Litigation

Wednesday Media Summary

Posted on May 18, 2010
NOMINATION REPORTING AP: National Archive works to review more Kagan papers 5/17/2010 Washington Post/44: Kagan theses to be available online Garance Franke-Ruta – 5/17/2010 KAGAN COMMENTARY AP: Kagan campaigns for Supreme Court job JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS – 5/17/2010 U...

Best Routes to Judicial Diversity Examined

Posted on May 17, 2010
Minorities are more likely to be seated on state high courts through merit selection than through partisan and nonpartisan elections, according to a new study by the American Judicature Society. AJS is a partner group of Justice at Stake, and the AJS findings were reported in an article entitled, ?Examining Diversity on State Courts: How Does [...

Kagan in Line With Justice Stevens on Free Speech?

Posted on May 17, 2010
Legal experts are questioning whether Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is in agreement with the justice she would succeed, John Paul Stevens, on weighty free speech and campaign finance regulation issues. A Politico article examined the issue using the Supreme Court’s blockbuster Citizens United decision as its focus...

Delayed Hearings for Terror Suspects Weighed

Posted on May 17, 2010
The Obama administration is not only looking at possible legislation to let investigators take longer before informing terror suspects of their Miranda rights, it also is thinking about ways to hold these suspects longer before they appear before a judge...

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Colorado Lawmakers Pass New Disclosure Law

Posted on May 17, 2010
Colorado’s legislature has voted vote to require disclosure of corporate and labor union political expenditures, in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. The legislation was sent to the desk of Gov. Bill Ritter for his signature, according to an article in the Colorado Statesman...

Blankenship to Get Grilling Before Congress

Posted on May 17, 2010
CEO Don Blankenship of Massey Energy Co. will be thrust into the spotlight this week when he is called as a witness at a U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing on the rising backlog of disputed mine safety violations. Through a subsidiary, Massey owns the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, recently the site of [...

MN Editorial: Strong Support for Merit Selection

Posted on May 17, 2010
Warning that “the writing is literally on the wall,” an editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune strongly supports a proposal to reform the way voters decide whether to retain a sitting judge. The proposal effectively would write into law the kind of merit selection process that Minnesota governors have used for three decades, but that [...

Monday Media Summary

Posted on May 17, 2010
KAGAN COMMENTARY American Prospect/Tapped: Elena Kagan And Executive Power. Adam Serwer – 5/14/2010 NY Times: On Speech, Kagan Leaned Toward Conservatives ADAM LIPTAK – 5/16/2010 Big Journalism: Elena Kagan ? Worryingly Wobbly On the First Amendment Billy Hallowell – 5/14/2010 Sacramento Bee: What a Kennedy-Kagan duo might mean Leslie Gielow Jacobs – 5/16/2010 Bloomberg Businesweek: Kagan Fit for Court Even Without Obama?s Hype: Albert [...

Republicans Air New Attacks on Kagan

Posted on May 16, 2010
Republicans unleashed a flurry of new attacks on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan Sunday. At the same time, one Republican leader said there were no plans for a filibuster against her confirmation, and former first lady Laura Bush said it was great that Kagan was nominated...

Need for Disclosure Rules in State Courts Highlighted

Posted on May 16, 2010
There is a ?particularly acute? need for strict disclosure rules in state judicial elections, the Brennan Center for Justice?s Adam Skaggs asserted this week. State policy makers need to make such disclosure rules a high priority in order to protect fair and impartial courts from rising special interest spending in judicial campaigns, Skaggs wrote...

Federal Nominee in RI Opposed by US Chamber

Posted on May 15, 2010
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has taken what a Rhode Island newspaper called the ?extraordinary step? of publicly urging rejection of a federal district court nominee. John J. McConnell Jr. (photo at right) is an outspoken Democrat and a veteran plaintiff?s lawyer...

Retired Justices Speak Out on NJ Reappointment Flap

Posted on May 15, 2010
Eight retired New Jersey State Supreme Court justices have asked Gov. Chris Christie to re-think his controversial decision not to reappoint a sitting justice. When Christie recently declined to reappoint Justice John Wallace, the governor said the court had not done enough to give the state constitution a strict reading...

Friday Media Summary

Posted on May 14, 2010
KAGAN COMMENTARY Washington Times/Post Politics: Kagan’s firsthand White House experience is rare on Supreme Court Alec MacGillis – 5/14/2010 LA Times: Kagan opposed military stance on gays David G. Savage and James Oliphant – 5/13/2010 Politics Daily: Elena Kagan: No Friend of the Military Peter Wehner – 5/13/2010 Bloomberg: Kagan Said She Was `Not Sympathetic’ Toward Gun-Rights Claim By Greg Stohr and Kristin [...

CA Assembly Approves Recusal Reform

Posted on May 13, 2010
California’s Assembly has voted to help keep courts impartial by requiring disqualification of judges when they get significant campaign donations from parties who appear in their court. Under legislation recently passed by the Assembly, judges would be disqualified if they received more than $1,500 in campaign money over the past six years from any party involved [...

Justice Marshall, Law Clerk Kagan Had Differences

Posted on May 13, 2010
Elena Kagan greatly admired the Supreme Court justice for whom she clerked, Thurgood Marshall, as a figure in history. But it would be a mistake to link her judicial thinking and his. That’s the bottom line of a New York Times article, headlined “Kagan’s Link to Marshall Cuts 2 Ways,” that is illuminating in exploring [...

