The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit may be the most ideological court in the country. When the oil industry’s allies in Congress wanted to protect the industry from drilling lawsuits, they passed a bill trying to force those lawsuits into the reliably industry-friendly Fifth Circuit. When a high school cheerleader sued her school district after it made her cheer for her alleged rapist, the Fifth Circuit ordered the alleged rape victim to pay more than $40,000. When one of the court’s few progressives asked a series of probing questions to a prosecutor during a court hearing, Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Edith Jones yelled at him to “shut up” and asked him if he would like to leave the courtroom. Earlier today, however, the Fifth Circuit left the realm of mere ideology and leaped over the line into partisanship.

Immediately after a DOJ attorney took the podium today in an appeal of a lower court decision upholding a provision of the Affordable Care Act, Republican Judge Jerry Smith threw a tantrum:

[W]hen a lawyer for the Justice Department began arguing before the judges. Appeals Court Judge Jerry Smith immediately interrupted, asking if DOJ agreed that the judiciary could strike down an unconstitutional law. . . . Smith then became “very stern,” the source said, telling the lawyers arguing the case it was not clear to “many of us” whether the president believes such a right exists. The other two judges on the panel, Emilio Garza and Leslie Southwick–both Republican appointees–remained silent, the source said.

Smith, a Reagan appointee, went on to say that comments from the president and others in the Executive Branch indicate they believe judges don’t have the power to review laws and strike those that are unconstitutional, specifically referencing Mr. Obama’s comments yesterday about judges being an “unelected group of people.”

After argument, the Republican panel then ordered the attorney to produce a three page, single-spaced letter explaining that courts do have the power to strike down federal laws.

Let’s be clear what’s going on here. Yesterday, President Obama made a statement that can plausibly be read either as saying that it would be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to strike down any law enacted by democratically elected officials, or that the Affordable Care Act was both enacted by democratically elected officials and that it would also be unprecedented for the Court to strike it down.

Today, President Obama make it clear that he intended the second meaning, and he went into more detail about just what he believes would be “unprecedented” about striking down his signature law. As the president explained, “[w]e have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue like health care” during the modern constitutional era. And, lest their be any doubt, President Obama is unquestionably right. The Supreme Court has only struck down two laws as beyond Congress’ power to regulate commerce in the last 75 years, and both of those cases involved laws that were completely non-commercial in nature.

The Republicans on the Fifth Circuit panel heard President Obama’s original statement, however, and they did not hear two plausible meanings. They did not consider the possibility that President Obama might have misspoke. And they did not wait for him to elaborate on his statement today in a way that both clarifies his meaning and removes any suggestion that the president’s views are not 100 percent accurate. Instead, they saw an opportunity to embarrass the president by forcing a fairly junior attorney in the Department of Justice to write a letter that might then be used to embarrass the president politically.

This is not how judges behave. This is how politicians behave. If Judge Smith and his co-ideologues cannot refrain from such purely political tantrums, they should resign their seats and run for office as Republicans.

An extreme immigration bill died in the Mississippi legislature today after it failed to come up for a vote in committee. Senate Judiciary B Committee Chairman Hob Bryan (D) said he decided not to bring the anti-immigrant legislation, HB 488, up for a committee vote — effectively killing the legislation, which had passed the state House — because he thought it would micromanaged how police officers do their jobs. Some House members now hope to attach immigration enforcement provisions to other bills, but for now, Mississippi avoided following Alabama’s example of making immigrants’ lives miserable in order to make them leave the state.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) endorsed the anti-immigrant measure and even said he was “baffled” by the opposition to it. But many groups came out against the bill. Police officers and sheriffs, who would be responsible for holding undocumented immigrants, opposed the legislation out of fear that the requirements would be too costly for cities and counties. Religious leaders feared the bill would do more harm than good in the state. And building contractors and agricultural groups were against the bill because of how it could damage Mississippi’s economy.

These groups and the committee chairman who helped stop the bill clearly understood the harm that extreme bills like this have caused in Alabama and Arizona. Some anti-immigrant Republicans, including Mitt Romney, have latched onto far-reaching bills like these, but at least Mississippi will not be the next example of how bad this type of attrition-by-enforcement law can be.

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Martin family attorney Natalie Jackson raised serious questions about the role of George Zimmerman’s father, Robert Zimmerman, in the case.

Specifically, Jackson pointed to Robert Zimmerman’s presence during police questioning of his son. The New York Times reported the following:

The day after the shooting, George Zimmerman, according to his father, returned with at least three police officers to the Retreat at Twin Lakes, back to that grassy area where plaintive cries for help had gone unanswered. The investigators, accompanied by someone with a video camera, wanted him to re-enact the events of the night when the two strangers had stood their ground.

Mr. Zimmerman’s father watched from nearby.

Jackson noted that Robert Zimmerman was a retired magistrate judge who “issued warrants” and knows “what probable cause needs to be” to justify an arrest. His presence at the questioning, according to Jackson, was unusual and potentially inappropriate because “we don’t know what coaching went on.”

