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

Seven years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that nongovernmental organizations based in the United States cannot be required to have a policy that expressly opposes prostitution and sex trafficking in order to receive government funds to fight HIV/AIDS. However, by a vote of 5-3, the court held today in U.S. Agency for International Development v. Alliance… Read More

In response to the 2008 financial crisis, Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency with approximately 1,500 employees that tackles everything from payday loans to financial literacy programs and helping consumers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. The director of the CFPB, Kathy Kraninger, was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the… Read More

Four years ago, by a vote of 5-3, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that (among other things) required doctors who perform abortions to have the right to admit patients at a nearby hospital. In that case, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined his four more liberal colleagues in holding that, although Texas has a… Read More

The Supreme Court today refused to reinstate a ruling by a federal trial court that would have allowed all eligible voters in Texas to vote by mail for the 2020 election cycle. In a brief order without any noted dissents, the justices turned down a request from the Texas Democratic Party and a group of… Read More

With less than a week to go before the end of June, there are now only three decisions remaining from the January and February sessions. All three of those cases involve high-profile issues: public funding for religious schools, the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s leadership structure and abortion. And although in recent years… Read More

With last week’s decisions in the Title VII and DACA cases, the Supreme Court has now released all of the opinions remaining from the 2019 argument sessions. There are now only 4 decisions remaining from the January and February sessions, three of which involve high-profile issues like school choice, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and… Read More

One week after finally denying review in a large batch of cases asking them to weigh in on issues relating to qualified immunity for police officers and the rights of gun owners, this morning the justices issued a relatively quiet list of orders from their private conference last week. The justices did not add any… Read More

With last week’s decisions in the Title VII and DACA cases, the Supreme Court has now released all of the opinions remaining from the 2019 sittings. The oldest outstanding decision is now Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which was argued at the end of January 2020. Here is a list of the cases that… Read More

After the federal government announced that it plans to resume executions in July after a pause of nearly 20 years, the Supreme Court today put the dispute over the lethal-injection protocol that the government plans to use in those executions on a fast track. In an order issued this afternoon, the justices instructed the federal… Read More

It has been eight years since the Obama administration created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which allows undocumented young adults who came to the United States as children to apply for protection from deportation. In 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would end the program, which it believed had… Read More