Politics
Supreme Court chief justice report urges caution on use of AI ahead of contentious election year
With a wary eye over the future of the federal courts, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned Sunday of the perils of artificial intelligence (AI) when deciding cases and other important legal matters.
His remarks came in the annual year-end report issued by the head of the federal judiciary, which made no mention of current controversies surrounding his court, including calls for greater transparency and ethics reform binding the justices.
Noting the legal profession in general is “notoriously averse to change,” Roberts urged a go-slow approach when embracing new technologies by the courts.
“AI obviously has great potential to dramatically increase access to key information for lawyers and non-lawyers alike,” he said. “But just as obviously it risks invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law.”
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Street view of the Supreme Court building. (STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
“But any use of AI requires caution and humility,” he added. “As 2023 draws to a close with breathless predictions about the future of Artificial Intelligence, some may wonder whether judges are about to become obsolete. I am sure we are not— but equally confident that technological changes will continue to transform our work.”
Roberts also summarized the work of the nation’s 94 district courts, 13 circuit courts and his own Supreme Court. Previous year-end reports have focused on courthouse security, judges’ pay, rising caseloads and budgets.
The chief justice’s predictions of the future did not include his own court’s caseload, as he and his colleagues are poised to tackle several politically-charged disputes in the new year, many focused on former president Donald Trump’s legal troubles and re-election efforts.
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Chief Justice John Roberts attends the State of the Union address. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Election examinations
The Supreme Court has tackled its share of election fights over the decades — remember Bush v. Gore nearly a quarter century ago? — but 2024 promises to make that judicial drama look quaint by comparison.
First up could be whether states can keep Trump’s name off primary and general election ballots. Colorado’s highest court said yes, and now the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to decide the extent of a 14th Amendment provision that bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.”
State courts across the country are considering whether Trump’s role in 2020 election interference and the Jan. 6 Capitol riots would disqualify him from seeking re-election.
The justices are being asked to decide the matter quickly, either by mid-February or early March, when the “Super Tuesday” primaries in 16 states are held.
In his leadership role as “first among equals,” the 68-year-old Roberts will likely be the key player in framing what voting disputes his court will hear and ultimately decide, perhaps as the deciding vote.
Despite a 6-3 conservative majority, the chief justice has often tried to play the middle, seeking a less-is-best approach that has frustrated his more right-leaning colleagues.
But despite any reluctance to stay away from the fray, the court, it seems, will be involved in election-related controversies.
“Given the number of election disputes it might be coming, a lot of them could be moving very quickly and will be very important to see what the court does,” said Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. “Sometimes the Supreme Court has no choice but to be involved in the election cases, because there are some voting rights and election cases that the justices are required to resolve on the merits.”
Already the high court is considering redistricting challenges to voting boundaries in GOP-leaning states, brought by civil rights groups.
That includes South Carolina’s first congressional district and claims the Republican-led legislature created a racial gerrymander. A ruling is expected in spring 2024.
The high court could also be asked to weigh in on emergency appeals over vote-by-mail restrictions, provisional ballots deadlines, polling hours, the Electoral College and more.
Just weeks before President Trump’s first House impeachment in 2019, Roberts tried to downplay his court’s consideration of partisan political disputes.
“When you live in a polarized political environment, people tend to see everything in those terms,” Roberts said at the time. “That’s not how we at the court function and the results in our cases do not suggest otherwise.”
But the court’s reputation as a fair arbiter of the law and Constitution has continued to erode to all-time lows.
A Fox News poll in June found just 48% of those surveyed having confidence in the Supreme Court, down from 83% just six years ago.
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Former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The Trump term?
Donald Trump faces separate criminal prosecution in four jurisdictions in 2024 — two federal cases over document mishandling and 2020 election interference; and two state cases in Georgia over 2020 election interference and New York over hush money payments to a porn star.
The prospect of a former president and leading GOP candidate facing multiple criminal convictions — with or without the blessing of the United States Supreme Court — has the potential to dominate an already riven election campaign.
The former president has filed various motions in each case, seeking to drop charges, delay the proceedings, and be allowed to speak publicly at what he sees as politically-motivated prosecutions.
The Supreme Court recently refused to fast-track a separate appeal, over Trump’s scheduled criminal trial scheduled to start the day before “Super Tuesday.”
Special counsel Jack Smith is challenging Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in the 2020 election interference case. The former president says the prosecutions amount to a “partisan witch hunt.”
While the justices are staying out of the dispute for now, they could quickly jump back in later this winter, after a federal appeals court decides the merits in coming weeks.
But the justices will decide this term whether some January 6 Capitol riot defendants can challenge their convictions for “corruptly” obstructing “official proceedings.” Oral arguments could be held in February or March.
More than 300 people are facing that same obstruction law over their alleged efforts to disrupt Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.
The former president faces the same obstruction count in his case, and what the high court decides could affect Trump’s legal defense in the special counsel prosecution, and the timing of his trial.
