Tuesday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Jan 14, 2014 at 8:45 am

Coverage of the Court was dominated by yesterday’s oral arguments in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, the challenge to the president’s recess appointments to the NLRB.  Although we likely won’t get the Court’s opinion in the case for some time, nearly all journalists and commentators at some point used the word “skeptical” to describe the Court’s view of the federal government’s arguments.  Lyle reported on the oral argument for this blog, and I did the same in Plain English.  Other coverage comes from Nina Totenberg of NPR, Pete Williams and Carrie Dann of NBC News, Adam Liptak of The New York Times, Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, Sahil Kapur at Talking Points Memo (who also has posts focusing on comments by Justices Scalia and Sotomayor at the oral argument), and Cynthia Miley at JURIST,   Commentary and analysis come from Ilya Shapiro at Cato at Liberty, who predicts that, although “ it’s unclear how exactly the Supreme Court will write its opinion in this case and where its focus will lie, it’ll be a real shock if the government wins this case,” Nicholas Alexiou at ACSblog, and Harold P. Coxson at the Ogletree Deakins blog.  Still more commentary on the historical background and sources in the case comes from Carl Cecere, writing for this blog and at The Huffington Post. 

Before oral arguments yesterday, the Court issued additional orders from its January 10 Conference.  Lyle Denniston reported on the orders for this blog.  At the Maryland Appellate Blog, Steve Klepper discusses the Court’s call for the views of the Solicitor General in the tax case Comptroller v. Wynne,  while Addison Morris and Cynthia Miley of JURIST report on the denial of cert. in the Arizona abortion case Horne v. Isaacson and  the immunity case Samantar v. Yousuf, respectively.  And at his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen discusses Friday’s grant in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, predicting that the Court will “reverse the Sixth Circuit, perhaps unanimously, and I think that’s the right result. Getting a probable cause determination against someone at the Ohio Elections Commission is a real injury which has serious political consequences.”

Briefly:

• At the National Review, Matt Bowman responds to posts by Marty Lederman on the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.