Tuesday round-up

Because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, the Supreme Court has postponed the oral argument session that was scheduled to begin on Monday, March 23. Amy Howe covers the announcement for this blog, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court. At The Hill, John Kruzel reports that “[t]he postponement affects six days of oral arguments slated for late March and April 1, including a March 31 dispute involving efforts by House Democrats and New York state prosecutors to obtain years of Trump’s financial records and tax returns.” Josh Gerstein reports at Politico that “[t]he court’s statement announcing the delay cited historical precedents for the action, but had to reach back more than a century to find them.” According to Adam Liptak for The New York Times, “[t]here appears to be no reason aside from longstanding custom that the court could not decide all of the remaining cases without oral arguments, relying only on written submissions.”

Briefly:

• At the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (subscription required), Daniel Cotter observes that the court’s recent order reviving the administration’s “remain in Mexico” immigration policy demonstrates that “[t]he rule of law in the Trump administration and the court’s role in shaping our nation continue to be the focus — and we are not even at the end of this year’s Supreme Court term.”
• At Jurist, John Bursch argues that “if a majority of the justices take a textualist approach” in R.G.. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which the court will decide whether federal employment discrimination law bars discrimination against transgender people, “Title VII should mean that an employer cannot treat women worse than men because they are women, or vice versa,” but “those who hope the high court will rewrite Title VII have twisted textualism and argued that a textualist approach yields the opposite result.” [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is counsel on an amicus brief in support of respondent Stephens in this case.]
• In an op-ed for The Hill, Ethan Blevins urges the court to review Elster v. City of Seattle, Washington, a First Amendment challenge to “Seattle’s ‘democracy vouchers’ campaign finance scheme,” and “answer important questions about government power to force taxpayers to sponsor ideas they oppose.”

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