Thursday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Mar 13, 2014 at 8:08 am

In two separate posts at Balkinization, Marty Lederman continues his analysis of issues relating to the challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, which are scheduled for oral argument on March 25.  In his first post, he examines the reply brief filed this week by Conestoga Wood, the petitioner in the Third Circuit case; in his second, he discusses the relationship between SB 1062, the Arizona legislation that Governor Jan Brewer recently vetoed, and the ACA cases, arguing that the bill’s “primary effect . . . would have merely been to codify an understanding of Arizona’s religious liberty statute that Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, and their many amici . . . are arguing for in the Supreme Court with respect to the cognate federal statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”

In his column for Verdict, Michael Dorf discusses some of the First Amendment issues currently pending before the Court, while at his Dorf on Law blog he urges the Court to deny review in one of those First Amendment cases:  Elane Photography v. Willock, in which a family-owned photography studio is asking the Court to review whether it can be required to take photographs of a same-sex commitment ceremony, even if it would violate their First Amendment rights. 

Briefly:

• At the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Text and History Blog, Tom Donnelly describes the Center’s efforts to track the record of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the Court.