ENDREW A BLIZZARD OF WORDS | How Trump’s Nominee Could Hit the Ground Running
January 12, 2016
BLIZZARD OF WORDS
|Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a dispute that advocates are calling the most important case involving public school special education in three decades. At issue is whether public schools must provide disabled students “some” educational benefit — which several lower courts have interpreted to mean above the bare minimum of showing trivial progress — or whether students have a right to more. Justices signaled that they are ready to increase the educational benefits, but they struggled during argument to come up with language that would make sense for defining a higher standard that is both rooted in the law, clear enough to be enforceable, but flexible enough to apply to children with varying levels and types of disabilities. Acknowledging the difficulty in settling on a proper formulation, JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO noted, “What is frustrating about this case and about this statute is that we have a blizzard of words.”
GOOD, OR GOOD ENOUGH?
|Following yesterday’s case before SCOTUS, — Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District — Bloomberg’s Noah Feldman considers the ramifications of its outcome. He writes, “It’s always good to minimize litigation, and there’s no particular danger when families’ resource differences will affect who can bring that litigation to court. But it’s also outrageous to think that school districts can get away with offering such a low standard of education to disabled kids. And there’s something morally troubling about saying that our national standard of appropriate education is to be better than nothing.”
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board for The Denver Post wants Colorado to repay exonerated defendants any penalties and restitution they are due, echoing what JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN said in court this week: that the expectation of repayment would be “the most natural, obvious thing in the world” once the conviction was overturned.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU, GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU
|Patrick Gregory and Kimberly Robinson of Bloomberg BNA deliver us the five things we need to know about potential Supreme Court nominee and current Eighth Circuit JUDGE RAYMOND W. GRUENDER. No surprise here, his conservative credentials are at the top the list.
COME RUNNING
|Tony Mauro with The National Law Journal reports, “By tradition, DONALD TRUMP’S nominee wouldn’t vote on cases argued before their tenure began—but that’s not an ironclad rule, court experts say.” Read how Trump’s Supreme Court nominee could hit the ground running as soon as she or he takes the ninth seat on the bench.