Monday round-up
on May 14, 2012 at 9:29 am
In the wake of President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, the weekend’s coverage focused on the prospect that the issue could reach the Court this year. David Ingram of Reuters reports on two same-sex marriage cases: the constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8 and a Massachusetts case seeking to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), while Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal discusses the potential political pressures that President Obama would face when the issue reaches the Court.
Briefly:
- In an op-ed for the Boston Review, Pam Karlan criticizes “a second form of assertiveness” displayed by the Roberts Court: “the Court is not simply deciding which cases to hear, but is also directing the parties to address issues the justices want to take up.”
- At UPI, Michael Kirkland discusses the impact of the Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, reporting that “[t]he 2012 elections are awash in secret money, with donors accountable to no one, while the national media sleeps and few voters seem to care.”
- In the Los Angeles Times, David Savage reviews criticism of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s performance at oral arguments this Term.
- In an op-ed for the New York Times, Richard Thaler argues that “[g]iven how flimsy slippery-slope arguments can be, it is downright scary that they might play an important role in the Supreme Court decision on the new health care law.”
- In an op-ed for the Daily Progress, Donald Nuechterlein urges the Court to uphold the main provisions of S.B. 1070, the state immigration law at issue in Arizona v. United States, but to reject its “more punitive features,” in the hope that “[t]his outcome might then spur Congress, in its next session, to be serious about compromising around a more comprehensive solution to this vexing immigration dilemma.”
