Hot Issues This Week: Business, Immigration & Social Policy

Business

The U.S. Supreme Court rejects an appeal by trucking companies seeking to exempt drivers from a California labor law that would classify them as employees rather than independent contractors. The SCOTUS rejected without comment an appeal of a lower court ruling that said state law, not federal law, determines the employment status of about 70,000 truck owner-operators. The issue is not dead, however, as a federal court in a different case previously issued the exact opposite finding. That ruling is now also under appeal to the High Court.

The New Jersey Department of Health issues new rules that allow home bakers to apply for a license to sell wares made in their own kitchens. The Garden State has been the only one to not allow such cottage businesses to legally operate.

Immigration

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that California must exempt federal immigration detention centers from its ban on for-profit prisons. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), who as an Assemblymember wrote the law that barred the state from using the private lockups, said he was likely to appeal the ruling.

Social Policy

A federal judge suspends a Texas law that imposes the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman called the law an “offensive deprivation” of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion services.