NRA and the McDonald Case
Via The Packing Rat, comes this:
The NRA Respondents-Supporting-Petitioners, in McDonald v. Chicago, have filed a Motion for Divided Argument to request time at oral arguments. Petitioner opposed this motion.
In short, the NRA, represented by Paul Clement at King & Spalding, is asking to divide Gura’s time, and to get 10 minutes to argue. The NRA argues that Gura’s brief spent primarily focused on arguing in favor of extending the right to keep and bear arms through the Privileges or Immunities Clause, rather than the Due Process Clause. The NRA argues that the Court needs to hear an argument in favor of the Due Process Clause.
January 6th, 2010 at 10:54 am
SCOTUS decided to accept Gura’s petition and not the NRA due process petition. Obviously the court wants to hear the novel P &I arguement not due process.
January 6th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Alan Gura has a pretty good track record. I’d be inclined to trust his judgement.
January 6th, 2010 at 11:06 am
It is just me, or are the Supreme Court justices supremely lazy? They can’t grant an additional ten minutes to the NRA? Why are the oral arguments so limited?
January 6th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
It is only a courtesy to the Court. Every Supreme Court practitioner knows that the Court is not bound by the parties’ briefs/arguments or even the question(s) the Court has certified. The Court can decide a case on any basis and, on Constitutional questions, it mostly does on what it has thought and not what the parties wanted it to think.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Hasn’t Gura already ceded half of his time to the AG of Texas?
January 6th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
SCOTUS decided that there would be 30 minutes for this case. That is their call.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
The AG of 37 states asked when they filed their amicus in mid November for 10 minutes time. Alan Gura did not oppose the motion. It has not been decided by SCOTUS. The NRA asked on 1/5/10 for 10 minutes time which could effectively leave Gura with 10 minutes only. He has to oppose their motion. Why they couldn’t have decided that they wanted the time back in November is a mystery. They also got Paul Clement who argued against Heller as the attorney that they would like. In Heller, NRA did everything they could do to undermine the case and Alan Gura. Remember the Robert Novak hit piece on him? Are they really for RKBA or is it that they have to be the only game in town.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
RKBA, I think it’s more they would like to preserve their cash cow and the NRA-ILA.If strict scrutiny gets applied to the 2nd the NRA goes back to being a Instructor and range certifying org which is nowhere as cool as being a large and noisy lobbying group with a lot of political clout.
January 6th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
I hope to God the NRA doesn’t torpedo Alan…
January 6th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
The NRA NEEDS gun control. They would not have the membership or the funds that they do without gun control as a hot button issue. The Fudds alone cannot supoort the NRA in the style to which it is accustomed.
Like Jessie Jackson and race baiting, the NRA is nothing without gun control as an antagonist.
January 6th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
A 50-50 split sounds reasonable. If Alan was originally going to devote most of his time to the P&I clause, he can instead devote all of it to his pet issue, and let the NRA argue the traditional incorporation argument. Alan has the better argument overall, but the Second Amendment wins either way.
January 7th, 2010 at 5:48 am
I don’t believe the NRA is worried about their ‘cash cow’, even if (more likely when) this case is successful, it will still take decades to unwind all the draconian gun laws around the country. During that time there will be setbacks & likely even a negative change in popular opinion towards firearms.
There will always be a need for an organization like the NRA.