Thursday round-up

Yesterday’s coverage focused on some of the amicus briefs filed recently in the same-sex marriage cases. Mollie Reilly of TheHuffington Postreports on the brief filed by the Westboro Baptist Church “in support of neither party” but suggesting reversal inHollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, while Scottie Thomaston ofEquality on Trialcovers the National Organization for Marriage’s brief inUnited States v. Windsor, the challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Coverage of Justice Sotomayor’s memoir, My Beloved World, also continues. Nina Totenberg ofNPRreports on the book’s strong sales, while Caryn Rousseau of the Associated Press (viaNBC Chicago)reports on Justice Sotomayor’s talk yesterday at the Chicago Public Library as part of her book tour.

Briefly:

• At Forbes, Rich Samp discusses the amicus brief that the federal government filed recently inMutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, arguing that the briefs only apparent purpose was to help lawyers filing tort suits to draft complaints that could withstand preemption claims.
• At Reuters, Alison Frankel reports on the Justice Department’s brief opposing cert. inDanielczyk v. United States, a challenge to the ban on direct corporate campaign spending in the Federal Campaign Finance Act.
• Paul Bland of Public Justice, writing at theConsumer Law and Policy Blog, describesAmerican Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, in which the Court will consider whether the Federal Arbitration Act permits courts to invalidate arbitration agreements if they do not permit class arbitration of federal-law claims, as “the most important consumer case involving a challenge to an arbitration clause sinceAT&T v. Concepcion.”