Round-Up

Pamela A. MacLean reports here that, while speaking at the closing session of the Circuit’s conference in Honolulu, Justice Stevens called the 9th Circuit’s 90 percent reversal rate by the Supreme Court “misleading.” Here at Concurring Opinions, Daniel J. Solove continues the discussion on the Court’s reversal rates and wonders why there are so few reversals each term that resulted from “significant departures from Supreme Court precedent.”

The fall-out from the Louisville and Seattle school cases continues, reports this Reuters article. In the wake of the Parents Involved decision, Louisville students and school administrators discuss ways to move forward with school placement plans.

Gregory L. Germain offers his take on the Department of Revenue v. Davis, a case scheduled for next term centering on whether “Kentucky violated the Commerce Clause by exempting in-state municipal bond interest from taxation as income.”

In their piece for The New Republic, Douglas T. Kendall and James E. Ryan suggest that liberal politicians and scholars need to shift their rhetoric around the Supreme Court and “embrace the Constitution rather than run from it.”

The Politico reports that Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday that he will “personally re-examine” the testimony of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito “to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators” in their confirmation hearings. The American Constitution Society blog has a similar posting, and Eric Turkewitz posts his thoughts on the proposed probe here.