At 10 a.m. EST, SCOTUS will examine Facebook’s calling and texting capabilities in the context of a 1991 consumer protection law that bans robocalls. It’s a classic case of whether technology can outrun the language of the law.
At 11 a.m. EST, the court will hear a case for the second time on a slightly different issue about the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act in a dispute between two dental companies.
A bit of deja vu in the case preview from Ronald Mann.
If you want to catch up from yesterday’s oral argument on immunity claims arising from Nazi-era art sales, give @AHoweBlogger’s oral argument analysis a read.
On Monday Nov. 30, SCOTUS will hear oral argument in Trump v. New York—a challenge to the Trump administration's plan to exclude people who are in the country illegally from the state-by-state breakdown used to allocate House seats.
We're featuring a symposium on the case.
First, here is @AHoweBlogger's case preview with everything you need to know about the case.
By the way, this is the second term in a row that the Supreme Court will hear argument in a major case involving Trump and the census.
Oral argument in California v. Texas -- the constitutional challenge to the ACA -- is about to begin. It's set for 80 minutes of argument time (but likely will go longer). You can listen live on C-SPAN: c-span.org/video/?471185-….
Follow this thread for live updates.
Arguing first is Michael Mongan, the solicitor general of California (which, along with other blue states, is defending the ACA). He says that, even if the court holds the mandate unconstitutional, Congress' intent is that the rest of the law should remain intact.
Chief Justice Roberts is the first to ask questions. He starts with the issue of standing (i.e., whether the challengers have the legal right to bring this suit). If the court finds no standing, it would avoid having to reach merits of the challenge.
Tomorrow, SCOTUS will hear oral argument in California v. Texas—the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act. There are three questions at issue. We've put together a symposium addressing each one.
Before deciding the legal merits of the challenge to the health law, SCOTUS must determine if it can even reach those questions. Do the challengers have standing to sue?
Next question: Is the ACA's "individual mandate" (which states that most Americans must have insurance) constitutional? In 2012, SCOTUS upheld the mandate under Congress' taxing power, but Congress reduced the tax penalty to $0 in 2017. That change gave rise to the current case.
So far this morning, Democrats are hammering the theme of voting rights. Both Feinstein and Leahy grill Barrett on her views on the Voting Rights Act and Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 case in which the Supreme Court struck down part of the VRA.
Barrett's response to Sen. Leahy on the court's inability to enforce its judgments:
"The Supreme Court has no power, no force, no will, so it relies on the other branches to react to its judgments accordingly."
Under questioning from Sen. Leahy, Barrett declines to characterize the Constitution's emoluments clauses as "anti-corruption" measures. Yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to take up a lawsuit alleging that Trump is violating the foreign emoluments clause.
There was A LOT of Supreme Court News yesterday: Trump financial records, election-related litigation, the census case, new cert grants, AND oral arguments in two cases. 😅
Let's catch you up.
Trump returned to SCOTUS Tuesday to ask the court to block a NY grand jury subpoena for his financial records. The case is back after SCOTUS ruled in July that the president wasn't absolutely immune but could make additional arguments. By @ahowebloggerscotusblog.com/2020/10/trump-…
SCOTUS handed the Trump administration a win yesterday when the court granted its request to stop the census count. The admin said it needed to discontinue the count to be able to process the census data and meet a key statutory deadline. By @jamesromoser scotusblog.com/2020/10/suprem…
In an exchange with Sen. Booker (D-NJ), Barrett agrees with him that there is implicit racial bias in the US criminal justice system. "It would be hard to imagine a criminal justice system as big as ours without having any implicit bias in it."
Sen. Crapo just mentioned a case from last term on severability. The case was about anti-robocall laws & was called Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants. Prof @AbbeGluck wrote about the its potential relevance to the upcoming ACA case: scotusblog.com/2020/07/a-scal…
Barrett voted in a law school moot of the upcoming ACA case last month that the individual mandate is unconstitutional but severable so the law still stands. She stressed to Sen. Crapo that the moot did not reveal her actual views and that she was not trying to signal anything.