Tuesday round-up

AMY HOWE SEP 2, 2014 8:08 AM

With the calendar having turned to September, the Justices’ first private Conference is now less than a month away.  As Lyle Denniston reported for this blog on Friday, one of the issues that the Justices will soon consider is whether to take up, once again, one or more challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage.  Writing for USA Today, Richard Wolf summarizes the state of play and handicaps the different challenges, while Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed surveys the various cases and concludes that “a lot of lawyers are in on this — and they all want to be the ones who get to say their case was the one the ended the marriage bans across the nation.”

Other coverage of the Court focuses on cases that are already slated for review in the upcoming Term.  In USA Today, Richard Wolf previews Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama and Alabama Legislative Black Conference v. Alabama, the pair of consolidated cases in which the Justices will consider the constitutionality of Alabama’s new redistricting plan for its state legislature.  And in The Washington Post, Robert Barnes previews Holt v. Hobbs, in which the Court will consider whether an Arkansas prison policy that allows prisoners to have beards only for medical reasons, and only if the beard is a quarter-inch long or shorter, violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

Briefly:

• Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports on the ongoing litigation over the availability of tax subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, noting that if the en banc D.C. Circuit were to decline to rehear the three-judge panel decision in favor of the challengers, it “would leave appeals courts in disagreement on the issue, all but guaranteeing a new Supreme Court showdown and returning the president’s landmark initiative to the legal jeopardy it escaped in 2012.”
• At Greenwire, Jeremy P. Jacobs reviews the recent track record of the Environmental Protection Agency in water cases at the Court – where, he notes, “[t]he agency hasn’t won a case broadening its regulatory authority since 1985.”
•  In The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports on the Justices’ reliance on facts from amicus briefs, observing that although some amicus briefs are “careful and valuable . . . , citing peer-reviewed studies and noting contrary evidence,” “[o]thers cite more questionable materials.”

[Disclosure:  Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among counsel to the petitioners in the Alabama Democratic Conference case.  However, I am not affiliated with the firm.   And John Elwood, a frequent contributor to this blog, is among the counsel to the petitioner in Holt v. Hobbs.]

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