Wednesday round-up

AMY HOWE NOV 25, 2015 7:56 AM

Happy Thanksgiving to our readers!  We’re grateful for you and all of the links that you send us.  (Yes, I know it’s tomorrow, but we’ll be off tomorrow.)

Yesterday the Solicitor General responded to the request by Texas and other states for a thirty-day extension of time to file their brief opposing review in the challenge to the Obama administration’s immigration policy.  Lyle Denniston covered the filing for this blog, while at The Federalist, Ilya Shapiro and Josh Blackman urge the Court not to “rush what could become a landmark separation-of-powers case.”  And at The Economist, Steven Mazie discusses the administration’s petition for review. 

As Lyle Denniston reported yesterday for this blog, a group of Hawaiians, “some of whom won’t be able to vote in a special election that ends on November 30 that is a prelude to recognizing a new Indian-like tribe including many residents, asked the Supreme Court to temporarily stop the completion of that election until their challenge can be decided.”  Commentary on the case comes from Hans von Spakovsky at the National Review’s Bench Memos; he argues that there “is simply no justification for allowing such a blatantly discriminatory election to proceed.”  Roger Clegg also weighs in on the case at Bench Memos, noting that the “key precedent for the plaintiffs here is Rice v. Cayetano, which struck down (after the fact) a similar racially exclusive election; the opinion was written by Justice Kennedy.”

In just under two weeks, the Court will hear oral arguments in Evenwel v. Abbott, the “one person, one vote” case.  Coverage of the case comes from Mark Walsh, who in the ABA Journal characterizes it as involving “elements of federalism, partisan politics, immigration and demography.” At Balkinization, David Gans argues that the plaintiffs’ “arguments—which fly in the face of our Constitution’s promise of equal representation for all—would undermine minority representation both in Texas . . . and throughout the nation,” and he adds that recent “events in Yakima, Washington, provide a good example.”

Briefly:

• In The Economist, Steven Mazie discusses the Chief Justice’s appearance in New York last week, noting that “Roberts comes off as disarmingly charming, exuding fair-mindedness and an understated wit.”
• At the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty Blog, Ethan Blevins weighs in on Sturgeon v. Frost, a moose hunter’s challenge to the prohibition on hovercraft in the national parks, and urges the Court to “restore the balance” that the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act “brokered between the state’s autonomy and federal interests in conservation. Alaska’s stunning beauty shouldn’t impose a straitjacket on those who live there.”
• Commentary on next month’s oral arguments in the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process comes from Mark Pulliam at the National Review’s Bench Memos; Pulliam notes that the Court will have the chance to revisit its earlier decisions on affirmative action and urges it to “lay to rest, once and for all, the myth that affirmative action improves higher education.”
• With the Court having agreed earlier this month to review a challenge to two requirements imposed on abortion clinics in Texas, Richard Wolf of USA Today reports on two women seeking abortions in that state, suggesting that their stories “illustrate the human stakes involved in the most important abortion case to come before the high court in a quarter century.”
• At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro discusses the amicus brief that Cato filed in support of the petitioners in POM Wonderful v. Federal Trade Commission; the brief urges the Court to grant review, arguing that the Court “has repeatedly held that determining whether the Constitution protects particular speech is the quintessential function of Article III courts, not federal agencies.”

[Disclosure:  Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to this blog in various capacities, is among the counsel to the petitioners in POM Wonderful.  However, I am not affiliated with the firm.]

If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) news article, post, or op-ed relating to the Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com.

 

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