Tuesday round-up

By Nabiha Syed
on May 10, 2011 at 9:53 am

With a slow start to the week at the Court, coverage focuses on cases that are likely to be before the Justices in the future.

Yesterday Arizona governor Jan Brewer will not seek en banc review by the Ninth Circuit but will instead go directly to the Court to ask it to lift a preliminary injunction that has blocked major portions of the state’s controversial immigration law from going into effect. The Arizona Republic has coverage, as does the Los Angeles Times; CNN offers video of Governor Brewer’s announcement, in which she contends that the need for urgency and action arises “because of the federal government’s failure to secure our borders.” The Associated Press interviews several legal experts, who agree that the Court will be reluctant to take the case at this stage; Politico and Christian Science Monitor also have coverage. And writing for this blog, Lyle Denniston compares the issue to the “broad question of how far states may go to impose their own controls on undocumented immigrants in the U.S.” posed in this Term’s Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting.

Health-care litigation is also making its way towards the Court; this morning, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit will hear back-to-back oral arguments in two Virginia challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Lyle Denniston of this blog predicts that at least one case regarding the Act will “very likely” reach the Supreme Court at some point during its next Term. The Atlantic, CNN, Bloomberg, Reuters, Washington Post, and WSJ Law Blog all have coverage.   Transcripts of today’s arguments will be available by 2 p.m. on the Fourth Circuit’s website. For more background on the issue, this blog now offers a new “Special Feature” on health care.

Briefly:

•     Politico reports that former Justice John Paul Stevens will publish a memoir of his thirty-five years on the Court, due out on the first day of the Court’s next Term.
•     Dustin Cho ponders the importance of oral arguments at Just Enrichment.