Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act takes another hit.

Again Alabama is on the wrong side of a court ruling.

LOUDLY.

* The first rule of stealing from law firm trust accounts: Do not steal from law firm trust accounts. [NBC 12]

* Not sure what to make of courts putting the hold on Biden’s debt relief? Here’s a primer. [WWLT]

* Democracy litigated: The attacks on the Voting Rights Act foretell a different relationship to democracy and representation for many. [Al Jazeera]

* Peering at a jury of peers: Jury selection is staring for Trump’s tax evading shenanigans. [NPR]

* Peer Pressure: NY’s pay transparency law may have the dire impact of encouraging people to demand equal pay for equal work. The horror. [NY Post]

* Nothing says spooky month like learning about zombie laws! [Idaho Capital Sun]

* Have you heard of Texas’ No Surprises Act? Here’s a primer. [AMA-ASSN]

* New Jersey is trying to make a Voting Rights Act of its own. [New Jersey Monitor]

* The newest objection to Biden’s loan relief? It helps Black people too much. [Wa Po]

Know your role.

The Chief worries about discriminatory redistricting plans going into effect before review. So did the rest of us, buddy.

* The struggling democracy with nukes still can’t pull it together enough to even talk about a new voting rights bill. [ABC News]

* Montana’s AG wants abortion law in place that may violate the state’s constitution. See what you’ve started, Texas? [U.S. News]

* NYPD police union threatens to sue if officers are required to get vaccinated. Can Pfizer just come up with a donut version of the vaccine? I feel like that could do the trick. [Fox News]

* Lawsuit claims that Oklahoma’s anti-CRT laws violate the 1st and 14th amendments. Interesting argument, I wonder if anyone has made it before. [NBC News]

* Change in Arizona law aims to reduce the frequency of street racing. Bold move — it will likely rule the state out as a place to record Fast & Furious 37: Road Runner’s Requiem. [ABC 15]

* Map drawing that weakens Latino vote in Texas faces Voting Rights Act scrutiny. I hope that whatever is left of it gets the job done. [The Dallas Morning News]

* Looks like Michigan is about to be a UBE state! Woop woop! [Law.com]

* Groups “Black Men Build” and “The Smile Trust, Inc.” continue to feed and clothe unsheltered folks in Miami despite ordinances. Sounds like some good governance to me. [Miami Herald]

* Jussie Smollett still headed to trial after judge dismisses his plea. No way 50 Cent is gonna let this go without some Grade A petty. [Yahoo!]

* SCOTUS upholds strong qualified immunity standard for police. [New York Times]

Want to completely rewrite a statute? Here you go!

Plus other notable legal news from the week that was.

Blum’s organizations attempt to choke our country’s educational institutions’ ability to take race into account in their admissions policies.

* Sonia Sotomayor is proving she is a different kind of Supreme Court justice. [Guile is Good]

* Nick Denton gets a nice payday in exchange for a non-compete clause. [Wall Street Journal]

* Federal judge rules Ferguson School District violated the Voting Rights Act. [Huffington Post]

* Democrats are screwing up Obamacare — does this open the door to the single-payer option? [Slate]

* Even Mike Pence can’t keep a straight face when confronted with Trump’s “ideas.” [Salon]

* The battle over #sponsored posts continues. [Speechwriter-Ghostwriter]

* No maternity leave? No problem. Just learn the basics of an office birth. [Funny or Die]

* The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, rules that Texas’s voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act by having discriminatory effects on minority voters (but remands on the issue of discriminatory purpose). [How Appealing]

* It appears that yes, Roger Ailes is on his way out at Fox News — thanks in part to the work of lawyers from Paul, Weiss. [New York Times]

* Matt and Melissa Graves, the parents whose two-year-old son was killed by an alligator at Disney’s Grand Floridian resort, will not be suing Disney. [Washington Post]

* Congratulations to exoneree Jarrett Adams, who served nearly eight years in prison for a crime he did not commit, on his admission to the New York bar. [ABA Journal]

* Republican VP nominee Mike Pence is a lawyer, and his Democratic counterpart probably will be as well: shortlisters Tim Kaine, Thomas Perez, and Tom Vilsack are all lawyers, and James Stavridis is a law dean. [New York Times]

* A California man gets convicted in a plot to kill two prosecutors, two FBI agents, and federal judge Andrew Guilford — with a wood chipper. [Los Angeles Times via ABA Journal]

* A New York appeals court affirms a ruling in favor of Boies Schiller in a malpractice suit brought by fashion model Mary Anne Fletcher. [Big Law Business]

