Friday round-up

By Anna Christensen
on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:17 am

The blogosphere is buzzing today over yesterday’s rollout of the Supreme Court’s new website.  The updated page, which features a user-friendly calendar, accessible links to recent decisions, and a straightforward search function, will be managed by the Court itself; the old site was run by the Government Printing Office.  Lyle reported on the launch of the new website this morning on this blog, while at the BLT, Tony Mauro jokes that the update “bring[s] the site into the 21st century only a few years late.”  ACSblog and Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy comment on the update today as well.

In a post at Concurring Opinions, Sherrilyn Ifill examines the implications of January’s Citizens United decision for judicial campaigns, predicting that the lifting of restrictions on corporate campaign spending will provoke a “virtual run on judicial elections.”  ACSblog discusses Ifill’s piece in a post that also links to a recent report by the Brennan Center on money in judicial campaigns; Matthew Mosk at ABC News discusses the Brennan Center report as well.

Lawrence Hurley, writing for the Daily Journal (via How Appealing), considers the implications of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which will be argued in April, if Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Wood is nominated to fill a possible Supreme Court vacancy this summer.  Because Wood wrote a dissenting opinion in a very similar case in 2006, Hurley speculates that Christian Legal Society could receive the same sort of attention given to Ricci v. DeStefano after Justice Sotomayor’s nomination last spring.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Virginia consumer-protection officials have formally warned Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, that her group, Liberty Central, is improperly soliciting donations because it failed to register with Virginia’s Office of Consumer Affairs.  A representative of that office told the Times that it is “not unusual” for groups to be unaware of the state’s law.

The Department of Justice is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court after the 9th Circuit handed down a ruling yesterday in al-Kidd v. Ashcroft, declining to reconsider its decision that the former Attorney General can be held personally liable for misusing the material witness statute. (The ruling is available here.) The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the website of the ACLU all have coverage of the court’s ruling and the possibility of an appeal.

Briefly:

•    The Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Associated Press both report that President Obama has nominated Amy Totenberg, an arbitrator in Atlanta and special master in federal courts, for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.  Totenberg is the sister of Nina Totenberg, a veteran Supreme Court reporter and legal affairs correspondent for NPR.
•    The Detroit News reports that at today’s private conference, the Justices will re-consider a request by Michigan officials to keep an invasive species of Asian carp out of Lake Michigan by closing locks near Chicago.
•    At PrawfsBlawg, Rick Garnett briefly discusses Jeffrey Toobin’s profile of Justice Stevens in this week’s New Yorker and asks the blog’s readers to submit their impressions on the article.  (On Monday, James Bickford and Lyle Denniston both covered the New Yorker piece on this blog.)
•    Cato@Liberty has coverage of a new constitutional amendment proposed by Professor Lawrence Lessig that would allow restrictions on campaign expenditures by non-U.S. citizens, in response to the Court’s ruling in Citizens United.
•    At the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr links to a new poll which gauges voter perceptions of the Supreme Court’s political leanings.
•    Also at Volokh, Jonathan Adler asks whether the Court’s 1892 decision in Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark precludes constitutional challenges to the “deem and pass” method proposed for the enactment of health care reform legislation. Adler notes that the Court’s 1990 decision in United States v. Munoz-Flores suggests that Field might violate certain provisions of Article I, Section 7.
•    Finally, Adam Liptak reports in the New York Times on Yale Law School’s collection of bobblehead dolls depicting Supreme Court justices. But don’t get too excited – the bobblehead dolls, which are produced in limited edition by law journal The Green Bag, are not sold anywhere, and have been traded for thousands of dollars at online auction.