senate judiciary committee

The New York Times’ editorial board weighs in today in favor of Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s (D-N.Y.) proposed legislation to effectively overturn two recent Supreme Court cases that significantly narrowed the ability of many victims to have their day in court.
Congress has held two hearings already on the cases of Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic [...]

Does a House bill about legal civil procedures provide a way to restore the protection of civil rights in America, or is it an unwarranted gift to trial lawyers that could be “paralyzing if not deadly” to the federal government?
That’s the question a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee examined Wednesday. Echoing a recent parallel [...]

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) just opened this morning’s  hearing that’s supposed to be about oversight of the Department of Homeland Security with a quick jab at Attorney General Eric Holder for his decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged terrorists to the United States for trial in federal court.
“Attorney [...]

In advance of a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security Wednesday morning, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has released a statement announcing his disapproval with DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s immigration policies and enforcement. “As many as twenty million individuals live here illegally, enjoying many of the same benefits as those who [...]

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that one reason he decided to try the five suspected 9/11 co-conspirators in federal court is because that was where he would most likely be able to win a conviction. As he said later in the hearing: “Failure is not an option. These [...]

TWI reader ajm8127 wrote in this afternoon with a thought on the insurance industry: “For profit health care insurance providers are a conflict of interest.”
Well, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agrees.

As Daphne pointed out, the insurance industry’s witness at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine a law exempting health insurers from federal anti-trust rules was none-too-comfortable defending that exclusion from Democratic attacks. But you didn’t have to watch the proceedings to learn that University of Arkansas professor Lawrence Powell, representing the Physician Insurers [...]

As the debate over health care reform rages on, there’s been almost no attention to the fact that health and medical malpractice insurance companies since 1945 have been exempt from the federal antitrust laws aimed at keeping every other private market competitive. The McCarran-Ferguson Act has allowed insurance companies to dominate markets and reap enormous [...]

Jesselyn Radack at Daily Kos slams The Washington Post for its editorial yesterday praising the Senate Judiciary Committee for its highly compromised Patriot Act reform bill. “The Post turns a blind eye to the vast amount of civil liberties protections Senate Democrats and the Obama administration gave up at last week’s Patriot Act markup, instead [...]

I just spoke to Kevin Bankston, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s senior attorney specializing in free speech and privacy law, about his reaction to today’s Senate Judiciary Committee markup session on the Patriot Act, which resulted in passage of the Leahy-Feinstein bill, with a few amendments. Bankston, who’s been following this debate closely, was not pleased.
“We’re [...]