• “’If [southern Republican politicians] come out against it, then their hope of getting any African-American votes in the future is even worse than it is now.’” AP quotes a professor of political science from Emory University, in an article that examines the varying responses of Republicans holding elected office in the South to the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act at issue in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, an important civil rights case set to be argued before the Supreme Court at the end of this month.
• “Rights guaranteed under and by the Constitution are clearly at issue here. That certainly makes this case worthy of Supreme Court review.” A reader pushes back against David Rivkin’s April 8th editorial in the LA Times, which argued that “the Supreme Court shouldn’t be judging judges” in this term’s high-profile case on due process and judicial ethics, Caperton v. Massey Coal. (Learn more here about why we agree that the Supreme Court is correct to review this case, and why it should rule that a state court judge should have recused himself from a case involving a corporation whose CEO spent millions of dollars to help get the judge elected.)
• “‘Today there is much focus on our rights… Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?’” Justice Clarence Thomas, quoted in the NY Times, discussed his curious attitude toward the “proliferation of rights” recently, when speaking before a group of high school students in Washington, D.C..

And finally, Happy Birthday to Thomas Jefferson! He was born on this day, in 1743.