Divided Panel Advances Nomination of Goodwin Liu

Posted on May 13, 2010
President Obama’s nomination of Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was approved on a party-line vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, after Republicans assailed Liu and linked him to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan...

New Disclosure Rule Adopted in WI

Posted on May 12, 2010
Corporations and labor unions in Wisconsin will be required to disclose their political expenditures this fall under an emergency rule adopted by the Government Accountability Board. The rule does not require complete disclosure of the original funding for political advertising, however, according to a Bloomberg article...

Controversial Cross in Desert Has Vanished

Posted on May 12, 2010
The cross in the Mojave National Preserve that was the subject of a recent Supreme Court decision is missing. It was made of steel pipes filled with concrete, and a spokesman for the National Preserve said someone had taken it. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, which put a predecessor of the stolen cross on the rural preserve, [...

Kagan?s Lack of Judicial Experience Debated

Posted on May 12, 2010
She hasn’t judged, which leads to the question, how will she be judged? One of the major points of debate surfacing over President Obama’s choice of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court involves her lack of judicial experience...

Court Clarifies Corporate Political Spending in MN

Posted on May 12, 2010
A federal judge has sided with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce in clarifying the rights of corporations to play an active role in state elections. The state’s restrictions on  on independent political expenditures by corporations are unconstitutional, U...

Obama Nominee Starts Rounds on Capitol Hill

Posted on May 12, 2010
UPDATE: Elena Kagan began making the rounds of courtesy calls on Capitol Hill Wednesday. She met with the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. McConnell warned that Kagan must address concerns that she would be a “rubber stamp” for President Barack Obama’s policies, the Associated Press reported...

Wednesday Media Summary

Posted on May 12, 2010
KAGAN COMMENTARY AP: Supreme Court nominee has thin “paper trail” MARK SHERMAN – 5/11/2010 NPR/Morning Edition: Kagan’s Positions On Hot-Button Issues In Spotlight Nina Totenberg – 5/11/2010 NPR: Having Judged Not, How Will Kagan Be Judged? Liz Halloran – 5/10/2010 San Francisco Chronicle: Elena Kagan: No Judicial Experience not a Bar to the Supreme Court Michael Yaki – 5/10/2010 News Max: Meese: Kagan’s Thin [...

What Would ?Justice? Kagan Mean for High Court?

Posted on May 11, 2010
What would confirmation of Elena Kagan, President Obama’s newest nominee to the Supreme Court, mean for the court’s future? The answer is a topic of widespread debate–and speculation. The solicitor general and first female dean of Harvard Law School would likely bring “a lasting, liberal presence, and administration officials hope she would, in the words of one, [...

Revisiting What Kagan Labeled the Confirmation ?Charade?

Posted on May 11, 2010
When Elena Kagan derided the Supreme Court justice confirmation process in 1995 as a “vapid and hollow charade,” she didn’t stop there. The University of Chicago assistant law professor urged that the process was so important that it should delveĀ  deeper, as Linda Greenhouse summarizes in the New York Times’ Opinionator blog: “The position of a justice [...

Editorial: ?Political Stooges? to Wield the Gavel?

Posted on May 11, 2010
To decry an effort to change the way Missouri selects its judges, an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch uses exceptionally tough talk. If the Missouri Plan for merit selection of judges is replaced with partisan elections, the editorial warns of potential corruption: “Judges no longer would be independent arbiters, but would become political stooges forced to [...

Response Eyed to CO Anti-Retention Drive

Posted on May 11, 2010
In response to an initiative to unseat four Colorado Supreme Court justices this year, former Colorado Justice Jean Dubofsky and a state Democratic Party lawyer are putting together a non-profit group. The group is intended to to “educate voters about the judicial performance evaluation process in light of an anti-retention campaign led by Clear The Bench,” [...

NV Merit Selection Proposal Readied for Voters

Posted on May 11, 2010
Nevada’s Legislative Commission has formally approved the wording of a proposal that voters will consider in November, to set up a judicial appointment and retention system. If voters support amending Nevada’s constitution, the state would scrap elections of Supreme Court justices and District Court judges when a vacancy occurs, and replace elections with what is widely [...

Tuesday Media Summary

Posted on May 11, 2010
NOMINATION REPORTING Washington Post/AP: Kagan’s remarks on her Supreme Court nomination 5/10/2010 KAGAN COMMENTARY NY Times: Searching for Elena Kagan Editorial – 5/11/2010 Wall Street Journal/Law Blog: On Kagan Confirmation, Early Winds In Her Favor Ashby Jones – 5/10/2010 ABC News: The Conversation: Elena Kagan Nominated to Supreme Court (w/video) 5/10/2010 Washington Post/Post Politics: For Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, a history of pragmatism over [...

Sources: Obama Will Nominate Kagan

Posted on May 10, 2010
President Obama will announce Monday his nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, 50, to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, according to news articles quoting sources. If the former Harvard law school dean is confirmed, the high court would have three sitting female justices for the first time in history...

Kagan is a ?Consensus Builder,? Obama Says

Posted on May 10, 2010
President Obama described Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan today as a ?consensus builder? who is known for ?her openness to a wide range of viewpoints.? If confirmed, she would succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. In making the selection of his second high court pick, the president sought ?a persuasive leader who could attract the swing [...

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