Bader Ginsburg

The Supreme Court said neither states nor Congress can impose term limits or any other qualifications on members of Congress beyond those specified in the Constitution's qualifications clauses: which require members to be a minimum age, U.S. citizens and inhabitants of their state. Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo., said he therefore would propose that Congress define an "inhabitant" as someone who is "physically present" in a state for half the year for 12 years in a row. "So if you haven't been there you'd no longer qualify as an inhabitant."

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court raised the prospect yesterday that families with children born with deformed arms, legs, hands and feet may have a chance -- after years of frustration in the courts -- to prove that a major drug company's product was to blame.In a unanimous ruling, the court opened the federal courts to hear more scientists and doctors give their opinions about how birth defects, diseases or injuries were caused -- perhaps linking them to such things as medicines, surgery, industrial chemicals and faulty products.

WASHINGTON - In a major setback for the medical marijuana movement, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that federal drug laws banning the manufacture and distribution of marijuana allow no exceptions, even for seriously ill patients who need the drug to survive. Ruling 8-0, the court rejected the claims of an Oakland, Calif., cannabis cooperative that it should be allowed to provide marijuana to patients with a "medical necessity." The court said that when Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, it declined to create an exception for the medical use of marijuana and left no room for the courts to do so in its place.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, taking on its most significant sex equality case in nearly two decades, agreed yesterday to settle the simmering constitutional dispute over the ban on women at Virginia Military Institute.The case appears to test whether "separate but equal" public education is as unconstitutional for women as it has been for blacks since the ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.VMI, a prestigious military college in Lexington, Va., that is partly financed with state money, has allowed only men to enter during its 156-year existence.

WASHINGTON - Let us now praise famous women, especially those with the grace and wisdom to champion other women - with resulting benefit for all people. A lovely example has arisen with the publication of the memoir of Malvina Harlan. Not that Malvina was famous. She was not - although she hosted Washington society weekly, by the hundreds. That was because her husband was Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. What Malvina Shanklin Harlan did was to write a compelling memoir about the Harlans' life and times - remarkable times, encompassing slavery, the Civil War and its aftermath.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly a century and a half after the women's rights movement began, and just over 75 years after women gained a place in the U.S. Constitution with the right to vote, the Supreme Court is about to take up a plea to start a new legal revolution among the sexes.In a case that began in 1989 when an anonymous young woman failed to get into the male-only cadet ranks at Virginia Military Institute, the justices confront this week the most energetic effort in years to gain full constitutional protection for women.

WASHINGTON -- Surrounded by symbolism, Teresa Harris will take a seat in the Supreme Court chamber this morning to watch -- somewhat uneasily -- the latest and perhaps last act in her role as a bit player in the history of America's female workers.Ms. Harris, who gave up her job in a Tennessee equipment rental company rather than listen to more sexual taunts from her boss, is the key figure in a case that may force fundamental changes in the way men and women deal with each other in the workplace.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's just-finished term brought a steady march toward the conservative side, posing a challenge to a new justice -- nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- to join the trend or try to change it.If Judge Ginsburg, President Clinton's choice to replace retired Justice Byron R. White, meets the expectations of White House aides, the court could be in for a noticeable shift in direction on some of the more important cases almost from the...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburglikes the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare. " Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings, shouldn't the court keep the good stuff in Obamacare and just dump the unconstitutional bits? The court, she explained, is presented with "a choice between a wrecking operation ... or a salvage job. And the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything.

1846: Congress chartered the Smithsonian Institution, named for James Smithson, whose $500,000 bequest made it possible. 1977: David Berkowitz was arrested in Yonkers, N.Y., and accused of being "Son of Sam," the gunman responsible for killing six people and wounding seven. 1993: Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the second female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Associated Press