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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. The Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: is in recess, but that doesn't mean things aren't getting done.

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Speaker 1: In fact, last Friday, the Justice cleared President Trump to

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Speaker 1: build a hundred miles of border wall. It also gives

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Speaker 1: us a chance to look at the dynamics of the

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Speaker 1: court with a new justice joining me to do that

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Speaker 1: is Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg Law, Supreme Court reporter, so Kim.

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Speaker 1: Chief Justice John Roberts dealt President Trump a huge loss

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Speaker 1: at the end of the term, blocking him from putting

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Speaker 1: a citizenship question on the census, but a huge win

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Speaker 1: last week allowing him to start building the border wall

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Speaker 1: with diverted Pentagon funds. What's the dynamic between the President

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Speaker 1: and the Chief Well, as you just laid out, June,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty complicated. So there have been some suggestions beyond

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Speaker 1: just these rulings that there's a strained relationship between the

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Speaker 1: President and the Chief Justice. And we saw that most

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Speaker 1: remarkably late last year when the Chief Justice issued a

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Speaker 1: very rare statement that seemed to rebuke the president's characterization

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Speaker 1: of a judge who had recently ruled against his administration

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Speaker 1: as an Obama judge. The Chief Justice said, there are

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Speaker 1: no Obama judges or Bush judges, just people trying to

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Speaker 1: do the right thing. Um. So there is some indications that, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, that relationship is strained. But as you mentioned, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Chief Justice has dealt the administration some

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Speaker 1: pretty big wins, most notably um in the travel ban

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Speaker 1: and recently on the border ball. Um. So it's a

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Speaker 1: relationship that will have to keep our eye on. I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of the tension, you know, really stems

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Speaker 1: from the Chief justices um reputation as an institutionalist, you know,

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Speaker 1: somebody who's deeply concerned with the perception of federal core

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Speaker 1: and a real desire to leave them out of most

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Speaker 1: of the political hotbeds that we see happening all around us. Well,

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Speaker 1: we'll have a lot to keep our eye on next term,

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Speaker 1: because they're going to be a lot of cases with

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Speaker 1: political overturn overtones. Tell us about that well, that's right.

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Speaker 1: I think most notably UM is the DOCCA cases that

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Speaker 1: the Court agreed to hear. This is about the Obama

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Speaker 1: era program that deferred deportation for a number of immigrants

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Speaker 1: who came to the country illegally whenever they were young. UM.

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Speaker 1: The Court will hear arguments on that next term. They're

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Speaker 1: also gonna hear a handful of cases regarding whether or

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Speaker 1: not federal protections UM against discrimination about over sex apply

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Speaker 1: to LGBT workers. We could even get a case on

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Speaker 1: the Second Amendment, which the Court has stayed pretty far

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Speaker 1: away from UM. And of course, you know, we've got

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Speaker 1: issues percolating over the border wall as you mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: and abortions. So it's going to be hard for the

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Speaker 1: Court as the Chief Justice might want to really stay

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Speaker 1: above politics with so many explosive issues. Since Justice Anthony

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Speaker 1: Kennedy retired, there's been a lot of discussion about whether

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Speaker 1: the Chief would become the swing vote the court's new center.

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Speaker 1: Tell us what you found in looking at the cases

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Speaker 1: last term, Well, we we looked pretty closely at five

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Speaker 1: to four cases as well as six to three cases

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Speaker 1: to get an indication of when the Court is deeply

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Speaker 1: split on issues um which justices tend to be in

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Speaker 1: the majority the most, and we saw the Chief Justice

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Speaker 1: was up there pretty high, suggesting that, you know, predictions

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Speaker 1: for him being the new center were correct. I think

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Speaker 1: the best example of that came at the end of

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Speaker 1: last term, when you know, the Chief Justice was the

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Speaker 1: deciding vote um with his conservative colleagues to uh keep

