On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a dispute over whether a group of states, led by Arizona, can defend a contentious Trump-era immigration policy known as the “public charge” rule after the Biden administration declined to do so. The oral argument in Arizona v. City and County of San Francisco comes… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Alabama to implement a redistricting plan that is being challenged as illegal racial gerrymandering. A lower court ruled last month that the state’s new congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act, and it ordered the state to draw a new map. But the Supreme Court in a 5-4… Read More

Even before taking office, President Joe Biden pledged to reshape the federal judiciary. In a December 2020 letter, during his presidential transition, he asked Democratic senators to recommend public defenders and civil rights lawyers, who have generally been underrepresented on the federal bench, for judgeships. If the president nominates Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who currently… Read More

Justice Stephen Breyer on Thursday confirmed news reports indicating that he intends to retire from the Supreme Court. In a brief letter to President Joe Biden, the 83-year-old Breyer wrote that he plans to step down from the court at the end of the current term, assuming that a successor has been confirmed by that… Read More

Justice Stephen Breyer, a devoted pragmatist and the senior member of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, will retire from the court at the end of the 2021-22 term, NBC News reported Wednesday. Over nearly 28 years on the court, Breyer shunned rigid approaches to legal interpretation, often seeking functional rulings with an eye toward real-world… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday morning issued orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday, Jan. 21. In addition to taking up the issue of race in college admissions (covered here), the justices added two other cases to their docket for next term. One involves the power of federal district courts; the other tests the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to reconsider the role of race in college admissions. In a brief order, the justices agreed to take up two cases asking them to overrule their landmark 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, holding that the University of Michigan could consider race as part of its efforts to assemble… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon rejected abortion providers’ request to order a federal appeals court to send their challenge to a Texas law banning almost all abortions in the state promptly back to the friendlier confines of a federal district court in that state. The providers argued that failing to do so would “derail… Read More

In a major victory for the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Supreme Court turned down a request by former President Donald Trump to block the release of presidential records that the committee is seeking. The ruling clears the way for the National Archives to turn over several… Read More

Sen. Ted Cruz is no stranger to the Supreme Court. In the 1990s, he served as a law clerk to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and between 2003 and 2010 he returned as a lawyer to argue nine cases there. On Wednesday, Cruz was before the court in a different capacity, challenging a federal… Read More