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Tuesday, February 22, 2022

SCOTUS Watch: Order Day

TwosDay: The most important thing about today might be that it is an "ubiquitous palindrome date." 2/2/22. It is also President's Day, but that was observed yesterday.

Order Day: Various orders with two grants and Sotomayor finding another criminal justice matter to be concerned about. Her solo statement this time concerns the problem of sex offenders in New York needing to stay imprisoned longer when they are unable to find housing the right distance away from a school.

The most notable grant concerns a web designer not wanting to follow public accommodation rules. I'm sorry; "whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.” 

Sounds like a rhetorical question presented. This thread suggests the possible reach, suggesting at one point that the assumption SCOTUS will say "no" is not guaranteed.  I find that somewhat dubious.  Justice Breyer early in a recent interview might not want to admit that his Court has as much of a "mission" by now as the Warren Court, but the trend is apparent.

There are also a few oral arguments this week.  Tomorrow's case is about states defending policies when the feds (aka the Biden Administration) stops.  Like the case taken today (looking at the docket page), as flagged by Strict Scrutiny Podcast, it looks like the Court is reaching to decide.

Today was a pair of Native American cases, one a double jeopardy matter.  The other involved gambling and the High School SCOTUS write-up flags its potential economic effects.  That website does an impressive job, including with some more technical cases which the average reader might not be much interested in.  

[ETA: The "bingo" case went on rather long and had some amusing aspects. I wonder if they just liked to have an non-ideological oral argument. As the "view from the Court" analysis notes, by the way, Sotomayor is back. She's double masked, but now no one else is. Maskgate? What's that?]

Meanwhile ... the Colombia Constitutional Court (5-4) broadly protects abortion rights.  

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