Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. The Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is hearing arguments today after a four week break, and
Speaker 1: back on the bench for the first time since surgery
Speaker 1: for a lung cancer in December. Is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Speaker 1: the leader of the courts liberal wing, joining us as
Speaker 1: Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter of Greg's store. Who was there, so, Greg?
Speaker 1: How did she appear on the bench June? She appeared
Speaker 1: very much like she she always does. She climbed the
Speaker 1: three steps that the justices have to climb to get
Speaker 1: to the bench without any apparent difficulty and without any assistance.
Speaker 1: She asked the very first question of the argument barely
Speaker 1: a minute into it, and seemed very much engaged in it.
Speaker 1: Did Chief Justice John Roberts say anything about her return.
Speaker 1: He did not. He treated it like an normal day,
Speaker 1: made no mention he has been mentioning her in in
Speaker 1: past cases when she was absent, to say that she
Speaker 1: would be taking part via the transcripts and the briefs
Speaker 1: in the case, but with her back on the bench,
Speaker 1: he didn't need to say anything like that. Okay. Well
Speaker 1: Ginsburg had attended the private conference of the justices on Friday.
Speaker 1: That's the day the court agreed to decide whether the
Speaker 1: Trump administration can ask about a citizenship question on the census,
Speaker 1: and a judge barred that question after a trial. Tell
Speaker 1: us more about what's before the court. This could be
Speaker 1: the biggest case of the year. The Trump administration, as
Speaker 1: you said, is trying to add a question asking people
Speaker 1: about citizenship on the de cential census. In that's a
Speaker 1: question that has been asked previously, but not asked of
Speaker 1: every person during the last several censuses. And the question
Speaker 1: for the court is not just whether that they can
Speaker 1: add that question, but whether they followed the proper rules
Speaker 1: that administrative agencies are supposed to follow in doing that,
Speaker 1: whether they, for example, adequately explain the reasons, and whether
Speaker 1: they considered the facts that were before them about the
Speaker 1: possibility that asking the senses question might lead people not
Speaker 1: to respond, they might lead to a less accurate sensus.
Speaker 1: So what exactly is the question they'll be answering because
Speaker 1: the judge in the trial when pretty far saying that
Speaker 1: Secretary Ross acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner and
Speaker 1: a veritable smartest board of ways he violated administrative procedures.
Speaker 1: There are a whole lot of questions in here. It
Speaker 1: could be a rather complicated argument. That's in part because
Speaker 1: they skipped over the appeals court level, and so there
Speaker 1: is less winnowing out of the issues in the case.
Speaker 1: The Trump administration is saying, among other things, that the
Speaker 1: states and advocacy organizations suing don't have legal standing to
Speaker 1: file the suit in the first place. They're also saying
Speaker 1: that this entire question is a matter that is up
Speaker 1: to the Census Bureau on the Commerce Department, and the
Speaker 1: courts have no role whatsoever. And if the court gets
Speaker 1: past those two questions, uh, then the justices will look
Speaker 1: at the stuff you were just talking about, whether they
Speaker 1: the Census Bureau in the Commerce Department acted in an
Speaker 1: arbitrary and capricious way, essentially by ignoring the evidence that
Speaker 1: was before them and giving an explanation for why they
Speaker 1: did it that didn't square with what actually happened. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that this is going to possibly be the biggest
Speaker 1: case for President Trump of the term. It could also
Speaker 1: be the most politically divisive. Explain why, Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: have some evidence that this has been politically divisive before.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of back and forth on preliminary
Speaker 1: issues in this case at the Supreme Court, and in
Speaker 1: one earlier example, the three conservative Justices Thomas, Gors and
Speaker 1: Alito said they would have stopped this trial that was
Speaker 1: going on in federal in New York, distinguishing themselves from
Speaker 1: a couple of the other Republican appointed justices robertson Kavanaugh,
Speaker 1: as well as the more liberal justices. It does seem
Speaker 1: like this will be one of those cases that divides
Speaker 1: the Court along ideological lines, and Chief Justice Roberts and
Speaker 1: Justice Kavanaugh will probably be the ones casting the deciding votes.
