Yesterday’s coverage of the Court again focused on last week’s oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, the challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. At this blog, Amy reports on the argument (with audio) in Plain English, while Linda Greenhouse argues in her Opinionator column for The New York Times that “[t]he Roberts court stands on the brink of making an error of historic proportions” in striking down the law. In The National Law Journal, Marcia Coyle reports that election law scholars see few options for the Court to craft a narrow opinion that does not rule on the constitutionality of Section 5, while at the ACLU’s Blog of Rights Laughlin McDonald urges the Court to “give substantial deference to the considered judgment of Congress” and “uphold Section 5.” At PrawfsBlawg, Deborah Borman draws on her experiences as an election protection volunteer in Illinois to argue that “[v]oter suppression is alive and well and living in a County near you during every election,” while Ilya Shapiro of Cato at Liberty defends the Chief Justice’s comparisons between Massachusetts and Mississippi during the oral argument, and NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook discussed the state of voting rights in Alabama with residents there (h/t Howard Bashman). Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post reports that Senator Chris Coons of Delaware is planning a legislative response if the Court strikes down Section 5, while Ryan Grim and Sabrina Siddiqui, also at The Huffington Post, report that, contrary to Justice Scalia’s concerns at oral argument, “[m]any Senate Republicans . . . are willing to say that Section 5’s time has come and gone, and that Southern states should be treated no differently than the rest of the nation.” And at the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, Ruthann Robson also examines Justice Scalia’s “racial entitlement” comments.
Coverage of Justice O’Connor’s recent activities and her new book of stories from the history of the Court also continues. Rasha Madkour of The Associated Press reviews the book, while Rick Hasen of the Election Law Blog discusses her appearance Tuesday on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (which Conor covered in yesterday’s round-up).
Justice Kennedy is in California this week for the opening of a library and learning center named after him at the federal courthouse in Sacramento. Coverage of his remarks at the opening ceremony comes from Judy Lin of The Associated Press (via The Reporter), and coverage of other landmarks named after living Justices also comes from The Associated Press (via The Washington Post).
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