Wednesday round-up

By Amy Howe
on Dec 18, 2013 at 8:17 am

Briefly:

• Jessica Gresko of the Associated Press reports on remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who suggested that Supreme Court Justices should be able to stay on the bench as long as they are able, rather than worrying about whether a Democratic or Republican president will appoint their successors.
• At Mayer Brown’s Class Defense blog, Brian Netter discusses last week’s grant in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, in which the Court will consider when the managers of an employee stock plan must stop investing in the company’s own stock when they know it has become risky.   “At a minimum,” he explains, “this case will determine what a plaintiff must allege to survive a motion-to-dismiss and to obtain discovery.”
• At ACSblog, Leslie Griffin discusses both the argument (made by, among others, now-retired Justice John Paul Stevens) that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act violates the Establishment Clause and the effect of this argument on the pending challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.  She asserts that, “[t]he worry for now, with Justice Stevens retired from the Court, is that no current Justice will recognize that RFRA has provided churches, as well as numerous religious organizations and now, possibly, secular for-profit companies ‘with a legal weapon that no atheist or agnostic can obtain. This governmental preference for religion, as opposed to irreligion, is forbidden by the First Amendment.’”