Monday round-up

AMY HOWE AUG 8, 2016 11:08 AM

More coverage relating to last week’s order blocking a federal district court’s ruling that would have required a Virginia school board to allow a transgender student who identifies as a boy to use the boys’ restroom while the dispute is being litigated comes from Lisa Keen at Keen News Service.  Commentary comes from Margaret Drew, who at the Human Rights at Home Blog suggests that, if the Court ultimately grants review, the case “will test the limits of Justice Kennedy’s empathy toward the sexually diverse.”  And in his column for The Atlantic, Garrett Epps is mostly critical of the “courtesy” vote cast by Justice Stephen Breyer to give the school board its fifth vote for a stay:  Epps writes that although he understands “the humane impulse behind Breyer’s vote,” he “would feel better about it . . . if his opinion showed any trace of awareness that his urbane gesture to placate his powerful colleagues had come at the expense of a vulnerable boy.”

In The Washington Post, Rachel Weiner reports that a “federal appeals court has signaled that it agrees that former Virginia first lady Maureen McDonnell’s corruption convictions should be tossed out because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned her husband’s convictions.”  Lyle Denniston has more coverage of these developments for his own blog.

Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed and Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog report that, in the wake of the Fourth Circuit’s denial of a request by North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory to put on hold its ruling striking down the state’s voting restrictions, the state has announced that it ask the Supreme Court to step in – possibly as soon as this week.  In commentary at The Guardian, Scott Lemieux weighs in on recent voting rights developments; he suggests that “egregious overreach by Republican legislators desperate to preserve their hold on power in the face of increasingly unfavorable demographics” “may well cost them a particularly important vote on the high court: that of its lone moderate conservative, Anthony Kennedy.”

Briefly:

• At his eponymous blog, Lyle Denniston has an update on the latest developments in the challenge to the Obama administration’s deferred action policy for undocumented immigrants, including the administration’s request for rehearing in the Supreme Court.
• At Empirical SCOTUS, Adam Feldman studies the Court’s citations to amicus briefs filed by law professors.
• In The New York Times, Adam Liptak reports on a new study which suggests that criminal defendants may be “left behind” at the Court.
• At his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen reports that Justice Anthony Kennedy has denied a request for a stay in a Montana case involving false speech in judicial elections.
• At CNN, Joan Biskupic looks at Justice Anthony Kennedy’s “evolution” on issues involving race.
• At The Hill, Lydia Wheeler reports that “liberal groups say they are increasingly confident that Senate Republicans will crack after the November election and confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.”

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