Friday round-up
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on Aug 19, 2016 at 10:38 am
Briefly:
- At the Fed Soc Blog, Brian Miller argues that, although Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (the challenge to fees paid by public employees who are represented by a union to which they do not belong, on which the Court deadlocked last Term) “was – and still is– derided in the media and by its legal opponents as a thinly veiled conservative attempt to ‘weaponize’ the First Amendment as a vehicle to advance conservative policies,” there is in fact “a trend to look at First Amendment issues through a partisan lens – but conservatives aren’t behind it.”
- In another post (podcast) at the Fed Soc Blog, Thomas Berg, Christopher Lund, and Marty Lederman discuss Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley, in which the Court will consider whether a church’s exclusion from a state-run program that provides non-profits with funds to resurface their playgrounds using recycled tire scraps violates the Constitution.
- In The Economist, Steven Mazie argues that, although Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s pledge to reverse the effects of the Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC is a “worthy” goal, “and her proposals to increase transparency and establish a federal matching programme for small donations are both promising and plausible,” “her more ambitious plan is guaranteed to come up short.”
- In The Huffington Post, Cristian Farias reports that, even “as Gov. Pat McCrory (R) is imploring the Supreme Court to put the” Fourth Circuit’s ruling striking down North Carolina’s 2013 election law “on hold, the North Carolina Republican Party is acting as if the decision never happened.”
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