Coverage continues of Wednesday’s oral arguments in Federal Aviation Administration v. Cooper and Setser v. United States. Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports on Cooper, in which the Court is considering whether the phrase “actual damages” in the Privacy Act of 1974 can include emotional distress that does not give rise to monetary losses. Liptak describes Justice Ginsburg as Cooper’s “most vocal ally” at oral argument, while Justice Scalia seemed to embrace the government’s narrower construction of the statutory text. JURIST’s John Paul Putney also covers both this argument and the argument in Setser, in which the Court is considering whether a federal court can require that a sentence be served consecutively to an as-yet-unimposed state sentence.
Today’s coverage also includes further discussion of the calls for Justices Thomas and Kagan to recuse themselves from litigation over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. James Oliphant of the Los Angeles Times summarizes the issues and concludes that, despite calls for recusal from interest groups on both sides, “[n]either side is likely to get its wish. . . . But that doesn’t mean either side won’t keep the pressure up.” And in an op-ed for the Washington Post, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) urges the Justice Department to cooperate with congressional inquiries and to “fully disclose any information about what role Kagan played in the review of the Affordable Care Act.”
At Reuters, James Vicini continues his coverage of the Texas Attorney General’s request for the Supreme Court to block the implementation of an interim redistricting plan for the state legislature with a report on yesterday’s filings by (among others) the Texas Democratic Party, which opposes the Attorney General’s request. Lyle Denniston at this blog also has coverage.
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