Wednesday Round-up

Roll Call (subscription only) has an editorial by Simon Lazarus in which he argues that Congress is pushing back against recent Court decisions that encroach on Congress’s domain.  Lazarus cites four examples of legislation Congress introduced to reverse the Court’s decisions and a fiery reproach of the Court’s conservatives from Senator John McCain.

On the heels of yesterday’s news that the victorious firefighters in Ricci v. DeStefano are suing in federal district court for promotions based on the test upheld by the Court in June, Connecticut Employment Law Blog reports that black firefighters are trying to intervene in the case.  Concurring Opinions provides an extensive explanation of both the disparate impact arguments at play in the new firefighter case, Briscoe v. City of New Haven, and how those arguments differ from those made in Ricci.

Following the Court’s denial of cert. in Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc., the case challenging the Washington Redskins’ name and logo, Newsweek’s blog discusses Blackhorse v. Pro-Football, Inc., a similar lawsuit brought by a group of younger Native Americans.  The Christian Post has a story on Monday’s denial of cert. in McComb v. Crehan, a case brought by a high school valedictorian who asserted that her graduation speech was unconstitutionally censored by school authorities.  Video clips of the graduation speech are available there.

At The Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel discusses the differing approaches of merits briefs filed Monday by the petitioners and the NRA in the gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago.  Meanwhile, CBS News’ Taking Liberties blog and Lyle’s post here on SCOTUSblog provide more extensive coverage of the briefs.  Lyle and ACSblog also have posts about the merits briefs filed yesterday in two cases – Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder – about “material support” for terrorism.

A story on reactions from industry and academia to the oral argument two weeks ago in Bilski v. Kappos appears in Time.

ACSblog discusses the split among state courts about how to interpret the Court’s ruling last Term in Caperton v. Massey that elected judges must recuse themselves from cases involving contributors to their campaigns.

The AP via NPR reports that Democrats thwarted a Republican filibuster of one of President Obama’s controversial appeals court nominees, but points out that the president has both nominated and confirmed far fewer federal judges during his first year as president than Bush did.  An L.A. Times editorial reproaches Republicans for stalling the confirmation process; meanwhile, at Balkinization, Barry Friedman chides Obama for his slow appointment rate.  Friedman argues that, rather than relying on the political branches alone to drive change, Obama should focus on building a strong judiciary to “ratify” those political changes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Justice Kennedy expressed his frustration with last week’s news reports that he had asked to pre-approve a school newspaper’s coverage of his visit; the justice attributed the flap to a misunderstanding by a new employee in his office.  Briefly, the AP covers the latest public appearance by a justice – a speech by Justice Scalia at Ohio State law school yesterday.

At National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, Ed Whelan – a former clerk to Justice Scalia – takes issue with Joan Biskupic’s new biography of the justice, in installments 1 and 2.  NPR also reviewed the book last week.

A late tidbit from the weekend: lawyers in the two recently-argued juvenile life-without-parole cases – Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida – talked to C-SPAN after oral argument.