Wednesday round-up

CONOR MCEVILY APR 11, 2012 10:13 AM

With the Court’s April sitting not starting until next week, coverage and commentary continue to focus on the recent challenges to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

At the Associated Press, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar suggests that the Court may have misunderstood the ACA’s “bronze plan,” which he describes as “broadly similar to today’s so-called catastrophic coverage policies for individuals”; that misunderstanding, he continues, could “cloud Supreme Court deliberations on [the ACA’s] fate, leaving the impression that the law’s insurance requirement is more onerous than it actually is.”   And at this blog, Kali Borkoski has a photo essay on the line to attend the ACA arguments at the Court. 

Several commentators also took up the issue of “judicial activism” yesterday.  At Concurring Opinions, Erica Goldberg asserts that no matter how the Court eventually decides the health care case, “one excellent outcome of the Court hearing the case is that it has us talking more intelligently about ‘judicial activism.’”  In an effort at Cato@Liberty to “shed some light” on how President Obama’s recent invocation of the critique “got it wrong,” Roger Pilon examines the changes over the years in the “judicial activism” debate.  And at the Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett contends that the term “is too helpful to those who would would criticize a judicial decision with which they disagree without assuming the burden of explaining wh[y]the decision is legally defective.”

Briefly:

• In a New York Times op-ed, Paul D. Carrington proposes judicial term limits for the Supreme Court, citing the need to “impose a reasonable limit on the length of time a mere mortal should hold so much political power.”
• At the Huffington Post, Lyle Denniston surveys the history and theory behind “unelected judges.”
• In a legal scholarship highlight at this blog, Carlton Larson asks and answers the question, “What if Chief Justice Fred Vinson had not died of a heart attack in 1953?”
• Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic discusses recent attacks on judicial independence and argues “there are serious distinctions between what the president said last week and what leading Republican figures have been saying for months now about the federal courts.”
• The Supreme Court Historical Society will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of retired Justice O’Connor’s first term on the Supreme Court today; C-SPAN 2 will cover the event.
• At ACSblog, Jeremy Leaming recaps Tom Goldstein’s recent appearance on the “Daily Show with John Stewart.”

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