Everything published in July 2015, most recent first.
Richard L. Hasen is a Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He blogs at Election Law Blog. It is tempting to think of the plaintiffs in Evenwel v. Abbott as conservatives.
Richard H. Pildes is the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU. As soon as the Court decided to hear Evenwel, a barely suppressed anger emerged in many quarters, on grounds of both process and substance.
UPDATED Monday 6:14 p.m. This case has been docketed as 15-137. —————- Seeking to overturn a major setback in its power to punish trading of stocks based on insider tips, the Obama administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to revive one of the highest-profile prosecutions in years on Wall Street.
Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. He filed an amicus brief supporting the jurisdictional statement in Evenwel and will be filing another at the merits stage. Shapiro became a U.S. citizen just last year.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday released the schedule of oral arguments for the opening session of its next Term, beginning on Monday, October 5. The daily schedule, with a brief description of the issues involved in each hearing, follows the jump. Arguments begin each morning at 10 a.m.
Evenwel v. Abbott may wind up being the most important voting case in sixty years. Its political ramifications could rival those of Reynolds v. Sims, the 1964 case that established the principle of “one person, one vote” under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued the final order in the same-sex marriage cases, a document which formally puts that decision into effect. The four-page order can be read here.
Editor’s note: This post examines two cases the Supreme Court will review at its next Term: Evenwel v. Abbott, and Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. This post will be followed this week by a symposium on Evenwel.
A federal appeals court, arguing that the Supreme Court’s abortion rights rulings leave too little room for states to limit the procedure to protect fetal life, has urged the Justices to reconsider a basic idea behind Roe v. Wade.
Briefly: In The Washington Times, Tom Howell Jr. reports that, “[r]oughly a week after its loss before an appeals court in Denver, a group of nuns who objected to Obamacare‘s birth-control mandate have taken their case to the Supreme Court.” David Lightman of McClatchyDC reports on an exchange between Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum and television host Rachel Maddow on the role of the Supreme Court.
Briefly: In her column for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse discusses the challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control mandate by religious non-profits and the possibility that the groups’ “argument goes too far, even for the Roberts court.” In the Supreme Court Brief (subscription
As of now, the Court has granted certiorari (or, in one “original jurisdiction” case, Mississippi v. Tennessee, review) in thirty-five cases for the upcoming Term.
In her contribution to the Yale Law Journal‘s symposium on arbitration, Judith Resnik analyzes the last thirty years of the Supreme Court’s cases interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act and reaches a surprising conclusion: Although these decisions have encouraged the “mass production of
Briefly: At the Blog of Legal Times (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro reports on a recent poll indicating that “[p]ublic support for life tenure for U.S. Supreme Court justices is decreasing, while the notion of allowing cameras in the court is more popular than ever.” At Library
Analysis The volatile constitutional issue of race as a factor in selecting the entering classes at public universities and colleges returns to the Supreme Court next Term, but it is far from clear at this point just why the Justices are stepping back into that enduring controversy, and where it will end up.
Briefly: At Education Week’s The School Law Blog, Mark Walsh reports that,”[j]ust weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court said it would revisit the question of affirmative action in higher education, a new report sheds light on how widespread the use of race in admissions remains.” Lawrence Hurley of
Briefly: At Conversations with Bill Kristol (video), Kristol interviews Justice Samuel Alito about everything from his path to the Court to same-sex marriage and Philadelphia baseball.
The Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that states must license marriages between same-sex couples, continues to spawn coverage and commentary. Elliot Spagat of the Associated Press (via Yahoo!
Briefly: In The Huffington Post, Alan Morrison weighs in on Evenwel v. Abbott, the “one person, one vote” case; he argues that, to “assure that states doing reapportionment follow the law . . . there must be one right answer to the question of what the baseline should be for drawing districts.
Commentary Amid widening claims that religious liberty in America is under siege, the Supreme Court over the past year and and a half has reacted eight times to one of the most intense and emotionally charged conflicts within that broader controversy.
Briefly: In a story for The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro reports on some of the highlights of Ted Cruz’s comments about the Court and its members in his new autobiography.
Issuing a new round of rules to carry out two Supreme Court rulings on women’s access to free birth control, the Obama administration cleared the way on Tuesday for some for-profit businesses to receive an exemption if their owners object to contraceptives because of religious beliefs, but it also set the stage for government action to provide access to such services for those companies’ female employees.
Scalia/Ginsburg, an opera inspired by the differences between the two Justices and friends, made its debut last weekend at the Castleton Festival in Virginia. NPR‘s Nina Totenberg reports on the opera, while Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal covers Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s reaction.
Coverage and commentary once again focus on the Term as a whole.
Briefly: At Bloomberg BNA (subscription required), David Faigman contends that the Court’s recent decision in Glossip v. Gross, upholding Oklahoma’s use of midazolam in its lethal injection protocol, demonstrates that the Justices have “little understanding of science and make no effort to connect
Asked by the Alabama Supreme Court for advice on what to do next on same-sex marriage, two conservative advocacy groups in the state have urged both direct and indirect resistance to the Supreme Court’s ruling mandating a constitutional right for gays and lesbians to wed.
Coverage of and commentary on the Court continue to focus on the just-ended Term as a whole.
In 1962, University of Virginia Law School professor A.E. Dick Howard clerked for Justice Hugo Black, and he has been a close observer of the Court ever since.
Briefly: Writing for Greenwire, Jeremy Jacobs reports that the “Obama administration is coming off its most successful term at the Supreme Court in several years with one notable exception: environmental and property rights cases.” At his eponymous blog, Lyle Denniston reports that the en banc D.C.
End-of-Term overviews come from Nina Totenberg of NPR, who describes the October Term 2014 as a “historic term, a surprisingly liberal term – and a nasty term.” And C-Span has video of a panel featuring a group of Supreme Court reporters discussing the just-ended Term and making predictions for next year.
End-of-Term overviews continue to pour in. Adam Liptak discusses the Term in an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, in which he notes that, although political scientists will say that the just-ended Term was a “liberal Term for the ages,” all of that could change next Term.
The Court is in summer recess.
With the Court now in its summer recess, some coverage and commentary focus on overviews of the Term more generally.
Commentary on last week’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage and the recognition thereof, continues to pour in.
The Supreme Court on Thursday narrowed somewhat its plan to review the work of the independent Arizona agency that drew new election districts for the state legislature after the latest census.
Yesterday the Court added five new cases to its docket for next Term. Lyle Denniston covered the order list for this blog. The Court’s announcement that it had granted review in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a challenge to compulsory fees for public-sector unions, garnered the most attention.