Neil Gorsuch will likely face an uphill battle in securing the Supreme Court’s vacant ninth seat. On Thursday, the last day of Gorsuch’s Senate confirmation hearings, Democrats signaled they would filibuster President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. That would leave Republicans with two options: introduce a new nominee, or pursue the so-called “nuclear option,” and obliterate the filibuster possibility for Supreme Court nominees.

In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Minority Leader, said Gorsuch “will have to earn 60 votes for confirmation,” adding: “My vote will be no.” As the rules stand, Gorsuch would require 60 votes–eight Democrats along with the 52 Republican Senators–to pass. If Republicans decide to scrap the filibuster option, a simple majority would be sufficient.

Voicing a common concern among Democrats and liberal groups, Schumer said he fears Gorsuch would interpret the law in an ultra-conservative manner. “His career and judicial record suggest not a neutral legal mind but someone with a deep-seated conservative ideology,” Schumer said, adding that if Gorsuch cannot clear the 60-vote mark, “the answer isn’t to change the rules,” but “to change the nominee.”

If Republicans, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), choose to scrap the filibuster–something Trump has expressed support for–they would not be without precedent. In 2013, Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader at the time, changed the rules for most presidential appointments, including federal judiciary nominees and cabinet appointees, to require simple majorities instead of the 60-vote threshold. Reid, who recently retired, kept the filibuster in place for Supreme Court nominees.

In undoing the filibuster, Reid and most Democrats (a few opposed the move) said it was a necessary response to what they saw as unprecedented Republican obstruction. Republicans saw it as a gross abuse of power that would come back to haunt Reid. McConnell called it a “power grab.” Indeed, many of Trump’s less-popular cabinet appointments narrowly passed the Senate, and likely would have been thwarted had the ability to filibuster been in place.

Gorsuch’s best chance at securing the nomination could come through the handful of Democrats who will be up for re-election next year in states that Trump won. But if Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), who is up for re-election next year, is a harbinger of how his colleagues will vote, Gorsuch would fall short of 60 votes. “I have serious concerns about Judge Gorsuch’s rigid and restrictive judicial philosophy,” Casey, said on Thursday. Gorsuch, he said, “employs the narrowest possible reading of federal law and exercises extreme skepticism, even hostility, toward executive branch agencies.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Have you ever gone to check out of your hotel room, maybe after a nice relaxing vacation, only to discover that there are “resort fees” that you owe? Resort fees can include things like use of the pool, wi-fi, housekeeping, or “complimentary” breakfast. But they usually aren’t advertised up front, so these fees come as an unpleasant surprise to the guests when they try to check out. But, if Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Edith Ramirez gets her way, Congress will do something to protect consumers from these tricky hidden fees.

Ramirez wrote a letter to 10 members of Congress, asking for them to draft legislation to prevent hotels from charging these expensive, and hidden fees. She specifically targeted representatives who had previously spoken out against the fees. Last year Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) called on the FTC to investigate online hotel booking sites and the hidden fees they may have that “push the price of the hotel room beyond what the actual hotel would charge.” Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) and Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania)  have also encouraged the FTC to look into these fees. Right now, the FTC looks into each allegation individually, on a case-by-case basis, and has warned different hotels that their hidden fees may “violate the law” in the past.

A study by a non-profit consumer advocacy group called Travelers United recently found that these kinds of fees have been increasing in California, with “nearly 200 hotels in California charging an average mandatory resort fee of $17 per night.”  However, a hotel trade group, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, has stated that the number of hotels that charge these fees is on a decline overall. Rosanna Maietta, a spokeswoman for the group, stated:

The lodging industry provides guests full disclosure for resort fees charged upfront. Those fees, in addition to the base travel and hotel charges, remain transparent whether consumers book online or with the hotel directly.

However, that hasn’t stopped people from getting surprised with resort fees, and many Americans believe that fees should be disclosed before guests book anything. A poll commissioned by Travelers United found that 80 percent of respondents want resort fees included in advertised pricing, and 87 percent would be less likely to stay at a hotel if they were charged fees for amenities they did not use or want.

Whether Congress will actually take action will be interesting to watch–given that a few congresspeople have already been talking about the issue it certainly bodes well, but only time will tell.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Attention all young lawyers: do you have any ambitions of making it to the bench? Or maybe another plum political position? Is that the kind of career you want? If you answered no to those questions, you can stop reading here. You can go on with your day, and you don’t need to heed the warning I’m about to give.

But if you answered yes, there’s something you really need to consider. Watch everything you do closely, because as we learned in the Senate this week, participating in a single controversial case has the potential to invalidate your entire career.

