Monday round-up

On what would have been the first day of oral argument in the March session, court-watchers are focused instead on how the Supreme Court is adapting to the current public-health emergency. Steven Mazie reports at The Economist’s Espresso blog that “[w]ith no date set for hearings to resume and the pandemic worsening, the term’s final nine engagements—still on the calendar for late April—are also in question.” Kenneth Jost observes at Jost on Justice that “[o]ther federal appellate courts have conducted oral arguments remotely over the past two weeks; the Supreme Court should follow suit and, in the process, recognize the need to give the public greater access to their proceedings.” In an op-ed at The Hill, Jonathan Turley argues that “[t]his crisis should force the Supreme Court, albeit kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.”

Briefly:

• At Axios, Margaret Talev interviews Justice Steven Breyer, who “urged Americans to re-engage in civics and vote — and not to expect the judiciary to resolve political questions.”
• In the latest episode of the Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast, Elizabeth Slattery and Tiffany Bates “talk about how courts are practicing social distancing and what may happen with the delayed SCOTUS cases.”
• At Constitution Daily, Jackie McDermott offers highlights of conversations among advocates on both sides of two high-profile cases from the February sitting: June Medical Services v. Russo, involving Louisiana’s law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, and Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a constitutional challenge to the structure of the CFPB.
• At The Atlantic, Richard Cordray suggests that in Seila Law, “though the argument offered a muddle of different approaches, the Court is likely to issue a ruling that is fairly limited as a practical matter.”
• At The Virginia Law Review Online, John Vlahoplus weighs in on Colorado Department of State v. Baca, which asks whether the Constitution forbids a state from requiring its presidential electors to follow the state’s popular vote when casting their electoral college ballots, arguing that the “Supreme Court should reject the Tenth Circuit’s reasoning and its conclusion that the state’s power ends with the appointment of Electors,” and “should develop a coherent theory of the relationship of the people, the states, and the federal government in the presidential electoral process.”
• At the ACS Blog, Sara Totonchi urges the court to review Raulerson v. Warden, a challenge to Georgia’s requirement that capital defendants prove their intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt, “and bring Georgia into compliance with the Constitution.”

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