Legal Analyst: SCOTUS rulings on Birthright citizenship; transgender athletes; assault weapons bans
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Transcript
16 segmentsThe nation's highest court upholds birthright citizenship. Let's talk about that case and other Supreme Court actions this week with KMOX legal analyst Brad Young, partner at Harris Young and Kaiser. Good morning, Brad. Good morning, Megan. So birthright citizenship as a constitutional right survived by one vote. Does this ruling put this issue to rest? I think it does. I think this is going to be a controlling decision on this issue. It all really comes down to one phrase. Under the 14th Amendment, it says, quote, all persons. born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. And the entire legal battle on this, Megan, really came down to what does that mean, subject to the jurisdiction? The majority, it was an opinion written by John Roberts, said that subject to the jurisdiction means if you can be arrested, if you can be ordered to comply with the laws of the United States, then you're subject to the jurisdiction, meaning that if you're born here, it doesn't matter. where you're from, you are a citizen. The dissent said no, that that was a historical misapplication of that phrase, that it was designed for slaves who had been here, lived here, and then were being emancipated. And so to apply that to anyone other than slaves is a misapplication of the 14th Amendment. So for all intents and purposes, Megan, I do believe this resolves the issue. Okay, let's turn to transgender athletes. It was a 6-3 ruling. The High Court upheld two state laws preventing transgender athletes from participating in girls and women's sports. What did the court say in this decision? This was a six to three decision, Megan, and the court really extended a constitutional idea that had been in place for several years, going back two years in Tennessee regarding whether states can regulate transgender medical care. And the court, though, in this case, ruled that it's within the state's purview under our concept of federalism, meaning that the federal government controls some things, state governments control other things, that it was within... the purview of the states to write their laws in such a way to protect women's sports. And so there was a very lengthy decision by Brett Kavanaugh explaining how the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment means in this instance the laws are applied equally, regardless of whether you're a transgender male or a transgender female. The state laws in question apply equally to both. So there are other lawsuits apparently challenging laws in states that permit transgender participation, where would they stand now under this ruling?
Well, under, that's a great question, Megan, because under this ruling, the court empowered states to determine for themselves how they want to regulate this controversial issue. So I believe the application of this decision moving forward would be that if a state wants to say that the sports are confined to your birth gender, they can do that. I also think that under this ruling, because it empowered states, I think if a state wants to do the opposite and say, we're going to open up. sports to transgender people, depending on their choice of gender. I think the Supreme Court would say that that fits within this opinion. Brad, looking at these two cases that we've just talked about and many of the other really big cases that the Supreme Court has heard, you know, how do you analyze how this court is making its decisions? This court is, again, that's a great question, Megan. I think this court is kind of setting itself up to say that they're empowering the states. One of the long held arguments in legal circles has been the 10th Amendment, which reserves rights to the states, is like the forgotten amendment. And yet this court seems to be empowering states. We've seen it, again, with gender laws, we've seen it with medication laws. We've seen it now with sports laws. And it's important. empowering states to make decisions, whereas if you look at the previous history of the Supreme Court going back decades, a lot of that was empowering the federal government. I think this court is more empowering state governments. Let's look at one thing that is coming up. The Supreme Court says it's going to consider whether assault weapon bans violate the Second Amendment. There's a case in actually Cook County. What's at stake here with this ruling? Well, the Supreme Court has allowed, they're going to choose to hear this case in the next term starting in October. And this is a case that's going to say literally whether or not states can regulate what's called AR-15 style weapons. And the issue comes down to this. But there's been a string of decisions. Bruin is one of them. Hamani is another case. Where the court has said if the gun ownership fits within the historical. tradition or has a dual purpose under the law, then states cannot prevent people from owning those weapons because of the Second Amendment. So this is the first time this issue has been raised to address what's called AR-style weapons or semi-automatic weapons. Yeah, because I guess one of the arguments is that they are similar to military-grade weapons, and that's an argument for why they would not come under the Second Amendment. That's exactly right. And here's really what it's all going to come down to. Under the Heller case, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms if that weapon is identified and has a common lawful use. That's the actual language from the Heller decision from the Supreme Court. So the question's going to be for AR-15 style weapons, is there a common lawful use for that weapon or is it strictly a weapon that's used for unlawful or illegal purposes? I think is the key and what the court will be looking at next year. All right. Thank you so much, Brad. Really appreciate your time every week. My pleasure, Megan. That is Camelwax legal analyst Brad Young. And as I mentioned, he joins us every Wednesday morning here on Total Information a.m.