Purdue Pharma calls supreme court decision ‘heart crushing’
In a statement following the supreme court’s Harrington v. Purdue Pharma decision, the company described the ruling as “heart-crushing”.
Members of the Sackler family branches who own Purdue suggested they plan return to negotiations. A statement to AP reads:
While we are confident that we would prevail in any future litigation given the profound misrepresentations about our families and the opioid crisis, we continue to believe that a swift negotiated agreement to provide billions of dollars for people and communities in need is the best way forward.
Edward Neiger, a lawyer representing more than 60,000 overdose victims, said the court’s decision was a major setback.
“The Purdue plan was a victim-centered plan that would provide billions of dollars to the states to be used exclusively to abate the opioid crisis and $750 million for victims of the crisis, so that they could begin to rebuild their lives,” Neiger said in a statement.
As a result of the senseless three-year crusade by the government against the plan, thousands of people died of overdose, and today’s decision will lead to more needless overdose deaths.
Key events
Responding to the Harrington v. Purdue Pharma decision, several state attorneys general issued statements praising the court’s ruling.
Josh Stein, attorney general of North Carolina, said in a statement reported by Reuters:
Purdue and the Sacklers must pay so we can save lives and help people live free of addiction. If they won’t pay up, I’ll see them in court.
William Tong, attorney general of Connecticut, whose office first sued and eventually agreed to the deal, said:
The US Supreme Court got it right — billionaire wrongdoers should not be allowed to shield blood money in bankruptcy court … We will be front and center again in any new negotiations.
Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator for Massachusetts, said the supreme court’s ruling blocking Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan was a “first step towards accountability for the Sackler family”.
The Sacklers “made a fortune from hooking people to opioids that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, and then tried to use the bankruptcy system to keep their money,” Warren said in a statement posted to social media.
The Supreme Court closed this bankruptcy loophole, but that doesn’t make things right for the millions of people who have lost loved ones to opioid overdoses.
“It’s time for the Sacklers to pay up.”
Opponents of the Purdue Pharma settlement praised the court’s decision, while some called on the justice department to seek criminal charges against members of the Sackler family.
Mike Quinn, who represents Ellen Isaacs, whose son Ryan died after becoming dependent on Oxycontin and who filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs in the supreme court case, said:
This is a victory for all Americans – a victory for everybody that wealthy wrong-doers don’t have the right to receive liability and write the law, that anybody can stand up against them and protect their rights under the constitution.
Ed Bisch, whose son Eddie died from an overdose after taking OxyContin, said he would have accepted the deal if he thought it would have made a dent in the opioid crisis. A statement to AP read:
This is a step toward justice. It was outrageous what they were trying to get away with. They have made a mockery of the justice system and then they tried to make a mockery of the bankruptcy system.”
Purdue Pharma calls supreme court decision ‘heart crushing’
In a statement following the supreme court’s Harrington v. Purdue Pharma decision, the company described the ruling as “heart-crushing”.
Members of the Sackler family branches who own Purdue suggested they plan return to negotiations. A statement to AP reads:
While we are confident that we would prevail in any future litigation given the profound misrepresentations about our families and the opioid crisis, we continue to believe that a swift negotiated agreement to provide billions of dollars for people and communities in need is the best way forward.
Edward Neiger, a lawyer representing more than 60,000 overdose victims, said the court’s decision was a major setback.
“The Purdue plan was a victim-centered plan that would provide billions of dollars to the states to be used exclusively to abate the opioid crisis and $750 million for victims of the crisis, so that they could begin to rebuild their lives,” Neiger said in a statement.
As a result of the senseless three-year crusade by the government against the plan, thousands of people died of overdose, and today’s decision will lead to more needless overdose deaths.
The supreme court, in its decision to reject Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan earlier today, blocked a controversial deal that would have protected the Sackler family from further liability over the US opioid epidemic, in exchange for providing funds for compensation and rehabilitation treatment.
The 5-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M Gorsuch, was voted on non-ideological lines. It was backed by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A Alito Jr, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Brett M Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John G Roberts Jr and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The deal was constructed to allow Purdue, the Connecticut company behind the prescription opioid OxyContin, to restructure and also shield the relevant Sackler billionaires without them having to declare personal bankruptcy.
As part of the deal, the Sackler family had agreed to contribute $6bn to the settlement from the vast fortune they made from OxyContin and give up ownership.
Court filings showed that 95% of creditors in the Purdue bankruptcy case had agreed to sign on to the plan, although many reluctantly, partly seeing it as the only way to finally get some recompense. But several states, Canadian municipalities and Indigenous tribes, and more than 2,600 individuals, including high-profile activists, were opposed.
Today’s ruling now leaves matters between the company and plaintiffs unresolved. The case is seen as having consequences for other corporate bankruptcies where company owners or officials want immunity from liability.
Sam Levine
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer left the door open to a presidential run in 2028 when Katie Couric asked her about her plans for the political future during a session this morning at the Aspen Ideas festival.
