This weekend’s coverage of the Court includes discussions of the effect that the upcoming presidential election may have on the Court, as well as the increasing likelihood, in the wake of the Second Circuit’s decision last week, that the Court will take up the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.
In his column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dick Polman argues that, despite the candidates’ failure to discuss the Court in depth, the future of the Court is at stake in this election. Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic makes a similar point, urging his readers not to cast a “protest vote” against President Obama in light of the consequences that a Romney victory might have for the legal landscape. And in the same vein, Adam Winkler, writing for the Huffington Post, considers how a Romney presidency might affect the Court, and contends that the Court’s ruling in the health care case “will only make Republicans more determined to insure that the next nominee has a proven track record of support for their favored causes.”
As this blog reported, last week the Second Circuit struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Rachel summarizes the coverage of the decision in the Friday round-up; additional coverage comes from NPR‘s Nina Totenberg and Todd Ruger at the Blog of the Legal Times, who reports that the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has already spent nearly $1.5 million in defense of the law. The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times queries whether the Second Circuit’s decision may be “too favorable,” while the editorial board of the New Jersey Star-Ledger urges the Court to invalidate the law on the ground that it treats same-sex partners as second-class citizens. And at Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost characterizes the law as the “Offense Against Marriage Act” because it denies legally married gay and lesbian couples benefits that are extended to opposite-sex couples living in the same state.
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