Minter Field Air Museum is known for highlighting the history of the warbirds of World War II and the men who flew them.Read more

Judging by their latest representative — a family physician with no prior history in government — voters of the 35th Assembly District seem to be comfortable with candidates who lack a conventional background in politics.Read more

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a massive package known as the farm bill Thursday in an effort to forward legislation that’s stalled in Congress since 2023.Read more

A man suffered critical injury after crashing an all-terrain vehicle Wednesday night near La France Drive and El Sereno Drive, the Bakersfield Police Department reported.Read more

On Wednesday evening, the group of “non-African American” voters who prevailed earlier in the day in their challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map asked the Supreme Court to bypass its normal 32-day waiting period and send a copy of its opinion and order to the lower court immediately, making the decision final. The voters told the justices that the Louisiana Legislature “is considering pushing back” the deadlines for the state’s congressional primaries to allow them “to occur under a remedial map.” If it does shift the deadlines, they argued, “[t]hose 32 days could matter,” because of the short timeframe in which the state would need to revise the map.Louisiana on Thursday afternoon confirmed that it would indeed postpone the state’s primary elections for Congress, which had been scheduled for May 16. In a letter to Scott Harris, the Supreme Court’s clerk, Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga attached an executive order signed on Thursday by the state’s governor, Jeff Landry, that “encouraged” the Louisiana Legislature to adopt a new congressional map in the wake of Louisiana v. Callais and schedule primary elections “as soon as practical … in order to conduct the November 3, 2026 election.” Landry asserted that he had the power to do so when the Louisiana secretary of state certifies that there is an emergency. Here, he said, he agreed that there is an emergency, “as electing members to Congress under an unconstitutional map flies in the face of the United States Constitution and subjects Louisiana voters to representatives that are impermissibly elected as determined by the United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision.”Louisiana did not, however, specifically endorse the request to fast-track the process of finalizing the Supreme Court’s decision. Instead, it noted that Landry and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill are “working with the Legislature—which is in session until June 1—to immediately produce a constitutional map and electoral process for Louisiana. They do not view their ability to do so,” the state wrote, “as contingent upon when this Court transmits its opinion and judgment.”If the Legislature does draw a new map, it is expected to favor Republicans, who currently hold four of the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives but could pick up one or even two more under a revised map.The Black voters who defended the map urged the court to turn down the request to skip the 32-day waiting period. They told the justices that the Supreme Court should give them the chance “to seek[] rehearing in the ordinary course” – which would mean filing a petition for rehearing within 25 days of the court’s decision.The Black voters also contended that the court should not only deny the “non-African American” voters’ request, but it should in fact put the issuance of its judgment on hold “until after the 2026 election.” They argued that it is too close to the election to reinstate the three-judge district court’s order finding that the 2024 map violated the Constitution and barring the state from using that map in the 2026 elections. Indeed, they noted, mail-in ballots have already gone out to overseas voters and some others in the state – some of whom have apparently already returned those ballots.After Louisiana and the Black voters filed their responses, the federal district court in Louisiana indicated that, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday, the order prohibiting the state from using the 2024 map now “remains in effect.” Louisiana, the district court wrote, “will be afforded the opportunity to enact a Constitutionally compliant map” consistent with the decision in Callais. The district court instructed the state to submit a brief “outlining how the State intends to comply” with the Callais ruling and the lower court’s order barring the use of the 2024 map “within three (3) days” after the district court receives a copy of the decision and judgment from the Supreme Court.Read more

