Independent news and analysis on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Washington, D.C.
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It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.
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THE SUPREME COURT HAS OVERTURNED ROE V. WADE, ELIMINATING THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO ABORTION.
supremecourt.gov/opinions/21…
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#SCOTUS rules that federal employment discrimination laws protect LGBT employees
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Dear @realdonaldtrump supporters: SCOTUS is not getting involved. We wish it would. What a case! But unfortunately, that is a fever dream of gaslighting, insular, pro-Trump media that collects your attention, energy & money by deceiving you into seeing hope where none exists.
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SCOTUS sides with a high school football coach in a First Amendment case about prayer at the 50-yard-line. In a 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS says the public school district violated the coach's free speech and free exercise rights when it barred him from praying on the field after games.
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The Supreme Court sharply curtails the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. In a 6-3 ruling, the court sides with conservative states and fossil-fuel companies in adopting a narrow reading of the Clean Air Act.
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The Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN a New York gun-control law that required people to show "proper cause" to get a license to carry a concealed handgun outside the home. The vote is 6-3.
supremecourt.gov/opinions/21…
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Just before midnight on the night before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court blocked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing attendance limits at religious services. The vote is 5-4, with Roberts and the three liberals dissenting.
Here is the ruling: supremecourt.gov/opinions/20…
It's a new #SCOTUS: By a vote of 5-4, Court grants requests by Catholic diocese & synagogues in NYC to lift COVID-related attendance limits on houses of worship. Justices had turned down similar requests last summer, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still on the Court.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court BLOCKS the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine-or-test requirement for large workplaces. The court ALLOWS a vaccine mandate for workers at federally funded health care facilities to take effect nationwide.
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BREAKING: In major First Amendment case on student speech, the Supreme Court rules 8-1 in favor of a former high school student who was disciplined by her public school after sending a vulgar message on Snapchat complaining about the school's cheerleading squad.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court has denied Texas' last-ditch effort to overturn the election results in four battleground states that voted for Joe Biden. supremecourt.gov/orders/cour…
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#SCOTUS, by vote of 5-4, strikes down Louisiana law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have right to admit patients at nearby hospitals
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JUST IN: The Supreme Court confirms the authenticity of the draft opinion revealed last night by Politico. The chief justice has ordered an investigation into the leak.
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BREAKING: After 4 months of inaction, SCOTUS in a one-sentence unsigned order declines Trump's request to further postpone enforcement of a Manhattan DA subpoena for his financial records. The order clears the way for a NY grand jury to obtain the records & review them in secret.
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The document leaked to Politico is almost certainly an authentic draft opinion by J. Alito that reflects what he believes at least 5 members of the Court have voted to support — overruling Roe. But as Alito’s draft, it does not reflect the comments or reactions of other Justices.
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For those dreading, or hoping, that a conservative 6-3 Supreme Court with three appointees of Donald Trump will overturn the results of the election and deem him to be re-elected: there is absolutely no chance of that happening, whatsoever. None.
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In Trump v. Vance, #SCOTUS hands President Trump a defeat in battle with NY district attorney, holding that a subpoena to a sitting president does not have to meet a heightened standard
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NEW: In a victory for college athletes, SCOTUS unanimously invalidates a portion of the NCAA's "amateurism" rules. The court says the NCAA can no longer bar colleges from providing athletes with education-related benefits such as free laptops or paid post-graduate internships.
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Bye, Twitter. 🥺 The tipping point was having to pay for verification, when we feel we add a lot of value. We also feel solidarity with NPR, and share concerns about Twitter’s direction. You can find us on the blog and TikTok. If we join another platform, we’ll send word here. 🫡
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The Supreme Court rules that the city of Boston violated the First Amendment when it refused to fly an outside group's Christian flag in front of city hall (despite flying various other groups' flags). The decision is unanimous, and it's the only opinion of the day.
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The Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN a Maine education program that provides tuition assistance for students to attend some private schools but excludes schools that provide religious instruction. SCOTUS says the exclusion of religious schools is unconstitutional.
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There is no chance SCOTUS will review the suit dismissed by Judge Brann seeking to block Pennsylvania’s certification. The lawyers representing the President are either delusional or intentionally misleading him and his supporters.
