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• An editorial in the Los Angeles Times weighs in on Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the upcoming case involving the exclusion of a Catholic organization from a city’s foster-care system due to the organization’s refusal to work with same-sex parents. “[T]he real question in the case,” the newspaper opines, is “whether a religious organization that receives government money can violate civil-rights laws. The answer is no.”
• Two new episodes of the Legal Docket podcast analyze decisions from the Supreme Court’s 2019-20 term. One episode examines Kahler v. Kansas, in which the court held that states are not required to adopt an insanity test that turns on a defendant’s ability to recognize that his crime was morally wrong. Another episode delves into Harris Funeral Homes v. E.E.O.C., in which the court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects transgender people from workplace discrimination.

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On Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, at 1 p.m. EDT, the Washington Legal Foundation will host a virtual briefing on free enterprise cases to be argued during the 2020-21 Supreme Court term. The panel will feature Catherine Stetson of Hogan Lovells, Adam Feldman of Empirical SCOTUS and Jonathan Cohn of Sidley Austin.

Click here for more info and to register.

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• In USA Today, Richard Wolf reports that the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County — which held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ workers — is already having broad ramifications in other litigation involving claims of discrimination against transgender people. “In recent weeks, federal judges from New York to Florida to Idaho have cited the Supreme Court’s ruling to justify expanding transgender rights beyond the workplace,” Wolf writes.
• At Real Clear Policy, Brian Gregg examines how the court’s 2018 ruling in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — which limited the definition of “habitat” under the Endangered Species Act — has prompted federal officials to propose an amendment to the law that essentially codifies the Weyerhaeuser holding.

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!

This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to decide whether police, without a warrant, may enter a home and remove weapons under a “community caretaking” exception and whether Congress authorized the Trump administration’s spending on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. In Caniglia v. Strom, officers questioned Edward Caniglia at his home after his wife expressed concern that he might be suicidal. They took him to a hospital and then entered the home and removed two handguns. The officers’ justification for the entry and seizures was the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. The Supreme Court’s first case recognizing that exception, Cady v. Dombrowski, involved officers searching the trunk of a car towed after an accident. Since then the federal courts of appeals have divided on whether the exception applies to the home or only to motor vehicles. Caniglia filed a cert petition, asking the Supreme Court to resolve this split and hold that the exception cannot justify warrantless intrusions inside a home.

Trump v. Sierra Club is a challenge to President Donald Trump’s border wall. As SCOTUSblog previously reported, the Supreme Court in July declined to lift a stay that has allowed the federal government to continue to spend funds on construction of the wall while the legal challenge continues. Much of the funding for the wall comes from money that the Pentagon reallocated from other sources. The opponents of the wall argue that the administration lacks the power to spend more than Congress already allocated for border security. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed with the challengers, the federal government in August filed a cert petition, asking the Supreme Court to rule directly on the issue.

These and other petitions of the week are below the jump: Continue reading »

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• In Vox, Ian Millhiser highlights a recent poll from the Pew Research Center that found that 66% of Democrats said Supreme Court appointments are “very important” to their vote in the 2020 presidential election, compared with just 61% of Republicans who said the issue is very important. The poll suggests that the “perception that judicial politics favor Republicans is outdated,” Millhiser writes.
• In a blog post for the University of Cincinnati Law Review, Trane Robinson performs a thorough, just-the-facts review of the Supreme Court’s 2019-20 term. In explaining the terms’ major rulings, Robinson bases his analysis solely on material from within “the four corners of published opinions” and rejects the idea that the justices engage in “horse-trading votes across cases” or respond to “extra-record influences.”
• In an op-ed for The Hill, Lawrence Friedman examines the possibility that, 20 years after Bush v. Gore, the court may again have to resolve a disputed presidential election this year. “Should the Supreme Court be asked to address any disputes for the next election, such as how mail ballots must be counted, it will need to tap into the respect that Americans have for it and the reputation it has earned,” Friedman concludes.

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!

Briefly:

• In The Economist, Steven Mazie reports on the Supreme Court’s role in shaping the outcome of the 2020 election, which is already seeing a record number of voting-related lawsuits. “Many of this year’s voting quarrels are bound to end up at the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority has shown little interest in expanding voter participation,” Mazie writes.
• At the Brennan Center, Ciara Torres-Spelliscy examines how political donations in state attorney general elections may be influencing some of the Republican attorneys general who are suing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in California v. Texas, which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in November.
• The Associated Press reports that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated at an outdoor wedding of a family friend on Sunday. A tweet from the bride with a photo of Ginsburg at the wedding “brought the first sighting” of Ginsburg — who announced in July a recurrence of cancer — in months, the AP reports.
• In an article and video blog post for the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, Heather Cameron examines the Supreme Court’s “arbitration docket,” with an analysis of a recent arbitration-related decision handed down in June — GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA — and a preview of another pending arbitration case scheduled for the 2020-21 term.

