SCOTUS Watch: New Term Begins

There used to be February and August terms. "Congress moved the Court term’s start date from the second Monday in October to the current first Monday."  This means the "2022 term" started today.  First Monday In October was a play (and then okay movie) that foreshadowed the first appointment of a women.  White males are now a minority of the Court. Clearly, it is time to end affirmative action as we know it!

It took a little while (though it was up by around 10 A.M.) for the website to set up the link to the morning orders, needing to set up a new "2022" link.  The order list was a sort of "clean-up" list (nearly 50 pages long) and they have a set of new cases. Most aren't too exciting. They did take a possibly important case about regulating the Internet (Section 230).

[ETA: Here is a "view in" with a comment that the old term officially ended technically this morning.]

A SCOTUSBlog analysis that argues Thomas is the de facto chief, including talking about his national influence such as how many clerks are in important places of power (both locally and on the federal bench). Also, nice memorial for retiring court artist (Art Lien).  Also, lately it seemed to get the morning round-up out a bit earlier, after it often taking a bit too long.

The first argument involved the reach of federal power over wetlands, which has been one area conservatives have used to target federal regulatory power.  Justice Jackson got into the questioning early on.  The argument was scheduled to be an hour.  The challenger had that long.  It went more like 1:40.  

A HEY YOU to C-SPAN here. Brian Lamb was long pushing them to allow  video.  We now have audio.  But, for whatever reason, C-SPAN -- even on the first day of the term/new justice -- doesn't feel it is important enough to air it live on C-SPAN television.  You can check online for it.  On television, they didn't even have a congressional session at 10 A.M. They even aired a (not live) SCOTUS panel.  If the Supreme Court coverage is so important, why not air it? Many are not aware of the website content or might not have access.  Television (with photos to deal with lack of video and maybe a segment before/after) is useful here. FAIL.

Tough questioning for the anti-EPA side but largely from the liberals with the conservatives pushing back seemingly in a more gentle way.  Long term observer suggests SCOTUS might be looking for larger game here.  This bunch likes to ask questions. Arguments often go long. With less cases, they surely have more time for that sort of thing.  

The next case was more dull, but Justice Jackson asked a question early on as well. She had a nice sounding voice. Gorsuch sounds smarmy.  Kavanaugh sounds like a dick.  Alito sounds cranky.  Barrett aims for reasonable.  Kagan is your opinionated friend, who is somewhat nicer about it (at times).  She can bring the snark.  Sotomayor doesn't  tone that down.  Thomas is now rather chatty.  Roberts is your reasonable dad though at times he will get somewhat miffed or doubting sounding.  

To toss it out there, Roberts got a new assistant.   Tomorrow will have another big oral argument about racial redistricting matters.  Prof. Steve Vladeck (Shadow Docket guy/Mets fan living in Texas) noted how lower court districting cases could turn the 2022 elections.  Litigation already affected New York state races pursuant to state court action.