Monday round-up

On Friday, a group of Democratic-led states and the House of Representatives asked the Supreme Court to grant expedited review of a lower-court decision striking down part of the Affordable Care Act. Amy Howe has this blog’s coverage, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court. Mark Sherman reports for AP that the coalition of states “asked the Supreme Court for a fast-track review of a recent court ruling that declared part of the statute unconstitutional and cast a cloud over the rest.” Margot Sanger-Katz writes for The New York Times that the case has “the potential to wipe away the entire Affordable Care Act.” For The Washington Post (subscription required), Amy Goldstein and Robert Barnes report that “[i]n asking the Supreme Court to take the case this term, the coalition, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), emphasized the uncertainty for patients and the health-care industry alike.”

Briefly:

• At CNN, Ariane de Vogue reports that “[t]he four liberal justices of the Supreme Court are steeling themselves for a momentous spring as the reality settles in that the left flank of the bench could remain at least one critical vote shy of a majority in ideologically driven cases for decades.”
• At The Advocate of Baton Rouge (via How Appealing), Elizabeth Crisp reports that “Louisiana is set to play a major role in the abortion debate when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up challenges to a 2014 state law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.”
• At The Ginsburg Tapes (podcast), Lauren Moxley analyzes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 1976 oral argument in Califano v. Goldfarb, a case brought by a widower who “was denied benefits available to sole surviving spouses that he would have obtained if their gender-roles were reversed.”
• At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost observes that in using a year-end report on the federal judiciary to deplore “the disinformation and dystopia that spreads virally on the Internet these days,” Chief Justice John Roberts could have “made a real contribution by putting in a word or two for the free press.”
• In the latest episode of Amicus (podcast), “Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern to discuss Chief Justice John Roberts’ New Year’s resolutions on the judiciary, impeachment, and this Supreme Court term.”

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