SCOTUS v. FOREIGN SUPREMES | Voter ID In Vogue | Mother of All Yelp Reviews
September 22, 2016
SCOTUS STEPS IN
|Yesterday, the Supreme Court waded into a new health care dispute when it moved to stay a recent federal appeals court ruling that the formerly Catholic health system’s employee pension plan is not exempt from the federal pension law as a “church plan.”
ANYTHING YOU CAN DO
|Fix the Court’s latest report considers how the American judicial system stacks up to our foreign friends. The report found that age and health of justices, the threat of retirement as a political tool, and the relatively young age of a democracy itself are the primary factors that have “compelled foreign nations to enact retirement age provisions for their nation’s top judges.” Executive Director of Fix the Court, Gabe Roth: “Fix the Court is hoping these insights will be useful for advancing our own strategies for transparency improvements stateside.”
VOTER ID IN VOGUE
|This season’s must-have is a debate over Voter ID laws. Whether you have them, or want them, or can’t stand to see them, voter identification laws are grabbing headlines in states across the country. Our most recent comes to us from Virginia. Today, the Fourth Circuit will hear Democrats’ challenge to a 2013 Republican-backed state law requiring prospective voters to show approved photo ID before being allowed to cast their ballots. Back in July, the Fourth Circuit struck down a similar law from North Carolina, ruling it intentionally discriminated against minority voters.
CONSTITUTION CHECK
|Will the Supreme Court overrule its own gun rights ruling? For Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston seeks to answer this question in response to the NRA’s latest commercial claiming, “HILLARY CLINTON could take away her right to self-defense, and with Supreme Court Justices, Hillary can.”
HEY BATTER BATTER
|Bloomberg’s Kimberly Robinson reports the Supreme Court will play a little game of inside baseball with big business this term, serving up plenty of wonk, antitrust and procedure to go around.
THE MOTHER OF ALL YELP REVIEWS
|The California Supreme Court agreed unanimously yesterday to hear a lower-court case that some say has the potential to chill free speech online. The state’s high court agreed to hear an appeal from Yelp over a lower court ruling which required Yelp to remove defamatory and possibly libelous posts about a San Francisco law firm. Yelp argues that if they are forced to take down these posts, freedom of speech online will be under serious attack.
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
|In The Washington Post, Eugene Volokh re-surfaces a post of his from a month ago when he filed an amicus brief in support of the petition for the CA Supreme Court to review Hassell v. Bird. In it, he includes his letter and his expressed “delight” for the court’s decision to hear the Yelp case.
SPEAKING OF FRIENDS
|Not the Central Perk kind, though the theme song should now be playing on a loop as you finish reading this… Anthony J. Franze and R. Reeves Anderson for The National Law Journal report that in the publication’s sixth year of analyzing SCOTUS amicus curiae, they found amici filed more than 860 briefs, participating in more than 90 percent of merits cases.
EXCEPTIONS TO EVERY RULE
|In The Atlantic, Emma Green explains how North Carolina judges can still refuse to perform same-sex marriages. She says that for the foreseeable future, “North Carolina judges will continue to be able to perform same-sex marriages. And the Tar Heel state will remain the primary battleground for legal fights over LGBT rights and religious freedom.”
THRONES THRONES
|“Winter is coming. No wait. I mean hearings are coming — and soon. Like it or not, the day is fast approaching when the Senate will again hold hearings on a nominee to take the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the death of JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA.” In The Washington Post, Randy Barnett reports on the impending hearings which, in recent decades, have “accomplished very little and failed to assist the Senate in performing its Advice and Consent role.” The piece is a must read if for nothing else but to see the pic of Jon Snow at the end of it…
OTHER NEWS
Supreme Court Case Forces Cooperman Prosecutors to Halt Criminal Investigation
The Wall Street Journal“A key insider-trading case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court forced federal prosecutors to halt their months-long insider-trading investigation into hedge-fund manager Leon Cooperman.”
Massachusetts' highest court: black people may flee from police due to fear of profiling
Vox“How bad are racial disparities in the criminal justice system? This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court — the highest court in the state — concluded that black people may flee from the police due to fear of racial profiling.”
A U.S. judge just disclosed how often law enforcement asked to secretly track electronic records
The Washington Post“A federal judge released a list Wednesday of all sealed requests made in Washington in 2012 for Americans’ telephone and Internet activity, a step toward bringing more public scrutiny to rapidly expanding secret law enforcement activities.”