The Court continues avoiding the Smith issue, but in an unexpected way.
The Court finds that the government cannot indirectly coerce children who are exercising their religious beliefs, but the government can indirectly coerce children who are not exercising their religious beliefs.
The judge also granted TRO of a statute without even addressing any of the usual factors.
If this is the best the law deans can muster, SCOTX should seriously reconsider what value the ABA provides.
Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc. follows in the ignoble tradition of NFIB, King, and California.
"Officers of the United States" can exercise "significant authority," but employees cannot.
The intelligible principle test and Employment Division v. Smith are likely safe from Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett.
Justice Kavanaugh parts ways with Justice Gorsuch on the non-delegation doctrine, but charts two paths for independent agencies.
"A meritless public non-delegation challenge plus a meritless private nondelegation challenge cannot equal a meritorious 'combination' claim."
Justice Kagan mows down many circuit precedents without much explanation.
Once again, Justice Thomas raises questions the other Justices simply do not wish to answer.
The Court faults lower courts for not anticipating the abandonment of Wilder and other Section 1983 precedents.
Justice Sotomayor used a catchy line in her dissent that most law students today will not understand.
"Those who founded our country would not recognize [Justice Kennedy's] conception of the judicial role."
"What is good for Texas is not necessarily good for the University of Texas, and vice versa."
The ACLU's cert petition is denied, and several other petitions are GVR'd.
The conservatives "thought they were constrained from speaking by a jurisprudence that bars them from invoking truths beyond the text of the Constitution."
"Yet, Dobbs did not repudiate the basis of Roe and Casey, the notion that legislatures are not empowered to enact laws based on public notions of morality. And Skrmetti refused to acknowledge that foundational basis of our republic."
The paper of record tars the reputation a former federal defender as part of a broader attack on originalism.
Justices Jackson and Kavanaugh both miss the obvious distinction.
The substantive due process question remains.
Justice Sotomayor is right. The majority cannot just wish away Bostock.
Justice Barrett rehabilitates Footnote 4, gives credence to Justice Kennedy's animus jurisprudence, and all but says that gays who were affected by a "legacy of de jure discrimination" are a suspect class.
The groups presented a unified front, but with a 6-3 loss, recriminations are flying.
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