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

The Supreme Court on Friday granted a request from the Biden administration to temporarily block a lower court’s order that would limit the ability of government officials to communicate with social media companies about their content moderation policies. The Biden administration contends that it has sought only to “mitigate the hazards of online misinformation” by… Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday refused a request by Missouri to reinstate a state law that bars police officers from enforcing federal restrictions on the sale and ownership of firearms that the state believes violate the Second Amendment. A federal judge ruled earlier this year that the state law is itself unconstitutional and blocked the… Read More

The Supreme Court on Thursday left in place an order by a federal appeals court canceling a hearing intended to draw a new congressional map for Louisiana. The order by the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was the latest chapter in the ongoing battle over the map – and the third… Read More

Less than three months after allowing the Biden administration to temporarily reinstate a rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulating “ghost guns,” the Supreme Court blocked a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that would have prevented the government from enforcing the rule against two manufacturers of gun parts. Appealing… Read More

The Supreme Court will not weigh in on the constitutionality of a North Carolina law that allows employers to sue employees who make undercover video or audio recordings. The denial of review in North Carolina Farm Bureau v. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Stein v. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals… Read More

The Supreme Court has added a second case asking it to overrule its landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council to its docket for the 2023-24 term. The announcement came on a list of orders released on Friday afternoon from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day. The court will hear… Read More

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Dec. 4 in the challenge to the legality of the bankruptcy plan for Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin. The argument in the Purdue Pharma case is one of eight cases scheduled for seven hours of oral argument in the court’s December… Read More

The Supreme Court on Wednesday was skeptical of a lower court’s decision that a congressional district on the South Carolina coast was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. After over two hours of oral argument, a majority of the court seemed inclined to rule for the state in a dispute that centers on the often close correlation… Read More

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Wednesday in a dispute over the congressional map that South Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature enacted in the wake of the 2020 census. A federal court threw out the map earlier this year, holding that one district on the South Carolina coast was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander – that… Read More

The Supreme Court did not add any new cases to its docket on Tuesday morning. In a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week, the justices denied review in approximately 180 cases – including one asking the court to overrule one of its landmark decisions on freedom of the press. In Blankenship… Read More