Monday round-up

MARISSA MILLER JAN 28, 2013 8:33 AM

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board violated the Constitution. Because of the political consequences of this decision, as well as the split among the circuits that this decision creates, there is a strong possibility that this case will ultimately reach the Court. Lyle reports on the decision for this blog, and additional coverage discussing the likelihood of review by the Court comes from Tom Schoenberg of Bloomberg News (here and here), David Savage and Jim Puzzanghera of the Los Angeles Times, Melanie Trottman, Jess Bravin, and Michael Crittenden of The Wall Street Journal, David Jackson of USA Today, Brad Knickerbocker of The Christian Science Monitor, Rick Ungar of Forbes, Josh Gerstein of Politico, Emily Bazelon at Slate, Charlie Savage and Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times, Robert Barnes and Steven Mufson of The Washington Post, and Garrett Epps at The Atlantic.

Although the Court’s next oral arguments are several weeks away, the weekend’s clippings also feature continuing coverage of cases that are scheduled for argument later this Term.  At Reuters, Joan Biskupic reports on the efforts of the parties in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, to influence the Department of Justice, while at the Los Angeles Times, David Savage covers the arguments contained in the briefs defending DOMA and Proposition 8.  In The New York Times, the Room for Debate discusses Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, in which the Court will consider the interpretation of the Indian Child Welfare Act; finally, also at The New York Times, Dan Frosch discusses the case in the context of a shortage of Indian foster parents.

Briefly:

• Ethan Bronner of The New York Times and Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press report on the legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate and the likelihood that one of these cases may be headed to the Court.
• At her On the Case blog for Reuters, Alison Frankel discusses the possibility that the Justice Department has changed its view on whether state-law product liability claims against generic drugmakers are barred because generics are required by federal law to carry warning labels approved by the FDA, a question at issue in this Term’s Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett.
• David Gonzalez of The New York Times reports on the closing of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s elementary school in the Bronx and the Justice’s reaction to this news.
• Cato @ Liberty’s Ilya Shapiro discusses the Court’s denial of cert. in Hall v. Sebelius, a challenge to government policies that deny otherwise eligible retirees their Social Security benefits if they choose not to enroll in Medicare.
• At Salon, law professor Paul Campos criticizes Chief Justice John Roberts for teaching in Europe in the summer, arguing that these courses are effectively paid for by law students who “are financially wrecking themselves by borrowing those dollars to pay for useless degrees.”
• The Washington Post publishes an obituary for Frank Lorson, the Court’s former chief deputy clerk, who passed away on January 11.

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