Yesterday’s argument in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA v Amarin Pharma showed a bench once again dubious about litigation trying to hold a large company responsible for the actions of others that it does not control. The specific dispute here involves a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, Hikma, whose product can be dispensed for uses that both do and do not infringe on patents. The suit is brought by Amarin, which holds patents on uses of the branded pharmaceutical Vascepa, a medication to reduce heart disease for which Hikma’s product is a substitute. Specifically, Amarin seeks to hold Hikma responsible when pharmacists dispense Hikma’s generic product for uses that infringe on its patents. As in the Cox Communications case decided a few weeks ago, the justices seemed to doubt the propriety of imposing liability for the conduct of other parties.The basic situation here is that the lower court (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is a specialized court that hears patent cases) upheld the validity of a complaint against Amarin that rests on three statements by it: the label on the product, press releases to potential investors, and statements on its web site. According to Hikma, these statements have actively encouraged its use for patented purposes.The problem the manufacturer faced in defending the judgment before the court is that the relevant statute, the Patent Act, requires “active[] induce[ment]” of infringement and none of those three pieces of evidence had much persuasive force with the justices. As for the label, because the text on the label is almost entirely compelled by the FDA, the justices found it difficult to blame the generics manufacturer for that; Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan seemed particularly dubious about that as a relevant piece of evidence. As for the press releases, they were directed to investors rather than doctors, which made some of the justices skeptical that they show anything about active intent to induce infringement by pharmacists (Jackson seemed the most outspoken here). As for the web site, the justices pointed out that it seemed to do little more than mention the drug as a generic for Vascepa and, in any event, had a disclaimer that at least some of the justices (Justice Neil Gorsuch taking the lead on this topic) seemed to find important.The most interesting facet of the argument to me was that the justices seemed much less interested in sorting out how they would rule – which seemed to be a foregone conclusion – and much more interested in continuing a debate about why they agreed to hear the case in the first place. Early in the argument, for example, Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested that the justices “say we’re not going to take [cases just for] error correction,” implying that the case was so fact-specific that there was no other reason to hear it. In the same vein, Justice Amy Coney Barrett commented that because the “key question” in the case “is a fact question, … I’m not sure why this is here except four of my colleagues wanted it to be.” Conversely, Justice Brett Kavanaugh – apparently one of those four – explained that as “to why this case is here, … I’m glad it’s here.” He then went on at some length to discuss filings that had persuaded him that the decision below would “have some serious implications market-wide.”I would predict a succinct and prompt unanimous opinion saying as little as necessary about patent law and simply stating that none of the evidence is sufficiently probative of “active” inducement of infringement, as opposed to passive tolerance of it.Read more

