Friday round-up

Lawrence Hurley reports at Reuters that “[t]he Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman [Chuck Grassley] said on Thursday any Supreme Court justice considering retirement from the lifetime job should announce immediately so a successor can be confirmed before the November U.S. midterm election.” Eric Levitz discusses Grassley’s comments at New York magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog.

The solicitor general’s letter to the court correcting a statement he made at oral argument in Trump v. Hawaii continues to attract comment. At Take Care, Leah Litman maintains that the “reasons to be skeptical of the Solicitor General’s claim that the president made ‘crystal clear’ that he had no intention of imposing a Muslim ban” “include statements that the President made after his purported disavowal, as well as statements that he (and other members of his administration) made after the Supreme Court argument itself,” raising “the possibility that the President or his administration would make post-decision statements about the entry ban.” At The Economist’s Democracy in America blog, Steven Mazie suggests that “the post-hearing rumpus shows that if the Supreme Court upholds the president’s proclamation when it hands down its judgment in June, it will do so without any assurances that the policy is far removed from a most incendiary campaign promise.”

Briefly:

• For the Associated Press, Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko report that “[s]pring is the season of mystery at the Supreme Court,” and that one “puzzle this year concerns an unusual appeal the Trump administration filed more than six months ago, calling out ACLU lawyers as dishonest in a dispute over a pregnant teen-aged immigrant who wanted an abortion,” in Azar v. Garza.
• At Law360 (subscription required), Alex Wolf reports that in Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling, the justices are “wrestling with the question of whether an individual who may have lied to obtain credit can have the debt wiped away in personal bankruptcy proceedings, an issue that has pitted financially distressed Americans seeking a fresh start against small businesses worried about being swindled.”
• In an op-ed for The Nation, David Cole wonders whether, in the “many blockbuster cases still to be decided this term—in nearly all of which the administration has urged the Court to adopt radical positions, overruling or disregarding precedent to further the White House’s political ends” – “the Supreme Court will go along for the ride, or stand up for the rule of law when the executive branch has so radically thrown it overboard.”
• At Law Sites, Robert Ambrogi tests Justice Neil Gorsuch’s writing against three legal-editing programs.
• Andrew Hamm reports on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s contribution to a recent debate between two constitutional-law scholars for this blog.
• For The New York Times, Melena Ryzik remarks that “[w]hat makes [Ginsburg’s] ascendance to pop culture icon … truly surprising is that, at 85, she is having fun with her unexpected fame, and making careful and inspired use of it for her own savvy ends.”
• The latest episode of Counting to 5 (podcast) “answer[s] listener questions about the Court’s Order Lists, Special Masters, and more.”
• At The Conversation, Robert Sedler maintains that “the American right to silence is on trial this year” in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, a challenge by crisis-pregnancy centers to a California law mandating disclosures about the availability of publicly funded family-planning services, and Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, which asks whether an Illinois law allowing public-sector unions to charge nonmembers for collective-bargaining activities violates the First Amendment. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel on an amicus brief in support of the respondents in Janus.]

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