Whitmer is often mentioned as one of the top Democratic contenders to be the next president.
Noting she had a tough job for the next two and a half years, Whitmer said:
I’m making no plans right now and then I’ll see what happens next.
She added:
Maybe there’s someone I’m gonna be excited about. Maybe another scenario. That’s as far as I am down that path.
She also weighed in on whether Joe Biden could face trouble in Michigan, a key battleground state, from its large concentration of Arab-American voters. More than 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the Democratic primary in the state amid concerns over how Biden handled the war in Gaza.
While Whitmer said the Biden campaign was “not thrilled” about that result, she said she actually thought it was a positive thing because “people were able to register their discontent and it opened up a line of communication.”
Whitmer also acknowledged that she thought “we can do more” to make American voters understand that Biden gets their concerns about the economy.
Pressure grows on Congress to rescind invitation to Netanyahu
Congress is facing increasing pressure to withdraw its invitation to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is set to speak on Capitol Hill next month.
Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:
A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.
The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.
“Congress has made a terrible mistake. Mr Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will not represent the State of Israel and its citizens, and it will reward his scandalous and destructive conduct toward our country,” the article’s six authors argue in a blistering critique that also accuses the Israeli prime minister of failing to secure the release of scores of hostages taken in last year’s attack and still held captive.
For the full story, click here:
Alice Herman
Pro-democracy groups gathered at the Wisconsin state capitol Thursday morning to call on the resignation of Robert Spindell, a Republican who served as a pro-Trump false elector in 2020, from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Spindell has also bragged about GOP voter suppression efforts in Milwaukee.
In an email first reported in January 2023, Spindell wrote that Republicans could be “especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”
During public comments before the Wisconsin Elections Commission, speakers decried Spindell’s participation in the false elector scheme and his comments about voters of color.
“You wanna know what’s exhausting? Living in a country where people get to live above the law,” said Nick Ramos, director of the watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
In response to comments calling on his resignation, Spindell made repeated reference to “Milwaukee’s white Democrats,” who he blamed for voter suppression in Milwaukee.
Individuals who served as false electors in Arizona and Michigan are facing prosecution over their role in Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Earlier this month, Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul filed felony charges against two attorneys involved in the false elector scheme; the ten Wisconsin false electors, including Spindell, have not yet been charged.
Sam Levine
I’m sitting in a packed auditorium here at the Aspen Ideas Festival where attendees are packed in to hear from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is speaking with journalist Katie Couric.
Talking about her childhood, Couric brought up how Whitmer was a troublemaking teenager and even once threw up on her high school principal from drinking. “Not my best day,” Whitmer said to laughs.
She then paused and took a shot at Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who has come under fire for sharing a story about killing her pets.
“I’ve never executed any dogs or goats,” Whitmer said, prompting more laughter.
I couldn’t make it out exactly, but one woman in front of me whispered to her friend, “she’s got my vote.”
In run-up to debate, Biden camp leans into message: Trump is a threat to democracy
Joan E Greve
Joe Biden and his allies are leaning heavily into their message that Donald Trump represents a threat to democracy in the final hours leading up to tonight’s debate.
The Democratic National Committee plans to run a mobile billboard around the debate venue in Atlanta, with the featured ad highlighting Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the reversal of Roe v Wade.
The DNC has also placed ads on five billboards near the debate venue to spotlight Trump’s policy proposals and his recent felony conviction in New York.
“As Donald Trump prepares to lie for 90 straight minutes on the debate stage this evening, the DNC is already on the ground in Atlanta to remind voters of how he tried to undermine Georgia’s democracy, threatens to leave working families behind again, and is hellbent on ripping away reproductive freedoms,” DNC spokesperson Abhi Rahman said.
“Tonight, voters across the country will see the clear choice in front of them, and they will make Trump a loser once again in November.”
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has issued a similar statement following the supreme court’s Idaho abortion case decision, saying:
“Today’s SCOTUS ruling reiterates that state legislatures remain the arbiters of abortion access. The best defense against Republicans’ assault on reproductive freedoms is to elect Democrats to state legislatures who will champion reproductive care and counter GOP extremism.
The balance of power in the states is especially important given the supreme court remains hostile to reproductive freedoms and has demonstrated a repeated willingness to catapult extreme GOP state laws to the national stage to become law of the land – as they did with Dobbs.”
Reproductive Freedom for All has issued a response to the supreme court’s decision on Idaho’s emergency abortion case, saying:
“The court could have upheld this basic right, but they refused to. Instead, the conservative majority kicked the case back to a lower court, punting so that they didn’t need to weigh in before an election where attacks on abortion access are already top of mind for voters.
While the Biden administration is fighting tooth and nail to ensure people can get the emergency abortion care they need, anti-abortion extremists will continue to do whatever they can to stop them. Let this serve as a reminder of what’s at stake this November.”
Supreme court issues three major decisions surrounding Purdue Pharma, the EPA and abortion
The supreme court on Thursday issued three major decisions on cases involving OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, an air pollution rule by the Environmental Protection Agency and abortion access in Idaho.
