Monday round-up

By Marissa Miller
on May 21, 2012 at 9:32 am

This weekend’s coverage of the Court focused on the news that the D.C. Circuit on Friday rejected a challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, setting up the possibility that the Court could review the issue next Term.  David McLaughlin of Bloomberg News, Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, Pete Yost of the Associated Press, the Christian Science Monitor’s Warren Richey, Marcia Coyle of the BLT, and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog’s Joe Palazzolo all report on the decision.

The Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence also continues to make news.  In the Washington Post, Robert Barnes discusses amicus briefs filed on both sides in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, the challenge to a decision by the Montana Supreme Court upholding that state’s prohibition on independent corporate campaign expenditures.  At the Huffington Post,  Mike Sacks focuses primarily on the amicus brief filed by Senators John McCain and Sheldon Whitehouse, who urge the Court to deny review, while Matt Gouras of the Associated Press has coverage of an amicus brief submitted by twenty-two states and the District of Columbia in support of Montana.

Briefly:

• In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Doyle McManus discusses the possibility that a decision by the Court striking down the Affordable Care Act could be turned into a political victory for President Obama. And at Forbes, Avik Roy reviews how Congressional Republicans could respond to the Court’s ruling.
• In light of the President’s recent comments on gay marriage, Michael Kirkland of UPIreviews the current challenges to gay marriage and how the Court might rule on them, while at the San Francisco Chronicle Bob Egelko considers what position the federal government might take if the Court does review the challenge to Proposition 8, which amended California’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.  (Note:  The author of this post is currently a summer associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, one of the law firms representing the challengers to Proposition 8.)
• David Savage of the Los Angeles Times discusses two cert. petitions before the Court involving constitutional challenges to anti-terrorism laws – the first on wiretapping, the second on Guantanamo.