Tag: scotus

Supreme Court case could have major affect on 2026 midterms

The U.S. Supreme Court has agree to take up a case that could have an effect on the 2026 midterm elections.

The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, centers around a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after an election as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. The Mississippi law was enacted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fifteen other states and the District of Columbia have similar laws that allow domestic mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day, as long as the ballot is postmarked by the date of an election. In Illinois, mail-in ballots can be received up to 14 days after Election Day.

The nation’s highest court will decide whether to uphold a ruling from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said ballots must be received by Election Day to be counted.

Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, celebrated the court’s decision to take up the mail-in ballot challenge. He said the court’s decision is especially important because it will set a precedent for election law going into the 2026 midterms.

“The Supreme Court now has the chance to set the record straight: Federal law clearly says that ballots must be received by Election Day,” Snead told the Center Square. “Despite this, some states continue to allow absentee ballots to pour in days or even weeks late.”

“This case gives the Supreme Court the chance to resolve that question once and for all,” Snead said.

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the case is an attempt to restrict voting rights in states that offer delayed mail-in ballot deadlines.

“The DNC will fight like hell in this case for the rights of Mississippians and every other citizen to make sure their voices are heard and their votes are counted,” Martin said.

Lawyers for the Republican National Committee argued that federal law sets the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as Election Day.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia filed a brief to the Supreme Court that argued states should have the ability to set rules over the receipt of ballots. The states said mail-in ballot deadlines give voters a greater opportunity to cast their ballots.

“States have the constitutional authority to make individualized judgments on how best to receive and count votes in federal elections,” representatives for the state wrote.

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Why the Supreme Court Shouldn’t Possess the Power to Bestow Individual Rights

The national anxiety over Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court of the United States seems disproportionate to size of the footnote he will occupy in history.

Why does it matter that one federal judge will retire?

An Elite Judicial Body

Robert Jackson was Solicitor General of the United States, Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. For his education, Jackson spent about a year at Albany Law School, reading the law, and passing the bar examination.

His story is an inconvenient truth in the era of big student loan debt. As debt soars, income stagnates, housing skyrockets, and 30-year olds bunk with roommates (or parents), a generation now awakens to a looming higher education crisis. Many are losing faith, looking to alternatives, or simply opting out.

Then again, when the Supreme Court issues its opinions each June, and 5 billion social media users morph into Robert Jackson, I am reminded that law is indeed a trained profession.

I know the government schools told us we are each entitled to our opinion. But there is a simple reason the Supreme Court does not poll the American public before stating its opinions. That is because it is, by definition, elite. It is nine lawyers rendering legal judgments about legal arguments, raised to them by other lawyers (all of whom studied law, and passed a bar examination).  

The Court is also not merely nine typical practitioners of an elite profession. To be on the Court you need to be exceptional.

A Robert Jackson, for example.

The Egalitarian Myth

Yet, it happens every year. Social media erupts with opinion every June—opinions for, or against the Court’s decisions. When Obergefell v. Hodges recognized a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in 2015, the White House lit up with rainbow colors. Major corporations responded by altering their logos to include rainbow colors.

So, is the legitimacy of a Supreme Court decision now measured against its popularity? Must we wait for the Court to catch up to popular opinion, or must popular opinion catch up to the Court?

In 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Division, Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority: “Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights.”

It may be that “society” has come to these conclusions. But is it not bizarre that nine elite lawyers, sitting on the most elite court in the world, seem to speak on behalf of society?

Is that how self-government works?

Because no matter how egalitarian the Court’s decision is, anyone who thinks individual rights come from nine elite lawyers is about the furthest thing from being egalitarian. That person surely recognizes that popular approval is irrelevant to some legal questions.

So which questions? Is there any limit to what the Supreme Court gets to decide?

If only, there was some written framework. Like a sacred scroll or some tealeaves we could read.

Plain English

Surely, we do not believe that non-lawyers are incapable of understanding their own civil rights. To the contrary, that is exactly the point of a Constitution, written in plain English.

The question is not whether the Supreme Court ought to conform its decisions to popular will; it is whether the Court has stepped outside its authority altogether.

We cannot expect every person to become trained lawyers, or to read every Supreme Court opinion before opening a bakery, falling in love, or getting pregnant. Yet in 2018, the Court spilled gallons of inks telling more than a quarter-billion people about the existential meaning of cake.

Cake.

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Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch Says Lack of Basic Civics Knowledge is Major Threat to the Country

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared on FOX News this morning to promote his new children’s book, but things took on a more serious tone.

Gorsuch said that a lack of basic civics knowledge about the country is a major threat to America, perhaps the greatest threat.