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Speaker 1: courts out of policing partisan jerrymandering, but sided with his

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Speaker 1: more liberal colleagues in the census case, uh refusing to

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Speaker 1: allow the administration to put a citizenship question on the census. So, um,

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Speaker 1: We'll have to see where the chief goes from here,

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Speaker 1: but indications so far do suggest he's the middle. Well,

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Speaker 1: Joseice Elaine Ka Kagan has been in the majority of

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Speaker 1: six to three decisions almost as often as Roberts during

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Speaker 1: their years on the court. How close is she to

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Speaker 1: the center? Well, this was a number, This six three

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Speaker 1: number was one that we looked at because you know,

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Speaker 1: if we're trying to get an idea of when justices

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Speaker 1: might um cross ideological lines with five conservatives on the court,

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Speaker 1: you have to look uh to six three cases to

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Speaker 1: get information about the more liberal justices. And we found

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Speaker 1: that she was um in the middle more often in

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Speaker 1: those kinds of cases, she was more likely than her

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Speaker 1: other Democratic appointed colleagues to side with her Republican appointed ones.

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Speaker 1: And there's a real sense that she's kind of working

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes, um in some of these cases to

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Speaker 1: really narrow uh, some losses for progressives that otherwise could

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Speaker 1: be really big glosses, um, to make them a little

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Speaker 1: bit smaller. Now, a justice not close to the center

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Speaker 1: is the leader of the Court's liberal wing, Justice Ruth

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Speaker 1: Bader Ginsburg, and she talked about at an event for

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Speaker 1: prospective law students held by Duke University. She talked about

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Speaker 1: the working relationship among the justices and contrasted that with

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Speaker 1: the rather partisan or i should say very partisan confirmation process. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, the Supreme Court is a really

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Speaker 1: unique institution in Washington, UM in one way because it

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Speaker 1: is so collegial. The justices, um, regardless of who appointed them,

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Speaker 1: really get along very well. And so we saw Justice

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Speaker 1: Ginsburg at that event call her the Trump appointees Justice

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Speaker 1: Neil Gorsus and Justice press Breck having on decent and

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Speaker 1: intelligent men um. But she did lament the what she

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Speaker 1: called the dysfunctional confirmation process. And you know, she said

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Speaker 1: that the process itself, not the candidates, but the process

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Speaker 1: makes the Court look to polit iCal. And she said

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Speaker 1: the worst thing, um for the Court would be for

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Speaker 1: people to think that any issue is up for grabs

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Speaker 1: when a new Supreme Court justice gets on the court.

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Speaker 1: That's something that the chief always emphasizes. Now, um, she

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Speaker 1: mentioned Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Core such as, well, it's

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Speaker 1: a little early to tell much about Justice Kavanaugh, but

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Speaker 1: how close to the center was he in this first term. Well,

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Speaker 1: he was pretty surprising. He was actually the justice most

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Speaker 1: often in the majority over the whole term, and was

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Speaker 1: frequently in the majority and those really closely watched cases. Now,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's really early to tell if this is

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Speaker 1: something um that will continue. But we have seen him

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Speaker 1: write a lot of separate opinions um to go out

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Speaker 1: of his way to explain why why he voted a

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Speaker 1: certain way and possibly to narrow the court's ruling um.

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Speaker 1: And he even crossed over to vote with his more

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Speaker 1: liberal colleagues in a five to four case on antitrust um.

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Speaker 1: But he was with as more conservative colleagues in the

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Speaker 1: census case and partisan jerrymandering, and so we'll have to

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Speaker 1: see if he can stay in the middle on these

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Speaker 1: really explosive issues that we talked about UM earlier today.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Kimberly. This Bloomberg Law analysis is really

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Speaker 1: fascinating and thanks for explaining it to us. That's Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court reporter Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson. Thanks for listening to

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Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to

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Speaker 1: the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot

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Speaker 1: com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg. Yeah,