A conservative attorney says churches meeting in New York's public schools will soon be evicted unless state lawmakers take action in the ongoing fight.

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a case, meaning a lower-court ruling against the churches stands -- that is unless lawmakers step up to the plate. S.B. 6087, state legislation that would allow the congregations to continue meeting in public schools, was unanimously passed by the Senate Education Committee late last month, and supporters are hopeful that the Assembly and the governor will follow suit.

But Jason McGuire, who heads New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms (NYCF), warns that they are running out of time.

"We're really coming down to the wire, and some pressure needs to mount on the Assembly," he urges.

The 2012 congressional elections are more than 10 months away, but some key votes already have been cast — and not by the electorate.

Judges, rather, are playing major roles in reshaping the House landscape this election cycle, as the courts in many states have ruled — or soon will — on disputed redistricting maps in several battleground states.

Democrats have won early-round court battles in Texas and California regarding congressional redistricting — a process conducted every 10 years based on census data that reflect changes in population.

A Christian college is suing the Obama administration over requiring businesses to pay for insurance plans that cover Plan B and ella — two types of birth-control pills the college and other prolife advocates view as abortifacient.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius handed down the mandate last summer in a list of preventative services insurers must cover without copayments (i.e., for free upon purchase) under President Obama's health-care law.

Colorado Christian College filed a lawsuit against the mandate on Wednesday, charging that it violates the constitutional rights of free speech and religion.

"The government’s mandate unconstitutionally coerces Colorado Christian to violate its deeply-held religious beliefs under threat of heavy fines and penalties," the lawsuit said.

"The mandate also forces Colorado Christian to fund government-dictated speech that is directly at odds with its own speech and religious teachings.

The Obama administration faces a new lawsuit from a pro-life group in New Hampshire on behalf of pro-life residents of the state upset the Obama administration forced it to fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

The New Hampshire Executive Council voted in June to cancel a $1.8 million dollar contract with Planned Parenthood, citing that taxpayers would be subsidizing, at least indirectly, Planned Parenthood’s abortion business.

The council has filed a formal protest with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Government Accountability Office following the Obama Administration’s award of a non-competitive $1 million dollar contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in response.

In his first negative TV ad of his presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is using the "s" word against President Obama-socialism.

"Obama's socialist policies are bankrupting America. We must stop him now," says Perry in his fourth ad of his presidential campaign. The spot, airing in Iowa and on FOX News, is the first Perry commercial to do more that introduce Perry, or his flat tax economic plan.

Perry also goes after Obama for the president's remarks suggesting Americans have become "lazy" asking, "Can you believe that? That's what our president thinks is wrong with America? That Americans are lazy? That's pathetic. It's time to clean house in Washington."

Perry is referring to a comment Obama made at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii this weekend when talking about America's slipping status in global economic competition. "We've been a bit lazy over the last couple of decades.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a controversial requirement for Americans to purchase health insurance, becoming the sixth appeals court to rule on challenges to President Obama’s health care law that are likely headed to the Supreme Court next year.

In a split opinion, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the centerpiece of the health care law — a mandate for individuals to buy health insurance or pay a fine — was an encroachment on individual liberty, but no more so than requiring businesses to serve all customers regardless of race.

“The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local — or seemingly passive — their individual origins,” wrote Judge Laurence H.

The federal government asked an appeals court on Friday to halt an Alabama immigration law considered by many as the toughest in the United States, saying it invites discrimination against foreign-born citizens and legal immigrants.

The federal government filed the challenge to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. It claimed Alabama's new law "is highly likely to expose persons lawfully in the United States, including school children, to new difficulties in routine dealings."

The overhaul allows authorities to question people suspected of being in the country illegally and hold them without bond. It also lets officials check the immigration status of students in public schools.

A federal judge in Alabama upheld those two key aspects of the law, which have already taken effect.

Those provisions that took effect are what help make the Alabama law stricter than similar laws passed in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia.

Two adult stem cell researchers have filed an appeal in their lawsuit seeking to stop President Barack Obama from forcing taxpayers to spend tens of millions of dollars on embryonic stem cell research that destroys human lives.

In July, a federal judge dismissed one of the lawsuits filed against President Barack Obama’s executive order forcing taxpayers to finance embryonic stem cell research that has yet to help any patients.

Last August, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Obama executive order likely violates that law against federal funding of embryo destruction. But, in April, a federal appeals court ruled Obama can force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research that has never helped any patients.

Responding to that decision, Judge Lamberth dismissed the lawsuit Boston adult stem cell researcher James Shirley filed saying the decision discriminates against researchers who don’t use embryonic stem cells.

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Appeals Court today dismissed the lawsuit the state of Virginia filed against the Obamacare law, which is one of several lawsuits that are working their way to the Supreme Court.

The decision is no surprise given the stacked nature of the panel, as computers at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that randomly selected the panel of three judges from the appeals court to conduct oral hearings on the legal debate surrounding the law picked three judges from a evenly-divided court who are all Democrats. All three judges listening to two legal challenges were appointed by Democrats — Judge Diana Motz, the senior member of the panel, is a Clinton appointee while Judges Andre Davis and James Wynn were appointed by Obama.

The three judges dismissed the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the national health care law’s individual mandate by saying the state lacked the standing to sue.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A federal judge in Birmingham has temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama's new law cracking down on illegal immigration.

U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Blackburn's order issued Monday means the law won't take effect as scheduled on Thursday.

Blackburn didn't address whether the law is constitutional. Instead, she says she needs more time to consider lawsuits filed by the Justice Department, private groups and individuals that claim the state is overstepping its bounds with the law.

The judge says she will issue a longer ruling by Sept. 28...