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 podcasts. In January, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court appeared ready to act on President Trump's attempt
Speaker 1: to end deportation protections for Dreamers. So what happened? The
Speaker 1: case disappeared and not just one of many mysteries in
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court term. Joining me is Bloomberg new Supreme
Speaker 1: Court reporter of Greg's store has been sort of a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court detective. With his latest story, Greg explain what
Speaker 1: other polarizing cases the Court has been putting off June.
Speaker 1: There's quite a list of them, and there there's some
Speaker 1: of the biggest issues in the country. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: several abortion cases that the Court has been a deferring
Speaker 1: action on. There's a big case involving uh, gay rights.
Speaker 1: And it's another appeal by a baker who was penalized
Speaker 1: for not making a cake for a same sex wedding.
Speaker 1: Um very similar to the case the Court had a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Uh, there's a case involving transgender
Speaker 1: student bathroom rights. Uh. The list goes on and on,
Speaker 1: and they're all in different situations, and in many cases
Speaker 1: it's really not clear what the delay is all about.
Speaker 1: Is there any way to tell if this is the
Speaker 1: work of all the justices or specific justices. Well, there's
Speaker 1: some reason to think that it's it's the justices who
Speaker 1: are right now are most important on the court. John
Speaker 1: Roberts the chief Justice, and Brett Cavanaugh, the newest Justice,
Speaker 1: because they seem to be the ones who are putting
Speaker 1: the brakes on some of the more ambitious agenda items
Speaker 1: of the more conservative justices. Um, you know, both of
Speaker 1: them have reasons why they want might want the Court
Speaker 1: to move pretty slowly on these hot button issues. John
Speaker 1: Roberts has talked a lot about the institutional standing of
Speaker 1: the court as chief Justice. He seems to feel it's
Speaker 1: his his duty to really protect that, and he's concerned
Speaker 1: about the Court seeming too political too fast. And Brett Havanaugh,
Speaker 1: you know, may well have a desire to just kind
Speaker 1: of lay low a little bit after the very divisive
Speaker 1: confirmation fight that he had last year. Now, abortion is
Speaker 1: an area where conservative state legislatures are pushing the court.
Speaker 1: Alabama just passed the strictest abortion law in the country
Speaker 1: as a way to get the justices to reconsider and
Speaker 1: overturn Roe v. Wade. Is the Court going to have
Speaker 1: to take up an abortion case if these laws are passed, Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: but it may not be the big cases that we're
Speaker 1: talking about. UM. You know there are right now. There
Speaker 1: are several significant abortion cases that are waiting for the
Speaker 1: Court to act. There's one that the Court has repeatedly
Speaker 1: deferred to action on involving in Indiana law that requires
Speaker 1: abortion clinics to dispose of an aborted fetus either by
Speaker 1: bear a real or through cremation. Uh. That is a
Speaker 1: kind of smaller case that you could see the court
Speaker 1: taking up first. Uh. There's another case that they've really
Speaker 1: signaled that they're going to take up because they blocked
Speaker 1: a lower court ruling, which generally means that they they
Speaker 1: are going to take up the case. That one involves
Speaker 1: hospital admitting privileges. And if that sounds familiar, the court
Speaker 1: a couple of terms ago, Uh, yeah, struck down hospital
Speaker 1: admitting privileges requirement Uh in the state of Texas. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a UM. Uh, Louisiana law that is very
Speaker 1: similar to that, but the lower court came out differently
Speaker 1: on it, UH and upheld the law. The Supreme Court
Speaker 1: with John Roberts Jordan, the Liberals put that lower court
Speaker 1: decision on hold so that the law is not currently
Speaker 1: in effect. That could well be one that the Court
Speaker 1: decides to take up next term, and that may be
Speaker 1: the one and only case they take up before the
Speaker 1: next election. So if that resurfaces, and if some of
Speaker 1: the other cases or issues resurface and they decide to
Speaker 1: take them, the timing would put them right before the
Speaker 1: or in the heart of the presidential election campaign. And
Speaker 1: isn't that something that Roberts would want to avoid at least? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might think he would want to. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the people I talked to for the story
Speaker 1: I wrote wrote on this last last week was Don Vally,
Speaker 1: the former Obama administration's solicitor general. And the way he
Speaker 1: put it was essentially that it's it's um you know,
Speaker 1: MA seem like the Lusser of two evils for for Roberts,
Speaker 1: you you know, he has made the calculation, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: that it's better to have these issues come up. Uh.
Speaker 1: Next year, so that he can have at least a
Speaker 1: year of breathing room for everybody after the Kavanaugh confirmation,
Speaker 1: even though everybody is well aware that the more issues
Speaker 1: like this the Court is deciding next year, the more
Speaker 1: it becomes a big political issue. Now, there are a
Speaker 1: few political cases or questions they've taken up this term,
Speaker 1: part of in gerrymandering and the citizenship question on the census. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and both of those I think are fairly described as
Speaker 1: cases the Court had to take UM. In the case
Speaker 1: of the census, UH, in the issue of putting a
Speaker 1: citizenship question on it, first of all, UH now three
Speaker 1: UH federal trial judges have blocked the administration from doing
Speaker 1: that UM and the Census Bureau essentially has a deadline
Speaker 1: of this summer where they have to start printing the questionnaires.
Speaker 1: And so you really needed an answer one way or another.
Speaker 1: And this is the kind of issue you would expect
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court would would feel, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to decide this, whatever the right answer is. And then
Speaker 1: the partisan gerrymandering cases, there's a kind of a procedural
Speaker 1: issue there where under federal law, a lot of cases
Speaker 1: that involve voting rights, UH get directly appealed to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court from a three judge panel, and the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court doesn't have discretion. For the most part, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court can decide what case as it wants, what cases
Speaker 1: it doesn't want. With these sorts of cases, including political jurymandering,
Speaker 1: the Court has what's known as mandatory jurisdiction. Now, sometimes
Speaker 1: they can deal with those cases summarily without actually holding arguments.
Speaker 1: But obviously the jurymandering cases a is a you know,
Speaker 1: real serious issue, and it's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: the court, uh, you know, generally would want to hear
Speaker 1: arguments in before making a decision. Now they are going
Speaker 1: to take up a few cases next term involving employment
Speaker 1: discrimination against gay and transgender people. Yeah, that that was
Speaker 1: a set of big cases they just agreed, after you know,
Speaker 1: months of delay, agreed to hear. And it could have
Speaker 1: been a case that they heard this term, we could
Speaker 1: be talking about the arguments that just happened. Instead, it
Speaker 1: will be next fall, I think most likely in November.
Speaker 1: The issue there is the interpretation of the main federal
Speaker 1: job discrimination law known as Title seven, which bars discrimination
Speaker 1: on the basis of sex, and so the question, uh,
Speaker 1: there's actually three case is. Two of them involve sexual orientation,
Speaker 1: one involves gender identity. And the question in all those
Speaker 1: cases is is that form of discrimination discrimination on the
Speaker 1: basis of sex? All Right, thank you so much. Greg.
Speaker 1: That's Greg Store, Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and
Speaker 1: listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brolso this is Bloomberg. Yeah,