• You may wish to consider the following in concert:

     

     

    • August 15, 2025 decision by the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finding that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act’s was in fact passed constitutionally in 2022, and determined that the Constitution’s Quorum Clause does not require members’ physical presence for a congressional vote. This landmark federal law guarantees reasonable workplace accommodations for pregnancy and reproductive health conditions for workers nationwide, a first of its kind critical protection for millions of women and pregnant people.

     

    • August 19, 2025 amicus brief filed with Judge P. Kevin Castel of the federal Southern District of New York by the City of New York in support of plaintiffs’ motion for a stay of “(1) the policy of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) scuttling restrictions on immigration courthouse arrests, and (2) the policy of the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) pushing immigration judges to dismiss noncitizens’ removal proceedings without meaningful process.” The August 1, 2025 complaint was filed by the African Communities Together (“ACT”) and The Door. ACT is a membership-based non-profit organization dedicated to empowering African immigrants and helping them integrate into the United States. The Door is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower New York City’s diverse population of disconnected youth by providing them with free comprehensive services, including legal assistance, education, career development, health care, mental health counseling and crisis intervention, and housing support. It is striking that the NYC mayor running for reelection who has been supportive of many of the President’s immigration policies has chosen to oppose these policies.

     

     

     

    • August 19, 2025 memorandum opinion and order by Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman of the federal Northern District of Illinois denying the federal government’s motion to preliminarily enjoin the Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act and granted Illinois’s motion to dismiss the federal government’s action for failure to state a claim. The issue was on the Illinois law requires employers “using any Electronic Employment Verification System, including the federal E-Verify program . . . to consult IDOL’s [Illinois Dept of Labor] website and review its legal responsibilities under the Act, which include but are not limited to certain training, posting, and privacy requirements.”  The court opinion includes the following paragraph:
      • By its plain wording, it is clear that the preemption clause of Section 1324a(h)(2) is limited to state laws that impose sanctions on the hiring of persons without status. But common sense also demands the same result. The broad interpretation suggested by the federal government—that any state law that relates to federal employment verification systems is preempted by Section 1324a(h)(2) because it touches and concerns workers who may not have authorization—would sweep in all manner of employee-protection laws, not to mention any state law that mandated the use of E-Verify. See, e.g., Fla. Stat. § 448.095 (imposing $1,000 fine on an employer that “fail[s] to use the E-Verify system as required under this section”). And as has been said in many a court in this country, “Statutes have to be interpreted to avoid absurd results.” Senne v. Vill. of Palatine, Illinois, 784 F.3d 444, 447 (7th Cir. 2015). Accordingly, the Court grants the State’s motion to dismiss as to the federal government’s argument that the Privacy Act is expressly preempted by IRCA.

     

    • August 19, 2025 decision by the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finding that being subjected to an unconstitutional administrative proceeding was an irreparable harm that justified preliminary injunctions halting NLRB cases against Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. One judge in a partial dissent stated that plaintiffs must show some harm to qualify for injunctive relief related to officials who were constitutionally appointed but are unconstitutionally insulated from dismissal by the president, and thus would have denied the injunction, which is consistent with the NLRB position not to address the constitutional argument.

     

    • August 20, 2025 order by Judge Fred Biery of the federal Western District of Texas granting a preliminary injunction prohibiting 11 school districts named as defendants in a lawsuit from displaying the Ten Commandments, religious and ethical tenets of the Abrahamic faiths. One of the order’s concluding paragraphs was
      • Ultimately, in matters of conscience, faith, beliefs and the soul, most people are Garbo-esque.  They just want to be left alone, neither proselytized nor ostracized, including what occurs to their children in government run schools.

     

    • August 20, 2025 NYT report by Michael S. Schmidt, Matthew Goldstein and Maggie Haberman entitled, Two Big Law Firms Said to Be Doing Free Work for Trump Administration. The report starts with the two following paragraphs:
      • At least two large law firms that struck deals with President Trump to avoid punitive executive orders have committed to doing free legal work for the Commerce Department, according to two people briefed on the matter.
      • The firms — Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Kirkland & Ellis — are working on a range of matters for the Commerce Department,  according to one of the people briefed on the matter.

     

    • August 20, 2025 NYT report by Carl Hulse entitled, Senate Adds Guardrails in an Effort to Force Trump to Obey Spending Bills. The report includes the following paragraphs:
      • Top Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, alarmed by President’s Trump’s moves to withhold funding approved by Congress, have teamed up to add new safeguards to next year’s spending bills that would ensure the Trump administration allocates federal dollars as lawmakers intend.
      • The guardrails are largely technical and include putting instructions into legislative text that would have previously been spelled out in nonbinding reports.
      • For example, officials say that detailed tables on spending for major agencies such as the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services are now being added to the text of the bills themselves, to try to assure that the funds are used for their specified purposes. The guardrails also include significant new requirements for reporting to Congress on terminating contracts and grant awards, as well as for making substantial reductions in the federal work force.

     

     

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