Friday round-up
on Sep 9, 2016 at 9:46 am
Yesterday, prosecutors announced that they will not attempt to retry former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen on corruption charges after McDonnell’s convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court last June. Coverage comes from Amy Howe for this blog, as well as from Rachel Weiner and Matt Zapotosky for The Washington Post, who note that although “McDonnell no longer must fear prison, he may find the cloud over his reputation hard to remove.” Additional coverage comes from Josh Gerstein of Politico, who observes that “officials at Justice Department headquarters apparently overruled line prosecutors who wanted to seek a retrial.”
In Politico, Seung Min Kim reports that Judge Merrick Garland visited Capitol Hill again yesterday “to meet privately with Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy as Senate Democrats continue a broader public relations push to pressure Republicans on confirming the veteran jurist this year.” Another report on the Democratic push for Judge Garland’s confirmation comes from Jennifer Steinhauer at The New York Times, who notes that “Democrats . . . are making sure that President Obama’s pick stays in the news.” Also in Politico, Seung Min Kim and Kevin Robillard report that Senate Republicans’ refusal to act on the nomination does not appear to a factor on the campaign trail, despite previous Democratic touting of “the GOP’s Supreme Court blockade as a major political liability that would help turn the Senate majority in their favor.”
Briefly:
- At his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen comments on the lack of a Supreme Court ruling on Michigan’s application to allow it to eliminate straight ticket voting, despite the state’s assertion that it needed a decision by yesterday in order to print its ballots, noting that “here, deciding not to decide is also deciding.”
- An article by Jonathan Harkavy reviewing last Term’s employment law cases is available at the Social Science Research Network.