Debo Adegbile, a well respected Civil Rights lawyer who was nominated by President Barack Obama to head the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, was rejected by the Senate yesterday. His nomination was blocked through a procedural vote that fell 52-47. The reason given for his rejection was the fact that he was involved in an appeal to get Mumia Abu-Jamal, a man who was found guilty of murdering a cop in Philadelphia, off death row. That involvement was enough to render the rest of his qualifications utterly irrelevant.

Here are the top 5 reasons why Debo Adegbile’s rejection by the Senate was dead wrong.

5. His involvement in the Abu-Jamal case was pretty minor. 

Debo Adegbile worked for the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund — a widely respected institution. The NAACP routinely takes on controversial cases. This should come as a surprise to no one.

The Abu-Jamal case has been contentious for years, receiving both national and international condemnation and applause. Abu-Jamal’s supporters have alleged that the trial was marred by flawed jury selection and instruction and lack of impartiality.

Now the NAACP, not Adegbile himself, but the institution for which he worked, became involved in the appeals process in the Abu-Jamal case in 2006, roughly 25 years after Abu-Jamal’s original conviction. Adegbile didn’t become involved in the case until 2008, when he signed onto a brief. When the NAACP became more involved in 2011, eventually working to get Abu-Jamal’s death sentence overturned in favor of life in prison, Adegbile wasn’t even on the defense team. He was barely involved with this case.

4. Adegbile was doing his job.

Let’s also consider what the NAACP was arguing, what the brief that Adegbile was tangentially involved with consisted of. They were arguing that Abu-Jamal did not receive due process of law — not that he was innocent. They didn’t argue that the conviction was wrong, they argued that the sentencing was wrong. As Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick so perfectly put it, “What he did do — which fits pretty readily within the historic mandate of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund — was to help ensure that the American criminal justice system, and especially the death penalty, is administered fairly and constitutionally.” By being even slightly involved in this case, Adegbile was doing the job that he agreed to do at a respected institution with a worthy cause.

Furthermore, Adegbile was doing his job as a lawyer. Attorneys pledge to uphold the constitution, to make sure that clients get fair treatment, and have a legal obligation to do so. Lawyers, and their clients, have the right, if not the obligation, to question cases in which there is a possible loss of liberty and legal protections.

I’m not saying that any lawyer should get a free pass for cases they take, or that every lawyer would be qualified for the position for which Adegbile was nominated. But it’s pretty clear that Adegbile was doing his job, for a respected institution, with a valid legal argument, on a case which eventually was found to have been unfair to Abu-Jamal. And he’s now being punished for that.

3. Every lawyer has some controversial cases. 

I am pretty sure it’s impossible to be a prominent lawyer in the United States without at some point being involved with a controversial case. In fact, prominent cases are often the catalyst for becoming a prominent lawyer. So let’s check out arguably the most prominent legal figure in the United States right now: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John G. Roberts.

When Roberts was in private practice, he helped represent a convicted killer in Florida named John Ferguson, who killed eight people. He put in 25 pro bono hours for his work on the case, and it never came up in his confirmation hearings, and rightly so.

And Roberts isn’t the only one. Controversial cases abound, and if lawyers do their due diligence, and make appropriate legal arguments, such cases shouldn’t hamstring them and prevent them from ever serving in a political position.

2. The vote was a transparent political move. 

With the way that Congress has been behaving recently, this is almost a useless point, but I’m going to make it anyway. Adegbile lost 52-47. Now obviously all the Republicans voted against him — but so did eight Democrats: Harry Reid (Nev.), Chris Coons (Del.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin (W.V.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.) and John Walsh (Mont.).

Of those eight, only three are up for reelection in 2014. But all eight of them live in relatively purple or red states. The only exception would be Coons, but it’s important to remember that his state falls within Philadelphia’s media market, where Abu-Jamal’s crime occurred. The Democrats who voted against Adegbile may have done so from their consciences, that really may be the case. But if they didn’t, and if this was a political move, they deserve ire.

And it’s looking like that might be true. A senior aide to one of the Senators who voted against Adegbile anonymously stated, “It’s a vote you didn’t have to take. It’s a 30-second ad that writes itself.”

1. The message this vote sends to lawyers. 

The failed nomination of Adegbile for, as stated by the dissidents, his involvement in the Abu-Jamal case says a lot. If he had been rejected based on his qualifications, fine. That wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. But let’s be very clear about this: he was rejected because he did his job as a lawyer.

Watch this video of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin exclaiming his disgust over the decision. It’s long, but it’s worth it, because it sums up this entire issue near perfectly.

What does that mean for our young ambitious attorneys, our best and brightest, our potential nominees in 20 years? Well, this rejection sends them the message to watch their backs. To stop and think before they take every single case. It requires them to anticipate the future. And it tells them not to take chances, not to fight for the cases they’re passionate about. It tells them to stop taking the actions that make our legal system so great. That’s what it says. So future lawyers, current lawyers, potential lawyers: heed my warning. Watch what you do, or pay a price in the future.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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