Speaker 1: So greg they've been staying away from most of these
Speaker 1: very politically divisive cases and issues since Kavanaugh took the bench.
Speaker 1: Is it that they had to do this, that there
Speaker 1: was sort of no choice? Yeah, pretty much. You know
Speaker 1: this is there's a looming deadline. The Census Bureau says
Speaker 1: that they have to start printing the questionnaires by June.
Speaker 1: There wasn't time to let the case play out a
Speaker 1: little more at the lower court level, for example, by
Speaker 1: letting the appeals court decided. And ultimately, if if a
Speaker 1: court is going to tell the government, a government agency,
Speaker 1: a cabinet official, you can't do something virtually always the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court wants to be the one who's saying that
Speaker 1: they don't want to leave it to a federal judge
Speaker 1: to make the final decision. So it would have been
Speaker 1: a major surprise if the Supreme Court had not agreed
Speaker 1: to take this up. And because of that deadline, they
Speaker 1: need to take it up on an expedited basis. So,
Speaker 1: as you and I have discussed, the Trump administration has
Speaker 1: several times tried to bypass appellate courts to get to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. So are you saying that this is
Speaker 1: really not a sign that the Supreme Court is giving
Speaker 1: in to the Trump administration on bypassing appellate courts. This
Speaker 1: is a separate issue, correct, And I can give you
Speaker 1: counter examples where the Supreme Court has not agreed to
Speaker 1: it to hear things bypassing the appeals courts. In this case,
Speaker 1: even the folks on the other side, the states led
Speaker 1: by New York and the civil rights groups said if
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court was going to take this case up,
Speaker 1: it should do so on an expedited basis. It should
Speaker 1: skip the appeals court level simply because there's not enough
Speaker 1: time to get this case through another court level, and
Speaker 1: have the Supreme Court decided and have the Sense of
Speaker 1: S Bureau start printing those questionnaires when they need to
Speaker 1: in June. So the Court did other things today besides
Speaker 1: listening to Justice Ginsburg asked her first questions in a
Speaker 1: couple of months. Tell us about the consideration of the
Speaker 1: scope of the Clean Water Act. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: a case the Court has agreed to hear um. Somewhat surprisingly,
Speaker 1: they're going to hear it during the next term because
Speaker 1: they had expedited the briefing in it to some degree.
Speaker 1: This is a case involving uh treated wastewater that ends
Speaker 1: up in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, and the question
Speaker 1: is whether to discharge this pollution which goes underground before
Speaker 1: emerging in the Pacific Ocean. The question is whether you
Speaker 1: need a federal permit for that discharge. Lower courts are
Speaker 1: divided on the issue. Not surprising that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: agreed to take it up also an issue that might
Speaker 1: well divide the Court along ideological lines. Is the court's
Speaker 1: calendar pretty full for the rest of this term where
Speaker 1: they still have room for squeezing in more cases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's totally full, and it's not even clear where they're
Speaker 1: putting the senses case, the for all argument. A calendar
Speaker 1: now has twelve cases and now will thirteen now with
Speaker 1: the Census case, So they're going to have to hear
Speaker 1: more than they they usually do. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a backloaded term, more so than the justices would want.
Speaker 1: What looks to be the biggest decisions that are now
Speaker 1: going to be the Census case, a case involving partisan jerrymandering,
Speaker 1: and a case they're gonna here next week involving a
Speaker 1: cross that serves as a World War One memorial and
Speaker 1: whether that violates the Constitution's First Amendment. Well, we will
Speaker 1: be back to you then because it sounds interesting and
Speaker 1: there may be some decisions tomorrow, So maybe as soon
Speaker 1: as tomorrow. Thanks so much, Greg, that's Bloomberg New Supreme
Speaker 1: port Report of Greg's star. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the
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Speaker 1: slash Podcast. I'm June Brasso. This is Bloomberg