Monday round-up

By Kiran Bhat
on Jan 24, 2011 at 9:06 am

The anniversary of the Citizens United decision, Tuesday’s State of the Union address, and Justice Scalia’s scheduled afternoon talk before the Tea Party Caucus all featured in weekend coverage of the Court.

In the Huffington Post, Nan Aron criticizes the decision in Citizens United and declares that the “Corporate Court” is “still open for business,” while Joel M. Gora celebrates the decision as a “landmark victor[y] for free speech” in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. And the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times encourages the Court to reject a corporate “right to personal privacy” in the FCC v. AT&T case argued last week.

Both Dahlia Lithwick of Slate and Michael Gleeson of The Hill discuss whether the Justices will attend this year’s State of the Union address in the wake of last year’s tension; Lithwick also wonders whether “the justices [should] have ever been there in the first place?” Lee Ross of Fox News reports that Justice Alito will not attend the address.

CNN’s Bill Mears and The Caucus blog of the New York Times cover Justice Scalia’s speech, scheduled for today, to the Tea Party Caucus on separation of powers. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Jonathan Turley writes, “[a]t best, Scalia’s appearance can be viewed as a pep talk. At worst, it smacks of a political alliance.”

Briefly:

• Michael Kirkland of the United Press International reports on another cross case – this time involving a cross on California’s Mount Soledad – that may come before the Court.
• The Salem Statesman Journal covers last week’s decision in Premo v. Moore.
• The editorial board of the New York Times discusses the recent oral argument in Montana v. Wyoming, describing the case as a “rare” example of a case in which the Court “was in session as a trial court.”