Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Justice Stephen Brier, the leader of the Court's liberal justices,
Speaker 1: will retire after more than twenty five years on the
Speaker 1: bench today. Justice Priory Houns is his intention to step
Speaker 1: down from active service after four decades. Four decades on
Speaker 1: the federal Branson twenty eight years on the United States
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. His legacy includes his work as a leading
Speaker 1: scholar and jurist and administrative law, bringing his brilliance to
Speaker 1: bear to make government run more efficiently and effectively. It
Speaker 1: includes his stature as a beacon of wisdom on our
Speaker 1: constitution and what it means. And through it all, Justice
Speaker 1: Priors worked tirelessly to give faith to the notion that
Speaker 1: the law exists to help the people. Joining me as
Speaker 1: judiciary expert, Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of
Speaker 1: Richmond Law School, tell us about the timing of Justice
Speaker 1: Briar's announcement even before the end of the term. When
Speaker 1: justices normally retire, well, it is unusual. Usually it comes
Speaker 1: at the last sitting or very close to the end
Speaker 1: of the term. But it's happened in all different periods,
Speaker 1: so It's not unprecedented, but it's nice in the sense
Speaker 1: that it provides plenty of time to replace him, and
Speaker 1: so the White House and the Senate can move carefully
Speaker 1: to find the finest person to replace him. There was
Speaker 1: a real push by liberals to get Justice Prior to
Speaker 1: retire before the midterms might put Republicans in charge of
Speaker 1: the Senate. Do you think all the political considerations played
Speaker 1: a part in Justice Briar's decision. If it were a
Speaker 1: different world, he might have stayed on the bench. That
Speaker 1: could be. There was substantial pressure, and some of it
Speaker 1: seemed too much, the advertisements and that type of thing.
Speaker 1: But people for very strongly about this, and they remember, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: what happened with Justice Ginsburg, and so there was pretty
Speaker 1: intense pressure. How would you describe Justice Prior's jurisprudence over
Speaker 1: the years. Well, I think he was a real student
Speaker 1: of the branches of government. You know, he was an
Speaker 1: administrative law professor when he was at Harvard before he
Speaker 1: went on the First Circuit and then on to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. And I think he really cared about issues
Speaker 1: like separation of powers and the branches of government and
Speaker 1: how the branches worked together or an opposition, and I
Speaker 1: think he really relished working on those kinds of issues.
Speaker 1: He also wrote some books that were very interesting in
Speaker 1: terms of things like deregulation and other areas that interested
Speaker 1: him so at a real roving intellect and a real
Speaker 1: command of the history of the federal government and how
Speaker 1: it worked. Would you say that he always voted with
Speaker 1: the liberals. I think it depended on the issue. There
Speaker 1: were some cases where he did not always vote in
Speaker 1: a way that was as progressive as some people might
Speaker 1: have wanted, uh and some of his colleagues might have wanted.
Speaker 1: But I think he took each case as it came,
Speaker 1: and on the law and of facts, tried to do
Speaker 1: his best in terms of what he thought was the
Speaker 1: appropriate resolution of particular cases. Would you say that he
Speaker 1: was a consensus builder on the court. I think so.
Speaker 1: He certainly had a reputation for being extremely collegial, and
Speaker 1: I think if you were to see the way he
Speaker 1: treated lawyers arguing before him and his colleagues and questioning,
Speaker 1: he had incredible temperament and was very patient and always
Speaker 1: tried to work toward what he thought would be the
Speaker 1: best resolution of any particular case. So I think in
Speaker 1: that way as a model old jurist. But he wasn't
Speaker 1: afraid to dissent when he disagreed with the majority of
Speaker 1: the court, and in ways that we're respectful of the
Speaker 1: majority's opinion even as he criticized it. He also sometimes
Speaker 1: introduced some wacky hypotheticals during oral arguments. Yes, I guess
Speaker 1: the law professor and him couldn't resist, But it is
Speaker 1: true that he often did ask difficult hypotheticals, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that would frustrate lawyers. I assume even the best who
Speaker 1: go before the Supreme Court. One of the leading candidates
Speaker 1: mentioned is a possible nominee to replace Justice Pryor is
Speaker 1: Judge Katangi Brown Jackson. She was confirmed just last year
Speaker 1: to the d C Circuit Court of Appeals, and three
Speaker 1: Republican Senators voted for her confirmation. Might that make the
Speaker 1: confirmation process smoother? Absolutely? I also would expect those centators
Speaker 1: to withhold how they might vote until they see how
Speaker 1: she does in the process. If she is the nominee,
Speaker 1: I could see them saying, and often senators do well.