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!

Deanne Maynard, co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Appellate and Supreme Court practice, has argued 14 cases before the Supreme Court since her first oral argument in 2004. On this week’s episode of SCOTUStalk, Amy Howe interviews Maynard on how she prepares to argue before the justices, how she pivots away from hostile questions, and why hypotheticals can be the toughest questions of all. Howe also takes Maynard back to her first oral argument — accompanied by live audio — and what went through her mind when Justice John Paul Stevens asked Maynard a question before she even made it up to the lectern.

Listen on Acast

Full transcript below the jump. Continue reading »

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• In USA Today, Richard Wolf examines how the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer in June Medical Services v. Russo, striking down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law, is affecting other abortion litigation in the lower courts. Wolf reports that “[o]fficials in Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Oklahoma have in recent weeks argued that the high court’s narrow 5-4 ruling actually bolsters their defense of anti-abortion laws,” largely as a result of Chief Justice John Roberts’ concurring opinion in June Medical that arguably created a more deferential standard for courts to evaluate abortion restrictions.
• At Keen News Service, Lisa Keen also analyzes how one of the court’s biggest decisions from its 2019-20 term is playing out in subsequent litigation. Keen reports that two federal appeals courts recently applied Bostock v. Clayton County — which held that Title VII bars workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — to discrimination in schools. Both appellate decisions “found that the refusal of schools to allow transgender boys to use the boys’ restroom violated the students’ U.S. Constitutional right to equal protection and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act,” Keen writes.
• In an article published by the Federalist Society, Michael Bindas anticipates how yet another recent blockbuster — Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue — will affect the educational choice movement. Espinoza marks “a tremendous victory for families who want to be able to choose the schools their children attend,” Bindas writes, “and the opinion undoubtedly will lead to the adoption of new educational choice programs throughout the country.” But, he continues, “it was by no means the final legal battle over educational choice in the United States.”

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!

Briefly:

• In an article published by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, SCOTUSblog Books Editor Ronald Collins examines the Supreme Court’s recent decision on robocalls in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants and argues that the decision “turned the First Amendment on its head and then left it there.” Collins then describes how an amicus brief submitted by seasoned Supreme Court litigator Paul Clement offers a roadmap for resolving similar future disputes in a way that is more closely tied to the text of the First Amendment.
• At the SMU Law Review Forum, Christian Talley analyzes the ongoing battle over stare decisis, concluding that “[c]ontinuous and profound modification of a precedent casts doubt on the quality of the Court’s original reasoning and erodes the connection between earlier and later cases, thus weakening the stare decisis weight due the precedent upon its reconsideration.”
• In Social Science Quarterly, Christopher Krewson and Jean Schroedel analyze public opinion of the Supreme Court after the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and conclude that the court’s “legitimacy was only weakly tied to Kavanaugh” while “legal qualities and moral character were more important to the public than a nominee’s political attributes.”
• At the National Memo, Bill Blum examines Chief Justice John Roberts’ long record in voting-rights litigation, including several emergency appeals this year in election-related cases tied to the coronavirus pandemic, and contends that Roberts’ performance “has been especially regrettable, but by no means surprising.”

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!

This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of a Kansas law on voter registration and a California law on union organizing. Schwab v. Fish involves a Kansas law that requires documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. Two lawsuits, later consolidated, maintained that the requirement violates the 14th Amendment by burdening the right to vote and is preempted by the National Voter Registration Act. Section 5 of the NVRA, the “motor voter” provision, requires states to include an application for voter registration within the application for a driver’s license that asks for only the “minimum amount of information necessary.” Kansas is seeking Supreme Court review after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit struck down the proof-of-citizenship requirement.

In Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a strawberry nursery is challenging a California regulation that allows union organizers to enter the private property of agricultural growers for up to three hours a day, 120 days a year. Under this regulation, organizers entered the nursery and conducted protests. The nursery’s owners argue that the regulation creates an unconstitutional taking under the 5th Amendment because it forces them to allow access to their property without providing compensation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected that claim because the time restrictions did not grant organizers a complete right of access. Arguing that the courts of appeals are split on whether easements that are limited in time can be taken without just compensation, the nursery is asking the Supreme Court to weigh in.

These and other petitions of the week are below the jump: Continue reading »