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Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 28, 2012 109 Comments
Was Scalia’s Dissent Originally a Majority Opinion? Scalia’s dissent, at least on first quick perusal, reads like it was originally written as a majority opinion http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2012/06/evidence-that-the-votes-shifted-after-conference-initial-vote-to-declare-mandate-unconstitutional.html (in particular, he consistently refers to Justice Ginsburg’s opinion as “The Dissent”). Back in May, there were rumors floating...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 25, 2012 57 Comments
Drudge ran a classic headline today regarding the decision of the Department of Homeland Security to suspend all existing cooperation agreements with Arizona in light of the Supreme Court’s unanimous upholding of §2(B), permitting authorities to check the immigration status of persons otherwise lawfully detained:...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 25, 2012 80 Comments
The Supreme Court decided the Arizona immigration law, S.B. 1070.  Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. The Court struck the provisions dealing with state criminal penalties and other provisions which imposed procedural requirements on illegals in the state.  Among the provisions the Court struck is...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 28, 2012 63 Comments
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr., is under intense fire from the left for botching the mandate argument yesterday. Adam Serwer at Mother Jones is being quoted far and wide: Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. should be grateful to the Supreme Court for refusing to allow cameras...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 27, 2012 57 Comments
Tom Goldstein at ScotusBlog has an interim report: Based on the questions posed to Paul Clement, the lead attorney for the state challengers to the individual mandate, it appears that the mandate is in trouble.  It is not clear whether it will be struck down,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 21, 2012 22 Comments
in Supreme Court against EPA: The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled for an Idaho couple who have  been in a four-year battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over the government’s claim that the land on which they plan to build a home contains sensitive wetlands....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 23, 2012 32 Comments
Rick Santorum endorsed Arlen Specter because he was a good establishment Republican in 2004, and that’s what the Republican President wanted.  The precursor to the Tea Party movement backed Pat Toomey. Santorum’s endorsement was no crime.  It was a pure political calculation, one which many others in Santorum’s...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 12, 2012 74 Comments
I previously posted about Rick Santorum’s endorsement in 2004 of Arlen Specter against a challenge from Pat Toomey, in what was a precursor to the Tea Party v. Establishment fights to come. One of the unintended consequences of Specter’s reelection was that in 2009 Specter switched...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 12, 2012 28 Comments
Working on posts about Santorum’s 2004 endorsement of and campaigning with Arlen Specter (and the false meme that we would not have Alito and Roberts if not for Santorum helping re-elect Specter), and another name to add to Operation Counterweight. But for now you’ll have...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 30, 2011 15 Comments
That’s a theme in a very worthwhile article about Thomas written by Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker: These tempests obscure a larger truth about Thomas: that this year has also  been, for him, a moment of triumph. In several of the most important areas...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 03, 2011 16 Comments
I find this interesting, considering that Hatch is facing a likely challenge from Jason Chaffetz, who is gaining in the polls. I like Hatch, although I’ll readily admit I have followed him mostly as relates to judicial appointments, where he fought the good fight on...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 02, 2011 28 Comments
The U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling (Alito dissenting), ruled in favor of the right under the First Amendment for protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church to picket near the funerals of soldiers. Here is a key piece of the Opinion, written by Chief...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 24, 2011 12 Comments
Criticism of Supreme Court Justices is nothing new.  We do it and they do it. But the latest tactic in going after two Supreme Court Justices, Scalia and Thomas, seems out of the ordinary.  Since the first of this year we have seen three charges...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 06, 2011 0 Comments
One of the deals worked out in the lame duck session was the confirmation of 19 judicial nominees without action on four controversial nominees, including Goodwin Liu and John J. “Jack” McConnell. As reported by AP (h/t Senatus): President Barack Obama on Wednesday resubmitted a batch...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 29, 2010 7 Comments
Here are Legal Insurrection’s Official predictions for 2011: Obama will give an unscripted speech announcing he is resigning to take a year-long road trip to play golf in each of the 57 states. Joe Biden, the second in line to the presidency, will become President upon Obama’s resignation,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 11, 2010 9 Comments
The NY Times laments that liberals cannot manage to get a full-throttled liberal nominee on the Court to do battle with Antonin Scalia (emphasis mine): The selection of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be the nation’s 112th justice extends a quarter-century pattern in which Republican...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 10, 2010 11 Comments
Chief Justice John Roberts, in responding to a question during a law school forum, took the very reasonable position that what happened at the State of the Union address was troubling: “First of all, anybody can criticize the Supreme Court without any qualm,” he said,...
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