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Supreme Court Justices posing for an official photo at the Supreme Court. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Look ahead
In the short term, the Supreme Court, with its solid conservative majority, will hear arguments and issue rulings in coming months on hot-button topics like:
– Abortion, and access to mifepristone, a commonly-used drug to end pregnancies
– Executive power, and an effort to sharply curb the power of federal agencies to interpret and enforce “ambiguous” policies enacted by Congress
– Social media, and whether tech firms — either on their own or with the cooperation of the government — can moderate or prevent users from posting disinformation
– Gun rights and a federal ban on firearm possession by those subject to domestic violence restraining orders
Off the bench, the court last month instituted a new “code of conduct” — ethics rules to clarify ways the justices can address conflicts of interest, case recusals, activities they can participate in outside the court and their finances.
It followed months of revelations that some justices, particularly Clarence Thomas, did not accurately report gifts and other financial benefits on their required financial disclosure reports.
The court in a statement admitted the absence of binding ethics rules led some to believe that the justices “regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.”
“To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”
All this reflects the delicate balancing act the chief justice will navigate in a presidential election year.
The unprecedented criticism of the high court’s work — on and off the bench — is not lost on its nine members.
“There’s a storm around us in the political world and the world at large in America,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said this fall. “We, as judges and the legal system, need to try to be a little more, I think, of the calm in the storm.”
Some court watchers agree the court as an institution may struggle in the near term to preserve its legitimacy and public confidence, but time might be on its side.
“By its nature, the court kind of takes a long-term view of things,” said Thomas Dupree, a former top Justice Department official, who has litigated cases before the Supreme Court. “Even when we disagree with the outcome in a particular case, I have never had any doubt that these are men and women who are doing their absolute best to faithfully apply the laws and the Constitution of the United States to reach the right result.”
Politics
Socialism goes west as DSA-backed challenger ousts longtime Democrat
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Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., a 30-year incumbent, lost to a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-backed challenger in a high-profile primary on Tuesday evening.
Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old socialist, defeated DeGette in a Democratic primary for a deep-blue House seat anchored in Denver, according to The Associated Press, scoring a major victory for the socialist left on Tuesday evening.
The DSA had been aiming to cast DeGette’s loss as evidence of its growing momentum after a slate of socialist candidates won Democratic primaries in New York City last week.
“Today, the East Coast, next week the Mountain West,” the DSA wrote in a social media post last week.
Rep. Diana DeGette speaks during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 10, 2024. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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If elected in November, Kiros, who was born in Ethiopia, will likely join the ranks of the far-left group known as the Squad and become one of a handful of the House chamber’s outspoken socialists.
The millennial challenger was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and the anti-incumbent leftist organization Justice Democrats. Controversial socialist streamer Hasan Piker, who has said Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel and praised the Chinese Communist Party, also backed Kiros’ insurgent primary run.
DeGette, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who supports abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sought to win a 16th House term by flexing her leftist bona fides. She argued her seniority on an influential House committee would allow her to push for Medicare-for-All legislation — a longtime priority of the party’s far-left flank.
DeGette, who was endorsed by former CPC Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also spotlighted her experience as an impeachment manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021.
Though DeGette and Kiros shared few policy disagreements, they diverged sharply over Israel and antisemitism. Kiros also sharply criticized DeGette for accepting corporate PAC contributions.
Kiros, a PhD student and lawyer, was fired from a New York firm in 2023 after publishing an open letter, arguing that pro-Palestinian student protesters calling for the elimination of Israel were not antisemitic and appearing to defend Hamas.
Melat Kiros participated in a League of Women Voters Congressional District 1 candidate forum at Montview Presbyterian Church in Denver on May 28, 2026. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post)
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She has also described the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks against the Jewish state as the “inevitable consequence of apartheid” and declined to characterize the deadly firebombing of protesters in Boulder last year who were urging the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza as antisemitic.
“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros told Colorado’s 9News in a recent television interview. “All I know is that he went and attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed.”
A June 2025 bipartisan resolution condemning the attack as part of a “rise in ideologically motivated attacks on Jewish individuals” won every present lawmaker’s support, except for Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who voted present.
Kiros has also suggested the United States deserved 9/11.
“Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East that forced people to believe that another act of violence was the only response,” Kiros told 9News when asked if she thought the terror attack was “the inevitable consequence of American foreign policy.”
“And again, just like I said before, our responsibility is to get rid of those conditions that lead to violence in the first place,” Kiros continued.
DeGette argued that Kiros’ embrace of Piker and her comments about antisemitism and 9/11 were disqualifying.
“I’m shocked and disgusted that Kiros is doubling down on excusing terrorism and the murder of innocent people,” the 30-year incumbent wrote on Facebook earlier this month.
Streamer and creator Hasan Piker speaks at a press conference during day two of Web Summit Vancouver at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada, on May 13, 2026. (Sam Barnes/Web Summit via Sportsfile via Getty Images)
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Colorado’s 1st Congressional District is the most liberal seat in the state and voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris by 56 points in 2024.
The primary fight was further scrambled by University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, also running for DeGette’s seat. Though James did not pose the same threat as Kiros, her vote share could ultimately have swayed the contest.
