IN NC, NO ID NECESSARY | Are Justices Coming Clean?
September 1, 2016
BACK IN THE GAME
|After taking a break through the month of August, SCOTUSDaily returns to its regular programming. Every day SCOTUSDaily will deliver news happening in and around 1 First Street straight to your inbox.
NO ID NECESSARY
|Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to revive parts of a restrictive voting law in North Carolina that would require voter identification at the polls. The high court split 4 to 4, leaving in place a federal court’s prior ruling which found the law to be unconstitutional in its effort to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
AIN'T NO THANG
|Yesterday speaking at the University of Arizona, JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN assured her audience that Supreme Court justices don’t sweat the small stuff. When it comes to the politicization of the court, or the political pressure to fill JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA‘s vacant seat, Kagan says none of it affects how the high court decides cases.
CALL AND ANSWER
|Could it be that the Supreme Court justices are finally heeding calls for reform? The recent sale of nearly $1.5 million in stocks owned by the justices might be the first step in the right direction. Tony Mauro with The National Law Journal reports.
TOP-ED
|On the heels of DONALD TRUMP‘s meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña, Noah Feldman argues in BloombergView that all immigrants deserve a court hearing. Period. He asserts, “There’s no good constitutional reason to treat an undocumented person who has been in the country for 14 days differently from someone who’s been here for 15. If we are drawing lines, the logical constitutional line is the border itself.”
DOCTOR'S NOTE
|In a Letter to the Editor in The New York Times, Executive Director of Fix the Court, GABE ROTH, responds to the current debate surrounding the health of HILLARY CLINTON and DONALD TRUMP. This “disdain for health transparency” as he calls it, could be easily remedied with the release of basic facts about our officeholders in the White House, the legislature, and the federal courts. “This prescription is most apt for the members of the Supreme Court, who are now serving longer than ever and, with paralysis in the political branches, are deciding myriad issues that have broad effect on our own fleeting existence.”
GO BRU
|From the rumor mill, we hear that HILLARY CLINTON’S shortlist of Supreme Court nominees may be coming into clearer view. The Hill reported this week that although JUDGE MERRICK GARLAND likely tops her list, there are a few other names floating about that are worth mentioning. Among those names that may be most familiar are JUDGE SRI SRINIVASAN — who would be the first Indian-American and Hindu to serve on the court — and JUDGE PAUL WATFORD on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Watford has received meaningful praise from both sides of the aisle, and recently he saw two high-profile Supreme Court decisions validated earlier opinions of his. He’s also a UCLA man…which sort of says it all.
ON THE ROAD
|Still on summer break, the justices are moving swiftly through their jam-packed schedules. This season, the jetsetters found themselves jumping all over the map both in the United States and across the pond. Today, JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR will find herself in Colorado, where she’ll be speaking at two separate events in Colorado Springs and Denver. Tomorrow, JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN will also be in Denver taking questions from judges and attorneys at a judicial conference of the Tenth Circuit Bench.
OTHER NEWS
The NFL's Concussion Case Could Still Go to the Supreme Court
Fortune“On Monday, the family of late Buffalo Bills fullback Carlton ‘Cookie’ Gilchrist filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case involving NFL players diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).”
Upcoming Supreme Court Docket Includes Cases to Watch for Commercial Lawyers
The National Law ReviewEach new SCOTUS term always comes to us the first Monday of every October. And while the justices will continue to accept cases throughout the upcoming term, the court has already agreed to take up at least five cases that may have significant implications for commercial lawyers throughout the country.