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport that a group of faith-based pregnancy centers can litigate their challenge to New Jersey’s demands for information about the group’s fundraising practices in federal court. In a unanimous decision by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the justices rejected the lower courts’ conclusion that the group, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, had not shown it had suffered the kind of injury from the subpoena that would give it a legal right to sue, known as standing.Although New Jersey says that it is investigating whether First Choice may have misled women about whether it provides certain reproductive-health services, such as abortions, the court’s ruling focused instead on the more technical – but not insignificant – question of when organizations and advocacy groups can bring lawsuits in federal court.First Choice describes itself as a “faith-based nonprofit” that provides “material support and medical services like ultrasounds and pregnancy tests under the direction of a licensed medical director.” In 2023, Matthew Platkin – who was then New Jersey’s attorney general – issued subpoenas to the group, seeking, among other things, information about its donors.First Choice challenged the subpoena in federal court in New Jersey. The group contended that the subpoena would discourage both its own speech, because it prompted the group to remove videos that identified its staff from its YouTube channel, and that of its donors, who would be less likely to make contributions out of concern that their identities would be revealed.A federal judge in Trenton, New Jersey, twice refused to block the subpoena. U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp initially ruled that he could not yet decide on the dispute because only a state court has the power to enforce or block a subpoena, and it had not yet done so. After a state court later instructed First Choice to “respond fully” to New Jersey’s demands for information, First Choice returned to the district court, where Shipp once again concluded that he lacked the power to rule on the dispute at that time. Although the state court had granted Platkin’s request to enforce the subpoena, Shipp wrote, it had not yet determined whether First Choice would face sanctions if it did not comply – that is, First Choice had not shown that it had actually been injured by the subpoena.A federal appeals court agreed. It emphasized that First Choice could continue to argue in state court that the subpoena’s demands violated the First Amendment. Moreover, it added, the scope of the donor information that the attorney general was seeking was relatively narrow, and First Choice had not yet demonstrated that it was seriously injured by the state’s requests.In a unanimous 22-page opinion on Wednesday, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision, clearing the way for First Choice’s lawsuit to move forward in federal court. Gorsuch focused on whether First Choice had a legal right to sue, and in particular whether the group could meet the requirement that it have suffered an “actual or imminent” injury as a result of the subpoena.First Choice, Gorsuch noted, argues that the state’s demand for information about its donors constitutes an “actual or imminent” injury because it deters donors from associating with the group. Gorsuch agreed. The subpoena, he wrote, cautions that a failure to provide the information that it seeks “may render you liable for contempt of Court and such other penalties as are provided by law.” First Choice also submitted two declarations to the lower court: one in which “several donors represented that ‘[e]ach of us would have been less likely to donate to First Choice if we had known information about the donation might be disclosed’”; and another in which the group’s “executive director similarly represented that the Attorney General’s request threatened to ‘weaken [the group’s] ability to recruit new donors.’”“All this,” Gorsuch concluded, “is more than enough to establish injury in fact under our precedents. An injury in fact does not arise only when a defendant causes a tangible harm to a plaintiff, like a physical injury or monetary loss. It can also arise when a defendant burdens a plaintiff’s constitutional rights. And our cases have long recognized that demands for a charity’s private member or donor information have just that effect.”As further evidence of the “commonsense” nature of the court’s holding, Gorsuch pointed to the array of “friend of the court” briefs supporting First Choice in this case. “Groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have filed briefs in this case explaining that, ‘[e]ven if a subpoena targeting First Amendment activity is never enforced in court, [it] will give its targets a very good reason to clam up [and] give the target organization’s members and supporters a very good reason to abandon the cause.’”Gorsuch considered, but rejected, the three contentions at the core of the state’s argument. It does not matter, Gorsuch said, whether the subpoenas are “non-self-executing” – that is, that they are not legally binding until the state goes to court and obtains an order directing First Choice to comply with them. “[T]he value of a sword of Damocles” – the ancient parable about a king’s courtier who is forced to sit through a meal on the king’s throne with a sword hanging over his head, suspended by a single strand of horsehair – “is that it hangs—not that it drops,” Gorsuch emphasized. Even if the subpoena could not be enforced immediately, Gorsuch wrote, “[a]n objectively reasonable recipient of a demand like that would be induced … to trim its protected advocacy knowing it now stands in the government’s crosshairs.”Gorsuch also dismissed the state’s suggestion that the subpoena to First Choice could not have deterred donors because they still had the option to donate to the group through one website that, in the state attorney general’s view, “could not mislead a potential donor into thinking that First Choice provides or refers for abortions.” But the question before the court, Gorsuch maintained, “isn’t how badly the Attorney General has burdened First Choice’s associational rights; the question is whether he has burdened those rights at all. And by effectively restricting how First Choice may interact privately with its donors, the subpoena did just that.”Finally, Gorsuch was equally unpersuaded by the state’s contention that First Choice was not injured by the subpoena because a state court will issue a protective order that requires any donor information provided pursuant to the subpoena to be kept private. Gorsuch noted that “no such protective order presently exists” and that even ostensibly private data could be leaked to the public. But in any event, he concluded, “[a]n official demand for private donor information is enough to discourage reasonable individuals from associating with a group. It is enough to discourage groups from expressing dissident views.”Referring back to the Supreme Court’s 1958 decision in NAACP v. Alabama, in which the Supreme Court reversed a ruling by the Alabama state courts that fined the NAACP $100,000 for refusing to disclose its membership rolls in response to a request from that state’s attorney general, Gorsuch queried, “would it have been an answer in NAACP v. Alabama if the State’s Attorney General promised to keep the NAACP’s membership rolls to himself?”Read more