He cited the fact that there are Americans who could not pass the basic test given to foreigners who want to legally immigrate to the United States.

The Federalist reports:

Justice Gorsuch: ‘The Greatest Danger America Faces Today’ Is ‘Itself’

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has long championed the importance of civic education in America. So, it wasn’t totally surprising when he issued a stark warning about what happens when a people abandon their shared history and responsibilities.

The moment came on Thursday morning when Gorsuch appeared on Fox News’ Fox & Friends to debut his new children’s book, The Heroes of 1776. The literary work seeks to take kids on a journey through the harrowing stories of the Founding Fathers and lesser-known patriots during the Revolutionary War era.

While speaking to the justice, network host Lawrence Jones asked Gorsuch about the meaning of a quote from the book, which reads, “The Constitution established the first modern republic in which people rule themselves …” The Trump appointee referred back to the Declaration of Independence, which he said “contains three ‘radical’ ideas: that we’re all created equal, that we have unalienable rights that come to us from God [and] not from government, and that we the people have a right to rule ourselves — not be subjects to some dictator or a crown or king.”

“Those three ideas really shook old Europe [and were] never before tried in history. We now almost take them for granted. They’re the air we breathe, the water we swim in,” Gorsuch said. “But those ideas required courageous men, women, and children to make happen in 1776, and they require the same of us today. Thomas Jefferson said an ignorant people will never remain free for long, and he’s right. We need to know our history in order to preserve it.”

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Supreme Court Lets Government Continue to Withhold Funding From SNAP

The Trump administration may, for the time being, continue not to fully fund the food stamp program until Congress appropriates new funds, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled late on Nov. 11.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as the food stamp program, provides financial assistance for food purchases to about 42 million people.

The court extended until 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 13 an administrative stay it granted on Nov. 7 that blocked lower court decisions that ordered the Trump administration to redirect about $4 billion in tariff revenue to SNAP on top of $4.6 billion it already used from a contingency fund. An administrative stay gives members of a court more time to consider an urgent matter.

The new unsigned order in Rollins v. Rhode Island Council of Churches did not provide reasons for the decision.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated she would have denied the extension and the federal government’s emergency application. She did not explain her dissent.

Jackson on Nov. 7 had placed a temporary hold on the adverse lower court orders until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a written explanation outlining why it denied the administration’s appeal of those rulings. That explanation was released on Nov. 10, prompting the administration to request that Jackson extend her stay.

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Supreme Court Allows Trump to Mandate Biological Sex on Passports – Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Fumes

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision on Thursday, allowed President Trump to enforce a new policy that has ended the use of the “X” marker on passports.

The high court issued the decision in an unsigned order.

President Trump signed an executive order shortly after his inauguration, which directed agencies like the State Department and Homeland Security to issue IDs, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, based solely on biological sex assigned at birth.

This reversed prior allowances for self-selected genders, including “X” for unspecified.

The anti-American ACLU represented transgender individuals who sued over the Trump Administration’s passport policy.

Two liberal district court judges struck down the Trump Administration’s new passport policy.

“The President’s choice to revert to prior policy and rely on biological sex—a choice that bound the State Department—should be the last place for novel equal-protection claims or Administrative Procedure Act objections,” DOJ Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the Trump Administration’s passport policy and allowed the State Department to mandate biological sex on passports.

“Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment,” the Supreme Court said.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan joined, dissented.

“As is becoming routine, the Government seeks an emergency stay of a District Court’s preliminary injunction pending appeal. As is also becoming routine, this Court misunderstands the assignment,” Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.

“Here, the balance-of-the-equities factor requires weighing the harm to the Government from not being able to proceed immediately with its allegedly unlawful policy against the harm to the individuals who would be subjected to that policy,” she added.

Bondi celebrated the latest SCOTUS win.

“Today’s stay allows the government to require citizens to list their biological sex on their passport,” Bondi said.

“In other words: there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth,” Bondi added.

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Supreme Court Issues Emergency Order Temporarily Blocking Full SNAP Payments

The Supreme Court has issued an emergency order blocking SNAP funding amid the ongoing Schumer Shutdown.

Here’s more from the Associated Press:

The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown, even though residents in some states already have received the funds.

A judge had given the Republican administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked an appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued the ruling, putting a temporary stay on an earlier order issued by a Rhode Island judge that required the Trump administration to disburse the full SNAP payment amount in the month of November.

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Trump’s Tariff Power Grab

Today, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in the landmark case of Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which will determine whether President Trump can use an emergency declaration to unilaterally impose tariffs on foreign goods that Americans buy, as he did earlier this year.

Although the Constitution is pretty clear that only Congress has the power to tax, the Trump administration cited a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify the suite of tariffs it rolled out on April 2—what Trump called “Liberation Day.”

