The Supreme Court handed down only orders this morning, meaning the next possible time for it to release an opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is early next year. Several commentators, most notably John Elwood on Volokh Conspiracy and Tony Mauro for the Legal Times, have considered the possible reasons and consequences of [...]

If you’re looking for expert, and I use that word very literally, you can find an excellent write-up by Rick Hansen of Election Law blog here. If you don’t believe me, even Eugene Volokh gushes about Hansen a bit here. Hansen posits up some interesting analysis and I absolutely agree with his parting shot that [...]

To sum up my views on the oral arguments today: we saw it coming. Justice Sotomayor lined up in exactly the position she was expected take and the same goes for each of the other eight Justices. In the end, it looks like her position will be a minority one. Solicitor General Kagan did a [...]

At 10AM on September 9th, the Supreme Court will sit for a special rehearing of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (08-205). The case will be the first heard by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor––and it should be one that she feels very comfortable with. Back in May, the New York Times noted that Sotomayor, who [...]

By now, you should all know that the Supreme Court handed down their long-awaited decision in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. In short, the Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a nearly unanimous court holding that Section 5 was bad and faced several constitutional problems, but the Court decided to give Congress [...]

Today was the final day for arguments during OT08 and the Court heard arguments in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. You can find the transcript here. The arguments made were certainly very interesting. Justice Scalia, while criticizing the near-unanimity with which Congress passed the VRA extension, made this observation: You know, [...]

C-SPAN is now streaming the audio from oral arguments on their website. Link here. My initial thoughts: the Justices are very, very skeptical of Section 5.

The Supreme Court granted review today in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Michael Mukasey, a case revolving around whether or not there is still sufficient justification to force municipalities to have their districts pre-approved by Congress. §5 of the Voting Rights Act, now 42 U.S.C 1973(c), forces certain ‘covered jurisdictions’ to have [...]

On Monday, in response to a complaint from the United States Department of Justice alleging that Governor Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich had solicited bribes and engaged in a massive conspiracy to commit fraud, the Illinois House voted 113-0 to begin impeachment proceedings. Blagojevich has not yet been indicted. On December 10th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [...]

Over the course of the past week, both the blogosphere and mainstream media have been spending quite a bit of time over at the Supreme Court rumor mill. There has been a lot of buzz about two cases concerned with president-elect Obama’s citizenship, Donofrio v. Wells (08A407) and Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz (08A469). The applications for [...]