Tuesday round-up
on Feb 24, 2015 at 7:13 am
The Court returned for the February sitting yesterday, hearing arguments first in Kerry v. Din, in which the Court is considering whether a U.S. citizen has a right to judicial review of a consular officer’s denial of her husband’s visa application. Coverage comes from Nina Totenberg of NPR. Yesterday’s second case was Coleman v. Tollefson, in which the Court is considering when a prisoner’s lawsuit becomes a “strike” for purposes of the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s “three strikes” provision. Steve Vladeck covered the argument for this blog. At ISCOTUSnow, Edward Lee predicts the winners of both of yesterday’s cases based on the number of questions at oral argument.
Next week’s oral arguments in King v. Burwell, in which the Court will consider whether tax subsidies are available to individuals who purchase their health insurance on an exchange established by the federal government, continue to spur coverage and commentary. I published my Plain English preview of the case yesterday at this blog, while in his Sidebar column for The New York Times Adam Liptak looks at the standing issue in the case and Kent Scheidegger does the same at Crime and Consequences. At ACSblog, Timothy Jost discusses his new article with Jim Engstrand in which they argue that over fifty “other provisions of the ACA . . . become anomalous, if not absurd, if the words ‘established by the State’ are read to exclude FFEs.” At The Incidental Economist, Nicholas Bagley agrees that “Jost and Engstrand are on exactly the right track: they’re building a statutory case, premised on the text of the ACA as a whole, in favor of the government’s interpretation.” At Slate, Ian Millhiser cites the case to illustrate his argument that “there are early signs that the Supreme Court’s present members may be willing to repeat the sins of the past, arbitrarily ignoring both the text of the law and their own previous decisions in service of a political agenda.”
At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the amicus brief that Cato filed in O’Keefe v. Chisholm, in which the Court has been asked to weigh in on the power of federal courts to address claims of First Amendment retaliation by state officials. In the Wisconsin Reporter, M.D. Kittle also reports on the case and the amicus briefs.
Briefly:
- Writing for the Supreme Court Brief (subscription required), Tony Mauro looks at some of the questions raised by the case of Howard Shipley, who last week filed his response to the Court’s order to show cause why he should not be sanctioned, presumably for his role in filing a cert. petition that was denied in early December.
- At the Ogletree Deakins blog, Hera Arsen discusses Young v. United Parcel Service, in which the Court is considering the scope of an employer’s duty to provide light duty to pregnant employees, and what it might mean for other light-duty policies.
- Erin Fuchs of Business Insider previews Wednesday’s oral argument in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, in which the Court will consider whether the retailer discriminated against a Muslim teenager when it refused to hire her because she wore a headscarf.
- At Vice Sports, Ryan Rodenberg discusses a link between the use of Adderall by professional baseball players and Justice Antonin Scalia.
- At the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty Blog, Wen Fa discusses the amicus brief that the Pacific Legal Foundation filed “supporting the ACLU in Rosebrock v. Hoffman, a free speech case that is even more interesting for what it could say about the government’s promises to stop behaving badly.”
A friendly reminder: We rely on our readers to send us links for the round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, or op-ed relating to the Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com.