Politics
Newsom signs off on 100% California tax for money from Trump’s $1.8-billion ‘slush fund’
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed off on a 100% state tax on money any Californians receive from Trump’s $1.8-billion “anti-weaponization” fund for his political allies.
Newsom unveiled his proposal in May, after Trump’s Justice Department said it would create a fund to compensate Trump’s allies who claim they have “suffered weaponization and lawfare” under Biden’s Justice Department.
The settlement fund was criticized by politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who described it as a “slush fund to pay people who assault cops.”
The fund remains in legal limbo. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Virginia extended a court-ordered block on the plan, which critics warned could be used to pay pardoned Jan. 6 rioters.
Fast-tracked into law as part of Senate Bill 122, Newsom’s plan imposes “a tax on any settlement fund payment from the federal Anti-Weaponization Fund, or any subsequent fund, settlement, or agreement, as provided, at a rate of 100%,” according to the bill text. The tax applies to all tax years between 2026 and 2030.
Newsom signed the bill Tuesday. In a statement, his office said the tax is meant to ensure that, should Trump’s fund proceed, California recipients won’t “receive favorable state treatment on those payments.”
“We believe democracy is worth defending, the rule of law matters, and public dollars should support victims—not those who attacked the very institutions that protect our freedoms,” Newsom said in the statement.
University of Southern California law professor Ariel Jurow Kleiman, an expert on tax law and policy, said that while Newsom’s tax is a “novel legal strategy,” she believes there is “no categorical legal restriction” preventing California from implementing it.
States have a “wide degree of discretion” to design their tax systems — including how they define income — so long as they do not violate their constitutions, Jurow Kleiman said.
If a California resident wanted to challenge the tax in court, they would need to show they were harmed by it to have standing to sue, according to Jurow Kleiman. That would mean receiving a payment from Trump’s settlement fund and then paying the 100% California tax. Unless the settlement fund is established and distributes payments, that scenario is unlikely.
While there have been proposals to levy a 100% tax on income above certain thresholds — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2023 said he supports a 100% tax on income exceeding $1 billion — Jurow Kleiman said she is not aware of any governments that have adopted such a policy.
Politics
Congress eyes rare bipartisan housing win with or without Trump’s help
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The House has officially shipped a colossal bipartisan housing package to President Donald Trump, and lawmakers are hoping that, at the very least, he doesn’t veto it.
Trump was supposed to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act last week, but his last-minute decision to ghost the signing ceremony with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., put into question whether the bill was dead.
His refusal to sign the bill, which passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support in both chambers, was to leverage the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which doesn’t currently have the votes to succeed in the Senate.
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Trump has refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump appears to be in no hurry to sign the bill, despite Republicans who are hungry for a win in the affordability fight ahead of the midterm elections.
“It’s so unimportant … compared to the SAVE America Act,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “I think the SAVE America Act is exactly what it says. It’s saving America from crooked elections.”
“Here’s what I would like to sign, much more than a bill that — big deal, it’s a yawn,” he continued. “Some people say it’s wonderful. To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”
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It’s legislation that is loaded with nearly 60 provisions from both sides of the aisle in both chambers that’s designed to make it easier for homes to be built and for younger Americans to buy their first home. It also includes a ban on hedge funds buying up housing stock that Trump pushed Congress to include during the State of the Union earlier this year.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of the architects behind the bill in the upper chamber alongside Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., charged that Congress handed the bill to Trump “on a silver platter.”
“When you ask me what happens next, if he cared about the American people, he’d have already signed the damned thing, and we’d be underway,” Warren said on WCVB’s “On the Record” on Sunday.
But Trump doesn’t have to put his signature on the bill for it to become law.
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The Senate advanced a massive, Trump-backed housing package geared toward lowering the costs of homes and supercharging the housing supply. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pitched it as legislation to prevent America from becoming a “nation of renters.” (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Protect Borrowers; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The Constitution grants presidents the ability to veto a bill within 10 days of it being transferred over to the White House. In that scenario, Congress could override a veto of the housing package.
It’s happened before under the Trump administration. In early 2021, Congress overrode Trump’s veto of the annual National Defense Authorization Act — a massive Pentagon funding authorization package that some House Republicans are trying to use as a vehicle to pass the SAVE America Act.
But during that 10-day period, if Trump doesn’t sign the bill, it would automatically become law. That’s unless Congress completely adjourns, in which case a “pocket veto” could happen. The Senate is currently in recess and the House is scheduled to leave town by week’s end, but neither count as a full adjournment.
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Johnson, who spent the last few days meeting with Trump at the White House about the housing bill and the SAVE America Act, said: “I hope he does sign it.”
“If he doesn’t, it’s still law,” Johnson said. “We’ll still celebrate it, but he’s trying to make a point, and I think he’s making it very effectively. And the fact that you all ask me every three steps down the hallway illustrates that he has achieved the desired objective, and that is to make SAVE America the number one thing, because if we don’t get that right, everybody’s concerned about what happens next.”
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