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Wednesday round-up

Commentary on next week’s oral arguments in the challenge to the Obama administration’s deferred-action policy for some immigrants comes from Simon Lazarus, who in New Republic argues that the challenge by Texas and other statesfaces a host of heavyweight conservative authorities, of recent as well as long-established vintage, strongly supporting President Barack Obama’s position that deferring removal for parents of citizens and permanent residents for three years, subject to individual exceptions on a case-by-case basis, fits within the ample enforcement discretion prescribed by immigration statutes and the Constitution.”  At Medium, David Leopold discusses the government’s reply brief, filed earlier this week; he describes it as “a very powerful” brief that “reminds the Supreme Court of the judicial chaos that will ensue if Texas is granted standing.”  And at Balkinization, Marty Lederman discusses whether, as Texas alleges, the DAPA policy “transforms unlawful conduct into lawful conduct.”

 Coverage related to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the nomination of Chief Judge Merrick Garland to succeed him comes from NPR’s Nina Totenberg, who in the Here & Now podcast reports on Garland’s efforts to gain congressional support; and Richard Cowan of Reuters, who reports that in the 1990s Senator Charles Grassley, “an Iowa Republican, spearheaded a fight against Garland’s nomination to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.”  Commentary comes from Jeffrey Bellin, who in an op-ed for CNN discusses the “McConnell principle” – the idea that, at “a certain point in a president’s term, the Senate must postpone action on a Supreme Court nominee” – and its possible implications.   

Briefly:

  • In The Washington Post, Theresa Vargas discusses the amicus briefs filed in the challenge to Texas’s abortion regulations and, more generally, thedramatic rise in the number of friend-of-the-court briefs filed” at the Court in recent years.
  • In The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Arthur Bryant argues that the “single biggest development affecting class actions — and many other areas of the law — in the past three months was the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.”
  • At Liberty Blog, John Groen discusses the opening brief filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation in Murr v. Wisconsin, urging the Supreme Court to overrule a “Wisconsin rule allowing ‘aggregation’ of commonly owned properties to avoid a taking.”
  • In an op-ed for The Daytona Beach News-Journal, Christina Martin discusses the aftermath of the Court’s decision in the property rights case Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, suggesting that the substantial award of attorney’s fees and costs to the property owners should “serve[] as a lesson for ambitious bureaucrats everywhere that hope to get something for nothing.”
  • At Education Week’s The School Law Blog, Mark Walsh reviews a new book on Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, the Court’s 1994 case involving efforts by a religious group to create its own public school.
  • Ross Runkel previews next week’s argument in the Fair Labor Standards Act case Encino Motorcars v. Navarro, suggesting that, although the caselooks like a dispute about whether car dealership ‘service advisors’ are exempt from FLSA’s overtime provisions,” “it really is a test of the Department of Labor’s ability to put its own spin on the meaning of a statute – especially when DOL changes its spin.”

If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, or op-ed relating to the Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com.

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Wednesday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Apr. 13, 2016, 9:04 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2016/04/wednesday-round-up-316/