Joe Palmore spoke to Bloomberg Law for an article covering how President-elect Joe Biden's top lawyer at the Supreme Court may have no choice but to change the government's position in an election dispute in the case of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee in Arizona, which takes aim at voting restrictions passed by the state to limit out-of-precinct voting and restricts who can collect and return mail-in ballots.
According to Joe, such changes "of position are relatively rare, even when the party in power change," in part because a large number of cases handled by the office don't have a political bend.
"For example, a large part of the docket is criminal, and the government's positions in criminal cases tend to be consistent across administrations," Joe said, adding that there's a perception that changes in position occur more frequently than they actually do, likely because changes "are most likely in politically charged, high-profile cases."
He noted that there's "also a general reluctance to change positions for fear of hurting the [Solicitor General] Office's credibility with the Court."
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