Speaker 1: I thought she was just fine for the d C Circuit,
Speaker 1: but the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land.
Speaker 1: And because I voted one way doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: I will vote that way again. But don't forget the
Speaker 1: Democrats have not lost any votes, and none of their
Speaker 1: members have voted no on any of the lower Federal
Speaker 1: Court nominees to date, and so if they hold together,
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be a problem. They don't even need any
Speaker 1: Republican votes because if they're tied fifty fifty, the Vice
Speaker 1: President can break that tie. And so we'll see how
Speaker 1: it plays out. But I do think that Democrats are
Speaker 1: likely to hold together, just as Republicans have very much
Speaker 1: held together, with some exceptions like Senator Graham and sometimes
Speaker 1: Senators Murkowski and Collins have voted for lower court nominees,
Speaker 1: but any Republicans have voted Noah on almost every one
Speaker 1: of Biden's lower court nominees, even people who were not controversial. Finally,
Speaker 1: how would you describe Justice Briar's legacy? Well, I think
Speaker 1: he brought an incredible understanding of how the federal government
Speaker 1: works in the United States to the Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: applied his collegiality. He's intelligence is independence to every case
Speaker 1: that came before the Court in a way that informed
Speaker 1: the way many cases were resolved, and I think he
Speaker 1: was always willing to dissent or to concur if need be.
Speaker 1: And I think he leaves a really strong legacy in
Speaker 1: the public law area. Thanks Carl, that professor called to
Speaker 1: Bias of the University of Richmond Law School. The consideration
Speaker 1: of race and college admissions has always been controversial and
Speaker 1: often misunderstood, as in a scene from the movie Dear
Speaker 1: White People. Hey, look, you guys still got affirmative action.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what exactly are you doing here? All right?
Speaker 1: Obama right, leader of the free world. He gets into
Speaker 1: Harvard based on you too late affirmative action. You know
Speaker 1: he's not president right now, No, the guy who didn't
Speaker 1: get in. Now, more than forty years after first considering
Speaker 1: affirmative action, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two
Speaker 1: cases that could mean the end of race conscious admissions.
Speaker 1: The case is challenging the admissions policies at Harvard College
Speaker 1: and the University of North Carolina seek to overturn decades
Speaker 1: of Supreme Court precedent that allow universities to consider race
Speaker 1: in helping to create a diverse student body. Joining me
Speaker 1: is Audrey Anderson, who heads the Higher Education practice at
Speaker 1: Bassbarian sims. First, what was your reaction to the Court
Speaker 1: taking up affirmative action where you surprised, concerned, unfazed. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't surprised that they granted review of
Speaker 1: the cases because some of the steps they've taken along
Speaker 1: the way. They asked for the views of the Solicitor General,
Speaker 1: wanted to know the United States governments used in the case,
Speaker 1: which is one clue that they're interested in the issue.
Speaker 1: And then they had actually looked at the petition at
Speaker 1: more than one of their conferences, so for two weeks
Speaker 1: in a row they had considered the petitions. So when
Speaker 1: they granted it, I was not at all surprised. I
Speaker 1: am concerned for the longevity of affirmative action in college admissions,
Speaker 1: given that they have now granted review of the case.
