SCOTUS Watch

Not much explicitly going on at SCOTUS this week other than a Friday conference (again, they might drop some surprise later in the day).  SCOTUSBlog did start a March Madness type bracket thing for justices, but the match-ups leave something to be desired.  No link for you! We will have more stuff happening in the next two weeks and April will have more orals as well. SCOTUS also announced next Thursday will be an opinion day, which means one or more opinions are likely.  Kagan has yet to have a signed opinion for the Court; everyone else has one. 

The acting S.G. (hey, why not just keep her in?) continues to state changing positions of the Biden Administration, now in a case that might need an amicus to keep the case alive. That seems off according to the John Roberts' solo dissent that is concerned about advisory opinions. If the government concedes their case, why should the matter be kept alive? But, they sometimes do that, just going to show that "case" and "controversy" is applied with some degree of flexibility. However you explain it, the Administration is being particularly busy early on.

SCOTUS dropped a mini-order list on Friday as they sometimes do on conference day.  Among the orders is  the appointment of an amicus for that case (Terry) and a note that it will be rescheduled for argument for this term.  The acting A.G., as is practically always done, was granted time to argue in a few cases.  A final order officially grants a request to appoint someone counsel for a case that is to be argued next week.  Not sure why it was done at the last minute, but the case involves the power of tribal police so should be at least somewhat interesting.  

(Kimberly Robinson from Bloomberg noted that the amicus selected, by Thomas apparently, is a three-peat when she knows of no one else who was even a repeat. It is dubious, especially for diversity reasons, to fill these limited slots with the same person over and over again. She also noted: "All three female #SCOTUS advocates arguing during the March sitting are from the Solicitor General's Office. 13 male advocates will take the lectern." KR is cool and earlier in the year posted a link for those who wanted to buy Girl Scouts cookies from her daughter.)

There has been some sort of bipartisan move to televise the Supreme Court (Grassley supports it) for years now and the standard attempt was put out again. It didn't go anywhere in the past, except perhaps to encourage some lower courts to use video. Again, state supreme courts and supreme courts in other countries manage to do it. Breyer manages to do it when presiding over fake courts.  It is time. Oh. Sen. Sheldon "stan of many political watchers, especially but probably not limited to women" Whitehouse asked for an investigation on the alleged "fake" background check of Kavanaugh.

It is probably to be expected that a trillion plus piece of legislation that passed with no Republican votes (since they are tools) will be subject to court challenge, be it by asinine arguments. You take the bitter with the sweet there -- see the challenges to the Trump moves, some of which came out well for the challengers, a few of which were something of a stretch (though, e.g., the emoluments argument were legitimate).  What this will all wrought, along with other Biden stuff, in front of the Supreme Court will remain to be seen. Tainted 6-3 Court, it is.

We are also stuck with stupid precedent though even there the Affordable Care Act Medicaid "rule" (more like a guideline) is harder to apply here in a one-off relief bill where the money involved is smaller. To remind, the Medicaid portion of that ruling led to voluntary Medicaid expansion, though "only" twelve states (the Old Confederacy minus a few, basically) have not accepted it at this point. The relief law includes a Medicaid provision, so we still have this sort of thing. 

The conference today was in person though "some" (saw at least one other person say something like "at least one" as if it was just Breyer or something) still worked remotely.  Note the standard thing where the public relations office tells the press something but it is not posted on the website specifically.  Instead, we simply learn that April arguments will be done remotely, the unsaid being that even if the justices (plus three) are all vaccinated, various lawyers will not be. 

Orders and arguments on Monday.  The one argument is a sort of libertarian Takings Clause case that suggests a requirement to allow labor organizers on property is a taking.  The Biden Administration switched from Trump's support of such regulation as taking extremism. As noted, another involves Native American policing and a third is a potentially important Fourth Amendment case.  So, nothing earth shattering, but a trio of fairly interesting and notable constitutional cases.