Monday round-up
The Supreme Court’s decision not to weigh in on challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage continues to spur coverage and commentary. In the ABA Journal, Debra Cassens Weiss summarizes a recent interview with President Barack Obama, who – among other things – described the Court’s denial of review as the Court’s best decision during his time in office. But at Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost cites the case of a Texas widow denied federal Social Security benefits because the state does not recognize her marriage as “prov[ing] the need for the court to act — sooner, not later.”
Briefly:
- At the Blog of Legal Times, Tony Mauro reports on a recent appearance by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor at their alma mater, Yale Law School.
- In USA Today, Richard Wolf previews next week’s oral argument in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of a federal statute that directs the State Department, upon request, to record the birthplace of a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem as “Israel” on his passport.
- In his column for The Atlantic, Garrett Epps discusses Chief Justice John Roberts and his views on racial discrimination in the context of the Court’s recent order allowing Texas to implement its voter identification law, arguing that a “justice who truly abhors official racism should be agonized at the prospect of allowing a state to run an election if there is even a chance that it has chosen to discriminate in the right to vote.”
- At ACSblog, Jason Steed continues his series on term limits at the Court with two more posts that cover the possible logistics behind such limits (here) and what the Court might have looked like if term limits had been imposed in the past (here).
- At Re’s Judicata, Richard Re discusses the Court’s recent cert. denial in Jones v. United States, in which the Court had been asked to consider whether criminal sentences based in part on conduct alleged in counts on which the defendant has been acquitted, violates the Constitution.
- In a podcast at Oral Argument, Joe Miller and Christian Turner discuss Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Care Center, in which the Court will consider whether and when the Supremacy Clause gives Medicaid providers a private right of action to enforce a federal statute when Congress has created enforceable rights under that statute, with Steve Vladeck.
- In an op-ed for The National Law Journal, Rick Hasen outlines “four basic steps” that he believes the Court should take “to make its actions more transparent.”
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