speak about candidates from the pulpit without risking their nonprofit status, the IRS said in a court filing on Monday. The IRS reached the agreement to resolve a lawsuit brought by two Christian nonprofits, the National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America, and two Texas churches. Communicating with congregants about candidates is… -
opinion
What Made Justice Kagan Change Her Mind on Universal Injunctions?
When judges change their mind, they explain their reasons. Or at least they ought to, because that’s what makes their judgments trustworthy. But when the Supreme Court decided Trump v. CASA this term, Justice Elena Kagan suddenly changed her mind on universal injunctions—and didn’t explain why. There, the Supreme Court held that federal courts likely… -
opinion
Supremes to Decide Whether Political Parties Can Act Like Political Parties
Just before breaking for the summer recess, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in its October term that, in essence, concerns whether Congress can limit political parties from doing what they are formed to do—i.e., support their candidates. That’s the issue at stake in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission,… -
opinion
The SPLC’s Slimy Attempt to Wiggle Out of a Defamation Lawsuit Beggars Belief
How can a leftist group present itself as the authority on “hate groups” in public, touting the fact that police and even the FBI have relied on its materials, and then reverse course when challenged in court, claiming that its statements are unprovable “opinion” rather than expert statements of fact? Has the Southern Poverty Law… -
opinion
Modest Cuts, Outsized Outrage: The Truth Behind the Big, Beautiful Bill’s Budget Reform
An unspoken rule among the Washington establishment is that once Congress throws money at a spending program, that decision should be treated as irrevocable. If a future Congress shows any fiscal conservatism and tries even to address some of its waste and abuse, left-wing lawmakers—and their allies in the media—will excoriate it for making supposedly… -
opinion
The Tide Is Turning on Gender Ideology
In the final weeks of its 2024-25 term, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold Tennessee’s restrictions on gender transitions for minors. The high court’s decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti preceded the University of Pennsylvania’s announcement on Tuesday that it would prohibit men who identify as transgender from participating in women’s athletic competitions. The university also… -
news
US Supreme Court to Take Up Two Transgender Athlete Cases
THE CENTER SQUARE—The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to take up two cases in its next term on laws banning men from participating in girls and women’s sports, based on biological sex. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. The cases come out of Idaho and… -
news
Supreme Court Upholds Porn Age-Verification Law
Last Friday, the Supreme Court held in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton that states can require pornographic websites to verify that users are over 18. States now have much more leeway to ensure that children are protected from internet pornography. In 2023, Texas introduced the law challenged in Paxton. The law requires pornography websites to… -
opinion
Consider the Dissenter: Justice Jackson’s Troubled Close to the 2024 Term
Ketanji Brown Jackson is a justice seeking to establish her legacy. By some lights, her mere presence as the first black women on the Supreme Court is already a legacy-cementing fact. To her credit, she understands that status alone is not enough, and thus she has been enormously active as a questioner and opinion writer… -
opinion
DOJ Sues More States Over In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens
Attention, all parents and college students worried about the ever-rising cost of college tuition. The Department of Justice has finally—after three decades—started enforcing the federal law that prohibits states from offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens unless they also offer in-state tuition to everyone else—including all citizen students from out of state. The law it’s… -
opinion
Students for Fair Admissions and Naval Academy File Motion to Vacate Opinion Allowing Academy to Use Race in Admissions
Imagine judging a trial, ruling for one party, and writing a 179-page opinion, only to find the same parties asking you to vacate your opinion and dismiss the case six months later! That’s exactly what happened to the federal district court judge who presided over the trial in the Students for Fair Admissions v. The United… -
opinion
Maryland Federal Judges All Get Hit With DOJ Lawsuit for Violating the Law
On June 24, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an unprecedented complaint against all 15 of the federal district court judges in Maryland, as well as the clerk of the Maryland district court, for engaging in what Attorney General Pam Bondi calls an “egregious example of unlawful judicial overreach into the Executive Branch’s ability to… -
news
DOJ to LA: See You in Court Over Sanctuary City Policies
THE CENTER SQUARE—The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles’ sanctuary city policies, citing the supremacy clause regarding the preemption of federal statutes over state and local law in the U.S. Constitution. According to Los Angeles City Council members, as many as 1 in 10 Los Angeles residents may be… -
opinion
Here’s Why the Supreme Court Striking Down Nationwide Injunctions Won’t End the Judicial Insurrection
The Supreme Court case Trump v. CASA cut right to the heart of the judicial insurrection, the trend of district court judges siding with leftist activists to block President Donald Trump’s policies through nationwide preliminary injunctions. The court’s decision rightly struck down the judicial insurrection’s No. 1 strategy, but that doesn’t mean rogue judges won’t… -
news
Heritage Action Endorses Senate’s Big Beautiful Bill
Heritage Action, which has 2.5 million grassroots activists nationwide, came out swinging for the U.S. Senate’s budget reconciliation bill in a press statement released Monday. The group, one of the largest conservative grassroots organizations in the United States, backed the budget bill that is set to pass the upper chamber early this week. It will… -
opinion
Supreme Court Delays Delegation’s Reckoning for Another Day
The Supreme Court punctuated its 2024 term with a decision that allowed the Federal Communications Commission to continue charging Americans billions of dollars annually for its Universal Service program. Universal Service, a subsidy program meant to bring communications technologies to rural and low-income areas, survived a consumer group’s challenge that argued that the FCC’s seemingly… -
news
High Court Won’t Hear Appeal of Teacher Fired Over ‘Political’ Social Media Posts
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear arguments in a case involving a teacher who claims she was fired over social media posts expressing her views on transgenderism, immigration, and other controversial issues. Justice Clarence Thomas called the case “the latest in a trend of lower court decisions that have misapplied our First… -
opinion
Posting the Ten Commandments Does Not Establish a Religion
When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was serving as his state’s attorney general in 2005, he appeared before the Supreme Court to argue Van Orden v. Perry. The question was whether a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments that had stood on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol since 1961 violated the First Amendment. That…