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    A Daunting Task for Democrats

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    More from our inbox:A Loyalty Oath for Federal Workers?Principled Republicans Mark Peterson/ReduxTo the Editor:In “The Democrats’ Problems Are Bigger Than You Think” (column, June 6), David Brooks challenges the Democrats to do two things: define the central problem of our time and come up with a new grand national narrative.The first is easy: The central problem of our time is the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which removed longstanding campaign finance regulations. There is no way our government can become a government of the people when wealthy elites can buy representation.And the Democrats can ignore the second suggestion. No political party needs to create a new grand narrative. What it needs to do is to listen to the people and encourage and help those people voice their concerns and needs. Then the party needs to figure out how to best meet and pay for those concerns and needs.If money’s role in our elections can be addressed quickly, then a centrist and realistic narrative can be forged — and it should include an equitable tax policy. We are more in need of a reform of brackets and deductions in our tax system than we are of a new grand narrative.Elizabeth BjorkmanLexington, Mass.To the Editor:I agree with the view articulated by David Brooks that nothing short of a revolution in consciousness will allow us to wrest control of our future from the MAGA movement. What we need right now is a vision of the future that doesn’t involve just dismantling structures and undoing what’s been done (much of which is good), but also creating new belief systems.This will involve coming to terms with the fact that capitalism has failed the world in very serious and fundamental ways, producing a planet that is being torn apart by migration caused by civil war, climate disaster, inequality and starvation. These problems cannot be rejiggered from what already exists, because the system itself no longer recognizes the needs of the vast majority of its inhabitants.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Sides With Teenager in School Disability Discrimination Case

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      Disability rights groups had followed the case closely, warning that arguments by the school district could threaten broader protections for people with disabilities.The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a teenage girl with epilepsy and her parents who had sued a Minnesota school district, claiming that her school had failed to provide reasonable accommodations, which made it difficult for her to receive instruction.The case hinged on what standard of proof was required to show discrimination by public schools in education-related disability lawsuits.In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court held that the student and her family needed to show only that the school system had acted with “deliberate indifference” to her educational needs when they sued.That is the same standard that applies when people sue other institutions for discrimination based on disability.The school district argued that a higher standard — a stringent requirement that the institution had acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment” — should apply. Had the district prevailed, the new standard might have applied broadly to all kinds disability rights claims filed under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.That argument had unnerved some disability rights groups, which had cautioned that a ruling for the school could make it much harder for Americans with disabilities to successfully bring court challenges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Court Agrees to Keep Trump Tariffs Intact as Appeal Gets Underway

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      The appeals court’s decision delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration.A federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow President Trump to maintain many of his tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, extending a pause granted shortly after another panel of judges ruled in late May that the import taxes were illegal.The decision, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, delivered an important but interim victory for the Trump administration, which had warned that any interruption to its steep duties could undercut the president in talks around the world.But the government still must convince the judges that the president appropriately used a set of emergency powers when he put in place the centerpiece of his economic agenda earlier this year. The Trump administration has already signaled it is willing to fight that battle as far as the Supreme Court.The ruling came shortly after negotiators from the United States and China agreed to a framework intended to extend a trade truce between the two superpowers. The Trump administration had warned that those talks and others would have been jeopardized if the appeals court had not granted a fuller stay while arguments proceeded.At the heart of the legal wrangling is Mr. Trump’s novel interpretation of a 1970s law that he used to wage a global trade war on an expansive scale. No president before him had ever used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose tariffs, and the word itself is not even mentioned in the statute.But the law has formed the foundation of Mr. Trump’s campaign to reorient the global economic order. He has invoked its powers to sidestep Congress and impose huge taxes on most global imports, with the goal of raising revenue, bolstering domestic manufacturing and brokering more favorable trade deals with other countries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Return of Abrego Garcia Raises Questions About Trump’s Views of Justice

