Tuesday round-up
The Justices are scheduled to meet for their November 26 Conference today. The cases up for consideration include the challenges to the so-called contraceptive mandate – the requirement that large employers provide their employees with health insurance that includes access to family-planning methods. In the Los Angeles Times, David Savage looks at the law at the heart of the challenges: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits the federal government from “substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion” without a “compelling” reason to do so. Michael McConnell, David Gans, and Jeffrey Rosen discuss the cases and issues in a podcast for the National Constitution Center, while Beverly Mann does the same in a post at Angry Bear.
Briefly:
- Eric Brunstad previews some of this Term’s bankruptcy cases in a video podcast for the American Bankruptcy Institute.
- At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro and Julio Colombo preview the January oral argument in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, in which the Court will consider whether the federal government retains an interest in a right of way granted from public lands to railroads, which then abandoned the easement.
- The editorial board of Investors Business Daily weighs in on Limelight Networks v. Akamai Technologies, a patent case in which the Court has asked the Solicitor General to file a brief expressing the views of the United States. The board criticizes the Federal Circuit’s decision in the case and warns that, if the decision is allowed to stand, “trial lawyers will have a field day choking off even more private-sector innovation far and wide.”
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