Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter-Poza

“It's easy amidst the 'woke' wars to claim that supporting protections for transgender people is not just unnecessary but toxic. Democrats who stay quiet can pacify moderates and even draw conservatives without losing base voters — so goes the story.

But this facile take isn't true. Just ask Americans.”

If you haven't tuned into The Politics Bar yet, you're missing out. Here's September 2's Posse Comitatus episode via Spotify in which we get it mostly right on the Supreme Court's posse comitatus ruling, coming at it from a few different legal perspectives. Find them on Bluesky,

By the volume of criticism directed at Governor Gretchen Whitmer over the past few days, you’d think Democrats have nothing better to do. And they do.

To recap, Whitmer visited the Oval Office to seek aid following an ice storm in Michigan. Trump staffers ambushed her and staged a photo op. Instead of a quiet opportunity to talk relief and the fate of a critical military base, Whitmer was hijacked, stuck in the midst of a press conference around Trump’s newest round of bonkers executive orders.

Though just one of many improbabilities that make up my life, my Catholicism is, to many people, the most confusing. A then-engaged lesbian, I was baptized and confirmed at 27 while in law school, though only after a discussion about primacy of conscience, a phrase that makes every Jesuit I’ve ever met light up as if I’ve confirmed a winning lottery ticket.

In short, if you’re Catholic, a real Catholic, a not-JD Vance-Catholic, you understand that it is possible that in complex moral circumstances your conscience — “where God reveals himself,” in Pope Francis’s words — may show you the way rather than whichever priest happens to be in the confessional that day or whichever cadre of lay Catholics feels like taking a retrograde stand.

My faith in Catholicism's potential for good and desire to serve as a godmother overcame my feelings around and knowledge of individual and institutional wrongs, past and present. This is not to say I didn’t live them through transgenerational and firsthand trauma. I did and do as a second-generation Colombian-American and a lesbian.

As I await completion of a new, more era-appropriate site (rpbp.io), taking a moment to let you know you can find me on Substack — where I am soon to become much more active.

On hiatus following a devastating fire that destroyed my home on New Year's Eve 2024. The cats and I are safe, but I've lost almost everything. The building is not just uninhabitable but a crime scene.

With many thanks to the valiant DCFD and efforts of friends, there's still a dizzying amount to do logistically, legally, and otherwise—in addition to recovering from COVID.

"A binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court is in reach—if not right away. Despite facing unprecedented negative public opinion, the justices refused to do more than issue vague language on ethics without a mechanism of enforcement. Chief Justice John Roberts phoned in a dismissive letter, rather than addressing the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Don't sleep on @AudreLawdAMercy!

Always delighted to contribute to TIME, though hoping someday soon it'll be about cheerier topics. This terrific, incisive essay is about the future of LGBTQ—and, let's be honest, pretty much all other rights—before this Supreme Court and heading into the 2024 election.

“People think that marriage equality is a fait accompli,” says Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, a former spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee and Yale Law graduate who is on the board of LPAC, which raises money to help lesbians and their allies win elections. “They think that not just because of Obergefell but because of the Respect for Marriage Act. They're wrong—dangerously wrong.”

....

"It wasn’t always obvious in the moment, but one month into the new year, it’s clearer than ever how extraordinary the Biden administration and Senate allies’ 2023 accomplishments were when it comes to the judiciary. Democrats, led by Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Senator Dick Durbin (Ill.), confirmed 166 judges by 2023’s end—about two-thirds of whom are women.

At present, there are nearly 100 judicial vacancies for lifetime federal appointments—and President Biden has yet to name a nominee for 60 of those, including two appellate seats. The legislative branch must likewise revisit its obligations to the judiciary.

TFW your cats get top billing, with many thanks to our terrific team at AFJ and pen-wielder extraordinaire Sarah Cooke:

Gotta love it when folks cover the courts—and all the more when there's good news to highlight!

Such a pleasure to speak with Scientific American reporter Jesse Greenspan last week about the war over words in the legal profession and its ramifications for access to justice. Excerpts follow and you can read the full piece on Scientific American's site.

Reading through legal documents can be a real slog....As it turns out, even lawyers dislike such impenetrable language; according to a new study, they both prefer and better understand simplified texts....

Contract attorneys largely rely on preexisting templates, which save time and money and are seen as less risky....

But a break from tradition could particularly benefit those who often fall on the margins of the legal system. In immigration proceedings, for example, ensuring that documents are “clear and digestible, not to mention available in multiple languages, could make a pretty big difference for many, many people,” says Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter-Poza, an attorney and progressive advocate. She also cites custody disputes as being in need of simplification, “especially in instances where there’s a domestic violence component or there are other power dynamics in play.” The average U.S. attorney charges some $300 per hour, she notes, and there’s generally no right to counsel in civil proceedings, creating significant hurdles for those who can’t afford a lawyer’s help....

In Ben-Shahar’s view, simplifying these contracts would do nothing to protect consumers, especially when they’re up against “a powerful, well-advised, sophisticated company.” But other legal scholars feel this couldn’t hurt. “Anything that chips away at barriers to justice is a welcome development,” Buckwalter-Poza says.

If Justice Thomas truly believed reviving trust in the Court’s impartiality and integrity was important, he’d resign.

Justice Thomas consistently refused to disclose spousal income and conflicts until 2011, stoking public distrust even back then. When he finally amended 13 years of reports, he did so only in a vague and incomplete fashion despite the fact that his wife, lobbyist Ginni Thomas, earns a considerable income from parties with interests before the court. Lest there be any confusion about just how extreme her views are, recall her attempt to persuade former President Donald Trump not to concede the 2020 election amid the January 6 assault on the Capitol .

That’s bad enough. But, as it turns out, there’s more — a lot more. Over the past 20 years Justice Thomas has accepted millions of dollars in gifts, often in the form of private travel, from a far-right billionaire and major political donor, Harlan Crow. Justice Thomas failed to include those gifts and others — like a $19,000 bible — in disclosures mandated by the Ethics in Government Act. Justice Thomas even sold property to Crow, including the home in which his mother lives, and failed to disclose that, too. Then there’s the fact that Crow gave Ginni Thomas $500,000 to found Tea Party group Liberty Central, cementing her status as a far-right political star.  

A poll conducted from April 8 through 11 found that more than two-thirds of Americans had already learned of Justice Thomas’s trips footed by Crow. Even then, before the full details emerged, a strong majority (58 percent) of Americans asked disapproved of his accepting luxury trips without disclosing them — including 42 percent who “strongly disapproved.”