Breaking News

Wednesday round-up

During this quiet week at the Court, commentators continue to examine Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, in which the Court held that taxpayers lack standing to raise a First Amendment challenge to an Arizona program that provides tax credits for contributions to tuition organizations that in turn use those contributions to fund scholarships to religious schools. In a post for the Opinionator blog of the New York Times, Stanley Fish discusses Justice Kagan’s style of argumentation in her inaugural dissent. Fish writes that Kagan’s dissent “marks her as someone to reckon with, both inside and outside the Court” and gives “some hope” to those wishing that she will be “the long-sought liberal counterweight to Antonin Scalia.” The Washington Times editorial board, meanwhile, is critical of Kagan’s argument that “there is no functional difference between a tax credit and a government appropriation.” At the Huffington Post, Andrew Coulson supports the Court’s ruling, writing that it “reminds us . . . that there is a way to finance universal education without resorting to socially corrosive compulsion.” Similarly, Bill Frezza, in a column for Forbes, supports Arizona’s tax credit program, arguing that “not only the rich should have the power to choose private education.”

Briefly:

  • The editorial board of the New York Times discusses Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett and argues that “the court’s conservative majority is . . .  reshaping politics, ruling that what matters most for money and speech is their ‘fair market’ impact. The result will be closer scrutiny of public financing, while enabling even more rampant spending by wealthy candidates.” (ACSblog takes note of the editorial.)
  • The Blog of LegalTimes and the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog have accounts of an event Monday night that featured three of the Justices. Justices Ginsburg, Alito, and Sotomayor served on a mock trial panel at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C. that also included four judges from the D.C. Circuit. The mock trial was based on Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband.
  • The Washington Post’s Virginia Politics blogs reports that, “[i]n an interview on Greta Van Susteren’s ‘On the Record’ on Fox News, Donald Trump and Van Susteren agreed that the Supreme Court should act to end uncertainty about the legality of the health-care overhaul by expediting review of the law.”
  • Politico has a report on Justice Thomas’s wife’s new role as a special correspondent for the Daily Caller, a conservative news website.

Recommended Citation: Adam Chandler, Wednesday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Apr. 13, 2011, 8:18 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2011/04/wednesday-round-up-79/