In a 5-4 decision, the conservative-majority court rejected Purdue Pharma’s multi-billion dollar settlement that would have shielded the wealthy Sackler family from future lawsuits over the country’s deadly opioid epidemic, but would have also provided compensation and rehabilitation funds to victims.
In his opinion, conservative justice Neil Gorsuch wrote:
“The Sacklers seek greater relief than a bankruptcy discharge normally affords, for they hope to extinguish even claims for wrongful death and fraud, and they seek to do so without putting anything close to all their assets on the table.”
In a separate 5-4 decision, the court put on hold an attempt by the EPA to reduce air pollution from power plants in “upwind” states that would affect air quality in “downwind” states. Along with industry allies, Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana have been challenging the EPA’s rule.
Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court’s three liberal justices, in dissent, wrote that the court “justifies this decision based on an alleged procedural error that likely had no impact on the plan.”
Meanwhile, in a victory for reproductive rights activists, the court dismissed a case over whether emergency room doctors can perform abortions to save a pregnant woman’s life.
The court’s 6-3 decision marks a win for the Joe Biden administration, for now, as the case is returned to a lower court and potentially delays a final decision until after the election. Idaho had tried to have the procedure exempted from the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
Supreme court dismisses case blocking emergency abortions in Idaho
The supreme court has dismissed a case that sought to block emergency abortions in Idaho, a state with a near-total abortion ban.
The court’s decision marks a win for the Joe Biden administration, for now, as the case is returned to a lower court and potentially delays a final decision until after the election.
Idaho had tried to have the procedure exempted from the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
The court’s 6-3 decision, which came after a version of the ruling was prematurely posted on to its website yesterday, reinstates a lower court’s decision that EMTALA takes precedence over Idaho’s abortion ban.
Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas were in the minority opinion.
Supreme court blocks Purdue Pharma’s multi-billion dollar bankruptcy settlement
In its second decision of the morning, the supreme court has blocked Purdue Pharma’s multi-billion dollar bankruptcy settlement.
The settlement would have excused and shielded the wealthy Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin, from lawsuits surrounding the country’s opioid epidemic.
The decision came at 5-4, with Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissenting.
“Today’s decision is wrong on the law and devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Supreme court issues hold on EPA’s enforcement of pollution rule
In its first decision of the morning, the supreme court has issued a ruling that puts on hold the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of an air pollution rule.
With a 5-4 decision with Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting, the decision grants states the application to put the EPA’s rule on hold as the case moves to the lower courts.
The EPA’s “good neighbor” rule seeks to restrict air pollution from power plants in “upwind” states that would affect air quality in “downwind” states.
Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign has launched a new website landing page in attempts to underscore the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025.
The launch comes in response to Trump’s blueprint of policy proposals that could dismantle and disrupt the US government while replacing career staff with political loyalists.
“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s Maga Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins.
Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately,” the page reads.
It goes on to break down the various ways Trump “is planning to reach into your daily life and how his extreme Maga allies are planning to consolidate power.”
The website’s new landing page launch comes ahead of the first presidential debate tonight between Trump and Biden where the current president is expected to highlight the various threats surrounding Project 2025.
Recent major decisions by the supreme court
Here is a look at some of the major decisions the supreme court has issued so far this term:
On Wednesday, the court struck down a lower court ruling, in turn allowing the federal government to request the removal of misinformation from social media platforms.
Earlier this month, the court upheld access to the common abortion pill mifepristone, marking a major victory for reproductive rights activists since the court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago.
The court, in a 8-1 ruling – with conservative justice Clarence Thomas dissenting – also upheld a federal ban that prevents domestic violence abusers from possessing guns.
In a setback for gun control activists, the court struck down a federal ban on “bump stock” accessories for guns, which allow semiautomatic firearms to fire as quickly as machine guns.
Supreme court to issue decisions with blockbuster rulings outstanding
Good morning,
The supreme court is set to issue another set of opinions today at 10am which may include major decisions on Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case and whether states are allowed to carry out emergency abortions.
So far, the conservative-majority court this term has upheld access to the common abortion pill mifepristone, upheld a federal ban that prevents domestic abusers from possessing guns, struck down a federal ban on “bump stock” accessories for guns, as well as a struck down a lower court ruling to allow the federal government to request misinformation removal from social media.
The decisions for major cases that have yet to be released include Trump’s immunity petition from the federal charges he faces over the 2020 presidential election interference, as well as whether hospitals in states with abortion bans are required to perform emergency abortions – a case fought between the Joe Biden administration and the state of Idaho. According to a report from Bloomberg, the court’s alleged opinion on the Idaho abortion case – which would allow for emergency abortions in the state – was briefly posted on the court’s website on Wednesday.
Here are other developments in US politics:
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The first presidential debate between Biden and Trump is set to take place this evening in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is set to testify before the House’s transportation and infrastructure committee.
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Renowned polling expert Nate Silver has predicted a 66% chance of Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.