[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF] Tuesday in two cases. In Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] the court must determine whether a rule of judicial professional conduct that prohibits candidates for judicial office from personally soliciting campaign funds violates the First Amendment [text]. Lanell Williams-Yulee conducted [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] a mass mailing seeking contributions for her judicial campaign. In response, she was charged by the Florida bar for violating the rule and ultimately publicly reprimanded and forced to pay the costs of her disciplinary proceeding by the Florida Supreme Court [official website].

In Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc. [transcript, PDF] the question before the court is whether the Supremacy Clause [text] of the US Constitution provides Medicaid providers with a freestanding private right of action to enforce 42 USC § 1396a(a)(30)(A) [text] against a state. The central question is one of preemption [SCOTUSblog backgrounder]—specifically whether the Supremacy Clause grants “plaintiffs a cause of action to enjoin state action as preempted, even when the preempting statute does not.”