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By on Mar 14, 2014 at 1:07 pm
In a recent excerpt of our forthcoming ebook, we noted that the ACLU had not filed an amicus brief in McCutcheon v. FEC. Given the ACLU’s history of contesting campaign laws up to but not after Citizens United, and given the controversy within the ACLU over such issues dating back to at least 1998, we speculated as to whether that “division” continues within the ACLU. Below, Steven Shapiro (the legal director of the National ACLU) explains why the ACLU elected not to file a brief in McCutcheon.     

By on Mar 12, 2014 at 12:51 pm
The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming ebook titled When Money Speaks: The McCutcheon Decision, Campaign Finance Laws & The First Amendment (Top Five Books) by Ronald Collins and David Skover. It is the first in the SCOTUS Books-in-Brief series. The ebook will be available shortly after the Supreme Court issues its ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC. In 2013 the American Civil Liberties Union did not file an amicus brief in McCutcheon v. FEC, the First Amendment campaign finance case now awaiting a decision in the Supreme Court. But the group had not always been silent on the issue. Quite the contrary; it had once been quite vocal in its First Amendment opposition to many campaign finance laws.

By on Feb 14, 2014 at 12:35 pm
The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins to David M. O’Brien on the occasion of the publication of Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics (W.W. Norton, 10th ed., 2014). Welcome, David. Thank you for taking the time to participate in this Question and Answer exchange for our readers. And congratulations on the publication of the tenth edition of your book on the Supreme Court. Question:  Perhaps I am mistaken, but I assume that in the academy constitutional law is today seen largely as the domain of law professors. Of course, even if true, it was not always so. You first studied under a noted political science professor who wrote in the area of constitutional law and then early in your teaching career you were a colleague to yet another political scientist who was also a giant in that same field.  Can you identify them and say a few words about them?

By on Jan 31, 2014 at 11:44 am
The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins on the occasion of the publication of The Progeny: Justice William Brennan’s Fight to Save New York Times v. Sullivan (American Bar Association, 2014). Welcome, Lee and Stephen. Thank you for taking the time to participate in this Question and Answer exchange for our readers. And congratulations on the publication of your latest book.

By on Jan 30, 2014 at 10:21 am
Two days after the 2012 challenges to the Affordable Care Act were argued and three months before they were decided by the Supreme Court, Adam Teicholz wrote this in The Atlantic: “Blogs – particularly a blog of big legal ideas called Volokh Conspiracy – have been central to shifting the conversation about the mandate challenges.” Paul Clement, the lead attorney who contested the law, agrees: “[I]f ever a legal blog and a constitutional moment were meant for each other, it was the Volokh Conspiracy and the challenge to the Affordable Care Act.” As Clement adds in his foreword to A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Affordable Care Act  (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014), edited by Trevor Burrus, he is friends with Eugene Volokh, “who clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor the same year [he] clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.”

By on Jan 28, 2014 at 7:00 pm
For Supreme Court practitioners, or anyone else who may need to file a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court, it could be the best $495 you ever spend.  Now in its tenth edition, Supreme Court Practice is regarded as a sufficiently authoritative resource on all things related to the Court that it is cited not only by lawyers who argue there but also by the Justices themselves.  From the inside front cover—which provides a map of the first floor of the Court building, where the courtroom itself is located—to the inside back cover (which provides a map of the ground floor) and all of the nearly 1500 pages in between, the treatise is a treasure trove of information.  Want a flow chart that illustrates how a case moves through the Court?  Check.  Need practice pointers?  The authors spend sixty pages on oral argument, covering everything from preparation to courtroom fashion.  Looking for substantive assistance on legal issues like jurisdiction or stays?  Consult chapters 2, 3, and 17, respectively.

By on Oct 25, 2013 at 11:01 am
With the advent of a new Term, it is time to return to thinking about the business of the Supreme Court, past, present and to come. In that regard, the line-up of seventeen new or forthcoming books should be of considerable interest to SCOTUSblog readers.  The list includes everything from books on the Supreme Court and the practice of medicine and disability law to works on the Roberts Court and the history of Roe v. Wade.

By on Jul 8, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Liptak bookBrevity is one mark of a good writer; accuracy is another.  By that measure, Adam Liptak’s To Have and Uphold: The Supreme Court and the Battle for Same-Sex Marriage (Byliner Inc., July 9, 2013) is a work worthy of a good writer – in this case, the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times. This engaging little e-book (available on Amazon, iBookstore and Kobobooks) comes on the heels of our own online symposium, though its main drift leans toward a popular audience. Even so, Adam Liptak has crafted a little gem that one could read in less time than it took to argue this Term’s two same-sex marriage cases. The e-book is so accessible and informative that after reading it one could converse on the topic in erudite circles. Public speakers take note!

By on May 30, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Forty-five years after the publication of his first book (Technology: Process of Assessment and Choice), Laurence Tribe is preparing to release another book, tentatively titled Uncertain Justice (2014).  Henry Holt is the publisher, and the famed John Sterling will serve as editor of the project.  This forthcoming offering will come out six years after Tribe’s last book (The Invisible Constitution). The book will be the Harvard Law professor’s sixteenth.  Like a few of his other works, Uncertain Justice will be co-authored – this time Joshua Matz (a Harvard law graduate and former blogger on this site) is his literary partner on this work on the Roberts Court. A few years back, Tribe and Matz taught a course together at Harvard.  In it they set out to instruct college students on “how the legal rules and principles that have developed to implement the Constitution sometimes make both our political system and our system of justice work better -- but at other times make them work very badly.” After bringing the Constitution to life for undergraduates, the pair decided to write a book that offered a “deeper understanding of the substance of the Court’s work and how it is transforming our nation.”  In Uncertain Justice, Tribe and Matz seek to “cast useful light on how law and politics relate to one another in a realm that has come to seem more arcane than it needs to be.”  They also aim to “reveal how this Court’s rulings, both dramatic and tentative, reflect deep tensions and uncertainties among the Justices about our shared future.”

By on May 17, 2013 at 4:05 pm
The following is a series of questions posed to Floyd Abrams by Ronald Collins on the occasion of the publication of Abrams’s new book, Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment (Yale University Press, 2013).Floyd Abrams Welcome, Floyd.  Thank you for taking the time to participate in this Question and Answer exchange for our readers.  And congratulations on the publication of your second book. Question: You’re seventy-six years old and still quite active in litigating First Amendment cases. And now another book about your life in the law, the law of the First Amendment, that is.  Would it be fair to say that you love your work?   Answer: Yes. I’ve been very lucky in a lot of ways -- my family, my law firm, and my good fortune in being able to devote a good deal of my professional and personal time to seeking to protect and expand First Amendment  principles. Question: The title and subtitle of your latest book suggest that you are venturing, on the one hand,  to help the Court better understand the First Amendment while, on the other hand, battling those who would undermine the First Amendment.  Can you say a few words about your roles as educator and combatant?