Thursday round-up

For The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports that, [s]aying theopioid crisisrequires bold measures, the state of Arizona filedan audacious lawsuitin the Supreme Court on Wednesday asking the justices to order members of the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, to return what the state said were billions of dollars looted from the company. Ariane de Vogue reports for CNN that [l]egal experts say such a filing made directly with the Supreme Court is unusual, because the justices don’t like to be deprived of a lower court’s consideration of the issue. Additional coverage comes from Anita Snow and Geoff Mulvihill at AP and from Howard Fischer at Capitol Media Services (via the Arizona Capitol Times).

Briefly:

• Jordain Carney reports at The Hill that Senate Democrats introduced a constitutional amendment on Tuesday to undo the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision: The amendment would let Congress and states set rules on spending and money in elections.
• In an op-ed for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse writes that [w]hats most troubling about last weeks order allowing the government to spend Pentagon money to construct part of the border wall is that even if five justices found the administrations argument attractive or even compelling, the courts unconditional surrender (even issuing the stay on the precise date the administration requested, July 26, and not a day later) was simply unnecessary.
• At Justias Verdict blog, Vikram David Amar notes that August 3 marks Stephen Breyers completion of 25 years of service as a justice.
• In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Patt Morrison discusses a cert petition that asks for review of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals [telling] Boise that its unconstitutional to stop the homeless from sleeping in public spaces if theres not enough shelter available for them.
• At his eponymous blog, Michael Dorf identifies one likely long-term phenomenon on Roberts Court Version 8 (or possibly successive versions) that our current politics is masking: [F]or now, the politics of support for a Republican administration tempers the conservatives’ hostility to the administrative state.It wont always.
• At The Fires First Amendment News blog, Ronald Collins highlights two First Amendment cert petitions to watch next term.

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