* A bit more about former Attorney General Eric Holder’s work for Airbnb (a development we noted yesterday). [American Lawyer]

* The Supreme Court is behind some of the epic lines voters have experienced during the primaries. [The Nation]

* Did Justice Kennedy just reveal himself to be hostile to the contraception mandate accommodation in today’s oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell? [Slate]

* Senator Pat Toomey may be caving on the Merrick Garland front — the Pennsylvania Republican has agreed to take a meeting with the judge. [Politico]

* This is the actual problem with the most recent interpretation of Superman. [Lawyers, Guns and Money]

* Making the connection between reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights. [Huffington Post]

* Opining on the ultimate fate of Edward Snowden. [Law and More]

* Charting the spread of marijuana legalization. [Pacific Standard Magazine]

* Martin Shkreli’s hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been rescheduled due to this weekend’s blizzard. This will give the reviled pharma bro even more time to brush up on constitutional law. [CBS News]

* Uh-oh! Thanks to some “cash flow issues” — like partners not being paid on time — King & Wood Mallesons is currently in the process of raising capital and will be conducting a review of its overall financial structure. [Big Law Business / Bloomberg]

* Cert denied! The justices of the Supreme Court may have bought these lawyers’ arguments and struck down a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County case, but they’re certainly not buying their request for $2 million in legal fees. [Reuters]

* A hate crime without a resolution? Police are closing their investigation into the defacement of black professors’ portraits at Harvard Law without having found a perp. Maybe they decided to take Elie Mystal’s advice not to feed the trolls. [Boston.com]

* Florida State settled a lawsuit filed by Erica Kinsman, a former student who claimed Jameis Winston raped her, for $900K, but the school claims $700K of that amount will go to her legal team. Her lawyers, however, would politely beg to differ. [USA Today]

Is it legal legerdemain for the state to authorize and fully fund a racially discriminatory election while still insisting that the election is a private matter?

* In the wake of yet another tragedy, how should the Second Amendment be balanced? [Slate]

* What are the legal ramifications of “crying porn”? Yup, apparently ‘crying porn” is now a thing. [Law and More]

* All the ways Evenwel v. Abbott could (further) gut the Voting Rights Act. [Talking Points Memo]

* What’s the problem with international labor monitoring? [Lawyers, Guns & Money]

* Texas Governor Greg Abbott is just being the absolute worst over the issue of Syrian refugees. [Wonkette]

* Would lawyers be okay with non-lawyers providing some legal advice? [2 Civility]

* Following the divisive decision in Shelby County v. Holder, voting rights cases may be heading back to the SCOTUS sooner than we thought. Thanks, Texas and Wisconsin. [USA Today]

* Bienvenidos a Miami? Cities compete to be designated as sites where global arbitration matters are heard. Miami is an up-and-comer, but New York is king. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Thanks to anonymous donors, the reward for info related to FSU Law Professor Dan Markel’s murder has been raised to $25,000. Not a single suspect has been named since his death. [Tallahassee Democrat]

* After losing the Democratic primary to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Professor Zephyr Teachout drank some gin and tonics like a boss before returning to her class at Fordham Law to teach property. [New York Times]

* Try as he might, the Blade Runner just can’t outrun the law: Oscar Pistorius might have been cleared on the murder charge he was facing, but now he’s been found guilty on a culpable homicide charge. [CNN]

* People have “greatly underestimated how powerful a jurist Justice Sotomayor would be,” and now that one of her concurrences flies directly in the face of Obama’s NSA tactics, we’ll get to see how powerful she really is. [MSNBC]

* Here’s a fun end-of-the-year roundup: President Obama’s Top 10 Constitutional Violations of 2013. Fifty internet points shall be awarded to the first person who correctly guesses how many are related to Obamacare without looking. [Forbes]

* Following Judge Shira Scheindlin’s stop-and-frisk spanking, the Southern District of New York changed its rules on case assignments in order to increase transparency. Related-case judge-shopping just got a whole lot harder. [New York Times]

* Wiley Rein is defending its fee request in the Voting Rights Act case, and says the Department of Justice is “[tying] itself in knots” trying to find a way to get out of paying the piper. Harsh. [Blog of Legal Times]

* These are four ways you can overcome a low GPA when applying to law school, but really, the best way to overcome a low GPA is to not apply at all. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* “I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to improve the NSA.” Now that he’s unleashed all of America’s deep dark secrets, Edward Snowden just wants to Google like a regular guy. [Washington Post]