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      For the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against the man, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders to “facilitate” his release from El Salvador.When Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Friday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia had been returned to the United States to face criminal charges after being wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador, she sought to portray the move as the White House dutifully upholding the rule of law.“This,” she said, “is what American justice looks like.”Her assertion, however, failed to grapple with the fact that for the nearly three months before the Justice Department secured an indictment against Mr. Abrego Garcia, it had repeatedly flouted a series of court orders — including one from the Supreme Court — to “facilitate” his release.While the indictment filed against Mr. Abrego Garcia contained serious allegations, accusing him of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants as a member of the street gang MS-13, it had no bearing on the issues that have sat at the heart of the case since his summary expulsion in March.Those were whether Mr. Abrego Garcia had received due process when he was plucked off the streets without a warrant and expelled days later to a prison in El Salvador, in what even Trump officials have repeatedly admitted was an error. And, moreover, whether administration officials should be held in contempt for repeatedly stonewalling a judge’s effort to get to the bottom of their actions.Well before Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit seeking to force the White House to release him from El Salvador, administration officials had tried all means at their disposal to keep him overseas as they figured out a solution to the problem they had created, The New York Times found in a recent investigation.Cesar Ábrego García, left, and Cecilia García, center, the brother and mother of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, participated in a press conference with Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, following his trip to El Salvador.Allison Bailey for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mexico Votes in Sprawling, First-Ever Judiciary Election

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      Voters were choosing the nine members of the Supreme Court on Sunday, along with more than 2,600 other judges and magistrates.Voters across Mexico went to the polls on Sunday to elect thousands of judges, from the local level to the Supreme Court, pressing ahead with one of the most far-reaching judicial overhauls ever attempted by a large democracy.The process will transform the judiciary away from an appointment-based system, a change that leaders of the governing Morena party say will help root out corrupt officials, democratize the courts and give citizens a voice in who administers justice.But although most Mexicans agree that their justice system is broken, the overhaul being enacted on Sunday has drawn sharp criticism from opposition figures and legal experts. They argue that it risks giving Morena extraordinary power over a third branch of government, throws out the old system’s career requirements and opens the door to candidates who could be influenced by drug cartels.Because the election is so ambitious — more than 2,600 judges and magistrates will be elected, out of more than 7,700 candidates — some election experts expected voter turnout to be low. As voting got underway, relatively few voters could be seen lining up to vote around the country.In Tultitlán, in the state of Mexico, Jazmín Gutiérrez Ruiz, 37, was among those who cast ballots. She said that she hoped the election would root out corruption from the judiciary, and that her reasons were personal. Two of her brothers have spent two years in prison, accused of a murder “they didn’t do,” she said.“I want the magistrates and judges to change, and for them to take the time to carefully look at the cases,” said Ms. Gutiérrez Ruiz, who works for a processed meat company. “Just like my brothers, there are many people locked up unjustly.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      México vota en las primeras elecciones del poder judicial en su historia

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      Los mexicanos eligieron el domingo a los nueve miembros de la Suprema Corte, junto con más de 2600 jueces y magistrados.Los votantes de todo México acudieron a las urnas el domingo para elegir a miles de jueces, desde los tribunales locales hasta la Suprema Corte, impulsando una de las modificaciones judiciales de mayor alcance jamás intentadas por una democracia grande.El proceso transformará el sistema judicial, que dejará de estar basado en nombramientos, un cambio que, según los líderes del partido gobernante, Morena, ayudará a erradicar a los funcionarios corruptos, democratizar los tribunales y dar voz a los ciudadanos para decidir quién imparte la justicia.Sin embargo, aunque la mayoría de los mexicanos concuerdan en que su sistema de justicia es deficiente, la modificación que entra el vigor el domingo ha suscitado duras críticas por parte de figuras de la oposición y expertos jurídicos. Argumentan que se corre el riesgo de otorgar a Morena un poder extraordinario sobre el tercer poder del gobierno, que elimina los requisitos de carrera del antiguo sistema y que abre la puerta a candidatos que podrían estar influenciados por los cárteles de la droga.Dado que las elecciones son tan ambiciosas —se elegirán más de 2600 jueces y magistrados, de entre más de 7700 candidatos—, algunos expertos electorales esperaban que la participación fuera baja. A medida que se iniciaba la votación, se podían ver relativamente pocas personas haciendo fila para votar en todo el país.En Tultitlán, en el Estado de México, Jazmín Gutiérrez Ruiz, de 37 años, se encontraba entre quienes emitieron su voto. Dijo que esperaba que las elecciones erradicaran la corrupción del poder judicial, y que sus motivos eran personales. Dos de sus hermanos han pasado dos años en prisión, acusados de un asesinato “que ellos no hicieron”, dijo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Aide to Rep. Nadler Is Handcuffed Amid Confrontation With Federal Agents

