U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court says private sector health care companies cannot sue to force states to raise their Medicaid reimbursement rates to keep up with rising medical costs.

The justices ruled 5-4 Tuesday that the medical companies have no private right to enforce federal Medicaid funding laws against states if Congress has not created such a right.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter says the U.S. Supreme Court should wait until it receives arguments from Idaho before deciding a case involving gay marriage in the United States.

In documents filed with the nation's highest court, lawyers for Otter said waiting for Idaho's case would help the Supreme Court resolve "the marriage-litigation wave in all respects."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will visit Boise in August to give the keynote speech at a conference marking the end of a nearly 30-year water adjudication process.

The University of Idaho announced the upcoming event is sponsored by the Idaho Supreme Court, the Kempthorne Institute, and U of I’s College of Law.

Scalia is speaking at a conference celebrating the end of the Snake River Basin Adjudication process which negotiated water rights in Idaho. That adjudication started in 1987.

Law experts in Idaho say today’s decisions from the Supreme Court that strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and allow gay marriage to resume in California will have no effect on Idaho law.

Gay couples do not have the right to marry in Idaho.  Idaho passed a constitutional amendment in 2006 that says the only marriage the state will recognize is between a man and woman. 

Allen Derr, an Idaho lawyer who won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling to bolster anti-discrimination protections for women, died Monday in Boise. He was 85.

On Nov. 22, 1971, the Supreme Court justices issued their Reed vs. Reed decision, holding states cannot discriminate against people because of their gender. It marked a departure from the era when courts often excluded women from full participation in important civil affairs.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday makes it harder for miners to gain access to Northwest rivers. Environmental groups hailed the decision as a major victory.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a case from Oregon over water pollution from logging roads. But a last minute rule change may have made the case moot.

Attorneys involved in the case say that at 5 pm last Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule trying to clarify that the runoff from logging roads should not be considered industrial pollution. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the majority of President Barack Obama's health care law.  

The high court issued its ruling in Washington this morning.  You can read the ruling here.

Now, Idaho lawmakers and policy makers are weighing in. 

Here's what some of them are saying:

Update at 2:30 pm MST

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to reject a Montana law that bans direct corporate spending on state political campaigns. 

U.S.  Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) said Tuesday the Court’s decision dealt a blow to state sovereignty.  "I believe it should have gone the other way and it should have supported the state of Montana."

Montana’s one hundred-year old law conflicts with a U.S. Supreme Court decision called Citizen’s United that allows unlimited corporate spending in federal campaigns. 

The United States Supreme Court Monday rejected Montana’s challenge to Citizen’s United, the decision that removed limits on corporate spending in political campaigns. Montana argued its state laws gave it the right to limit political spending. Idaho was one of several states that filed friend of the court briefs to support its neighbor’s position. Bob Cooper with the Idaho Attorney General’s office says the AG was not speaking against Citizen’s United, simply supporting states’ rights.