Wednesday round-up

CONOR MCEVILY MAY 2, 2012 10:13 AM

With all of this Term’s scheduled oral arguments now complete, Court watchers are looking ahead to cases that will be, or are likely to be, reviewed next Term.  At this blog, Lyle Denniston reports on the amicus briefs filed in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, in which several corporations have asked the Court to review the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling upholding a state statute that bans corporate spending in Montana elections.  And at the New Yorker’s Daily Comment blog, Jeffrey Toobin discusses Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of the University of Texas’s undergraduate admissions policies; Toobin contends that “[though] it’s been clear for some time that the days of affirmative action were numbered, []it’s clearer than ever that that number may be dwindling quickly indeed.”  At Appellate Daily, Michelle Olsen reports that on the prospect that the Court could once again consider the issue of abortion – specifically, whether states can require women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds.  

Yesterday the Pew Research Center released a poll finding that “[p]ublic assessments of the Supreme Court have reached a quarter-century low.”  Coverage of the poll comes from Greg Stohr at Bloomberg Businessweek, Mike Sacks of the Huffington Post, M.J. Lee of Politico, Morgan Little at the Chicago Tribune, Joe Palazzolo at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Jeremy Leaming at the ACSblog and Linda Feldmann at the Christian Science Monitor.  The full Pew Research Center report is available here.

Briefly:

• In the New York Times, Adam Liptak examines the “[t]he most versatile of the classic Anglo-Saxon swear words” and the drop in its appearances in opinions and oral arguments at the Court.
• At the Blog of the Legal Times, Andrew Ramonas reports on a recent mock trial held by the Shakespeare Theater Company in which Justices Ginsburg, Alito, and Kagan (among others) served as judges to “consider a divorce case involving Count Claudio and Lady Hero of Messina, characters from William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.”
• In the Washington Post, Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger report on a book party hosted by Justice Antonin Scalia to commemorate David Dorsen’s recent biography of Judge Henry Friendly.  (Thanks to Howard Bashman for the link.)
• Addressing the Affordable Care Act arguments at Balkinization, Jared A. Goldstein examines “why the broccoli argument is a rhetorical tour de force that so powerfully captures the ideology and anxieties of opponents of Obamacare.”
• At this blog, Alan Horowitz analyzes last week’s opinion in United States v. Home Concrete and Supply, LLC, in which the Court held that a provision of the Internal Revenue Code that extends the limitations period for the government to assess a deficiency against a taxpayer does not apply when a taxpayer overstates the basis in property that he has sold, thereby understating the gain received from the sale.

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