Covering the Supreme Court and the Judiciary in (mostly) Plain English

On Monday, September 25, the justices will meet for their first conference after their summer recess, which is also known as the “long” conference. At that conference, they will consider more petitions than they do at any time of the year (usually somewhere around 2,000) but will grant relatively few – last year, the number… Read More

By a vote of 50-47 that broke down almost completely on party lines, the Senate today confirmed Noel Francisco to serve as the solicitor general, the government’s top lawyer in the Supreme Court. Francisco’s confirmation comes less than two weeks before the court’s new term is scheduled to start, with a number of important cases… Read More

Early this week, the Supreme Court – over the dissent of the court’s four more liberal justices – granted Texas’ request to put on hold two lower-court orders that had invalidated two of the state’s federal congressional districts and the state’s maps for the lower house of the Texas legislature. The two courts’ orders had… Read More

Just a few hours after it put an order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on hold in the litigation over President Donald Trump’s “travel ban,” the Supreme Court blocked two more lower-court orders, which had invalidated two of Texas’ federal congressional districts and the state’s maps for the lower house… Read More

At least for now, the federal government will be able to rely on President Donald Trump’s March 6 executive order, often known as the “travel ban,” to bar roughly 24,000 refugees from entering the country. In late June, the Supreme Court allowed most of the order – which froze the issuance of visas for travelers… Read More

The state of Hawaii fired back this morning, urging the Supreme Court to stay out of the most recent skirmish in the battle over President Donald Trump’s March 6 executive order, often known as the “travel ban.” Yesterday the Trump administration went to the justices to ask them to block a ruling by the U.S…. Read More

In late June, the Supreme Court agreed to review decisions by two lower courts blocking the Trump administration from implementing the president’s March 6 executive order. That order, often known as the “travel ban,” put a freeze on new visas for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries – Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen –… Read More

Colorado’s anti-discrimination law bars places of public accommodation – that is, businesses that sell to the public – from discriminating based on (among other things) sexual orientation. In 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins went to Masterpiece Cakeshop, a Denver-area bakery, to order a cake to celebrate their upcoming wedding. But the couple left empty-handed… Read More

The Supreme Court should (and indeed must) stay out of the battle over Texas redistricting right now. That was the message in a 38-page filing submitted to the court today by the individuals and groups that had challenged the federal congressional redistricting maps adopted by the Texas legislature in 2013. Last month a three-judge federal… Read More

On September 25, the justices will meet for their first conference after their summer recess, which is also known as the “long” conference. At that conference, they will consider more petitions than they do at any time of the year (usually somewhere around 2,000) but will grant relatively few – last year, the number was… Read More