Gavel Grab

Might its Citizens United decision come to define the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.? Law professor  law professor David Kairys of Temple University raises that idea in a USA Today article that looks at the decision from a different perspective–what insights it may offer about the court’s future.

The reasoning that Justice Roberts articulated about reversing past rulings “is an incredibly muscular vision of when you would overrule precedent,” said Pamela Harris, director of Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute. Citizens United reversed precedent in striking down restraints on corporate spending on political elections.

In related matters, the Federal Election Commission announced its enforcement plans in the wake of Citizens United, and the rules it will no longer enforce. Jonathan Alter wrote favorably in Newsweek about Sen. Dick Durbin’s bill for public financing of congressional elections. In Salon, Andrew Leonard’s commentary on Citizens United was headlined, “Mr. Corporation goes to Washington.”

Enough people are talking about one or more possible vacancies on the high court (see Gavel Grab) that the Wall Street Journal trotted out an article on Democratic thinking, and division, over a possible new pick. Included in its early short list: Solicitor General Elena Kagan, appeals Judge Merrick Garland of the District of Columbia Circuit, and appeals Judge Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit.