Friday round-up

Last night the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the more liberal justices, blocked a Louisiana law that would require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals from going into effect pending appeal. Amy Howe has this blog’s coverage, which first appeared at Howe on the Court. For The Wall Street Journal, Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin report that “[b]y staying the effect of the lower-court ruling, the justices likely committed themselves to giving a full review of the Louisiana case during their next term, which begins in October.” Adam Liptak reports for The New York Times that “[o]nly Justice Kavanaugh published a dissent, taking a middle position that acknowledged the key precedent and said he would have preferred more information on the precise effect of the law.” At his eponymous blog, Michael Dorf argues that “[n]o justice who was committed to overruling the Court’s abortion jurisprudence has ever voted to block an abortion law from going into effect,” so Roberts’ decision to vote in favor of the stay suggests “that he is at least in a go-slow mode.”

The justices also voted 5-4 yesterday to lift a lower-court order that had blocked the execution of a Muslim inmate in Alabama who had challenged the state’s refusal to allow an imam to attend his execution when it would have allowed a Christian chaplain to be present. This blog’s coverage, which first appeared at Howe on the Court, comes from Amy Howe. Ivana Hrynkiw reports for AL.com that the inmate, Domineque Ray, was executed last night.

Briefly:

• At the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice & Comment blog, James Conde weighs in on PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic Inc., which asks whether the Hobbs Act, a jurisdictional-channeling statute, requires courts to accept the Federal Communications Commission’s interpretation of a statute allowing recipients of “junk faxes” to sue the senders for damages; he contends that “the Fourth Circuit’s unusual interpretation of the Hobbs Act in PDR raises serious constitutional concerns.”

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