SCOTUS Playing Chicken

JOYCE VANCE JUN 27

As I mentioned, Bob and I are off on a quick visit with one of our kids. I was prepared to read new cases and write about the Supreme Court tonight, but the combination of a long day of travel and the fact that the Court didn’t address Trump-related cases in its decisions today means that I’ll leave you with a few quick pictures I snapped this morning before we left home.

That’s not to say that today’s decisions aren’t important because they are, but we can take some time to address them. As for the EMTALA/abortion case, as you likely know by now, shades of the leak of the Dobbs opinion, the Court “accidentally” (whatever that means) posted the opinion briefly on its website this morning before taking it down. It’s possible that we’ll see it for real tomorrow when the Court convenes at 10 a.m.

The two cases the Court decided today are:

• Murthy, where the Court held the plaintiffs, two States and five social-media users who sued Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that the Government pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment, lacked standing to proceed. You’ll recall the illustration of standing we employed on standing last one: if judges are umpires who call the balls and strikes, before they can do that, they have to make sure that the batter is a player who is really in the game, not just someone who wandered in off the street. Read the full opinion here.

• In Snyder, which we discussed in “The Week Ahead,” the Court concluded that while it’s a crime to bribe state and local officials (including bribery conspiracy and acceptance of bribes by those officials), it’s not a crime for those officials to accept “gratuities” for their past acts. This unfortunate exception will swallow the rule—any canny, corrupt public official will simply arrange to accept gratuities after the fact instead of bribes upfront. The 6-3 decision split the Court down ideological lines, with Justice Jackson writing in dissent:

Read the full opinion here.

SCOTUS is still playing chicken with us, adding days to release opinions without deciding the case that has hung over this term of Court from the moment the Justices first agreed to hear it, the presidential immunity case. I’d be surprised if we saw it tomorrow just ahead of the presidential debate. But truly, there is no way to predict what the Supreme Court will do. It could be tomorrow, Friday, or even Monday.

Because waiting is hard, I decided to try something new this morning to distract myself. Before we headed out to the airport, I gave the chickens broccoli, of all things and it turned out to be a hit.

Popcorn, the old favorite, is still in high demand. But here’s proof that we can all benefit from trying something new every once in a while.

We’re in this together,

Joyce