SCOTUS TERM LIMITS DEBATED | Dems Asleep At The Wheel | Hot Bench Tomorrow
March 8, 2017
GETTING TO KNOW GORSUCH
|“When JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA backed out of a book project with writing partner Bryan Garner, the justice recommended who might take his place. NEIL GORSUCH was first on this list. Experts who spend time examining the writing of the nation’s top judges say it’s not hard to see why the veteran jurist would recommend the man whom PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP would later nominate to fill the Supreme Court seat Scalia held for nearly 30 years.” The Associated Press reports on the high court pick “whose writing is down to earth.”
SPEED READ
|Read some of Groovy Gorsuch’s down to earth writing and skim these excerpts from opinions JUDGE GORSUCH wrote on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL
|Liberal activists are pissed at the prospect of JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH getting confirmed to the Supreme Court. Carl Hulse with The New York Times reports that tough criticisms are coming from the left at was is perceived as muted opposition to Gorsuch’s nomination, while any organized opposition gets drowned out by “the political upheaval accompanying PRESIDENT TRUMP’S occupancy of the White House.”
SPEAKING OF
|PRESIDENT TRUMP picked his “10th justice,” announcing NOEL FRANCISCO as his new solicitor general. Francisco is a former partner at Jones Day and is, by all counts, a highly accomplished appellate lawyer.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times weighed in on the case of GAVIN GRIMM, the transgender students whose case was punted from the Supreme Court earlier this week. The decision to return the case to a lower court was, according to the Ed Board, “a mistake.” LAT: “Justice has been delayed for Grimm and other transgender students. We hope it hasn’t been denied.”
YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME
|Last week, more than 100 transgender persons signed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of GAVIN GRIMM that was presented to SCOTUS. It was a brief from the legal community—lawyers, law students and law professors—that carried a lot of weight in what might have been the biggest blockbuster case of the year. Marcia Coyle with The National Law Journal reports, “The law students and lawyers who spoke with The National Law Journal about their personal experiences said their voices will continue to resound.”
AT THE HEART OF IT ALL
|Slate’s David Fiege looks to Packingham v. North Carolina, the SCOTUS case argued last week that considers whether sex offenders can be banned from using social media. Fiege argues that in this case, the Supreme Court is likely to leave unexamined a problem far greater than what was presented in court last week – “a tragic lie at the heart of all of the jurisprudence surrounding sex offenders.”
ICYMI
|The American Constitution Society, the Federalist Society and the National Constitution Center hosted a debate series yesterday focused on whether Supreme Court justices should be subjected to term limits. The debate was moderated by Jeffrey Rosen and featured John Eastman, Ward Farnsworth, Alan Morrison and Stephen Vladeck.
A SUPREME SOLUTION
|Alan Morrison argued in The Dallas Morning News ahead of yesterday’s debate that an end to life tenure for Supreme Court justices is not only preferable, it is necessary. He argues, “It is time to regularize the appointment of Supreme Court justices and to limit their active service to 18 years.” He adds, “There are many details to debate, but the main question for the American people is whether we would prefer a system of regularized 18-year terms or continue to allow them to stay for life, as if we were still in the 18th century.”
OR TOO MANY PROBLEMS?
|Also in The Dallas Morning News, Stephen Vladeck and John Eastman took the opposing side and argued that Supreme Court term limits would create more political problems than they would solve. They note, “Whether you are a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican, the odds are that some of your favorite justices served well past 18 years, and, indeed, did some of their most important work in the latter stages of their careers.”
THE HOT BENCH TOMORROW
|Tomorrow, SCOTUSDaily will feature the latest Hot Bench interview with AP’s Mark Sherman. We talked about increasing access to SCOTUS and his winning day covering the court. Don’t miss our interview in tomorrow’s edition!
OTHER NEWS
Texas Executes Man Convicted In Murder-For-Hire-Scheme
Buzzfeed“The U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t stop his execution, but Justice Stephen Breyer urged the court to take a case — like Rolando Ruiz’s — in which a death row inmate challenged the constitutionality of his death sentence due to the length of time he has spent on death row.”
Judge: Gender Laws Are at Odds With Science
TIME“When legislators blur the lines of church and state and enact laws that permit or prohibit conduct based on biologic gender as only male or female — whether it is for the purpose of authorizing marriage or designating the use of public bathrooms — they place an impossible burden on our judiciary, and ultimately on our country and all of its people.”
Neil Gorsuch's Columbia Classmates Wrote a Letter of Support For His Supreme Court Nomination
TIME“More than 150 of Neil Gorsuch’s former classmates at Columbia University, both Democrats and Republicans, have written a letter supporting his nomination to the Supreme Court.”