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Friday round-up

Yesterday the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to leave in place a lower court ruling striking down North Carolina’s controversial election law, which included a requirement that voters provide a government-issued photo ID. Amy Howe covered the request for this blog, with other coverage coming from Lyle Denniston at his blog, Jessie Hellmann of The Hill, Pete Williams of NBC, and Rick Hasen at his Election Law Blog.

In other election-related news, Rick Hasen also covers Gary Johnson’s Supreme Court filing regarding his bid to be labeled “Libertarian” on the Ohio ballot; Richard Epstein and John Yoo discuss whether “losing the Supreme Court is reason enough to vote for Donald Trump” on their Law Talk podcast; and Patrick Gregory of Bloomberg BNA considers Ninth Circuit Judge Paul Watford “as a potential Supreme Court nominee of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton”.

Briefly:

  • Adam Feldman at Empirical SCOTUS examines how easy Supreme Court opinions from the 2015 term are to read.
  • Lawrence Hurley of Reuters considers how President Obama’s federal appeals judges have shaped U.S. law, noting that a “review of rulings by the courts over the last two years shows Obama’s appointees to the appeals courts have influenced major legal battles likely to ultimately reach the Supreme Court.”
  • At Law.com (subscription required), Zoe Tillman examines how some judges handle quoting profanity in opinions, including in the Supreme Court.
  • At his blog Article 8, Daniel Hensel responds to Linda Greenhouse’s recent post on “the recent trend of courts beginning to question legislative intent for discriminating laws.”
  • Amanda Reilly of E&E reports that a “Supreme Court ruling in a 2012 fight over a flooded Arkansas wildlife refuge could boost the chances of Baton Rouge-area officials hoping for federal compensation for last week’s catastrophic deluge.”
  • David Savage of the Los Angeles Times reports on the Obama administration’s argument that “the Constitution forbids the common practice of keeping people in jail prior to a trial, even for minor offenses, just because they are too poor to pay for bail,” and he notes that “the lawyers challenging the money bail system do not have a clear Supreme Court precedent on their side.”

Remember, we rely exclusively on our readers to send us links for our round-up.  If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, or op-ed relating to the Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com.

Recommended Citation: Molly Runkle, Friday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 26, 2016, 12:05 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2016/08/friday-round-up-334/