Blog Round-Up – Friday, August 26th

PrawfsBlawg has this response to Dahlia Lithwick’s recent article on the “living” Constitution and this post on a speech Justice Stevens recently gave, profiled by the New York Times here.

The Right Coast also comments on Justice Stevens’ speech here.

Legal Theory Blog has this post discussing “The wisdom of Hercules”, a short piece in the Economist on modeling and analysis of Supreme Court decisions and their citation networks.

Election Law Blog has this post discussing a letter Senator Specter, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary sent to Judge Roberts indicating that Senator Specter intended to ask Judge Roberts about his views on the Supreme Court’s recent federalism case, Tennessee v. Lane. According to Rick Hasen, the vitality of Tennessee v. Lane is very relevant to the question of congressional power to uphold a renewed section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. A letter Hasen has written to Specter notes that Judge Roberts’ past writings on the Voting Rights Act give special reason for concern that he would not follow Justice O’Connor’s position in Tennessee v. Lane as precedent for upholding a renewed section 5.