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      Captured on video, the episode occurred in the congressman’s Manhattan office, shortly after the aide observed agents detaining immigrants outside a courtroom.Federal officers entered Representative Jerry Nadler’s office in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday and handcuffed and briefly detained one of his aides. The confrontation happened shortly after the aide observed federal agents detaining migrants in a public hallway outside an immigration courtroom in the same building as the congressman’s office.The episode was recorded by someone who was sitting in Mr. Nadler’s office. In the video, an officer with the Federal Protective Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is shown demanding access to a private area inside the office. The video was obtained by Gothamist, which earlier reported the confrontation.“You’re harboring rioters in the office,” the federal agent, whose name tag and officer number are not visible in the video, says to a member of Mr. Nadler’s staff.There were no riots reported on Wednesday at the federal building on Varick Street, though protesters and immigrant rights advocates gathered inside and outside the building earlier in the day. The immigration court is on the fifth floor and Mr. Nadler’s office is on the sixth.The agents entered Mr. Nadler’s office because they had been told that protesters were there and were concerned for the safety of his staff members, according to a statement on Saturday from the Department of Homeland Security.When they arrived, “one individual became verbally confrontational and physically blocked access to the office,” the statement said. That person, an aide to the congressman, was detained so the officers could complete their safety check, according to the statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Court Debates Whether a Climate Lawsuit Threatens National Security

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      The judge asked lawyers how a suit by Charleston, S.C., claiming oil companies misled people about climate risks, might be affected by a Trump executive order blasting cases like these.Two teams of high-powered lawyers clashed this week in Charleston, S.C., over a global-warming question with major implications: Do climate lawsuits against oil companies threaten national security, as President Trump has claimed?In the lawsuit, the City of Charleston is arguing that oil companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron and about a dozen others carried out a sophisticated, decades-long misinformation campaign to cover up what they knew about the dangers of climate change.There are some three dozen similar cases around the country, and recently Mr. Trump issued an executive order calling the lawsuits a threat to national security, saying they could lead to crippling damages. The hearings in Charleston were the first time lawyers had to grapple in a courtroom with the president’s assertions.Mr. Trump’s executive order was the opening salvo in a broad new attack by his administration against climate lawsuits targeting oil companies. Citing the executive order, the Justice Department this month filed unusual lawsuits against Hawaii and Michigan seeking to prevent them from filing their own climate-change suits. (Hawaii filed its suit anyway, and Michigan’s attorney general has signaled that she will also be proceeding.)In court hearings in Charleston on Thursday and Friday, Judge Roger M. Young Sr. asked each side to weigh in on the order as they sparred over the companies’ motions to dismiss the case, which was filed in 2020.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How ICE Is Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations Through Courthouse Arrests

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      Officials had largely steered clear of arrests at immigration courts out of concern that they would deter people from showing up for hearings.A hearing on Tuesday at immigration court in Van Nuys, Calif., was supposed to be routine for a young family from Colombia, the first step in what they hoped would be a successful bid for asylum.To their surprise, the judge informed the father, Andres Roballo, that the government wished to dismiss his deportation case. Taken aback, Mr. Roballo hesitated, then responded: “As long as I stay with my family.”Moments later, as they exited the courtroom into a waiting area, Mr. Roballo was encircled by plainclothes federal agents who ushered him into a side room. Other agents guided his shaken wife, Luisa Bernal, and their toddler toward the elevator.Outside the courthouse, Ms. Bernal collapsed on a bench. “They have him, they have him,” she wailed. “We didn’t understand this would happen.”Mr. Roballo’s arrest was part of an aggressive new initiative by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants at immigration courts, the latest escalation by the Trump administration in its all-out effort to ramp up deportations.Agents have begun arresting migrants immediately after their hearings if they have been ordered deported or their cases have been dismissed, a move that enables their swift removal, according to immigration lawyers and internal documents obtained by The New York Times.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More