In an interview with Fox 35 Orlando, Robert Zimmerman, speaking of his son’s conduct, said “If a law enforcement officer presented those facts to me and requested a warrant, he would absolutely be denied.” Robert Zimmerman’s unusual role could help explain how George Zimmerman avoided arrest despite the recommendation of the lead homicide investigator that he be charged with manslaughter.

Seperately, Ben Crump, Jackson’s co-council, sent a letter to the U.S. Deputy Attorney General urging him to investigate a number of irregularities in the conduct of local authorities. Crump wrote that he believed “family members of shooter George Zimmerman were present at the police department” the night Trayvon Martin was killed.

Robert Zimmerman appeared to acknowledge he had spoken to the police and the state’s attorney in the case. In his Fox 35 interview, he said, “No one knew I was a retired magistrate judge. I didn’t mention it to the police. I didn’t mention it to the state attorney’s office.” He did not elaborate on the substance of his conversations with the police or prosecutors.

Jackson noted that Robert Zimmerman has made several claims about his son’s conduct that have turned out to be “not credible.” For example, in a letter to the Orlando Sentinel, he flatly stated that at “no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin.” Subsequently, the 911 tapes were released and revealed that George Zimmerman acknowledged chasing Trayvon Martin.

A bill passed by the Arizona legislature and now sitting on the desk of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) would make it illegal to be annoying on the internet — at least in ways that are deemed “lewd” or “profane.” H.B 2549 has solicited outrage from free speech groups and Arizona bloggers alike, who rightly point out that the bill denies them their basic freedom of speech.

As proposed by Arizona lawmakers, the bill amends a previous law to expand an already unconstitutional ban on telephone speech that might offend someone else to the Internet:

It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use a telephone ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person. It is also unlawful to otherwise disturb by repeated anonymous telephone calls ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person at the place where the telephone call or calls COMMUNICATIONS were received.

There should be no doubt that the law is unconstitutional, and that it builds upon an unconstitutional framework. The First Amendment does not permit the government to enact speech bans that rest on vague terms such as “lewd” or “annoy,” regardless of whether the speech takes place in person, on the phone, or on the Internet.

Moreover, there is something comical and cowardly about lawmakers fretting that, somewhere on the Internet, someone is annoyed by a dirty word. The U.S. Supreme Court protected free speech in Brandenburg v. Ohio for members of the Ku Klux Klan. In the recent decision of Snyder v. Phelps, they preserved the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to wave signs that say “God Hates Fags” at military funerals. If America can handle that kind of hateful speech, it can handle a few annoying words.

WASHINGTON, DC — “Dead voters in South Carolina!” grabbed headlines for weeks after the state attorney general took to Fox News to declare that he had unearthed evidence that their elections had been tainted by voters from the grave. Though this fabulous story was shown to be no more than a fable, Alan Wilson isn’t yet prepared to give up on the preposterous idea that South Carolina elections are plagued with dead voters.

After Wilson made the dead-voters charge in January, the State Election Commission investigated the matter, but was unable to find any evidence of voter fraud, much less zombie voters. Indeed, in 95 percent of the cases, investigators found a much simpler explanation for the discrepancies: human error. Some cases involved mistakes by poll watchers — such as marking down that Jim Abott voted instead of Jim Abbott, or simply stray marks that seemed to indicate an individual had voted when he hadn’t — while others were individuals who voted early and then died before Election Day.

ThinkProgress spoke with Wilson about the matter last week outside Congress. We asked for his reaction to the State Election Commission’s finding no evidence of voter fraud nor dead voters, despite his insistence to Fox News that “We know for a fact that there are deceased people whose identities are being used in elections in South Carolina.” Wilson remained largely unchastened, refusing to concede that the idea of dead voters in South Carolina is a farce. “It’s premature at this time” to say there are no dead voters, Wilson declared. “It’s my hope there are no deceased voters, but I do hope the General Assembly takes up the issue.”

KEYES: So when the election commission says that 95 percent of the cases are simply human error [...]

WILSON: It’s my hope there are no deceased voters, but I do hope the General Assembly takes up the issue and updates these archaic rules.

KEYES: But regardless of their findings, you think there might be?

WILSON: I won’t know until their investigation is complete. It’s premature at this time.

Last year, the state passed a voter ID law to require all voters to present a certain form of photo identification or be turned away from the polls. The Justice Department blocked that law last August for violating the Voting Rights Act’s prohibition on election laws that discriminate against minorities. Indeed, if left in place, it could potentially disenfranchise 178,000 South Carolinians, hitting racial minorities hardest.

Wilson, who supports voter ID, has used the charade of dead voters as evidence of why the Palmetto State needs Without the prospect of voter fraud — which is far rarer than being struck by lightning — the “need” for voter suppression laws like voter ID fall by the wayside.