Friday round-up

Yesterday the federal government asked the justices to halt discovery and an upcoming trial in a lawsuit filed by a group of teenagers who allege that the government’s environmental policies are contributing to climate change. Amy Howe covers the filing for this blog, in a post that first appeared at Howe on the Court. Additional coverage comes from Lawrence Hurley at Reuters, Greg Stohr at Bloomberg, Ariane de Vogue at CNN, and Lyle Denniston at his eponymous blog, who reports that “[t]he federal lawyers argued that the mere existence of the lawsuit violates a host of federal laws and undermines the Constitution’s doctrine of separating powers between the branches of the federal government, with the judiciary taking over from the politically elected branches.”

Briefly:

• For The Wall Street Journal, Jess Bravin reports that although “Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s doctoral study on a conservative philosophy called natural law is a prime reason right-leaning legal thinkers recommended him to President Trump,” “the public won’t have a chance to learn the jurist’s latest thoughts on the theory when he speaks Friday at a conference of Catholic legal scholars seeking to expand Christian influence on public policy,” because “[t]he sponsor, the Thomistic Institute, is barring journalists from covering the conference.”
• At Slate, Richard Hasen suggests that “[i]t’s a great time for liberals to brush up on their knowledge of originalism and textualism” if they want to succeed before the newly constituted Supreme Court.
• In The National Law Journal’s Supreme Court Brief, Anthony Franze and R. Reeves Anderson offer their annual analysis of Supreme Court amicus briefs, noting that “[a]fter a relatively quiet 2016–17 term, friends of the court roared back last term, with amici participating in every argued case and filing more briefs than ever.”
• In a new episode of the Heritage Foundation’s SCOTUS 101 podcast, Elizabeth Slattery and Sheldon Gilbert from the National Constitution Center “talk about Justice Kavanaugh’s first week at SCOTUS and what might happen with potential 4-4 decisions.”
• Tony Mauro reports for The National Law Journal that “Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said this week that the arrival of Brett Kavanaugh has been greeted with the traditional ‘welcoming for a new member of our court,’ adding that “we are going to let these times pass,’” an apparent reference to his stormy confirmation process.”

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