Of course, those who hope Judge Gorsuch will rule in their favor on particular issues once he's confirmed would have trouble identifying clear showings of support too, that seems to be par for the course for contemporary Supreme Court confirmation hearings -- lots of sound and fury, but ultimately signifying very, very little.

Steve Vladeck

Categorized in : Top News

If critics of Judge Gorsuch were looking for a seminal moment to cement the case against his confirmation, they didn't get it today, of course, those who hope Judge Gorsuch will rule in their favor on particular issues once he's confirmed would have trouble identifying clear showings of support too.

It always struck me as more conservative aspiration than meaningful prediction that the confirmation of a Justice Gorsuch might hasten Justice Kennedy's retirement, if anything, having Judge Gorsuch on the court would only crystallize Justice Kennedy's vital role at the center of the court -- and make it that much more difficult for him to leave on terms that might lead to a fundamental shift in the court's ideological balance.

Potential legal challenges will depend upon how the new regulations are actually worded, but based on what we have heard so far, challengers to the new rules will face an uphill battle because it sounds like the primary thing the President is doing is interpreting an ambiguous federal statute, the President is allowed to adopt reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal statutes.

It's just as possible that she was dropping a hint as that she was expressing frustration with the case, everyone is going to read into these kinds of tea leaves whatever they want to.

Every time a member of Congress does something in the foreign policy sphere that's at odds with the president, someone trots out the Logan Act.

Even for those providers who are confident that what they're doing is within the letter of the law, they face the specter of potentially ruinous litigation. They can't stop it. They can't avoid it. They can't pre-empt it.

It's usually difficult, if not impossible, to show that your lawyer was ineffective without introducing new evidence, since that ineffectiveness often turns on evidence that wasn't introduced, but today's decision makes it impossible for prisoners to rely upon new evidence to prove that the lawyer representing them in state post-conviction proceedings was ineffective.

It's hard to overstate how significant this technical ruling is for state prisoners trying to argue that they haven't received the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by The Sixth Amendment, it's usually difficult, if not impossible, to show that your lawyer was ineffective without introducing new evidence, since that ineffectiveness often turns on evidence that wasn't introduced.

There's no question that the Buffalo shooting video drives home both the stakes of the HB 20 dispute and what's wrong with HB 20 itself, if any Texas-based account reposted or rebroadcast the Twitch stream, taking that down would, on my reading, clearly violate HB 20. When you deprive social media platforms of the ability to moderate content, you are all but guaranteeing that they will be awash in violent, inappropriate, and otherwise objectionable posts.

Roe wasn't decided in a vacuum ; it's part of a larger understanding of The Constitution that recognizes a right to privacy in text that doesn't expressly identify it, if there's a majority of Supreme Court justices no longer willing to recognize such a right in the context of abortion -- indeed, who believe Supreme Court should never have recognized Supreme Court -- then that calls into question those other rights, as well.

Leaks of government information, by themselves, are not crimes, usually, leakers are prosecuted for leaking classified information, which this isn't, or for offenses related to how they obtained the information they leaked.

I do think that what this [ Ginni Thomas ] episode underscores is that it would help if there were rules, and if those rules were clear, and if the justices did a better job of articulating exactly when they will and will not step back from a case.

One of the questions the Court has agreed to take up in these cases is whether, in delegating the power to The EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Congress exceeded those limits, if the Court says yes, that will not just curtail the EPA's power to respond to climate change in a moment in which it's hard to imagine that Congress will fill the gap ; it would have enormous implications for -- and impose far greater limits on -- the federal government's regulatory power writ large.

For years, conservatives have been pressuring the court to reinvigorate long-dormant limits on Congress' power to delegate regulatory authority to administrative agencies.

One of the questions the Court has agreed to take up in these cases is whether, in delegating the power to President Joe Biden EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Congress exceeded those limits, if the Court says yes, that will not just curtail the EPA's power to respond to climate change in a moment in which it's hard to imagine that Congress will fill the gap ; it would have enormous implications for -- and impose far greater limits on -- the federal government's regulatory power writ large.

The Court of Appeals already cut off Judge Pitman effort to hold a similar hearing in the challenge to SB8 brought by Texas abortion providers, by not issuing a temporary restraining order here, Judge Pitman's effectively preventing Texas from asking the Court of Appeals to also block this hearing before it happens.

Judge Pitman seems to be going by the book here, the Court of Appeals already cut off Judge Pitman effort to hold a similar hearing in the challenge to SB8 brought by Texas abortion providers.

Alone among the conservatives, Chief Justice Roberts calls out the Texas law for what it is -- a transparent attempt not just to undermine Roe, but to make it hard for such a restriction to be blocked, it's a pretty powerful sign that Chief Justice Roberts, at least, is not ready to overrule Roe.

The courts inaction is not a determination that the six-week ban is constitutional, these kinds of emergency disputes are not a conclusive resolution of the merits of a case.

Tonight's decision not only leaves in place a district court ruling that requires the Biden administration to reinstate a program that has been defunct for months, but it also makes clear how much of a difference the change in administration makes when it comes to the justices and immigration policy, of the 28 requests for stays from the Justice Department that The Supreme Court granted during Trump's tenure, 11 were to freeze lower-court injunctions of controversial immigration rules.