Wednesday round-up
on Mar 13, 2013 at 10:25 am
As Lyle Denniston reported for this blog, yesterday the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that it would bypass en banc review of a recent D.C. Circuit Court decision on the president’s authority to make recess appointments to government offices when the Senate is out of town. Instead, the NLRB will seek review directly in the Supreme Court – where, as Lyle notes, “the chances of review seem strong, given the importance of the issue.” Other coverage of the NLRB’s announcement comes from Tom Schoenberg of Bloomberg, Charlie Savage of The New York Times, Josh Hicks of The Washington Post, John Elwood of the Volokh Conspiracy, Marcia Coyle of the Blog of the Legal Times, Stephen Dinen of The Washington Times, Lawrence Hurley of Reuters, and the Associated Press.
Other coverage of the Court yesterday focused on its upcoming cases. At Greenwire, Jeremy P. Jacobs looks ahead to next month’s arguments in Tarrant Regional Water District v. Hermann, a challenge to Oklahoma water laws. And Kim Dixon of Reuters previews United States v. Windsor, scheduled for oral argument on March 27, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. “[I]f the [C]ourt strikes down DOMA,” Dixon writes, “married gay couples would likely be able to file their income tax returns jointly in states that allow gay marriage – a prospect with ramifications as complex as the tax code itself.”
At the blog Inside Higher Ed, Richard D. Kahlenberg discusses a recent poll of college presidents regarding the Court’s expected decision in Fisher v. University of Texas; according to the poll, most respondents were confident that any decision by the Court curtailing or eliminating the ability of universities to use race in admissions will have a only a minor impact. And at the Hoover Institution’s online journal Defining Ideas, Professor Richard A. Epstein discusses last month’s oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder, contending that as the Voting Rights Act currently stands, “we have too much federal intervention too soon, for too long, and for too little cause. The Supreme Court should strike the [Act] down and let Congress return to the drawing board for something better.”
Briefly:
- Kedar Bhatia of this blog posts his latest “Stat Pack” analyzing statistical trends at the Court.
- At Reuters, Lawrence Hurley reports on Solicitor General Don Verrilli’s recent appearance at the Georgetown University Law Center, at which he discussed some of the highlights of the Court’s business docket for this Term.
- Amy Argetsinger of The Washington Post reports on Justice Ginsburg’s eightieth-birthday celebration this week, hosted by the Washington National Opera.