Speaker 1: But we will see what happens. So the first circuit
Speaker 1: affirmed the decision for Harvard's admissions process, and the fourth
Speaker 1: Circuit hasn't decided the University of North Carolina case yet,
Speaker 1: so there was no split in the circuits, which often
Speaker 1: leads the Supreme Court to step in. Is the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court sort of jumping the gun? This is an unusual
Speaker 1: circumstance for them to be granting review of the case. Usually,
Speaker 1: the Court would not grant review where there was no
Speaker 1: split in authority, And that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about the longevity of affirmative action. There really
Speaker 1: is no good reason to grant review here unless at
Speaker 1: least four members and likely five members of the Court
Speaker 1: I think that the decisions below are incorrect and they
Speaker 1: want to overturn them. That's the only reason that they
Speaker 1: would grant review of these cases. The Supreme Court has
Speaker 1: weighed in several times on affirmative action. Where does the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court doctrine stand now? Well, right now, it is
Speaker 1: legal constitutional for university these too consider race in their
Speaker 1: admissions programs, as long as they are doing so for
Speaker 1: the purposes of diversity in their programs, to get the
Speaker 1: educational benefits of a diverse student body, and as long
Speaker 1: as they do it in a way that is narrowly
Speaker 1: tailored to furthering that interest. So right now, that is
Speaker 1: legal and constitutional. The problem is that there's been a
Speaker 1: change in the Supreme Court since the Court last looked
Speaker 1: at that question in and the changes in the justices
Speaker 1: on the Court lead many of us to believe that
Speaker 1: the Court today might come to a different conclusion than
Speaker 1: it did in so in the two thousand three decision,
Speaker 1: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor predicted that racial preferences would no
Speaker 1: longer be necessary in twenty five years. Was affirmative action
Speaker 1: always seen as a temporary measure, a stop gap. I
Speaker 1: think that many of us have an aspiration that there
Speaker 1: will be a day that race is not an important
Speaker 1: factor about people in our society, that there will be
Speaker 1: a day when we don't need to consider race in
Speaker 1: order to uh level the playing field. But many of
Speaker 1: us the day that Justice O'Connor wrote that I thought
Speaker 1: that twenty five years was a little bit optimistic, And
Speaker 1: I think that many of us today think that it
Speaker 1: really was overly optimistic to think that six years from
Speaker 1: now or five years from now, race will not be
Speaker 1: an important factor that still needs to be considered. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the arguments in the case. What's the argument
Speaker 1: being made for race neutral admissions and what are the
Speaker 1: school's arguments against it. Well, the main argument that the
Speaker 1: people challenging a firm of action are making in their
Speaker 1: petitions to the Supreme Court is that this law that
Speaker 1: I just told you about that's been governing college admissions
Speaker 1: since ninety eight, actually in the Backy decision, which came
Speaker 1: before the two thousand three Michigan decisions. But that law
Speaker 1: is wrong, That the Constitution requires schools to admit students
Speaker 1: in a color blind fashion, that the Constitution requires governmental
Speaker 1: actors and those receiving federal funds to make decisions in
Speaker 1: a color blind way, and to do anything else really
Speaker 1: violates the Constitution. That that is their number one argument,
Speaker 1: and it is an argument that is very persuasive to
Speaker 1: a number of members of the current Supreme Court from
Speaker 1: a legal perspective. On the other side, Uh, there are
Speaker 1: many who believe that the Fourteenth Amendment, when you look
Speaker 1: at its history and the context of what was happening
Speaker 1: at that time, was very much men too protect the
Speaker 1: rights and further the rights of black people in America
Speaker 1: who had just left the institution of slavery. And so
Speaker 1: a color blind constitution was never, uh, the idea of
Speaker 1: the Framers, It was never the idea of the members
Speaker 1: of Congress who passed the Fourteenth Amendment at that time.
Speaker 1: And so there is room for a limited consideration of
Speaker 1: race in this aspect of society and the schools here
Speaker 1: want a diverse student body. Is that what's behind the
Speaker 1: missions process here? Yeah, So what the schools want to
Speaker 1: want to have is a student body that is widely
Speaker 1: diverse and diverse with all kinds of characteristics in mind.
Speaker 1: But one of those characteristics they want to have diversity
Speaker 1: on is race. And in order to meet the current
Speaker 1: legal standard, they have to show that they are unable
Speaker 1: to attain a racially diverse student body without considering race.
Speaker 1: That they have considered and used race neutral means of
Speaker 1: trying to get racial diversity by doing recruiting effort, by
Speaker 1: considering socioeconomic circumstances, by other means, and that still doesn't
Speaker 1: get them the racial diversity that they want to have
Speaker 1: in their student bodies to give their students the educational
Speaker 1: benefits of learning and living in a racially diverse environment.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the plaintiffs in the case for a moment.
Speaker 1: Students for Fair Admissions was formed to challenge racial preferences.
Speaker 1: What's their strategy been to get affirmative action before this
Speaker 1: more conservative court. Yeah, Well, they have been very very
Speaker 1: very successful um with their strategy, and their strategy has
Speaker 1: been to bring cases against different universities in different circumstances
Speaker 1: and in different parts of the country. So they brought
Speaker 1: a case against the University of Texas in Austin, they
Speaker 1: brought a case against Harvard, They brought a case against
Speaker 1: the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill. And their
Speaker 1: strategy was to get decisions from courts um in those
Speaker 1: different areas in order to ideally get a split in
Speaker 1: authority from those courts they have those courts come out
Speaker 1: different ways, so they could say to the Supreme Court, hey, look,
Speaker 1: the courts are in disagreement on this. You need to decide.
