In June 2009, in NAMUDNO v. Holder, the Supreme Court came dangerously close to striking down the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important provisions of this critical civil rights law.
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November, 2010
November 29, 2010
November 18, 2010
By Brooke Obie, Online Communications Director
November 17, 2010
In a lengthy and caustic post on Volokh Conspiracy, Todd Zywicki responds to my initial critique of his defense of efforts to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. Zywicki argues that my post, “The True History of Federalism and the Seventeenth Amendment” relies on a fundamentally mistaken and incorrect version of how the Seventeenth Amendment became a part of our Constitution. But Zywicki does not, and cannot, di
November 16, 2010
It’s rare to see a sitting Supreme Court Justice call for repeal of parts of our Constitution, but that’s what in fact happened last week when Justice Antonin Scalia took a page from the Tea Party playbook and urged a return to the document as it was first written. Calling the framing of the Constitution by the Founders of America “providential,” Justice Scalia argued that we should “change it back to what they wrote” and specifically called for repealing th
November 16, 2010
Watch CAC's Chief Counsel Elizabeth Wydra explain "federal preemption" and recap oral argument in two federal preemption Supreme Court cases -- Williamson v. Mazda Motors and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion -- on The Legal Times.
November 12, 2010
By Brooke Obie, Online Communications Director
November 12, 2010
Tea Partiers love the Constitution, except for the parts they want to jettison. In fact, time and again, when they claim they want to restore our Founders’ Constitution, this means repealing Amendments that “We the People” have added to the Constitution over the last two centuries.
November 11, 2010
When the Senate returns to town next week for its post-election “lame duck” session, it will find 23 of President Obama’s judicial nominees who had been voted favorably out of the Judiciary Committee exactly where the Senate left them in September -- still languishing on the Senate floor, waiting for an up or down confirmation vote.
November 9, 2010
You know it’s been a less-than-thrilling morning at the Supreme Court when the only time the courtroom audience really perked up was at a rather inexplicable joke by Justice Stephen Breyer about a “9,000-foot cow.” (Something about how mountainous Switzerland could discriminate against other European countries’ milk products by enacting the facially neutral law that it will only buy milk from cows that graze in meadows above 9,000 feet.) Perhaps that is inevitable in a case that involves preemption doctrine, state contract principles of unconscionability, and forced arbitration. But as c
November 8, 2010
By Brooke Obie, Online Communications Director
Tomorrow’s oral argument in AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Concepcion will be a critical test for the Supreme Court in a case of significant importance to corporate America, employees and consumers. Will the Court follow its federalism principles and allow state contract law to be enforced or will the Court’s demonstrated leanings toward the interests of corporate America lead them to cast those principles aside?