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#SCOTUS rules 5-4 that Oklahoma did not have jurisdiction to prosecute a major crime involving an Indian within the historical boundaries of the Creek Indian reservation in eastern Oklahoma
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court agrees to take up a major abortion case that will give the court an opportunity to reconsider Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The case involves the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court agrees to hear a pair of cases that challenge the race-based affirmative action policies for admission at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The cases likely will be argued next term.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court grants the Trump administration’s request to continue to summarily remove noncitizens whom the gov't has designated as members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act.
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If a police officer fails to give a suspect his Miranda warnings, and the gov't uses the suspect's un-Mirandized statements against him in court, can the suspect sue the officer for violating his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination? In a 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS says no.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court rejects the constitutional challenge to Obamacare in 7-2 opinion. The court tosses the lawsuit because the challengers do not have legal standing to sue. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20…
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The Supreme Court has rejected a Pennsylvania Republican congressman’s request to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its presidential election results in favor of Joe Biden.
This case is different from the lawsuit filed by the state of Texas this morning.
#SCOTUS turns down request by Rep. Mike Kelly to block Pennsylvania from certifying results of presidential election. No recorded dissents.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court rules against the Biden administration in its attempt to end the "Remain in Mexico" program, a controversial Trump-era border policy. SCOTUS refuses to block a lower-court ruling that requires the gov't to reinstate the policy.
supremecourt.gov/orders/cour…
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It is now after midnight central time and there has been no ruling from the Supreme Court on the Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That means the law has officially taken effect. An emergency request to block the law remains pending at SCOTUS.
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This may be our first Editorial in the nearly two decades of the blog’s existence. The Supreme Court should decimate Texas’ original action seeking to invalidate the results of others states’ votes.
New post: Opinion: Don’t just deny Texas’ original action. Decimate it. scotusblog.com/2020/12/opini…
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The Supreme Court ALLOWS the Biden administration to terminate the controversial Trump-era asylum policy known as "remain in Mexico." Red states argued that Biden was obliged to keep the policy, but SCOTUS says in a 5-4 ruling that the administration can end it.
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SCOTUS lifts injunction against travel ban, except with respect to individuals with bona dude relationship to the US
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court agrees to take up a major gun rights case. In NY State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Corlett, the justices will consider the extent to which the Second Amendment protects the right to carry guns outside the home for self-defense.
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The court holds that, because Congress failed to formally undo the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's 19th century reservation, the land in eastern Oklahoma remains a Native American reservation for purposes of federal criminal law.
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BREAKING: Clarence Thomas was discharged from the hospital today, the Supreme Court said. The court gave no further information.
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In a very brief order, the court says Texas lacks Article III standing to sue other states over how they conduct their own elections. In layperson's words: a state has no valid interest, under the Constitution, in attempting to police other states' voting procedures.
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The Supreme Court rules 8-1 that GOP lawmakers in North Carolina can intervene in litigation to defend a state voter-ID law. The NAACP is challenging the law, and the NC attorney general (a Democrat) is defending it. GOP legislators want to intervene anyway. SCOTUS says they can.
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SCOTUS rules 9-0 against non-citizens who entered the U.S. without authorization in the 1990s, were allowed to remain in the country for humanitarian reasons under the "temporary protected status" program, and now seek green cards under the "adjustment of status" process.
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The Supreme Court REINSTATES the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS holds that a federal appeals court was wrong when it vacated his death sentence based on a jury-selection issue and an evidentiary issue.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court affirms the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision to block a religious public charter school.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to categorically revoke Biden-era permission for noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to temporarily stay in the U.S.
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BREAKING: SUPREME COURT ALLOWS TEXAS ABORTION BAN TO REMAIN IN EFFECT.
The court rejects emergency request to block the law, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in defiance of Roe v. Wade. The law took effect 24 hours ago. Opinions here:
supremecourt.gov/opinions/20…
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court lifts the federal eviction moratorium. In an unsigned 8-page opinion (with the three liberals dissenting), SCOTUS sides with a group of landlords who argued that the CDC lacked the authority to bar evictions during the pandemic.
supremecourt.gov/opinions/20…
Over dissent by 3 justices, #SCOTUS grants request to lift federal moratorium on evictions. "If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue," ct. writes, "Congress must specifically authorize it." Full opinion (& dissent) here: supremecourt.gov/opinions/20…
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Two final thoughts. 1. Politico reports that the 5 original votes to overturn Roe are “unchanged *as of this week*,” but does not report (and the leaker would know) that they have all said they will join the Alito opinion. At least 1 is apparently uncommitted. Hence the leak?
