January 10, 2012

POS 282-- Introduction to American Law
In class today, Tuesday 1/10, I distributed one handout, the Syllabus. We went over the Syllabus, and the use of this Blog. I then discussed a case that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, Sackett v. EPA, regarding the rights of alleged polluters to go to court to stop the enforcement of environmental laws. The assignment for Thursday 1/12 is to read pp. 1-21 of the textbook.

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Tuesday 1/10, I distributed six handouts: the syllabus; a list of Justices and of useful websites; the January calendar for the Supreme Court oral arguments this month; and three columns about the Court and current politics:
•an article by George Will about Newt Gingrich--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gingrich-the-anti-conservative/2011/12/20/gIQALq8CAP_story.html
•an article by Erwin Chemerinsky, also about Newt Gingrich--
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/20/opinion/la-oe-chemerinsky-fedjudges-20111220
and an article by Linda Greenhouse about decision-making by the Justices--
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/what-we-think-about-when-we-think-about-the-court/

I went over the syllabus, the Justices of the Court, and began a discussion of the Sackett case that was argued on Monday. The assignment for Thursday 1/12 is to read the three articles that I distributed today.