Wednesday round-up

By Adam Chandler
on Dec 8, 2010 at 9:09 am

The Court is in the thick of its December sitting, and anticipation is high for this morning’s argument in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting. At issue in the case is whether federal laws preempt an Arizona statute that sanctions employers who hire “unauthorized aliens.” (Disclosure: I worked on the case as a summer intern at the Department of Justice.) The Washington Post editorial board hopes that the case will “serve as a wake-up call for Capitol Hill and the White House and spur action on much-needed comprehensive immigration reform” because the dispute illustrates the principle that “states will take matters into their own hands when the federal government fails to act.” The ABA (via SCOTUSblog), NPR, ACSblog, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and ABC News all have previews of today’s argument in Whiting. Many accounts emphasize the “unusual alliance” (WSJ) between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and liberal civil rights groups in the case.

The Court heard oral argument yesterday in two cases — Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, a securities fraud case, and Thompson v. North American Stainless, a Title VII retaliation case — each drawing its fair share of headlines. Recaps of the Janus argument agreed that the Justices appeared divided on the result. Bloomberg, Dow Jones Newswires (via the Wall Street Journal), Barron’s, and JURIST have coverage of the Janus argument. The Thompson argument — which, according to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, was “rapidly awash in hypotheticals” — is covered by NPR, the Washington Post (also here), the Associated Press (via the Washington Post), and PBS NewsHour.

Briefly:

• SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston offers a substantial primer to eight Guantanamo cases that have arrived at the Court recently.

• At AOL Politics Daily, Joanne Bamberger reacts to Monday’s cert. grant in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, writing that “there’s no question that having three women on the Supreme Court for the first time ever will play a significant role in the behind-the-scenes judicial discussions that take place on the Wal-Mart case.”

• The WSJ Law Blog highlights a recent story in the ABA Journal on the limited impact of the Court’s Second Amendment rulings, District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. The ABA Journal reports that “[w]hile there have been challenges throughout the country to local, state and federal gun laws, few have been successful.”

• In an opinion piece for the L.A. Times, Tim Rutten examines the virtues of “cameras in the courtroom,” using Monday’s televised Ninth Circuit argument in Perry v. Schwarzenegger as the primary example. Rutten writes, “What C-SPAN’s broadcast of Monday’s hearing in San Francisco made clear to anyone watching was both the high seriousness of the three judges hearing the case and the nonpartisan quality of their inquiries of the litigants’ attorneys.” (The WSJ Law Blog also features Rutten’s piece.)

• And finally, at PrawfsBlawg, Bill Araiza writes on two World War II allusions in recent Supreme Court opinions.