Friday round-up
There is still more commentary on Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the challenge to the requirement that public employees who decline to join the union that represents them nonetheless pay a fee to cover their share of the costs of collective bargaining. In The Economist, Steven Mazie continues his two-part series on the case with a look at the arguments by the union and California; other commentary comes from Robert Alt, who continues his series on the case, and Mark Pulliam at National Review’s Bench Memos.
Briefly:
- In The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro reports that, earlier this week, the Court “was asked Wednesday to overturn the federal law that prohibits expressive activity on its own marble plaza.”
- In her column for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse remembers and discusses the case of Joshua Braam – the “poor Joshua” of Justice Harry Blackmun’s dissent in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, who died last year at the age of thirty-six.
- In National Journal, Sam Baker previewed next week’s oral arguments in Bank Markazi v. Peterson, which he describes as “a case full of twists and ironies that will test the powers of Congress, the courts, and the Iranian regime’s refusal to cooperate with either one.”
- In The Economist, Steven Mazie weighs in on the recent actions by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who earlier this week “ordered probate judges in Alabama to abide by a 134-page ruling of the Alabama Supreme Court issued on March 3rd according to which ‘probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage licence contrary to the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or Alabama Marriage Protection Act’.”
- Yesterday the Center for American Progress hosted a “panel discussion on what is at stake at the Supreme Court this year and what we can expect in the coming months”; the video of that discussion is now available.
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