Attorney Pete Patterson’s latest post on birthright citizenship repeats the biggest mistakes of his original post and also makes some new mistakes, chasing irrelevances and mangling the key legal issues. Today we will briefly highlight some of the biggest flaws of Patterson’s latest essay. If Patterson would like to continue the conversation, we hereby invite him to do so as a future guest on Akhil’s podcast.

Next week’s argument in Jules v Andre Balazs Properties considers a technical question about the jurisdiction of federal courts to enforce an arbitration award. It is the immediate successor of a case from 2022, Badgerow v Walters, which held that federal courts do not have jurisdiction based on the Federal Arbitration Act to grant that relief. The question here is whether a federal court that has a pending case over which it had jurisdiction to compel arbitration can use that jurisdiction to entertain a motion to confirm the arbitration award.

Yesterday’s argument in Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction displayed a bench almost uniformly skeptical of a lower court’s absolute standard for responding to the failure of a debtor in bankruptcy to mention one of its assets to that court.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Monday in Abouammo v. United States, in which it will consider whether federal prosecutors can try a defendant not only in the district where the offense actually occurred, but also in the district where the crime’s “contemplated effects” are felt.

Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives.

What has the Supreme Court said about requirements for proof of identification for voting and – given this – what would be the likely fate of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act if it were enacted?

The SAVE Act is a proposed law that would require individuals to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo identification at the time of voting. It would further require voters submitting absentee mail ballots to provide a photocopy of their I.D. The act also would require states to frequently review voter rolls and remove any noncitizens. And it would mandate that states share voter registration data with the federal government, which many states have refused to do. The act would create personal criminal liability for election officials who violate the law.