Context By many metrics, and even by the Court’s standards, the Supreme Court has been quiet so far during the 2016 Term. While the Court has naturally taken fewer cases over recent years (exponentially fewer if we look back over the preceding decades), there is context for the most current muted effort. Much of the…
Month: December 2016
Profiling State Justices on Trump’s List of Possible SCOTUS Candidates
There is a world of difference between state and federal judges. Although both sets serve to perform the same general duty, much of this difference lies in the form of the relevant laws that they construe and interpret on a daily basis. Another source of difference comes in the form of how these judges reach…
What The Money Says About Federal Judges on Trump’s SCOTUS List
Money talks…or so the saying goes. This is especially true in the world of politics with multi-million dollar campaigns that could not survive without it. Federal judges, however, are unelected and so they do not run political campaigns that leave financial trails. Once on the bench, federal judges must preserve a sense of impartiality which…
Comparing Candidates for the Next United States Solicitor General
Eleven possibilities for the next Solicitor General of the United States. There are in fact many more possible candidates although the eleven names produced in two articles – one by Tony Mauro of the National Law Journal and another by David Lat, managing editor of Above the Law provide an ample source of talented lawyers…
Four Takeaways From this Term’s 2016 SCOTUS Oral Arguments
We are experiencing a changing of the guard in the Supreme Court. There has been an usually long period with an eight-Justice dynamic which will very possibly continue on through the end of the Court’s current Term. Without some unprecedented occurrence, President-Elect Trump will nominate the next Justice to the Supreme Court who will likely…
Early Term Decisions
The Supreme Court released two more decisions today in Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple Inc. and Salman v. United States. Both were unanimous – the Samsung decision written by Justice Sotomayor and Salman by Justice Alito. This brings the total number of authored decisions so far this Term to four. All were unanimous and the only separate opinion was a concurrence by…
Will the Election Help Normalize Business at the Supreme Court?
Prior to the Presidential Election there was profound uncertainty about the future of the Court. Before election night many believed Clinton would take the presidency and the democrats would look to move on the Garland nomination or otherwise nominate another candidate to the Supreme Court. With the Trump victory an entirely new chapter will be…
Empirical SCOTUS 