Thread by @grace_panetta

In one hour, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Brnovich vs. DNC, a case over whether two Arizona voting restrictions violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — check out my explainer/preview from yesterday on this case and why it's so important businessinsider.com/supreme-court-…

Oral arguments are kicking off now: c-span.org/video/?507934-…

Justice Thomas asked a question! "How does that race neutrality approach fit within the language of the Voting Rights Act?:

Justice Sotomayor is in a lively & assertive exchange with Michael Carvin, laywer for the RNC, "I have to say that if you look at the district court's findings...they found no meaningful threat that ballot collection leads to fraud, no threat forever"

Now Justice Kagan is presenting a number of hypotheticals by Carvin about what is "equally open"

Lol, one of them is "what if the state placed all the polling places at country clubs?"

Kagan asked about a hypothetical where a state only offers election day voting (which is basically already the case in Mississippi)
"These are hypotheticals that have never happened in the real world" — Carvin
"This doesn't seem so fanciful to me" — Kagan

Justice Kavanaugh asks what distinguishes ordinary vs. extraordinary burdens to voting

Justice Barrett is up! She tells Carvin that there appear to be "some contradictions" in his brief
"I don't understand why you conceded in your example to Justice Kagan why some of those 'time place and manner restrictions' are a burden to minorities..."

Barrett asks Carvin about the RNC"s standing: "I'm interested to know why the RNC is in this case...what is the interest of the RNC?" in keeping the AZ restrictions "It puts us at a competitive disadvantage compared to Democrats, politics is a zero-sum game." — Carvin

Now Arizona AG Mark Brnovich is up arguing for the AG's office

Justice Thomas asks Brnovich why he has standing in the case, Brnovich responds that the 9th Circuit allowed him to intervene and he is allowed under AZ statute to represent the state

Brnovich says "the cat's paw" doctrine relating to the motives of the AZ legislature in passing the ballot collection ban was wrongly applied by the 9th Circuit

Brnovich says he would not have answered all thee of Kagan's hypotheticals the same as Carvin did

Jessica Ring Amunson is now arguing on behalf of AZ Secretary of State Katie Hobbs' office

"Arizona is a big state and it's quite rural," Justice Thomas says, acknowledging that some voters have to travel great distances to get the polls or drop off a ballot

"The more this argument goes on, the less clear I become on where the parties differ on the standards" — Justice Kagan

Bruce Spiva, repping the DNC, says "several things" indicated a racial motivation behind the passage of AZ"s ban on ballot collection, starting with the DOJ refusing to preclear it outright when AZ was covered by Section 5 by the VRA

Spiva tells Justice Thomas the DNC has clear standing: "On organizational standing principles to overcome the discriminatory effect of these laws...the RNC's standing is that if the ruling stands, more minorities will vote for democrats and vote against them."

Justice Alito: to Spiva "Your position is going to make every voting rule vulnerable to attack under Section 2 the same way that the out-of-precinct policy was by the 9th Circuit," adds that lower-income voters have fewer resources to comply with every voting rule

Spiva in response to Justice Kavanaugh querying on the Carter-Baker commissions' recommendation for states to ban 3rd-party ballot collection: "The Carter-Baker report was not considered" and says "it didn't rely on any evidence" of any actual fraud related to ballot collection

And after closing statements from Carvin and Spiva, court is adjourned