Courts had been increasingly protecting gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination as types of sex discrimination. Then came the Trump appointees.
I have been finding that some of the Reagan appointed judges find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to side with Clinton, Obama, and Biden judges because the Bush and Trump judges have effectively abandoned any pretense of being guardians of the law.
Sex discrimination and gender identity and expression are often put into non discrimination clauses of union contracts so that grievances can be filed to help protect union members. Yet courts won’t protect people
Exactly. Why should any precedent be followed after Roe v Wade was burned to the ground? It’s just inviting this kind of chaos and judicial activism especially from right wing activist judges who see SCOTUS making clearly partisan decisions
Gender related cases are being held up at SCOTUS. They have to decide whether to take them. I'm wary. Anyway, I saw polls that 1 of 3 Trump voters thought the courts was a basic factor in their voting choices. This is the result. These judges will be on the bench for decades.
Yes, those are the gender-affirming medical care cases mentioned in the piece. I suspect the court is either holding them for news in the "clean-up orders" after the last day of opinions, or for more information out of the 8th (Arkansas, en banc), 9th (Idaho), and/or 11th (Alabama, en banc petition) Circuits, which have appeals pending.
That said, I'm not sure I'd say they're being "held up" — yet — since none of the cases granted after January* are heard until the next term. The difference between a February cert grant and a late-June/early July clean-up orders cert grant is ... not much.
* = Yes, there's the Trump exception. If a case is heard on an extremely expedited basis, that could be different, but that's not the norm at all.
Thanks for the details. I see by the Relist Watch of John Elwood the cases have been "rescheduled" multiple times since March. And, then they were relisted.
Yes, they've been considering the petitions of the Tennessee and Kentucky challengers, as well as DOJ's petition in the Tennessee case, since the May 16 conference. Before then, they were not being considered (because they were pulled ahead of conference and rescheduled).
Petitions that are fully briefed get "distributed" by the clerk's office for consideration at the next conference — so that's an administrative step.
Any justice can pull any case from consideration before conference — leading to it being "rescheduled" — for many reasons (including some discussed below).
A case is "relisted" if it is considered and not resolved — but that also can be for quite divergent reasons. A case can be relisted if the justices are not hearing it but one of more justices is still writing a dissent from the denial of certiorari or a statement respecting the denial. (That can begin during rescheduling if, for example, a justice is fairly certain the court won't be granting it.) A case can also be relisted if the justices discussed it but didn't reach a final vote. There has been an informal practice put in place in recent years where the justices aren't granting hardly any cases out of the first conference when a petition is considered because, essentially, they had been granting too many cases that ended up having other issues that derailed the full consideration of the question they had granted the case to resolve (so-called "vehicle" problems). That led to cases being "dismissed as improvidently granted" — or DIG'ed — which is no good, so they use the interim week to make sure a case they are tentatively interested in granting doesn't appear to have any vehicle problems. (All four cases granted Monday, for example, were considered at two conferences.) Finally — and as I'm suggesting could be possible here — a third reason the justices can relist cases (and sometimes many times) is because they're waiting to see what lower courts do in related cases or even waiting for the resolution of one of their pending cases.
Yes, a summary affirmance or summary reversal would result in extra time, for sure. (But yes, as you note, that's almost certainly not happening here. It's also very rare in general, given that such orders take six votes. Also, given the current court, I think that will be even more rare.)
Thank you for your reporting. There’s a great reason to be concerned!
I have been finding that some of the Reagan appointed judges find themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to side with Clinton, Obama, and Biden judges because the Bush and Trump judges have effectively abandoned any pretense of being guardians of the law.
Sex discrimination and gender identity and expression are often put into non discrimination clauses of union contracts so that grievances can be filed to help protect union members. Yet courts won’t protect people
Stare decisis be damned is the message taken by these judges from Dobbs and extended to “what binding precedent?”
Exactly. Why should any precedent be followed after Roe v Wade was burned to the ground? It’s just inviting this kind of chaos and judicial activism especially from right wing activist judges who see SCOTUS making clearly partisan decisions
🤬🤬🤬
Gender related cases are being held up at SCOTUS. They have to decide whether to take them. I'm wary. Anyway, I saw polls that 1 of 3 Trump voters thought the courts was a basic factor in their voting choices. This is the result. These judges will be on the bench for decades.
Yes, those are the gender-affirming medical care cases mentioned in the piece. I suspect the court is either holding them for news in the "clean-up orders" after the last day of opinions, or for more information out of the 8th (Arkansas, en banc), 9th (Idaho), and/or 11th (Alabama, en banc petition) Circuits, which have appeals pending.
That said, I'm not sure I'd say they're being "held up" — yet — since none of the cases granted after January* are heard until the next term. The difference between a February cert grant and a late-June/early July clean-up orders cert grant is ... not much.
* = Yes, there's the Trump exception. If a case is heard on an extremely expedited basis, that could be different, but that's not the norm at all.
Thanks for the details. I see by the Relist Watch of John Elwood the cases have been "rescheduled" multiple times since March. And, then they were relisted.
Your analysis on the "difference" sounds right.
Yes, they've been considering the petitions of the Tennessee and Kentucky challengers, as well as DOJ's petition in the Tennessee case, since the May 16 conference. Before then, they were not being considered (because they were pulled ahead of conference and rescheduled).
Petitions that are fully briefed get "distributed" by the clerk's office for consideration at the next conference — so that's an administrative step.
Any justice can pull any case from consideration before conference — leading to it being "rescheduled" — for many reasons (including some discussed below).
A case is "relisted" if it is considered and not resolved — but that also can be for quite divergent reasons. A case can be relisted if the justices are not hearing it but one of more justices is still writing a dissent from the denial of certiorari or a statement respecting the denial. (That can begin during rescheduling if, for example, a justice is fairly certain the court won't be granting it.) A case can also be relisted if the justices discussed it but didn't reach a final vote. There has been an informal practice put in place in recent years where the justices aren't granting hardly any cases out of the first conference when a petition is considered because, essentially, they had been granting too many cases that ended up having other issues that derailed the full consideration of the question they had granted the case to resolve (so-called "vehicle" problems). That led to cases being "dismissed as improvidently granted" — or DIG'ed — which is no good, so they use the interim week to make sure a case they are tentatively interested in granting doesn't appear to have any vehicle problems. (All four cases granted Monday, for example, were considered at two conferences.) Finally — and as I'm suggesting could be possible here — a third reason the justices can relist cases (and sometimes many times) is because they're waiting to see what lower courts do in related cases or even waiting for the resolution of one of their pending cases.
This should be a note. Or a part of a post. I will do that. lol
It's almost certainly not happening, but isn't there technically a possibility of a summary per curiam opinion being written?
Yes, a summary affirmance or summary reversal would result in extra time, for sure. (But yes, as you note, that's almost certainly not happening here. It's also very rare in general, given that such orders take six votes. Also, given the current court, I think that will be even more rare.)