I'm not the only one who turns to SCOTUSBlog when big cases are on the docket. Here's a round-up by
Andrew Hamm of some of the best commentary from Tuesday's
Obergefell v. Hodges oral discussion:
Early commentary on the arguments comes from ACSlaw, which has posts from Samuel A. Marcosson and Amy Bergquist. At The New York Times, Joseph Landau explores why Chief Justice Roberts might support same-sex marriage. At the New York University Law Review Online, Ryan H. Nelson discusses what he calls the “third nail” in the “proceed with caution” argument against same-sex marriage. Other early commentary comes from Ilya Shapiro at Cato at Liberty, Daniel Fisher at Forbes, Mark Joseph Stern at Slate, Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress, German Lopez at Vox, and Garrett Epps at The Atlantic.
The
Ryan Nelson (.pdf) piece from above:
“We must proceed with caution” remains a clarion call of marriage equality opponents. Courts have previously rejected this argument on two grounds:
First, states cannot save an otherwise unconstitutional law by raising the specter of theoretical harms that may run rampant if the law were struck down. And second, such harms are inapplicable in the context of same-sex marriage bans because there is no harm caused by allowing same-sex couples to wed. A number of jurists, most notably Justices Alito and Thomas, nonetheless embrace the “proceed with caution” argument.
To that end, this Essay explains a third reason why the “proceed with caution” argument should fail when the Supreme Court takes up the issue of marriage equality this spring; specifically, a state should not be allowed to proceed with caution unless it explains how it plans on doing so. The states defending their same- sex marriage bans before the Court this spring—Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—have failed to identify how they plan to proceed with caution. They offer no plans, timetables, or rubrics by which they intend on analyzing the effects of same-sex marriage elsewhere, extrapolating those effects to their states, and taking action as warranted. As these states have presented no such evidence, the Court should reject the “proceed with caution” argument they advance.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Nate Cohn:
Why a Ruling for Same-Sex Marriage Would Help Republicans
Many Republicans believe that their party needs to improve its image among the new generation of young and nonwhite voters who have helped President Obama win two terms. Yet there is a reason most Republican politicians have not tailored their positions on major issues toward younger voters: Doing so would risk angering the party’s base, which is predominantly old, white and culturally conservative.
Enter the Supreme Court.
True that SCOTUS might get the GOP off the hook ("it's the Supreme's decision, not ours"), but this assumes no one will remember how adamantly the GOP opposed history, and that it won't hurt them. I don't believe that. The Republicans are not divided over this. Every R in 2016 is running against same-sex marriage. That'll leave a mark for years to come.
Oh, and SCOTUS appointments are the most important thing about who is in the WH.
Jack Shafer:
A casual CNN viewer would have had good reason this morning to think that the rioting, looting and arson that took place yesterday in Baltimore after the Freddie Gray funeral was still happening because the signature airborne shot of the pillaging of that CVS drug store was still airing.
I isolate my criticism on CNN, but it’s not the only cable network to loop scenes of Monday’s violence as video wallpaper for Tuesday’s jabbering anchors—even though the real rioting had ceased. Nor is such looping unusual. Cable news routinely recycles and re-recycles the most striking video from newsworthy accidents, plane crashes, riots, and natural calamities without adding a time/date stamp to indicate that they’re not “live.”
Nor am I the only one complaining. Today, President Barack Obama groused about the practice. “One burning building will be looped on television over and over again,” Obama said, adding his disappointment that the peaceful demonstrations that preceded the uprising were relatively ignored by the press.
Jill Lawrence:
Jeb Bush, like most of the GOP field and his brother before him, is fond of tough talk and swagger and the big stick. He may not think he needs distance from George W. and a war that remains hugely unpopular, but big brother – older and perhaps wiser – plans to give him some. Asked about his 2016 plans, George W. replied: “You won’t see me.”
io9:
On April 17, California health officials declared the large measles outbreak that began last December at Disneyland over. But the outbreak remains active in Canada, where its persistence highlights the looming risk of measles’ return in the United States.
All told, the Disneyland measles outbreak infected 147 people in the United States, 131 of them Californians. It was a big outbreak—one of the largest in recent memory, according to the CDC—and greater, still, if you include the infections that spread to Canada. “The Measles Outbreak Is Twice As Big As You Thought,” reads the headline to this Forbes piece, in which Tara Haelle traces the outbreak’s spread north of the U.S.-Canada border. When the article was published on March 12, just over 100 cases, all traceable to two families that visited Disneyland in December, had been reported in the Lanaudière region of Quebec. Today, the number of cases in Quebec linked to the California outbreak sits at 159, exceeding the U.S. tally by 12.