According to the president and his lawyers, the fact that the country has a trade deficit—that American consumers spend more on goods and services from foreign producers than American businesses make from sales to foreign consumers—is a national emergency.

Trump considered attending the hearing himself over the weekend. He eventually decided against it, but stressed to his followers on Truth Social that he views this case as “one of the most important in the history of the country.”

The president clearly wants his allies on the Supreme Court to understand that he would take a ruling against him very personally. And, based on their previous rulings, the Court’s Trump-friendly majority probably wants to again give a green light to Trump’s expansion of executive authority.

But that could prove difficult. To strike down several of Biden’s more blatant power grabs, this Court relied on the so-called “major questions doctrine,” which requires Congress to use plain and direct language to authorize sweeping economic actions by the executive branch. All that the 1977 law Trump is using to justify his tariffs authorizes him to impose are “regulations” on imports.

It would be transparently hypocritical for these justices to agree that “tariffs,” “taxes,” or “duties” can be implied by the word “regulations” when they just refused to grant that level of leniency to the previous administration.

Which isn’t to say it won’t happen. The idea that the Supreme Court, and the entire federal judiciary, are independent, non-political entities driven solely by a commitment to the letter of the law is, after all, a myth.

But it’s still a difficult position for Trump’s allies on the Court. And further, it’s more evidence that Trump has abandoned his promise to rein in the power of the federal bureaucracy.

As Ryan McMaken pointed out back in April, Trump claiming unilateral control over the power to levy taxes is not at all unprecedented. That’s the direction the federal government has been moving for well over a century, as more and more of Congress’s core powers get transferred to the White House and the executive agencies making up the administrative state.

Further, the executive branch using “emergencies” it declares to justify its own power grabs has been one of the primary ways the executive state has grown in general.

In recent years, crises like the 9/11 attacks, the collapse of the housing bubble, and the covid pandemic have been used to give the permanent federal bureaucracy significantly more control over our lives.

But there have been some bright spots on this front. One of them was the Supreme Court’s embrace of the major questions doctrine, which restricted the administrative state’s ability to interpret vague language in legislation in whichever way granted itself the most power. On top of that, last year, the Court overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine.

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MD School District That Lost Queer Sex Ed Case At SCOTUS Keeps Pushing Trans Ideology On Kids

The same Maryland school district the Supreme Court rebuked for exposing children to sexually explicit material is still forcing children as young as 12 to decipher numerous gender ideology terms in a vocabulary lesson, without parental knowledge, permission, or the ability to opt out.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is a far-left school district on the periphery of Washington, D.C., perhaps most (in)famous for blocking parents from opting their children out of highly sexual material, including advocacy for homosexuality and transgenderism.

However, even after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling stating the district had to allow parents to opt their children out of the coursework, the county is still trying to force-feed young teenagers and preteens “transgender” propaganda, according to a document obtained by Defending Education from a parent.

“This vocabulary lesson requires that students buy into an ideology that many reject,” DE Senior Director of Communications Erika Sanzi told The Federalist. “Does MCPS require that students subscribe to gender ideology in order to fulfill the district’s family life requirements for middle schoolers? Because if so, that seems like viewpoint discrimination in a public school.”

The seventh grade vocabulary assignment, given the week of Oct. 13, 2025, was part of a “Family Life” (a.k.a. sexual education) lesson in which students were told to define “Sex Assigned at Birth,” “Gender Identity,” “Transgender,” “Gender Expression,” and “Cisgender.”

The worksheet appears to be a district-wide lesson, as a stamp at the bottom states “Middle School Health Education-MCPS 2023.”

It does not appear any opt out was available for this in-class assignment, ostensibly so that parents did not find out about the content.

“Gender identity,” according to the definitions provided, “refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or transgender” and “How you feel. Girl, boy, both or neither.”

It also maintains that sex is “assigned at birth” instead of being immutable, and goes on to say that it can be changed because “transgender” is “when your gender identity (how you feel) is different than what doctors/midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy or sex assigned at birth).”

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Student Challenging Ban on Males in Female Sports Cannot Withdraw Case: Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 20 declined a male college student’s request to withdraw his challenge to Idaho’s ban on male athletes competing on school sports teams intended for females.

The court’s new ruling in Little v. Hecox came without comment in an unsigned order. No justices dissented. Previously, on July 3, the Supreme Court granted Idaho’s petition but has not yet scheduled an oral argument in the case.

Respondent Lindsay Hecox had sued Idaho, alleging that Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause and Title IX, a federal civil rights law that forbids sex-based discrimination at any school that receives federal funding.

