The NRA has won their motion to gain an allotment of the oral arguments in McDonald v. Chicago. As I’d previously mentioned, Gura gets 30 minutes to argue his case, a portion of which has already been given to the Texas Attorney General.
Frankly, I’m not the least happy having Paul Clement argue on our behalf. This is the guy who argued during Heller that the Supreme Court should stick with a broad standard of scrutiny favoring government interests. Why the NRA retained him, of all people, is beyond me. Stephen Halbrook would have been a much better choice.
As Gura put it, “I hope that this time Paul understands that handgun bans are unconstitutional.”
I’ve no idea as to the Court’s motives in granting the motion. It could be that a couple of Justices are reluctant to overrule Slaughterhouse, or it could just be that they want as many perspectives as possible.
Oral arguments are scheduled for March 2nd.
4 thoughts on “Clement Gets His Say”
The only good news out of what you posted above is that the States were not granted their divided oral argument time so Mr. Gura has 20 minutes and Clement has 10.
-Gene
I thought Abbot was granted time. I know Mr. Gura approved of his motion.
In any case, 20 minutes is still shorter than I’d like.
This is the second time the NRA has undermined Gura in an important case. It seems like the NRA leadership is afraid to actually get what they’ve been saying they want after all these years.
Ilya Shapiro has a rant about the matter on Cato:
I’ve done my best to defend the NRA against the rising tide of acrimony, but it gets harder by the day when they pull stuff like this. I don’t want the current generation remembering them as the organization that got in the way of Heller and McDonald.