THE SUPREME COURT

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was causing a stir in the courtroom. It was on Feb 27, 2013, and the justices were hearing oral argument in Shelby County v Holder, a test of the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr told the Court that by renewing the act in 2006 by an overwhelming majority, Congress was making the judgment that the law was still needed, in spite of increases in minority voting. Similar and yet very distinct, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are Pres Barack Obama's first term legacy on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, nominated in 2009, and Kagan, named in 2010, are the first appointees of a Democratic president since Bill Clinton picked Stephen Breyer in 1994. When Sotomayor was first nominated, some liberals were concerned that her background as a prosecutor in New York would make her unsympathetic toward the rights of criminal defendants.