Tuesday round-up

For The Wall Street Journal, Natalie Andrews and Kristina Peterson report that “Republicans rallied around embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, vowing Monday to push his confirmation through the Senate even as a new allegation of sexual misconduct emerged days before a hearing on an earlier assault claim.” For The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Catie Edmondson report that Kavanaugh “mounted an aggressive defense of himself on Monday, vowing to fight the ‘smears’ and declaring that he will not withdraw his nomination.” At The National Law Journal (subscription or registration required), Tony Mauro and Marcia Coyle report that “[i]n a rare, if not unprecedented, television interview with a Supreme Court nominee, … Kavanaugh told Fox News on Monday night that none of his alleged sexual misconduct with women happened, and that all he wants is a ‘fair process’ when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.” Sean Sullivan and others report for The Washington Post that “[t]op Republican senators signaled an openness to the Senate Judiciary Committee voting on the nomination by the end of the week.” Commentary comes from Andrew Cohen at The New Republic and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal.

At CNN, Joan Biskupic charts the course of the Kavanaugh nomination. Tony Mauro reports at The National Law Journal that “[t]he uncertainty surrounding … Kavanaugh’s confirmation may already be affecting the court’s docket for the term that begins on Oct. 1,” noting that “[l]ast week, the court pulled several high-profile cases off the list that the justices were scheduled to consider [yesterday] at the court’s so-called long conference” and suggesting that “the prospect of an eight-member court in the short or long term [may be leading] the justices to shelve cases that might result in 4-4 ties.”

Briefly:

• At Howe on the Court, Amy Howe reports that during their long conference yesterday, the justices considered an “establishment clause challenge to a monument on public property – … the ‘Peace Cross,’ which was erected in 1925 in Bladensburg, Maryland—in the Washington, D.C., suburbs—to commemorate the 49 soldiers from Prince George’s County, Maryland who died in World War I.”
• At The National Law Review, Collin Udell and Nadine Abrahams survey the “cases significant to employers and businesses” on the Supreme Court’s docket for October Term 2018.
• Mark Walsh looks at Madison v. Alabama, an Eighth Amendment challenge to the execution a death-row inmate who has dementia and cannot remember his crime, for the ABA Journal.
• Also for the ABA Journal, Stephanie Francis Ward explains why Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “has emerged as an unlikely pop culture icon.”
• At the Federalist Society Review, Jim Campbell argues that “three decisions [from last term]—Masterpiece, NIFLA, and Janus—support the right of creative professionals to decline to create speech or artistic expression that violates their conscience.”
• In an op-ed for The New York Times, David Leonhardt warns that “[a]bsent some kind of course correction, the [Supreme C]ourt risks a crisis of legitimacy.”

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