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Clarence Thomas was admitted to the hospital two nights ago with flu-like symptoms, the court said in a press release. He expects to be released "in a day or two."
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court refuses grant Indiana University students’ request to block the school’s vaccine mandate. Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the request without referring it to the full court.
#SCOTUS will not block Indiana University’s vaccine requirement for students. Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected request by a group of students without referring to the full Court.
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Attn @twitter. We are about to send out around 50 tweets helpfully responding to our most enraged trolls. In past years, you’ve thought we were hacked and blocked our account. That’s not it. Just our own bad judgment.
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Happy Constitution Day! A day to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.
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ABC News reporting that Justice Sonia Sotomayor will swear in Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris. abcnews.go.com/Politics/harr…
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In case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same murders, #SCOTUS holds that the prosecutor’s repeated use of peremptory challenges to remove black people from the jury pool violated the Constitution
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Texas has filed its reply brief in the election challenge, which means that briefing is complete. The court could act at any time.
supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/2…
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BREAKING NEWS: In 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS upholds two Arizona voting provisions: a ban on so-called "ballot harvesting," and a policy that throws out an entire ballot if it was cast in the wrong precinct. Challengers argued that both provisions discriminate against minority voters.
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Tonight’s order by Justice Alito does not affect the Pennsylvania vote count or signal that SCOTUS might do something to change the count. It is one Justice preserving things the way they already are, so all the Justices have the time to consider whether to do the same thing.
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BREAKING: In major copyright battle between tech giants, SCOTUS sides w/ Google over Oracle, finding that Google didnt commit copyright infringement when it reused lines of code in its Android operating system. The code came from Oracle's JAVA SE platform. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20…
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Just in: In an election case out of North Carolina, SCOTUS agrees to review the "independent state legislature" theory next term. Under that theory, state legislatures have broad power to set rules for federal elections, even if state courts say those rules are unconstitutional.
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The Supreme Court has added another opinion day this week. The court will issue opinions on both Thursday and Friday at 10 a.m. EDT. There are 13 cases that still remain to be decided.
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#SCOTUS upholds expanded exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate for employers with religious or moral objections
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Although Ruth Ginsburg had completed two years at Harvard, her degree would come from Columbia, where she graduated at the top of her class. She was the first person to be a member of both the Harvard Law Review and the Columbia Law Review.
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The separate statement from Alito/Thomas is based on their view (not shared by a majority of the court) that SCOTUS is obligated to take up any case that invokes the court's "original jurisdiction." It's a technical issue and says nothing about the underlying merits of the case.
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There is no tradition of leaving a Supreme Court seat vacant because of an impending presidential election scotusblog.com/2016/02/supre…
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Here is the 7-2 opinion from Chief Justice Roberts in Trump v. Vance. Dissents from Thomas and Alito. supremecourt.gov/opinions/19…
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Will the outrage among supporters of Roe — reflected in a massive amount of written commentary on every detail of the Alito draft majority opinion in the coming weeks — become the ultimate crowdsourced draft dissent?
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Despite her top grades at Columbia, no law firm in NY would hire Ginsburg after graduation. Many years later she observed that she had “struck out on 3 grounds. I was Jewish, a woman, & a mother. The 1st raised one eyebrow; the 2nd, two; the 3rd made me indubitably inadmissible.”
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That's it for today, folks. No more opinions. 8 cases outstanding, and we are headed for July opinions for the first time since 1996. We'll let you know as soon as we do about the next opinion day. We expect orders on Thursday.
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Just in: Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in tomorrow at noon as the newest Supreme Court justice, replacing Stephen Breyer. She will become the first Black woman ever to serve on the high court.
Here's the letter from Stephen Breyer making his retirement official as of tomorrow at noon. supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/…
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The Supreme Court rules 8-1 that the government does not violate the equal protection clause by excluding Puerto Rico residents from Supplemental Security Income, a safety-net program for people who are blind, disabled, or at least 65. Sonia Sotomayor is the lone dissent.
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And here is a full analysis of the court's Thanksgiving Eve decision, from the indefatigable @AHoweBlogger:
scotusblog.com/2020/11/justi…
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, feminist pioneer and progressive icon, dies at 87. From @AHoweBlogger
scotusblog.com/2020/09/justi…
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BREAKING: Siding with the Biden administration, the Supreme Court BLOCKS a lower-court ruling that had barred the Pentagon from considering the COVID vaccination status of Navy SEALs in making deployment decisions. Thomas, Alito, & Gorsuch dissent. supremecourt.gov/opinions/21…
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JUST IN. SCOTUS releases a short joint statement from Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch:
"Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends."
