Monday round-up

This weekends coverage of the Court focused on some of the Term’s upcoming cases, as well as a handful of cert. petitions that are now before the Justices.NPR‘s Nina Totenberg reports on the role that the President’s views will play inHollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to the constitutionality of Californias Proposition 8; she explains that although the President “is expected to make the final decision on what arguments the Justice Department will make,” “there are numerous legal routes that the government can take.” At TheWashington Post, Robert Barnes previewsBowman v. Monsanto Co., scheduled for argument next week; he describes the case as one that “raises questions about whether the right to patent living things extends to their progeny, and how companies that engage in cutting-edge research can recoup their investments.” And Amanda Becker ofCQ Weekly(h/t Howard Bashman) describes the origins of the challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,Shelby County v. Holder, which will be argued at the end of the month. Finally, a handful of articles focused on cert. petitions that are currently before the Court.Michael Kirkland ofUPIreports on Village of Palatine v. Senne, a challenge to the inclusion of personal information on parking tickets. And atPro Publica, Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses the prospect that the Court could strike down the use of the “disparate impact” standard to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act;NPR interviewed Hannah-Jones about the story and the issue.

Briefly:

• Susan Page of USA Today considers (among other things) how some of the President’s rhetoric at the State of the Union address tomorrow may be aimed at Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is likely to be a swing vote in the upcoming challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8.
• Greg Moran of theSan Diego Union-Tribunereports that on Friday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she indicated that she would not retire from the Court as long as she could do the job “full steam.”
• At theChicago Tribune, Mary Sanchez praises Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s new memoir,My Beloved World, as “an unflinchingly honest portrayal of what it is like to be a person gifted with intelligence who could have so easily been undermined by poor schooling and the inability to navigate upward through class levels and cultural differences.”
• Forbes‘s Gene Connors reports that employers are confronting enormous uncertainty in the wake of the Court’s refusal (at least for now) to weigh in on the constitutionality of the President’s recess appointments to the NLRB.
• Joe Palazzolo of theWall Street Journal Law Bloghas coverage of thepublic conflict between court stenographers and a digital recording company stemming from Justice Clarence Thomas’s recent comment at oral arguments.
• Daniel Wiessner of Reuters reports that a New York strip club plans to seek the Courts review of a decision that the club does notqualify for a state tax exemption that applies to dramatic or musical arts performances.
• At this blog,Lyle Dennistonexplains the voting rights case, Shelby Countyv. Holder, in nonlegal terms, whileLou Virelliexplores the intersection of Supreme Court recusal and the separation of powers.