November 10, 2011

POS 282--Introduction to American Law
In class today, Thursday 11/10, we spent the class going over the Gonzales v. Raich opinion. We discussed the institutional power conflicts involved, the use of precedent, and the question left unresolved. I also discussed two Court of Appeals decisions: one Raich v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 857 (9th Cir., 2007), rejected Raich's substantive due process claim that was left unanswered in the Supreme Court opinion; the other, Sky-Seven v. Holder, __ F.3d __ (D.C. Cir., 2011) decided on Tuesday, applied the Raich case in concluding the Affordable Care Act was constitutional, an issue that seems headed to the Supreme Court soon. The assignment for Tuesday November 15 is to read through p.136 of the text.

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Thursday 11/10, we started going over the oral argument in Jones. I went over the background of four of the cases that were cited in the oral argument, Karo v. U.S., Oliver v. U.S., Caperton v. Massey, and Whren v. U.S. On Tuesday 11/15, the class will discuss how they're seeing the oral argument questioning in terms of predicting the votes of the Justices. The assignment is to continue working on the Jones paper.