SCOTUStoday for Friday, February 6

You’re working out of time to reap the benefits of the preorder provide for Last Branch Standing, Sarah Isgur’s new e-book, set to be launched in April. Final Department Standing is a enjoyable, myth-busting stroll via the Supreme Courtroom, displaying how it’s one way or the other each the Founding Fathers’ “third wheel” — and the one department of presidency they’d be more likely to acknowledge at present. Sarah will ship a signed bookplate to anybody who preorders the e-book earlier than Monday, Feb. 9. To assert your bookplate, go to prh.com/lastbranchbookplate.

SCOTUS Fast Hits

• The courtroom may rule at any time on an interim docket case on California’s insurance policies for parental notification when public faculty college students select to make use of totally different names or pronouns.
• Former Justice Anthony Kennedy is expected to ship a lecture in Palm Seashore, Florida, this afternoon associated to his memoir, Life, Law & Liberty.
• The courtroom has not but indicated when it should subsequent launch opinions. If the courtroom follows its typical sample, the earliest the following opinion day could also be is Friday, Feb. 20, when the justices are subsequent scheduled to be within the courtroom.
• The courtroom will subsequent hear arguments on Monday, Feb. 23, the primary day of its February sitting.

Morning Reads

• New Marquette Law School national survey finds 63% say U.S. Supreme Court should limit Trump’s tariff authority (Marquette As we speak) — A brand new nationwide survey from Marquette Law School discovered that almost all People hope the Supreme Courtroom will rule in opposition to the Trump administration in two of this time period’s most intently adopted instances. Particularly, 63% of U.S. adults suppose the courtroom “ought to uphold a decrease courtroom ruling that limits the president’s authority to impose tariffs,” and 64% say the courtroom ought to maintain that the president doesn’t have the ability to take away Federal Reserve governors. The survey additionally confirmed that “[m]ore than half, 57%, of these polled say the Courtroom goes out of its option to keep away from ruling in opposition to Trump, whereas 43% say the Courtroom just isn’t doing so. Amongst Republicans, 34% suppose the Courtroom is avoiding ruling in opposition to Trump, as do 59% of independents and 78% of Democrats.” And in response to the survey, “[a]pproval of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s dealing with of its job has fallen from 50% in September to 44% in January.”
• If you want to win over Supreme Court justices, quote Antonin Scalia (Joan Biskupic, CNN) — Almost 10 years after Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden loss of life at age 79, CNN has thought of his authorized legacy, emphasizing the rise of originalism and the numerous occasions that Scalia’s title is invoked within the courtroom at present. “Not often does a lawyer come earlier than the courtroom with out some argument associated to an originalist studying of the Structure, or, if the dispute assessments find out how to interpret a federal statute, come with out references to Scalia’s different signature strategy, textualism. Scalia believed judges ought to construe statutes primarily based on their textual content – the exact phrases – somewhat than by counting on contemporaneous congressional committee stories, flooring statements and different gadgets of legislative historical past,” in response to CNN. “Hardly per week goes by when Scalia isn’t cited by one of many justices in some kind.”
• ‘A transformative time’: Both parties brace for dramatic campaign fundraising change ahead of the midterms (Elena Schneider and Andrew Howard, Politico)(Paywall) — Because the Supreme Courtroom weighs in Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Fee whether or not to strike down limits on the amount of cash that political events can spend in coordination with a candidate for workplace, the Republican and Democratic “events are making ready for a possible earthquake in how the battle for Congress is waged,” in response to Politico. “The courtroom’s pending choice may open the floodgates to much more marketing campaign advertisements from the nationwide events and lengthen the timeline of marketing campaign promoting a lot earlier into the summer season.” In anticipation of that end result and others, “Republicans and Democrats alike are prepping a number of contingency plans,” whilst they settle for {that a} “June or July ruling may stymie efforts to capitalize absolutely on any potential modifications in time for this yr’s elections.”
• Oklahoma Board Expected to Deny Bid for Jewish Charter School, Invite Lawsuit (Linda Jacobson, The 74) — The Oklahoma Statewide Constitution College Board is anticipated to quickly “deny an utility for a Jewish constitution faculty,” a transfer that may possible launch a brand new authorized battle over the constitutionality of spiritual constitution faculties, in response to The 74, a nonprofit information outlet that covers training points. That problem was in entrance of the Supreme Courtroom final time period, when the justices deadlocked over a Catholic constitution faculty in Oklahoma, leaving an Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom ruling in opposition to the varsity in place. “With a case over a proposed Christian constitution in Tennessee already in federal courtroom and one other non secular faculty in Colorado based to check the identical authorized query, there’s little doubt that the nation’s highest courtroom will finally settle the talk.”
• Sen. Blackburn demands probe of Ketanji Brown Jackson for attending politically charged Grammys (Ryan King, New York Publish) — Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, has “urged Chief Justice John Roberts to launch an investigation into liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson over her attendance on the Grammy Awards on Sunday,” in response to the New York Post. Jackson was there as a result of she was nominated for the award for audiobook narration, “however Blackburn raised impartiality considerations as a consequence of anti-ICE jokes throughout the politically charged award present.” “Whereas it’s in no way exceptional or uncommon for a Supreme Courtroom justice to attend a public perform, very not often—if ever—have justices of our nation’s highest Courtroom been current at an occasion at which attendees have amplified such far-left rhetoric,” Blackburn wrote in her letter to Roberts.

A Nearer Look: Chief Justice Roger Taney

Earlier than, throughout, and after his time period as chief justice, Chief Justice John Marshall’s successor commanded consideration – although not often for the fitting causes.

