Wednesday round-up

In The Washington Post, Sari Horwitz reports that [i]n acourt filingMonday, Justice [Department] attorneys took the opposite position from the Obama administration in a case that involved the states removal of thousands of inactive voters from the Ohio voting rolls and that the department is now arguing that the purges of voters are legal under federal law; she notes that [t]his brief, unlike the prior one, wasnot signedby career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division. Additional coverage of DOJs course-reversal comes from Charlie Savage in The New York Times, Jessica Wehrman at The Columbus Dispatch, Jane Timm at NBC News, Debra Cassens Weiss at the ABA Journal and Sam Levine at the Huffington Post. At the Election Law Blog, Justin Levitt observes that its quite rare for the DOJ to change course after a filing a brief in the court of appeals: the Solicitor Generals office is often called the Tenth Justice, in part because while reversals happen, theres a thumb on the scale to treat DOJ filings with some internal quasi-precedential weight. At Slate, Mark Joseph Stern argues that [t]he departments political appointees are transforming [a federal law regulating voter-roll upkeep] into a disenfranchisement device.

Briefly:

• At Empirical SCOTUS, Adam Feldman examines the Supreme Courts recent decisions in cases involving constitutional challenges to state and federal laws, concluding that [w]ith Justice Gorsuch, the Court now has what looks to be another clear left-right split that may lead to more closely divided decisions in such cases.
• In Bloomberg BNAs Bench Brackets video, Kimberly Robinson and Patrick Gregory break down last terms highest highs and lowest lows.
• Counting to 5 (podcast) features a look at how the upcoming October 2017 Supreme Court term is shaping up.
• In an op-ed in USA Today, Tony Mauro suggests that the Trump administration and Congress could learn from the Supreme Courts tradition of civility and mutual respect; he adds that allowing cameras in the courtroom would give the public a view of a functioning branch of government.

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