Tuesday round-up

By Nabiha Syed
on Oct 26, 2010 at 9:57 am

Coverage of the Court has largely ground to a halt, presumably awaiting more Court activity later this week. While oral arguments are scheduled to resume on Monday, November 1, the Justices will meet Friday for their private Conference.

Meanwhile, the Justices are traveling. Justice Alito visited Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he administered the lawyer’s oath during the annual Red Mass, the Chicago Tribune reports. The Grand Rapids Press also has coverage.  Meanwhile, Justices Scalia and Kagan took a day trip to Virginia, where – according to the DailyCaller – Justice Kagan took a lesson in skeet shooting. Crime and Consequences describes Kagan’s efforts to learn as “quite commendable.”

The blogosphere continues to discuss the fall-out from last Term’s Citizens United decision.  Ashby Jones of WSJ Law Blog characterizes efforts by Congressman Peter DeFazio (discussed in James’s round-up yesterday), to investigate the prospect of impeaching Chief Justice Roberts as “startling,” while Damon Root of Reason also expresses doubts about DeFazio’s efforts.  Discussing Citizens United more generally in an interview with The Nation (and which ACSblog covered as well), Larry Lessig argues that “our democracy was already broken before Citizens United.”

In more campaign finance coverage, Courthouse News Service covers the Court’s refusal last week to block key portions of a Maine campaign-finance law, citing “difficulties in fashioning relief so close to the election.” And finally, David Hudson of First Amendment Center discusses the effects of another First Amendment case, Garcetti v. Ceballos, in which the Supreme Court ruled that public employees have no First Amendment rights with respect to speech “made pursuant to their official job duties.”