Speaker 1: You need to make a decision. It actually turns out
Speaker 1: that they didn't even need to do that. The Supreme
Speaker 1: Court is so int a sit in this issue that
Speaker 1: the court decisions so far we're all in line. They
Speaker 1: all found that the school that issue here had met
Speaker 1: the constitutional standard. But Harvard. They took Harvard, and then
Speaker 1: they took the really unusual step, as you noted June.
Speaker 1: In the North Carolina case, all we have is a
Speaker 1: decision from the trial court um. But students refer admission said, hey,
Speaker 1: we have this Harvard case pending before you. We want
Speaker 1: you to grant Sir Serrari before the appellate court even
Speaker 1: has a chance to consider the trial court's opinion in
Speaker 1: the North Carolina case, so that you can consider the
Speaker 1: UNC case and the Harvard case at the same time.
Speaker 1: That's really um appealing, I think to the justices because
Speaker 1: they get to look at a p I'm at school
Speaker 1: and a public school at the same time, and it
Speaker 1: gives them two different back patterns to consider as they
Speaker 1: are determining whether they're going to overturn um Affirmative Act,
Speaker 1: the Affirmative Action laws, and what's your feeling looking at
Speaker 1: the court and the various justices track records and viewpoints
Speaker 1: any theory about how the Court is likely to rule here.
Speaker 1: I know we're far away from that, but I think
Speaker 1: going in as I said, I go in with with
Speaker 1: the assumption that there are five justices who as of today,
Speaker 1: would vote to overrule the president, because otherwise they would
Speaker 1: not have taken these cases. They would not have granted
Speaker 1: Sir Sharari, even though it only takes four votes to
Speaker 1: grant Sir Sharrai. In this kind of a circumstance, the
Speaker 1: justices are stavvy enough to say, well, we don't we're
Speaker 1: not in a grant, sir ferrari, if we're only going
Speaker 1: to lose in terms of overturning this precedent that we
Speaker 1: want to overturn. So they talk amongst each other and
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, we really have five to overturn. But
Speaker 1: there is a long road, as you're um hinting at,
Speaker 1: between now and when the decisions are rendered, and there's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of work done by the
Speaker 1: universities involved here and those that are supporting them in
Speaker 1: order to convince ah the justices that they should maintain
Speaker 1: affirmative action. You know, when these cases were up before
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court um with the University of Missigon, Michigan
Speaker 1: cases in two thousand three, really most people expected that
Speaker 1: affirmative action would go away. At that point in time,
Speaker 1: people were very uncertain that they would be able to
Speaker 1: get five votes from the Supreme Court then to uphold
Speaker 1: affirmative action. And the they only did by one vote.
Speaker 1: It was a five four vote. So I think that
Speaker 1: there is some hope that again by doing some very
Speaker 1: good lawyer lawyering and making a very fact specific argument,
Speaker 1: that you might be able to convince some of the
Speaker 1: justices that they should keep affirm of action in place.
Speaker 1: It's either going to if they're able to do that
Speaker 1: right now. My guess is you'll either do it by
Speaker 1: some very careful, careful factual lawyering or else by getting
Speaker 1: them to agree that they shouldn't overrule the precedent. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be looking very carefully whatever they say in
Speaker 1: the Mississippi abortion case this year about how they treat precedent,
Speaker 1: because that's going to give us some good guide posts
Speaker 1: for how they are going to treat the precedent in
Speaker 1: this affirmative action case, and it will um let us
Speaker 1: know how they think they have to look at it.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be very interesting, but that I
Speaker 1: think that it's going to be a difficult road to
Speaker 1: get there. This term, the Court is considering toppling as
Speaker 1: you refer to the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.
Speaker 1: It's likely to expand Second Amendment gun rights and restrict
Speaker 1: what the e p A can do against climate change.
Speaker 1: So this case is not going to be heard until
Speaker 1: next term. As we've discussed before, the Court might not
Speaker 1: want to have too many at least Justice Roberts might
Speaker 1: not want to have too many controversial decisions in one term.
Speaker 1: So might the justices have been considering that when they
Speaker 1: took this case not for this term but for next term.
