Tuesday round-up

By Nabiha Syed
on Dec 21, 2010 at 10:04 am

News coverage continues to focus on how the Court might rule on challenges to the constitutionality of health-care reform.  Simon Lazarus, writing for the National Law Journal, argues that the health care mandate cannot be struck down “without exhuming Lochner [v. New York] and the doctrinal apparatus deployed a century ago to abort the modern American regulatory state.”

The Posner study on business interests and the Roberts court (discussed in an Adam Liptak article to which James linked yesterday) has generated additional discussion and commentary.  At Point of Law, Ted Frank argues that “all a 61% ‘pro-business’ rate tells us is that the Supreme Court is more pro-business (or less anti-business) than the courts it is reviewing.” Similarly, at the Volokh Conspiracy Ilya Somin discusses the article in depth and contends that the article has “two important weaknesses:  failure to consider the underlying quality of the two sides’ arguments in ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ business decisions, and the use of a crude definition of what counts as pro-business.”

Briefly:

• At Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf expresses concern that “getting to SCOTUS just a little too soon” on the question of same-sex marriage litigation “could do a lot of damage.”
• In Chicago Magazine, Carol Felsenthal considers whether Rahm Emanuel’s residency case could eventually wind up at the Court.
• Andrew Cohen of Politics Daily explores audio recordings of several important Supreme Court cases, including Abingdon School District v. Schempp, Miranda v. Arizona, and Loving v. Virginia.
• CNN looks at the Justices’ perspectives on execution, in light of their nationwide decline.
• A New York Times editorial urges the Court to uphold the constitutionality of Arizona’s campaign-finance laws, arguing that the Court “must let candidates who need public support have enough public dollars to compete effectively.”
• And finally, the News & Observer reports on the dispute over the papers of one of the first Justices, James Iredell.