Thursday round-up

Yesterday the court heard argument in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, in which the justices will decide whether Ohio’s voter-roll-maintenance process violates federal voter-registration laws. Amy Howe has this blog’s argument analysis, which first appeared at Howe on the Court. For The Wall Street Journal, Jess Bravin reports that the justices “appeared divided” and that “[t]wo justices close to the court’s ideological center, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, appeared most interested in the pragmatic implications of protecting voting rights while updating voter rolls.” Additional coverage of the argument comes from Kevin Daley at The Daily Caller, David Savage for the Los Angeles Times, Ariane de Vogue at CNN, Robert Barnes for The Washington Post, Stephen Dinan for The Washington Times, Adam Liptak for The New York Times and Richard Wolf for USA Today. Commentary on the case comes from Garrett Epps at The Atlantic, who notes that “the majority, whichever way it decides, will be making a (perhaps unconscious) judgment about which of the two aims [of the laws at issue in the case]—participation by the eligible or exclusion of the ineligible—is more urgent, both generally and now.”

On Tuesday the justices heard argument in a Fourth Amendment case, Collins v. Virginia, in which the justices considered the scope of the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. Amy Howe analyzes the argument for this blog; her analysis was first published at Howe on the Court.

Briefly:

• The editorial board of The Washington Times urges the justices to review Weyerhaeuser Company v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “a momentous federalism and property rights case … [whose] ramifications will extend far beyond the fate of a frog.”
• At Bloomberg Law, Madison Adler talks to five recent alumnae of the solicitor general’s office, now in private practice, who together have “argued almost 90 cases at the U.S. Supreme Court” and who hope to “focus on sharing their knowledge and helping out young lawyers the way others helped them.”
• Counting to 5 (podcast) provides “a summary of the cases argued in the first week of the Court’s January oral arguments, and a quick preview of a few cases coming up later in the term.”
• At the Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen gives a rundown on the “state of play” in the various partisan-gerrymandering cases “at, or heading, to SCOTUS.”

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