Thursday round-up

CORMAC EARLY MAY 31, 2012 9:24 AM

Coverage yesterday focused on the speech by retired Justice John Paul Stevens at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, in which he criticized the Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and argued that the Court has already begun to have second thoughts about the decision.  Writing for this blog, Lyle Denniston described the remarks as part of “[the] retired jurist’s now well-developed habit of commenting on the continuing work of the Court, with candid expressions of when he agrees or disagrees with what it is doing or may yet do.”  Other coverage comes from Pete Williams at MSNBC’s First Read blog, Adam Liptak  at The Caucus blog of The New York Times, David Savage at the Politics Now blog of the Los Angeles Times, Mike Sacks of the Huffington Post, and the Associated Press (via The Washington Post).   In the blogosphere, Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog analyzes the Justice’s possible motivations for his speech, while Brian Wolfman also discusses the speech at Public Citizen’s Consumer Law and Policy blog.

In other campaign finance coverage, George Will – in his column for The Washington Post – weighs in on American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, the challenge to the Montana Supreme Court ruling upholding a statute that bans corporate spending in state elections, arguing that “[r]easons for the Supreme Court to reconsider Citizens United are nonexistent.”  And writing for Roll Call, Eliza Newlin Carney suggests that efforts by opponents of Citizens United to seek reconsideration of that decision are a “risky strategy,” reasoning that “[i]f the court decides to take up and argue the challenge in question . . . it’s anyone’s guess where it will come down.”

Other coverage focused on the upcoming decision in the challenge to the Affordable Care Act.  Over at Balkinization, Rob Weiner contends that “[t]o a remarkable degree, the challenges to the Affordable Care Act reflect an effort to codify legal nostalgia as legal doctrine,” while Alex Nussbaum of Bloomberg News reports that major insurance providers are predicting that the Court will not strike down the Act in its entirety, and that the impact of the law will remain unsettled for years to come.

Briefly:

• Writing for this blog, Ronald Mann analyzes Tuesday’s decision in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, in which the Court held that debtors may not obtain confirmation of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy “cramdown” plan that proposes to sell substantially all of the debtors’ property at an auction, free and clear of the bank’s lien without permitting the bank to credit-bid at the sale.
• Writing at the Opinionator blog of The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse argues that race will be the central issue of the upcoming Term at the Court.
• Reuters reports that Justice Thomas has agreed to be the keynote speaker at a Yale Law School alumni dinner at the National Press Club in Washington on June 28.
• At the Ball Don’t Lie blog of Yahoo! Sports, Dan Levine applauds the Court’s refusal to hear an appeal from an Oklahoma man who claimed copyright on the phrase “Let’s Go Thunder.”

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