Speaker 1: I believe that they absolutely did that June, because they
Speaker 1: have their meetings on Fridays, their conferences on Fridays, where
Speaker 1: they make decisions about what they're gonna do with petitions
Speaker 1: for Sir Frarri. Well as Friday, they announced that they
Speaker 1: had granted sert in a different case, and they set
Speaker 1: that case with an expedited briefing schedule and said that
Speaker 1: argument in that case would occur in April of this year,
Speaker 1: this term. And then on Monday they announced that they
Speaker 1: had granted Sir Serrari in the Affirmative Action case and
Speaker 1: several others that they will hear um next fall. So
Speaker 1: they made a conscious decision that hey of these cases
Speaker 1: were granting certain we definitely don't want to hear the
Speaker 1: affirmative action case this spring. Now you could there are
Speaker 1: other there are other um reasons you could say they
Speaker 1: didn't want to hear the affirmative action case this spring.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to put it on an expedited briefing
Speaker 1: schedule because there's going to be a ton of um
Speaker 1: amikus briefs that are going to be filed, and they
Speaker 1: don't want to put that kind of pressure on all
Speaker 1: the amiki. But I think that the more likely reason
Speaker 1: is they know that they're going to be um on
Speaker 1: doing un precedent this term, and they don't want to
Speaker 1: undo too much precedent at one time. I just want
Speaker 1: to ask you, eight states, including California, have banned the
Speaker 1: consideration of race in college admissions. Isn't that contrary to
Speaker 1: Supreme Court doctrine? Well, what the Supreme Court doctrine says
Speaker 1: is just that universities may consider rate. Doesn't say they
Speaker 1: must consider rate. It just allows you to do it
Speaker 1: under the constitution. So those states where it's disallowed, there
Speaker 1: has been a state law that says, well, in our state,
Speaker 1: you may not do that. So it's it's not really contrary.
Speaker 1: All the time, states disallow things that would otherwise be
Speaker 1: allowed under the federal Constitution. And what's interesting is that
Speaker 1: in those states, June, we see what happens when institutions
Speaker 1: are not allowed to consider race and admissions, and what
Speaker 1: we see is that the person images of black students
Speaker 1: go down. That some of the universities are able to
Speaker 1: keep their overall percentage of minority students maybe the same,
Speaker 1: but the percentage of black students goes down. Thanks Audrey.
Speaker 1: That's Audrey Anderson of Basparian SIMS. Some New York school
Speaker 1: districts abandoned mask mandates after a Long Island judge declared
Speaker 1: them unconstitutional on Monday, but by the end of Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the school districts were told to put the requirement back
Speaker 1: in place, as New York Governor Kathy Hokel appealed the
Speaker 1: ruling and an appellate court judge temporarily stayed the Long
Speaker 1: Island judges ruling. This is the latest whipsaw for parents
Speaker 1: trying to navigate the pandemic with school aged children. State
Speaker 1: Education Commissioner Betty Rosa acknowledged the burden and thanks school
Speaker 1: communities for their patients during this process. Joining me is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Legal reporter Bob van Voris tell us about the
Speaker 1: ruling of the Long Island judge about the governor's mask
Speaker 1: mandate sue judan. On Monday, judge in Nassau County on
Speaker 1: Long Island, New York named Thomas Radamaker ruled that the
Speaker 1: States requirement for people statewide to wear masks indoors in
Speaker 1: settings where it's impossible to socially distanced. He ruled that
Speaker 1: that that regulation issued by the state Health Department was
Speaker 1: basically akin to passing a law, and that's the Health
Speaker 1: Department doesn't have the authority to pass laws that the
Speaker 1: state legislature. So he ruled that the regulation was void.
Speaker 1: And this came as news on late Monday, kind of
Speaker 1: throwing school districts and and other people into a little
Speaker 1: bit of chaos to kind of figure out what they
Speaker 1: were going to do the next day with students reported
Speaker 1: to school. Was this because the state legislature had had
Speaker 1: given Governor Cuomo special authority and then took it back. Well,
Speaker 1: that was one of the reasons the state legislature gave
Speaker 1: Governor Cuomo emergency powers, and of course Cuomo had to
Speaker 1: leave office and his lieutenant Governor Kathy Hocol is now
Speaker 1: the governor. In December, her administration, through the Health Department,
Speaker 1: issued these regulations. But as you say, the legislature had
Speaker 1: kind of scaled back the powers that it had given
Speaker 1: Cuomo to deal with an emergency, and you know, also
Speaker 1: for Hoco to use when she became governor, for her
Speaker 1: to deal with an emergency. So the judge, Judge Radmaker
Speaker 1: said the you know that HOCO didn't have authority to
Speaker 1: issue these regulations, and that certainly the Health Department on
Speaker 1: its own, without authority from the legislature, didn't have the
Speaker 1: ability to institute this requirement. Redmaker told HOCAL and the
Speaker 1: Health Department, Look, if you want to put this into place,
Speaker 1: you've got to go to the legislature. You've got to
Speaker 1: ask for law, and you know, sign it into law,
Speaker 1: and then you cut your requirement. Do you know how
Speaker 1: it's been handled in other states? Because health regulations are
Speaker 1: usually handled at the state and local level, and with vaccines,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court seem to indicate that's where they should
Speaker 1: be handled. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, regulation of
Speaker 1: health is a state and local uh sort of responsibility.
