Tuesday round-up

By Kiran Bhat
on Aug 28, 2012 at 9:37 am

As the presidential election draws closer and the Republican National Convention begins, the media’s focus has returned to the Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, in which the Court held that political spending by corporations and unions is a form of speech protected under the First Amendment. Jason Horowitz of The Washington Post reports that although some super PACs have brought in “hundreds of millions of dollars” since the Court’s 2010 decision, Citizens United itself “has experienced no such deluge of funds.”  And Stephen Engelberg and Kim Barker of ProPublica (via the Huffington Post) focus on (and dispute) the portion of the Court’s decision in which the majority asserts that information about the identities of political donors will be readily available.

Briefly:

• At Concurring Opinions, Ronald K.L. Collins (also of this blog) reviews a new book on the Office of the Solicitor General, describing it as having the potential to “be a ‘must-read’ book for lawyers who litigate before and scholars who study the work of the Supreme Court.”
• Looking ahead to oral arguments in Fisher v. University of  Texas at Austin, Kenneth Jost of Jost on Justice discusses the significance of the Freedman’s Bureau, an organization “set up to provide special aid to newly freed slaves,” in interpreting the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• In his column for law students, Stephen Wermiel describes what happens at One First Street during the summer months, including the process by which the Court sorts through thousands of cert. petitions.
• As Lyle reported on Friday (and Marissa covered in yesterday’s round-up), last week challengers to Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage, filed their brief opposing review of the lower court’s decision in the case.  Dan Taglioli of JURIST has coverage.
• Nicole Flatow of ACSblog reports on the effects of the Court’s 2011 decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, holding that California must enforce arbitration agreements requiring that consumer complaints to be arbitrated individually instead of on a class-action basis.