Who Is Neal Katyal, Indian-American Hailed As Legal Whiz After Scoring Key Victory For US Voting Rights
Who Is Neal Katyal, Indian-American Hailed As Legal Whiz After Scoring Key Victory For US Voting Rights
Neal Katyal, who served as Acting Solicitor General during the Obama administration, argued a case for voting rights in the Supreme Court in what legal experts say is probably one of the most significant cases in US history.
Neal Katyal had received the Edmund Randolph Award, the highest award the US Justice Department can award a civilian, which the Attorney General presented to him in 2011.
New Delhi: Indian-American Neal Katyal has been hailed as a “national hero” after he won a key case in the Supreme Court in what legal experts say is probably one of the most significant cases in US history.
What Is The Case
The US Supreme Court shot down a controversial legal theory that could have changed the way elections are run across the country but left the door open to more limited challenges that could increase its role in deciding voting disputes during the 2024 presidential election. The court’s 6-3 ruling drove a stake through the most extreme version of the so-called independent state legislature theory, which holds that legislatures have absolute power in setting the rules of federal elections and cannot be second-guessed by state courts, according to a report by news agency The Associated Press. That decision cheered voting rights groups.
Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general who argued the case for voting rights groups Common Cause, at the Supreme Court, said the ruling is “a signal that this United States Supreme Court, with a solid six justices behind it, will resist attempts by state legislatures to mess with the integrity of the 2024 election.”
Who Is Neal Katyal
Neal Katyal had served as Acting Solicitor General during the Obama administration (the federal government’s top courtroom lawyer) and was responsible for representing the federal government in all appellate matters before the US Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals throughout the nation.
Katyal served in the Deputy Attorney General’s Office at the Justice Department as National Security Advisor.
Neal Katyal has extensive experience in constitutional and criminal law. Katyal has orally argued 43 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, with 41 of them in the last decade.
At the age of 50, Katyal has already argued more Supreme Court cases in US history than any other minority attorney, breaking the record of Thurgood Marshall.
Neal Katyal is a law professor with more than two decades of experience at the Georgetown University Law Center where he was one of the youngest professors to have received tenure and a chaired professorship in the university’s history.
Neal Katyal also serves as Faculty Chair of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. Neal has also been a visiting professor at both Harvard and Yale law schools.
In December 2017, American Lawyer magazine named Neal Katyal as The Litigator of the Year for being the top litigator for a two-year period.
Neal Katyal had also received the Edmund Randolph Award, the highest award the US Justice Department can award a civilian, which the Attorney General presented to him in 2011.
In 2019, after Trump was accused of soliciting foreign interference in the presidential election to help his re-election bid, Neal Katyal co-wrote Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump, with Sam Koppelman, which debuted at number 2 on the New York Times Best Seller list.
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