Friday round-up
on Jul 15, 2016 at 9:55 am
Yesterday Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a statement, through the Supreme Court’s Public Information Office, in which she indicated that her remarks criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump were “ill-advised.” I covered the statement for this blog, with other coverage coming from Pete Williams and Halimah Abdullah of NBC News, Michael Shear of The New York Times, Jessica Taylor and Meg Anderson of NPR, Priscilla Alvarez of The Atlantic, Robert Barnes of The Washington Post, and Harper Neidig of The Hill. In The Guardian, Megan Carpentier surveys legal experts about the possible effect of Ginsburg’s remarks on her legacy.
Commentary on Ginsburg’s remarks (and her statement yesterday) abounds. Ginsburg’s supporters include Ryan Park and Lori Alvino McGill, who in an op-ed for The Washington Post contend that “the criticism of Ginsburg’s comments overstates the law and ignores much of this nation’s history and constitutional tradition”; and Ian Millhiser, who at Think Progress argues that there is “no question that Ginsburg’s comments departed from norms that modern justices typically adhere to, but any suggestion that the Court is above politics — or that it has ever been anything of the kind — is not accurate.” At Vox, Ezra Klein asserts that, although Ginsburg “should regret making” her comments, “there’s something in the uproar — and particularly in the calls for her to recuse herself from any cases concerning Trump — that lays bare how bizarre our fetishization with ‘objectivity’ can get.”
More critical commentary comes from Steve Sanders, who at The Huffington Post contends that “apologists” for Ginsburg “are picking a dangerous fight”; William Ross, who at JURIST argues that, although “Ginsburg’s remarks probably did no serious harm to the Court’s prestige, they should serve as a warning to justices to be more discreet in their public pronouncements, particularly in unguarded and unrehearsed interviews”; John Sexton, who at Hot Air discusses the call for Ginsburg to resign from the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal; and Kristine Marsh, who at News Busters complains that the “gravitas of a SCOTUS Justice violating her assumed role as an impartial, nonpartisan judge was completely downplayed by the networks, which characterized it as a petty feud.”
On Wednesday a Virginia school board asked the Supreme Court to put on hold a lower-court ruling requiring it to allow a transgender student who identifies as a boy to use the boys’ restroom. Coverage comes from Mark Walsh for Education Week, while at Balkinization Marty Lederman focuses on what he describes as “one important part of the Board’s application to the Court–namely, its conspicuous failure to explain how the district court’s injunction will harm the Board, or anyone else.”
Coverage relating to the prospect that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady could seek relief from the Supreme Court in the “Deflategate” controversy by asking Justice Ruth Ginsburg, who deals with emergency appeals from the geographic region of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to block the Second Circuit’s ruling against him, comes from Darryl Slater at NJ.com, Bob McGovern at the Boston Herald, Andrew Sheehan at Fox 25 Boston, Gary Myers of New York Daily News, Alan Milstein at Sports Law Blog, and Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated.
Briefly:
- Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News reports that, at “the shorthanded U.S. Supreme Court, the next deadlock may affect the November election.”
- At Reg Blog, law student Jennifer Ko looks back at the Court’s decision striking down two provisions of a Texas law regulating abortions and characterizes it as “a critical victory for pro-choice advocates.”
- At Mayer Brown’s Consumer Financial Services Review, Brian Netter analyzes the Court’s decision in Encino Motorcars v. Navarro, describing it as “a unanimous reminder that Chevron is not absolute, refusing to accord deference to a Department of Labor regulation interpreting a narrow question about the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
- At Bloomberg BNA, Perry Cooper looks at how class action cases fared last Term, observing that although “prognostications from the plaintiffs’ bar were dire,” “some of those same attorneys are singing a different tune” now.
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