Hecox, a biological male who identifies with a female identity, wanted to compete as part of the Boise State University women’s teams for track and cross-country.

A federal district court previously issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state law so Hecox could try out for the teams. The court ruled that the statute discriminates against transgender-identifying athletes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction, holding that laws making sex-based distinctions in schools serve as “proxy discrimination” against transgender-identifying athletes.

However, on Sept. 2, Hecox’s attorneys told the Supreme Court that he wished to abandon his appeal. The case had become too much of a distraction in his life and Hecox had asked the federal district court in which the original lawsuit was still pending to dismiss it.

“Ms. Hecox has also come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters because of this litigation, and she believes that such continued—and likely intensified—attention in the coming school year will distract her from her schoolwork and prevent her from meeting her academic and personal goals.”

Even though playing women’s sports remains important to Hecox, “her top priority is graduating from college and living a healthy and safe life,” the filing said.

The document said that by filing a notice of voluntary dismissal at the district court level, Hecox terminated the case there, so there is no longer a live claim left to be decided by the courts. The Supreme Court should vacate the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and send the case back to that court with instructions to dismiss the appeal, the brief said.

However, on Oct. 14, U.S. District Judge David Nye of Idaho rejected the request to dismiss Hecox’s lawsuit.

Nye noted it was Hecox’s position that Idaho should be pleased he was attempting to dismiss the suit because doing so would allow the state law to remain in effect.

“But again, if Hecox dismisses this case and the Ninth Circuit’s decision is vacated, what is to prevent another individual from taking up Hecox’s mantel and bringing an identical suit. The parties (and the Court) would be back to square one.”

While it seems likely Hecox won’t “reengage in collegiate sports, she could still change her mind,” the judge said.

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Watch Margaret Hoover’s Justice Kennedy Interview To See Why Trust In Media Is At Record Lows

If anyone is wondering why Americans’ trust in corporate media to report the news fairly and accurately is at the lowest level in recorded history, then watch PBS Firing Line host Margaret Hoover’s interview with retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Released last Friday, the roughly half-hour-long exchange was supposedly intended to focus on Kennedy’s recently released memoir about his life and time serving on the nation’s highest court. It’s very clear after watching the discussion, however, that Hoover had other plans in mind.

From beginning to end, it’s glaringly apparent that Hoover’s entire goal in speaking with Kennedy was to use the conversation as an opportunity to discredit the current Supreme Court and try and bait the retired justice into attacking Donald Trump, whose presidency she falsely portrayed as an authoritarian regime with no respect for the rule of law.

In her first query, Hoover asked Kennedy how he sees his “role” as a retired justice at a moment “when the rule of law is being tested and the courts are under attack.” The “question,” of course, isn’t really a question, but an accusation dressed up as a question.

Borrowing a trick used by fellow media hacks like CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, Hoover is dishonestly insinuating that it’s Trump who is “testing” the law like no president before him, and that his criticisms of lower courts for issuing overreaching edicts represent an unprecedented attack on the judiciary. It’s probably safe to assume that this insinuation doesn’t include Democrats like Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer actually threatening SCOTUS, left-wing anarchists picketing outside Republican-appointed justices’ homes, or a trans-identifying leftist attempting to assassinate Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

While this was only the first “question,” feigning ignorance about Democrats’ egregious conduct and actions would go on to become a prominent feature of Hoover’s style throughout the rest of the interview.

While quoting from Kennedy’s book about the need for all branches of government to exercise their powers in accordance with the Constitution, the CNN contributor said matter-of-factly to Kennedy, “In recent weeks, we have seen the Department of Justice indict two of the president’s political enemies after he publicly demanded it,” and “We’ve seen National Guard troops be sent to states over governors’ objections. The president has repeatedly pushed the limits of the law.”

“Is the executive branch exercising its powers to the extreme?” Hoover asked, while completely ignoring how Biden’s Justice Department attempted to imprison Trump before the 2024 election, sought (and acquired) jail time for former Trump officials, targeted and arrested Christians and pro-lifers, and much more.

The Firing Line host similarly lied by omission when she asked Kennedy about what would happen “if one of the branches — for example, the executive branch — doesn’t choose to follow the Supreme Court?”

“I don’t know that we’ve ever had this,” Hoover said, insinuating that Trump is going to “defy” SCOTUS if it rules on a case in a way he doesn’t like.

Well, as much as it would disappoint Margaret to learn, America actually has “had this” happen — under Biden. When the Supreme Court declared the Biden administration’s student loan bailout to be unconstitutional, the administration tried time and again to sidestep the ruling, disregarding the high court’s decision without a second thought.

Yet, for all her supposed newfound respect for the Supreme Court, Hoover tried her best to discredit it.

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