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No more opinions today. The court just announced that tomorrow will be the last day of opinions for this term. That means we will have an answer on Trump financial records tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.
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No more opinions today. There are 5 remaining cases. We'll let you know as soon as the court announces the next opinion day.
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Breaking: SCOTUS 5-4 grants temporary injunction of Louisiana abortion statute while the case is litigated. Roberts joins the more liberal justices. Kavanaugh writes a dissent, for himself.
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JUST IN: Amy Coney Barrett has swiftly denied a Wisconsin group's bid to block Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan. Barrett (who handles emergency requests from Wisconsin) acted on her own, without referring the case to the full court or seeking a response from the government.
NEW: A group of taxpayers challenging Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan filed an emergency request asking SCOTUS to block the government from implementing the plan while litigation in the lower courts proceeds. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/2…
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#SCOTUS will not take up federal govt’s request to overturn California’s “sanctuary state” law, which bars state & local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities
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#SCOTUS rules that federal ban on registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks violates the First Amendment, in challenge brought by designer who wanted to register the trademark for his FUCT clothing brand
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this evening of complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 87.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a district court order that would require the Department of Education to reinstate nearly 1,400 employees who were fired earlier this year.
Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Kagan and Jackson.
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If you didn’t listen to oral arguments, tl; dr: There is no chance the Supreme Court is going to invalidate Obamacare. At the very least, Justice Kavanaugh will provide a 5th vote for severing the one provision the plaintiffs & Trump Admin attack, leaving the rest in place.
Good morning. It's Obamacare day at the Supreme Court. At 10 a.m. EST, the justices will hear argument in a constitutional challenge from Republican state officials, joined by the Trump administration, seeking to invalidate the law. We'll be live-tweeting the argument right here.
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The story that Justice Kennedy negotiated for months and retired only when he had an agreement that the President would nominate Kavanaugh as his replacement is almost certainly false.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court keeps the Trump-era Title 42 border policy in effect for now. The court says it will hear argument in February over whether red states can intervene in the litigation over the policy. The vote is 5-4, with Neil Gorsuch joining the three liberals.
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(cont’d) 2. Those interested in who leaked the draft should wonder why Alexander Ward — a national security reporter — shares the byline. The leaker would insist that their identity be incredibly tightly held. Politico would not assign someone who didn’t have to be on the story.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court rules in "reverse discrimination" suit for a straight woman who says she was discriminated against in applying for a new role at work.
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Pop quiz: You think we’re biased? Of the 1000s of smart, conservative @fedsoc lawyers who — unlike @Sidneypowell1 & @rudygiuliani — have real serious experience, name one who thinks SCOTUS will do anything to bar certifying votes in favor of @joebiden over @realdonaldtrump.
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NEW: The Supreme Court BLOCKS Texas from enforcing a controversial new state law that seeks to ban large social media platforms like Twitter from moderating content based on users' viewpoints.
In a surprising vote breakdown, Kagan joins Thomas, Alito, & Gorsuch in dissent.
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JUST IN: The Supreme Court DENIES Trump's request to intervene in the dispute over documents with classified markings taken from Mar-a-Lago. The court offers no explanation for its decision (as is common for actions on the shadow docket), and there are no recorded dissents.
ALT text of order: (ORDER LIST: 598 U.S.) 22A283 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2022 ORDER IN PENDING CASE TRUMP, DONALD J. V. UNITED STATES The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court throws out the 5th Circuit’s decision to dismiss the appeal of a group of Venezuelan nations the gov't designated as terrorists & detained for deportation under the AEA. The justices grant the group an injunction while the case is sent back to the lower court for proceedings.
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The court declines to take up a case about whether a West Point cadet, who says she was sexually harassed and raped, can sue the government for inadequate sexual-assault policies at the military academy. Justice Thomas dissents, saying the court should have taken the case.
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NEW: The Supreme Court will issue more opinions next TUESDAY and THURSDAY. Eighteen cases remain to be decided, including cases on abortion, guns, climate change, and religion in schools.
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We have confirmed that retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has passed away. RIP.
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In Trump v. Mazars, Trump wins this stage of dispute over congressional subpoenas to lenders and accountant for president’s financial records as #SCOTUS, 7-2, sends case back to lower courts to take account of separation of powers concerns
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