With coverage of last night’s election returns dominating the news cycle yesterday, many Court watchers instead focused on speculating about the election’s implications for the Court. At Constitution Daily, Lyle Denniston predicts that “[e]ven assuming some change in the [C]ourt’s membership over the next four years, a re-elected President Obama – assuming that he genuinely wants a major makeover of the court – is likely to wind up quite disappointed.” Striking a different note at Crime and Consequences, Kent Scheidegger observes that “[i]f Obama were to name a successor to Justice Scalia, that would be a major . . . change” to the Court’s composition, while the San Jose Mercury News discusses possible nominees if a vacancy were to arise in the President’s second term. Finally, Michael McGough of the Los Angeles Times suggests that “possible Romney Supreme Court appointments [weren’t] a major motif of the Obama Campaign,” because of the “risks to portraying Supreme Court justices as pawns of the president who appointed them.”
Today the Court will hear oral argument in two cases. In Already LLC v. Nike, the Court will consider whether a federal district court is divested of Article III jurisdiction over a party’s challenge to the validity of a federally registered trademark if the registrant promises not to assert its mark against the party’s then-existing commercial activities. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys work for or contribute to this blog in various capacities, serves as counsel to the respondent in this case.] Lyle Denniston of this blog previews the case here; Erin Geiger Smith of Reuters also previews today’s argument. And in Marx v. General Revenue Corp., the Court will consider whether a prevailing defendant in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) case may be awarded costs for a lawsuit that was not “brought in bad faith and for the purpose of harassment.” Ronald Mann of this blog previews the case here.
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