Friday round-up
on Aug 31, 2018 at 12:01 pm
Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court will begin on Tuesday. Tucker Higgins of CNBC previews what to expect next week. Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung of Reuters predict that the “possibility [Kavanaugh] could vote to overturn Roe v. Wade will be a top line of questioning.” Marcia Coyle and Tony Mauro of The National Law Journal (registration may be required) survey Supreme Court practitioners, advocates and academics for the “one question they’d ask the nominee.” Kenneth Jost at Jost on Justice comments on eight areas in which, he argues, “Democratic senators and witnesses testifying against the nomination need to make clear what Kavanaugh will do if confirmed.”
Jordain Carney of The Hill reports that “supporters of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are ramping up their efforts to get him confirmed ahead of his nomination hearing next week.” Kaitlyn Schallhorn of Fox News covers a letter signed by more than 30 Republican governors, and looks at the three who didn’t sign it. Cameron Cawthorne of The Washington Free Beacon covers a letter from eight current and alumni members of the Black Law Students Association at Harvard Law School. Michael Macagnone and Jimmy Hoover Law 360 cover a letter from 300 law professors sent to Republicans Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski “to pressure them into voting against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh over his alleged hostility to Roe v. Wade and abortion rights.”
Additional coverage and commentary continue to address Kavanaugh’s record and the confirmation process more generally. Amy Howe of Howe on the Court reviews a batch of documents released earlier this month that “indicate that, while in the White House counsel’s office, Kavanaugh closely followed decisions by and developments at the Supreme Court.” Dhruv Khullar and Anupam B. Jena of The New York Times look at two trends – increasing life expectancy and younger ages for nominees – that “mean that each Supreme Court nomination now has the potential to shape the nation’s highest court for far longer than in the past.” With commentary at Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger disputes Erwin Chemerinsky’s inclusion (in an article for the ABA Journal) of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule among the areas in which Justice Anthony Kennedy “was the fifth vote for a liberal result, and where it is uncertain, or even unlikely, that Kavanaugh would decide the same way.”
Turning to cases in the pipeline, Jordan S. Rubin of Bloomberg Law reports that “[a]nother saga spawned from Louisiana’s criminal justice system could land at the U.S. Supreme Court, this time because a judge who presided over a high-profile murder case didn’t disclose his potential connection to the murder weapon.” Paul Rogers of Santa Cruz Sentinel reports on a dispute, which the justices will consider at their September 24 conference, involving access to beaches on private land. Cullen D. Seltzer comments at the Sands Anderson blog on a three-judge district court’s decision striking down North Carolina’s congressional district lines as the product of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.
Kevin Daley of The Daily Caller reports that the court “declined to intervene” in a dispute between Philadelphia and Catholic Social Services, “another closely watched conflict between local officials enforcing a non-discrimination law, and religious dissenters pleading freedom of conscience.” Additional coverage comes from Amy Howe for this blog, originally published at Howe on the Court, Adam Liptak of The New York Times, Ariane de Vogue of CNN, Robert Barnes of The Washington Post and Julia Terruso of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Briefly:
- Constitution Daily yesterday marked the anniversary of Justice Thurgood Marshall’s confirmation as a justice, the first African-American to serve in that position.
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