Supreme Court News
In-depth reporting and commentary on the Court’s rulings and their influence on law, politics, and society.
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opinion
Big Law’s Troubling Sway at the Supreme Court
There’s a big-money influence operation going on behind the scenes at the Supreme Court—just not the one you’ve heard about. Motivated partisans keen to discredit the Supreme Court’s conservative justices pound the table and rail on about a “dark money” conspiracy that uses gifts and front groups to reshape the law to the benefit of… -
opinion
Supreme Court Must Answer Whether Judges or Bureaucrats Have Final Word on Federal Law
Will the Supreme Court uphold the Chevron doctrine, under which courts defer to contested interpretations of law by agencies in the executive branch? Or will the high court instruct lower courts to determine the best reading of the law, as they do in virtually every non-agency case? Those are the questions the Supreme Court must… -
news
Supreme Court Hears Fishermen’s Challenges to Costly Regulatory Authority of Feds
The U.S. Supreme Court took up two cases Wednesday regarding the regulatory authority of the federal government as fishermen argue that government agencies are exceeding their authority by imposing costly mandates. In Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. vs. Department of Commerce, fishermen are challenging administrative law, dubbed “Chevron deference,” that asserts that when a… -
opinion
Supreme Court Denies Review in Critical Trans Bathroom Case That Could Have Clarified Title IX
The Supreme Court unceremoniously denied review Tuesday in a case that would have clarified once and for all whether separating bathrooms based on biological sex violates either Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 or the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Now, the nation must wait with bated breath for publication of the… -
opinion
The Key Question as Big Tech Heads to the Supreme Court Over Censorship
If you were barred from the road you take to work, would you care? Thankfully, those who pave our roads aren’t picking and choosing who uses them, but the same cannot be said of Big Tech. Social media’s expansion into our everyday lives has succeeded in replacing asphalt for algorithm, yet social media platforms are… -
news
Authorities Reveal Another Threat to a Supreme Court Justice
Authorities have uncovered another threat to the life of a Supreme Court justice. Neal Sidhwaney, 43, of Florida plead guilty Friday in a Jacksonville federal court to threatening to kill a Supreme Court justice, according to Politico. That threat was made via phone, in voicemail messages left on July 31, the publication reported. Though prosecutors… -
news
Supreme Court Denies Christian Family Counselor’s Challenge to Washington’s ‘Censorship’ Law
The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a challenge to a Washington state law prohibiting counselors from engaging in conversations that encourage changes to a minor’s “sexual orientation or gender identity.” The law, adopted in 2018, threatens to fine counselors who violate it up to $5,000 and to revoke their license. The Supreme Court declined on Monday to… -
news
‘Special Protection for Billionaires’? SCOTUS to Consider Settlement That Shields Sackler Family From Opioid Lawsuits
The Supreme Court on Monday will consider the legality of OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement, which shields the Sackler family—who built a multibillion-dollar fortune from their ownership of the company—from facing lawsuits over their role in the opioid crisis. Their settlement, which the government called “exceptional and unprecedented” in its breadth, would have the Sacklers provide up to… -
opinion
How Reagan Chose O’Connor for Supreme Court
The following is an excerpt from presidential historian Craig Shirley's forthcoming book "The Search for Reagan: The Appealing Intellectual Conservatism of Ronald Reagan," to be published in February. It recounts the thinking that went into President Reagan's 1981 selection of Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. O'Connor, who… -
news
Sandra Day O’Connor, First Woman on Supreme Court, Dies at 93
Sandra Day O’Connor, who served over 24 years on the Supreme Court as its first female justice, died Friday morning in Phoenix. She was 93. O’Connor, who retired from the high court in 2006, died of “complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and a respiratory illness,” the Supreme Court announced. “A daughter of the American… -
opinion
Is Right to Jury Trial Itself on Trial in Hedge Fund Manager’s Case Before Supreme Court?
Will ill-advised precedent or fundamental constitutional principles prevail when the right to a jury trial is at stake? After two hours of oral argument Wednesday morning in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, that was the important issue confronting the Supreme Court. That, and whether the modern desire to empower the administrative state overcomes yet another… -
news
Why Supreme Court May Knock Out Ruling on Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court likely will reject an appeals court’s decision to eliminate private lawsuits intended to enforce part of the Voting Rights Act, legal experts on both sides say. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday in a case out of Arkansas that only the Justice Department—not individuals or private groups—may sue to… -
news
Supreme Court Puts Its Name on Ethics Code It’s Used All Along
Today, the Left is complaining about the very judicial independence that was among the reasons that America declared independence from England. Most Supreme Court justices today take the Constitution as it is, refusing to make one up to promote certain political interests. The Left responds by smearing those justices as “unethical” and trying to intimidate… -
news
Supreme Court Releases Code of Conduct
The U.S. Supreme Court released its own "Code of Conduct" on Monday evening to "set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court." The Code of Conduct comes after intense pressure from liberal activist groups for the justices to implement an… -
opinion
Will Merrick Garland’s Justice Department Adequately Protect Jews?
Kristen Clarke, who leads the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, is responsible for prosecuting hate crimes and making sure that school officials don’t discriminate because of ethnicity or religion. This means that Clarke is the official in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department responsible for policing antisemitic hate crimes and antisemitic discrimination on… -
opinion
Justices Again Show Undue Deference to Feds, but Take Case That Could Undo That
In the spirit of football season, let’s imagine a short-yardage run play. The running back barrels into a mass of bodies, and the ball disappears from sight. After the officials excavate the ball, they must determine whether the runner has made the line to gain. Now, imagine that in every such ambiguous situation, the referees… -
opinion
Will Supreme Court Take Down ‘Biden’s Vast Censorship Enterprise’?
A hugely important case about government censorship of Americans’ speech online is going to the Supreme Court. “We look forward to dismantling Joe Biden’s vast censorship enterprise at the nation’s highest court,” said Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Missouri and Louisiana, along with a handful of individuals, are plaintiffs in the case, which revolves around… -
opinion
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge to NYC’s 50-Year Assault on Private Property
For more than 50 years, New York City’s so-called rent stabilization law has been squatting on the books and causing trouble. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law despite property owners’ strong arguments that the mandate constituted both a per se physical taking and regulatory taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment…. -
opinion
Justice Thomas and the Uneven Scales of Scrutiny
There is no worse example of a biased, tendentious mainstream media with ulterior motives than the castigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during the past half year. The latest example stems from flyspecking Thomas’ amended financial disclosure reports, repeating what has never been disputed and attempting to cast a dark shadow on otherwise innocent,… -
opinion
Supreme Court Sends Mixed Signals on Constitutionality of CFPB Funding in Oral Arguments
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services, argued Tuesday before the Supreme Court, is nominally an industry challenge to the bureau’s payday-lending rule. But the challengers’ effort to invalidate that rule has called into doubt the constitutionality of the bureau’s independent funding scheme. Thus, the issues the court must decide are: (1) whether the…