Roger B. Taney was born in Calvert County, Maryland, in 1777. His father, Michael Taney, was a tobacco plantation proprietor who served as a lieutenant inside the Maryland state militia. Roger Taney attended Dickinson Faculty at 15, and after his commencement studied regulation under a choose of the Common Courtroom of Maryland. A number of years after being admitted to the bar, Taney married the sister of his longtime pal, Francis Scott Key. He and Anne Key had six daughters collectively.

Alongside together with his regulation observe, Taney was a distinguished politician. He served multiple terms within the Maryland Home of Delegates as a member of the Federalist get together and led a bit of the Federalists that supported the Conflict of 1812. After shifting to Baltimore, Taney was made the lawyer normal of Maryland in 1827 – and staunchly supported (and campaigned for) each President Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Get together, main Jackson to nominate Taney as U.S. lawyer normal in 1831. For a short period of time, Taney simultaneously acted because the Secretary of Conflict.

Taney, like Jackson, criticized the Second Nationwide Financial institution – and after Jackson nominated him for Treasury Secretary in 1833, Taney helped to cripple the establishment, requiring that funds be withdrawn from the financial institution and thereby “sealing [its] destiny.”

Jackson nominated Taney because the fifth chief justice in 1836 (and the primary Catholic to serve on the courtroom), simply 10 months after the Senate had rejected him to switch Justice Gabriel Duvall. This made Taney the primary cupboard nominee ever to be rejected by the Senate, which then took three months to approve his appointment as chief justice. Talking concerning the fifth chief justice, a New York journal wrote: “The pure ermine of the Supreme Courtroom is sullied by the appointment of that political hack, Roger B. Taney.”

As we speak, Taney’s notoriety comes from his 1857 choice in Dred Scott v. Sanford, the place he dominated that 1) Scott, an enslaved man who frolicked in free territory, was not free; 2) African People, whether or not enslaved or free, were not and could not be residents; and three) the Missouri Compromise – which banned slavery in sure territories – was unconstitutional. As such, African People weren’t assured safety or rights below the Structure. In the course of the Dred Scott arguments, one newspaper commented that “[t]he Courtroom, in attempting this case, is itself on trial.” (5 of the seven justices got here from slave-holding households, though Taney himself had freed the slaves that he inherited.) The choice intensified the abolition motion and aggravated tensions between the states and the federal authorities, culminating within the Civil Conflict.

Dred Scott was not Taney’s solely notable choice. Twenty years earlier than, Taney issued the opinion in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, which helped form sure points of U.S. contract regulation. He additionally issued a sequence of decisions which shaped the idea of the “police power,” or the power of states to go legal guidelines for the final welfare of their citizenry.

The top of Taney’s profession on the courtroom was a contentious one (to place it mildly). President Abraham Lincoln seen Taney as an enemy after he challenged the president’s authority to order emergency actions (particularly, the suspension of habeas corpus to detain Accomplice sympathizers) throughout the Civil Conflict. Lincoln would go on to dispute considered one of Taney’s selections, Ex Parte Merryman, during which Taney (sitting as a choose on the U.S. Circuit Courtroom for the District of Maryland) ordered that John Merryman, who was accused of “advanc[ing] secession doctrines,” be dropped at courtroom. The navy refused, and in 1861 Taney wrote that only Congress, not the president, had the ability to droop habeas corpus, below Article I, Part 9 of the Structure. After Merryman, Lincoln obtained approval from Congress to droop the writ when “the general public Security might require it.”

Taney stayed on the court until his death in October 1864, making him, on the time, the second-longest serving chief justice (to Marshall) at 28 years. Paradoxically, inside a month of his loss of life, his dwelling state of Maryland abolished slavery.

Within the wake of the 2015 church shootings in Charleston, lawmakers in Frederick, Maryland reassessed pro-Accomplice iconography, together with a bust of Taney that sat on the metropolis corridor’s entrance. Town finally decided to remove the bust – together with an interpretive plaque concerning the Dred Scott case – in 2017, following years of controversy. The U.S. Home of Representatives likewise eliminated his bust from the Capitol in 2023. One in every of his very descendants joined the 2021 effort to rename Taney Road in Philadelphia. In 2024, the road was renamed to LeCount Road in a nod to Philly civil rights activist Caroline LeCount.

SCOTUS Quote

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “And absent possible trigger, there’s no proper to look. So why are we right here?”

MR. LOEB: “We agree one hundred pc on that, Your Honor.”

JUSTICE GINSBURG: “You’re right here since you misplaced beneath.”

— Byrd v. United States

On Web site

Contributor Nook

In birthright citizenship fight, Justice Department selectively interprets the original meaning of the citizenship clause

In his newest Immigration Issues column, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández analyzed the Trump administration’s arguments for why the president ought to be allowed to slender the applying of the 14th Modification’s citizenship clause, which states that every one “individuals born … in the USA, and topic to the jurisdiction thereof,” are U.S. residents. The administration, he contends, is plucking “phrases that it favors whereas ignoring the political motion to dramatically develop citizenship during which the 14th Modification was added to the Structure.”

When the Supreme Court abets lawlessness

In her newest Instances and Controversies column, Carolyn Shapiro mirrored on the habits of federal Division of Homeland Safety brokers and the position the Supreme Courtroom performed in complicating efforts to carry such brokers accountable for wrongdoing. “[T]he Supreme Courtroom has, over a long time, made it more and more troublesome – typically not possible – to implement or vindicate constitutional rights and to redress, a lot much less cease, widespread and systemic governmental lawlessness of the kind we at the moment are seeing,” she wrote.