Tuesday round-up
on Feb 14, 2012 at 8:46 am
Monday’s coverage of the Court continues to focus on Perry v. Brown, last week’s Ninth Circuit decision invalidating California’s ban on same-sex marriage (Proposition 8), as Marissa reported yesterday. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Dale Carpenter assesses Perry’s prospects in front of the Court, concluding that “what potentially dooms Proposition 8 as it nears the Supreme Court is not necessarily the distinct whiff of prejudice but a lingering impression of incoherence.” And at Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost notes that although “[a]ll eyes will be on Kennedy if the Prop 8 case reaches the Supreme Court,” “they should also be focused on Roberts to see whether he tries to lead the court to adopt or resist the logic of the ruling and the growing acceptance of gay marriage in the public at large.”
In related news, Joe Palazzolo of the WSJ Law Blog reports on comments by Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who indicated that he would “try to overturn” any Court ruling establishing a constitutional right to marriage for gays and lesbians. And at the Washington Post, Ben Pershing reports on calls from members of Congress to “get around decisions they dislike or simply go over the justices’ heads by rewriting the Constitution.”
Elsewhere, coverage also turned to the Justices themselves, and in particular the news that Justice Breyer, his wife, and their guests were robbed in the Breyers’ West Indies vacation home by an intruder wielding a machete. No one was hurt. Lyle Denniston of this blog has coverage, as do the St. Kitt’s Nevis Observer, James Vicini of Reuters, Nina Totenberg of NPR, Bill Mears of CNN, and the Associated Press. The Chicago Tribune reports on Justice Scalia’s visit to the University of Chicago on Monday. And at Salon, Irin Carmon recounts the details of the case that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “wishes had established the abortion right instead of Roe v. Wade.”
Briefly:
- Lyle Denniston of this blog reports on a “significant feud” over statements made by the Solicitor General’s office in its brief in the 2009 case Nken v. Holder.
- The editorial board of the New York Times editorial board urges Justice Kennedy to decline to stay the recent decision by the Montana Supreme Court upholding the state’s ban on independent corporate expenditures.
- The editorial board of the New York Daily News weighs in in favor of televising the oral arguments in the upcoming healthcare litigation.
