Monday round-up

EDITH ROBERTS SEP 12, 2016 9:45 AM

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to intervene to block a lower court order barring Michigan’s attempt to eliminate straight-ticket voting. Amy Howe covered the decision for this blog. Additional coverage comes from Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, who calls the decision “another sign that it will be difficult for those bringing election controversies to the court in advance of November to prevail,” from Nina Totenberg, who observes at NPR that “the court has consistently followed the practice of refusing to intervene in election disputes so close to the November ballot,” from Adam Liptak at The New York Times, and from Paul Egan and Todd Spangler at The Detroit Free Press. Commentary comes from Rick Hasen, who at his Election Law Blog notes that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito recorded their dissent from the ruling and posits that these two Justices “have become more assertive in expressing their views since the February death of Justice Scalia,” dividing the Court into “three ideological camps.”

Briefly:

• In The Washington Post, James Hohmann remarks on “what relative non-issues the Supreme Court generally and Garland specifically have been in the 2016 campaign, despite Democrats talking a big game in the spring.”
• At his eponymous blog, Lyle Denniston reports on Friday’s ruling by a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that temporarily blocked “a demand in three states — but enforced only in one (Kansas) — that voters seeking to cast ballots for the presidency or Congress must show documents proving they are U.S. citizens.” Rick Hasen at his Election Law Blog remarks that the ruling “shows that once again, with an 8-Justice deadlocked SCOTUS, the federal courts of appeal are in charge.”
• Adam Feldman at Empirical SCOTUS examines the backgrounds of Supreme Court nominees over time, noting that while “there is a formula of attributes that is almost required of a Supreme Court nominee,” “some of these ‘requirements’ seem to be softening.”
• For Law.com (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro reports on comments made by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan at the tail end of the Court’s summer recess.

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.

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