Friday round-up
on Oct 2, 2020 at 9:49 am
As Washington and the nation absorb the overnight news that President Donald Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus, one of the many serious questions involves the potential effects on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. As Chloee Weiner notes for NPR, Trump has been “in close contact” with Barrett “within the past seven days,” although the date of their most recent contact — and other details, such as whether Barrett has been tested or whether she plans to self-quarantine — remain unclear. Laura Litvan of Bloomberg News reports that, as of Friday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee has “no plans” to change the schedule of hearings on Barrett’s nomination. Those hearings are scheduled to begin Oct. 12.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s 2020-21 term will begin on Monday. Here are some previews of the new term:
- Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr writes that the court will begin the new “in a swirl of uncertainty, amid a new justice’s politicized confirmation battle and a divisive presidential election the court might have to resolve.”
- Mark Walsh writes for the ABA Journal that the court “reconvenes for its new term on Oct. 5 with grief in the air after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a confirmation battle and election controversies swirling all around it and the court’s operations still disrupted by the pandemic.” Also in the ABA Journal, Erwin Chemerinsky analyzes some of the most consequential cases that will be heard in what will be “a term like no other.”
- Cornell’s Legal Information Institute previews the two cases that the court will hear Monday: Carney v. Adams and Texas v. New Mexico.
- The Economist’s Steven Mazie examines the court’s potential role in deciding legal disputes that could tip the presidential election.
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