Wednesday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Feb 5, 2014 at 7:59 am

Last week was the deadline to file amicus briefs on both sides of the challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.  At Mirror of Justice (which is celebrating its tenth anniversary), Rick Garnett responds to an earlier post by Michael Perry about an amicus brief filed by a group of legal scholars in support of  the government by countering that another brief, “which takes the position that a RFRA-mandated accommodation does not violate the Establishment Clause, has the better of the argument.”  And at Slate, David Gans argues that, “[a]part from a few isolated briefs from companies just like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, the U.S. business community offered no support for the claim that secular, for-profit corporations are persons that can exercise religion.”

Briefly:

• At The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog, Jess Bravin reports on a recent law review article by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who weighs in on drone strikes against U.S. citizens overseas and argues that  “the decision-making process may fall short of standards established by a series of Supreme Court decisions since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”