🚨EXCLUSIVE:

Federal judges tell NBC News the Supreme Court has got to do a better job of explaining emergency rulings, with frequent decisions in favor of Trump at least appearing to validate harsh criticism of the judiciary at a time of rising threats: Read the full report here:
nbcnews.com/politics/supre…

Amid the latest developments on Biden, some of the Supreme Court's consequential rulings over the last couple of weeks have not -- aside from the one on Trump immunity -- got the attention they probably deserved, so here's a thread touching upon some key storylines... 1 -- The Supreme Court issued three rulings in quick succession that further eroded the power of federal agencies. The liberal justices united to condemn the so-called "war on the administrative state"
nbcnews.com/politics/supre…

First came Justice Sotomayor

Then Justice Kagan

Then Justice Jackson

The liberal justices took turns to raise the alarm about the Supreme Court's weakening of federal agency power by writing strongly-worded dissents & speaking out in court:
via @nbcnewsnbcnews.com/politics/supre… In what appeared a coordinated effort, the liberal justices were following in the steps of Justice Ginsburg, known for her own series of dissenting opinions in big cases (and for wearing her special "dissenting" decorative collar, or jabot).

From IVF to birth control, Supreme Court abortion pill case could spark challenges to other drugs:

via @nbcnewsnbcnews.com/politics/supre… If the Supreme Court endorses the challenge to abortion pill mifepristone, any FDA approval of a drug that faces opposition on ideological grounds could face a similar fate. A few potential scenarios:

Republicans are taking aim at new move by the judiciary to curb 'judge-shopping,' a tactic used recently by conservatives.

"This was an unforced error by the Judicial Conference," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

via @nbcnewsnbcnews.com/politics/congr… @NBCNews McConnell claims the move benefits Democrats on the assumption that they can still get nationwide injunctions but Republicans won't, although it is unclear why that would be the case. Courts in TX will still be conservative and courts in CA will still be liberal.

Supreme Court has asked special counsel Jack Smith to file a response to Trump's immunity claim by next Tuesday (Feb 20), suggesting the court does not see the need to act with great urgency on this. (The time the Supreme Court gives the other side to respond in emergency applications like this varies and can be much less than the week allotted here)

🧵In June 2022, I wrote a Reuters news story on the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of a Border Patrol agent in an excessive force case that put another nail in the coffin of constitutional claims against federal officials.

It seemed to me there was a bigger story here... Earlier this year, now at NBC News, I started looking at hundreds of lower court rulings that cite the most recent Supreme Court ruling --Egbert v Boule -- to see what impact it is having on what are known as Bivens claims.

The results were predictably stark:

BREAKING: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action programs at Harvard and UNC via @nbcnewsnbcnews.com/politics/supre… @NBCNews Jackson wrote that the ruling was "truly a tragedy for us all."

Sotomayor says the court "stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress."

NEW: Liberals have unexpectedly won several big Supreme Court cases in recent weeks, but each ruling hides conservative easter eggs that could eventually lead to very different results when the issues return to the justices in years to come:

via @nbcnewsnbcnews.com/politics/supre… @NBCNews Liberals won on curbing extreme election law theory, affirming key part of Voting Rights Act, and rejecting challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act. But all three rulings left issues undecided or teed up new ones.

Justice Alito appears to be trying to get out ahead of a new ProPublica report that will address a trip he went on with billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer.

Weirdly, it is published as an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

wsj.com/articles/propu… Alito rejects notion that he should have recused in cases Singer was involved in including one in which the court ruled in favor of a unit of Singer's hedge fund, saying he had no awareness of Singer's role.

(Singer was mentioned in pretty much every news story about that case)

More Supreme Court rulings coming on Thursday but first there will be action on pending appeals this morning Supreme Court will have rulings on Thursday and Friday this week

NEW: Since the Supreme Court's landmark gun rights ruling last year, multiple judges have taken aim at various longstanding federal gun restrictions. Now the Biden administration is asking the justices to find that such provisions remain good law:
nbcnews.com/politics/supre… This Thursday, the justices are scheduled to discuss in private whether to hear the Biden administration's appeal defending one of those federal gun provisions, one that bars people under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms.

NEW: Woke Gorsuch? How one of the most conservative Supreme Court justices echoes liberal critiques of American history in cases on Native American tribes, the racist "Insular Cases" and treatment of Guantanamo detainees
nbcnews.com/politics/supre… via @NBCNews @NBCNews Gorsuch, appointed by Trump, is one of the most conservative members on a conservative court ... and yet on certain issues his writing shows real concern for those who have been victims of past injustices, especially Native Americans.

BREAKING: Supreme Court rejects series of challenges to Indian Child Welfare Act, buttressing a law aimed at protecting Native American children while buttressing tribal identity
nbcnews.com/politics/supre… via @NBCNews @NBCNews Supreme Court found that challengers didn't have standing to bring equal protection challenge to preference provisions, a key part of ICWA. So court didn't reach the merits on that.

It did rule on merits that Congress had authority to pass the law.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Chief Justice John Roberts said in public remarks tonight that the hardest decision he has made in his time on the court was to erect a fence around the building following leak of abortion ruling last year. He bemoaned judges being heckled at law schools and protesters outside the homes of justices but said justices still get on and no voice has been raised in anger in private meetings.

Thomas dissented in Trump v. Mazars on Congress seeking access to a third party's documents. Presumably if this issue ever came up he would have to recuse.

https://twitter.com/birnbaum_e/status/1661055169969242125

"I would hold that Congress has no power to issue a legislative subpoena for private, nonofficial document," Thomas wrote in his dissenting opinion in Mazars.

NEW: Republicans are mad that people protesting outside the homes of Supreme Court justices haven't been prosecuted despite free speech concerns.

Meanwhile, protests are still taking place, so I went to take a look:
nbcnews.com/politics/supre… It's a pretty low-key scene -- about a dozen protesters singing songs, chanting and holding signs, and they keep moving and stick to the sidewalk so that they don't get arrested.

I saw a few deputy US marshals outside the homes. They didn't seem all that concerned.

NEW: Defenders of Justice Thomas are inadvertently making the case for bipartisan Supreme Court ethics reform by taking aim at liberal justices:

nbcnews.com/politics/supre… via @NBCNews @NBCNews Republicans see the attacks on Thomas as being motivated by partisan animus, but beneath the surface there is an acknowledgment that more can be done across the board, as senators like Graham and Tillis have said, although there are disagreements over the role of Congress.

Library of Congress today makes public a new tranche of the papers of late Justice John Paul Stevens, providing new behind-the-scenes insights into some big Supreme Court cases including 2000 election-decider Bush v Gore:

nbcnews.com/politics/supre… via @NBCNews Here, for example, are Justice Stevens' notes from the private meeting in which the justices discussed Bush v Gore.

Most is barely legible but if you look closely you can pick out a few comments (apologies for bad photo)

NEW: This time a century ago the Supreme Court had issued 157 rulings by May 1.

The current court has decided 15 as we head into May, with 75% of cases yet to be resolved.

The slow-poke SCOTUS:
nbcnews.com/politics/supre… via @NBCNews Supreme Court hears a lot fewer cases these days but the number of cases decided after oral arguments is the lowest of any term in the last 100 years: