A PERFECT PITCH CAN TELL HOW JUSTICES WILL RULE | Is New Tax Law Constitutional? | Kennedy Not Going Nowhere
December 22, 2017
PITCH PERFECT
|Steven Mazie writing for The Economist covers a new study that suggests we can guess how justices might vote in a case by the ways in which they raise or lower their voices during oral arguments. The study found that when justices question a lawyer at a higher-than-usual pitch, the lawyer’s side is likely to lose.
WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE SO HARD
|Planned Parenthood Great Plains asked the Supreme Court this week to rule on an Arkansas law that restricts access to abortions, requiring providers of medication-induced abortions to contract with a second physician who holds hospital-admitting privileges.
TOP-ED
|In the San Francisco Chronicle, Stephen Gardbaum considers whether the GOP tax law (yep, that’s right — it’s law now) is constitutional. Gardbaum points out that courts will soon have to decide whether the new law was the product of Republican party donors’ crossing a constitutional line. He writes, “The institutional independence of Congress is at a minimum when its members are beholden to donors for re-election, where hyper-polarized politics leaves no room for moderation, and where the same party controls both the executive and legislative branches. When this combination exists, as it does now, it is the perfect setting for excess, with few effective constraints on power and the pursuit of naked self-interest. This is when it is critical for the courts to play their role in our constitutional democracy as the ultimate check on political overreaching.”
FROM THE RUMOR MILL
|Above the Law’s David Lat notes that despite rumors earlier this year that JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY was headed for retirement, Kennedy has already hired a full complement of law clerks for the next Supreme Court term. Looks like the Sacramento-native justice isn’t ready to pack it in just yet, and this Lady Bird is very happy to hear it.
SEE YOU IN 2018!
|Another year’s gone by and we lived to tell the tale! From SCOTUSDaily, to you and yours, we wish you the happiest of holidays. Thank you always for reading — we will be back in your inboxes in the new year. Cheers!