Tuesday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Jun 28, 2016 at 7:30 am

Yesterday the Court issued decisions in three cases.  In Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, it struck down two provisions of a Texas law regulating abortions.  Molly Runkle rounded up early coverage for this blog, with other coverage coming from NPR’s Nina Totenberg, Erik Eckholm of The New York Times, and Howard Fischer for the Arizona Capitol Times, who focuses on the ruling’s effect in that state.  Coverage focused on the decision and the 2016 presidential campaign comes from Alan Rappeport of The New York Times, Nolan McCaskill and Nick Gass of Politico,and Sarah Ferris of The Hill, while Amber Phillips of The Washington Post interviews Texas state senator Wendy Davis, who filibustered the law for eleven hours in 2013.

Commentary comes from Linda Greenhouse for The New York Times, Jane Schacter, Hank Greely, and Michelle Mello at Legal Aggregate, Cecelia Boone in The Dallas Morning News, Scott Lemieux at Democracy, and Garrett Epps of The Atlantic.

Molly also rounded commentary on and coverage of yesterday’s other two decisions for this blog.  In Voisine v. United States, the Court ruled that a domestic-violence conviction is a misdemeanor crime of violence for purposes of limiting access to firearms.  Commentary comes from Laurel Raymond at ThinkProgress,

And in McDonnell v. United States, the Court struck down the federal corruption convictions of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell. Coverage comes from Eric Lipton and Benjamin Weiser, who in The New York Times report on the ruling’s possible effect on other convictions, and Jenna Portnoy of The Washington Post.  Commentary comes from Ellen Podgor at White Collar Crime Prof Blog.

Commentary on last week’s decision in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, holding that the race-conscious admissions policy in use when Abigail Fisher applied (unsuccessfully) to the university does not violate the Constitution, comes from Connie de la Vega at Human Rights at Home Blog, Alan Morrison at The George Washington Law Review’s On the Docket, and William Goren, who at his own blog discusses the decision’s significance for people with disabilities.

Coverage of the four-four tie in United States v. Texas, the challenge to the Obama administration’s deferred-action policy for certain undocumented immigrants, comes from Fernanda Santos and Jennifer Medina, who focus on the ruling’s effect on immigrants for The New York Times. Commentary comes from Anil Kalhan at Dorf on Law, Jeff Chang at Slate, and Pratheepan Gulasekaram and Karthick Ramakrishnan at The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage.

Lawrence Hurley of Reuters looks more broadly at the Term and how President Barack Obama’s agenda fared at the Court.  And at Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost concludes that  a Term “that began with high hopes among conservatives and high anxiety among liberals has ended with stunning victories for progressives on abortion rights and affirmative action and no major outright wins for conservatives.”  At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro looks at the records of Cato and the federal government at the Court this Term, while Adam Feldman takes a statistical approach to the Term at Empirical SCOTUS.

Briefly:

• Josh Gerstein of Politico reports on yesterday’s announcement that the Court will review a challenge to North Carolina’s congressional redistricting.
• At The George Washington Law Review’s On the Docket, Edward George weighs in on the Court’s recent decision in Utah v. Strieff and its implications for privacy.
• Commentary on the Court’s recent ruling in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee comes from Joseph Palys (and others) at The George Washington Law Review’s On the Docket.
• At On Labor, Catherine Fisk discusses the Court’s recent decision in Encino Motorcars v. Navarro, concluding that there “are good reasons to conclude that service advisors should be paid overtime.”
• In The Washington Post, Ann Marimow reports that “[h]undreds if not thousands of federal prisoners are likely to have their sentences shortened — and in some cases get immediate release — due to one of the final opinions written by Justice Antonin Scalia.”

Remember, we rely exclusively on our readers to send us links for our 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.