Friday round-up
on Nov 1, 2013 at 9:01 am
The Court’s merits docket may soon be down another case. In The Wall Street Journal, Robbie Whelan and Jess Bravin report that the parties in Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, in which the Court is scheduled to consider whether disparate impact claims are available under the Fair Housing Act, have reached a tentative settlement. As Whelan and Bravin note, if the case were to settle, “it will be the second time in two years that a last-minute deal deprived conservatives of the chance to challenge a longstanding civil-rights doctrine before the Supreme Court. Last year, the justices were poised to hear a similar case from St. Paul, Minn., but under pressure from the Obama administration that city dropped its appeal before the high court heard oral arguments.”
The Court recently issued an order in the greenhouse gases that imposes strict limits on the lengths of the merits briefs in those cases. Lyle Denniston reported on the order for this blog; Tony Mauro also covers the order for the Blog of Legal Times.
The Oyez Project and ISCOTUS preview next week’s argument in Town of Greece v. Galloway, in which the Court will consider the constitutionality of the town’s practice of having a prayer at the beginning of its town council meetings.
In the wake of last summer’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, in which the Court struck down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, three education groups have compiled a guide to benefits for same-sex couples who are legally married. Mark Walsh reports for Education Week’s The School Law Blog.
[Disclosure: Kevin Russell of the law firm Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, was among the counsel on an amicus brief filed by former senators in support of Edith Windsor in this case.]
