Supreme Court

The New Jersey Supreme Court should block Gov. Christie's latest attempt to roll back its landmark rulings on affordable housing. Christie provoked a standoff over the court's Mount Laurel decisions in 2011, when he attempted to unilaterally abolish the bipartisan board created to carry out the court's affordable-housing directives. Christie wants to transfer the functions of the Council on Affording Housing, which is independent of the governor, to the state Department of Community Affairs, which is run by a member of his cabinet.

The Nutter administration asked the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to immediately hear its argument for imposing a contract on 6,800 blue-collar municipal workers. The city filed suit last week in Common Pleas Court seeking to impose terms on AFSCME District Council 33 - including modest raises, potential furloughs, reduced overtime, and a new pension model for future employees - that would end a nearly four-year standoff. Nutter said in a statement Tuesday that he was petitioning the Supreme Court to take immediate jurisdiction because the "matter is of such pressing public consequence to city employees and taxpayers.

TRENTON - Gov. Christie has the authority to "destroy" independent state agencies and take over their duties, according to an argument one of his lawyers made Monday before the New Jersey Supreme Court. That pronouncement, met with skepticism by justices and denounced by an opposing lawyer as unconstitutional, forms the basis of the legal power that the Republican governor has sought to use in changing a key element of state government. For more than 90 minutes, the justices heard a case seeking to uphold Christie's 2011 elimination of the agency that oversees affordable housing.

With its speeches, balls, and parades, Inauguration Day presents Washington at its grandest and, some would say, most grandiose. Amid the pomp, I found myself thinking about someone who wasn't in the crowd this year: Francis J. Lorson, who passed away a few days ago at the age of 69. There is often great incongruity between one's fame and the quality of one's service, a fact of Washington life that Frank's career illustrated. For 30 years, he labored behind the scenes at the Supreme Court, rising from assistant clerk to chief deputy clerk.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi has stepped into the leadership void left by a state Supreme Court that seems more concerned with quelling embarrassment than fixing the historically dysfunctional Philadelphia Traffic Court. Pileggi wants to abolish the city's Traffic Court and transfer its authority over moving violations to Municipal Court. The Delaware County Republican's proposal comes in the wake of a scathing report documenting widespread ticket-fixing at Traffic Court for the friends and families of the politically connected.

AT LAST, someone has come up with a good idea about what to do with Philadelphia's scandal-ridden Traffic Court: Get rid of it. Sen. Dominic Pileggi, Republican leader of the state Senate, said he is working on legislation to abolish Traffic Court and shift its duties to Municipal Court. Pileggi said he was prompted to act because of an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption at the court and because of a report, done for the state Supreme Court by investigator William Chadwick, that revealed widespread fixing of cases based on politics.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's new liaison to the Philadelphia courts has pledged to keep pushing for reform of the criminal-justice system. In a statement Thursday, Justice J. Michael Eakin praised Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, whom he replaced as overseer of the courts as the result of a vote of the Supreme Court bench. Eakin said Castille had produced "meaningful advances" as part of a drive to make sure more cases were decided on their merits. "Thorny issues have been resolved, and recommendations have been made that will continue to be implemented," Eakin said.

Riled over the release of a report exposing widespread ticket fixing in Philadelphia Traffic Court, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court justices have voted to remove Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille as the high court's overseer of the city courts. By a majority vote, his five colleagues instead chose a justice from the Harrisburg area as liaison with the massive court system, sources familiar with the action said Wednesday. Castille remains chief justice and still wields considerable clout.

McLEAN, Va. - Robert H. Bork, 85, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon's behest and whose failed 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, died Wednesday from heart complications at a hospital in Arlington, Va. Brilliant, blunt and piercingly witty, Robert Heron Bork had a long career in the law that took him from respected academic...

The dispute between Gov. Christie and Democratic leaders about filling state Supreme Court vacancies has become a children's game of tit for tat. After more than two years, it is time to end the contest. With important cases concerning school funding and gay marriage expected to come before it, the state's highest court needs a full complement of justices. Christie last week sent the Senate two new nominees: Robert Hanna, head of the state Board of Public Utilities, and Superior Court Judge David Bauman.