Speaker 1: So we've got a real patchwork of different requirements throughout
Speaker 1: the states. The states like New York often run by
Speaker 1: Democrats that are imposing mass mandates vaccine mandates. There are
Speaker 1: states like Florida and Virginia where the governors are barrowing
Speaker 1: local governments from imposing those kind of man people. Also
Speaker 1: in New York State, you've got localities including New York.
Speaker 1: New York City, which is the biggest of the mall
Speaker 1: and has the biggest school district in New York City,
Speaker 1: has its own mass mandate already, so you know, whatever
Speaker 1: happens at the state level is not going to displaced that,
Speaker 1: but it is going to make a difference for the
Speaker 1: for people in the rest of the state. Was New
Speaker 1: York City's mask mandate challenged. New York City's mask mandate
Speaker 1: and vaccine mandate and various requirements for for people generally
Speaker 1: and for public servants has been challenged, and there've been
Speaker 1: a variety of rulings. Most of the mandates remain in
Speaker 1: place um and have been upheld by courts. But you know, it's,
Speaker 1: as I say, it's a patchwork. You've got on the
Speaker 1: mask mandate that the Long Island judge struck down. There's
Speaker 1: an Almany judge that you know, view the same thing,
Speaker 1: the same requirement and approved of that. So it may
Speaker 1: be that it's going to you know, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to wait for New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals,
Speaker 1: to rule on some of these questions before we have clarity.
Speaker 1: So where does it stand now? The state took an
Speaker 1: appeal where are they taken appeal to the state took
Speaker 1: an appeal to the second Department Repellate Division, which is
Speaker 1: accorded in Brooklyn that reviews cases from Long Island and
Speaker 1: Brooklyn that surrounding areas. That court importantly issued a stay
Speaker 1: blocking Judge Rata Makers ruling, so the mass mandate remains
Speaker 1: in effect at least until Friday, when they're going to
Speaker 1: hold a full hearing on whether to grant the longer
Speaker 1: stay for the time it takes them to hear the case,
Speaker 1: to read the grief and to come to a decision.
Speaker 1: It's a decent bet since they granted the emergency stay
Speaker 1: until Friday, that the court is going to want to
Speaker 1: keep the status quo in place and to allow the
Speaker 1: mass mandate to remain rather than throwing things at the chaos.
Speaker 1: But we'll have to see how the full panel rules
Speaker 1: on Friday. It's a decent bed and because Long Island
Speaker 1: is generally more conservative with more conservative judges than the
Speaker 1: Appellate Division in Brooklyn. That's right. And Judge Rumaker is
Speaker 1: someone who has been in office on the bench on
Speaker 1: the New York Truck Court bench for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: He ran as a conservative, although he also ran, as
Speaker 1: many judges do, Democrat and Republican lines as well, but
Speaker 1: certainly Nassau County, which is on the western end of
Speaker 1: Long Island, is known to be a Republican stronghold locally, Bob,
Speaker 1: do you know what school districts are doing? Are they
Speaker 1: complying with the mandate? Still? At least initially, there was
Speaker 1: some confusion. Was unclear whether there was going to be
Speaker 1: a stay or whether Judd Radmaker's ruling basically through the
Speaker 1: requirement out. So they were a handful of school districts
Speaker 1: that were inclined anyway to want to get rid of
Speaker 1: the mandate, who told parents that their kids were allowed
Speaker 1: to come in with or without match, that it was optional. Um.
Speaker 1: There were other districts that we're fully behind the mandate
Speaker 1: that said, hey, look we're going to keep this in place. Um.
Speaker 1: And and indeed, even if the state with scraw as
Speaker 1: the bask mandate, localities that want to impose impose it
Speaker 1: can continue to do that. Thanks for being on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law Show, Bob. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Bob Van Voris,
Speaker 1: And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show.
Speaker 1: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and at www dot bloomberg dot com podcast slash Law,
Speaker 1: And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
Speaker 1: week night at ten BM Wall Street Time. I'm June
Speaker 1: Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg