Mark your calendars: Two weeks from today, on Wednesday, May 20, at noon EDT, SCOTUSblog and Briefly are partnering for a LinkedIn Live event on this term’s highest-profile cases. Amy and Briefly’s Adam Stofsky will revisit memorable moments from oral arguments and reflect on what’s at stake in disputes that are yet to be decided. Register here.
At the Court
On Monday, the court agreed to immediately finalize its opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, in which it struck down that state’s congressional map, to allow Louisiana to draw a new map in time for the 2026 elections. But on Tuesday, the Black voters who had defended the congressional map that was struck down filed a motion to recall the judgment, contending that the court had overlooked their request for time “to consider seeking rehearing.”
Justice Samuel Alito, in response to requests from Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, has temporarily paused a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that reinstated the requirement that the abortion pill mifepristone be dispensed only in person. Responses to the companies’ requests are due tomorrow by 5 p.m. EDT.
On Tuesday, the court indicated that it may release opinions on Thursday, May 14, at 10 a.m. EDT. We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30.
Morning Reads
Alito and Jackson’s fiery debate over the Voting Rights Act exposes Supreme Court tensions
John Fritze, CNN
As we noted in yesterday’s newsletter, the court’s Monday order finalizing the Louisiana v. Callais decision included heated separate writings from the lone dissenter, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote a concurring opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. The justices sparred, in somewhat harsh terms, over whether the Supreme Court has inappropriately taken sides in the nationwide redistricting battle. According to CNN, those writings may offer a taste of what’s to come soon in other election-related cases, including argued cases on campaign finance and mail-in ballots. “More immediately, the justices are being asked to decide in short order what to do with a request from Alabama to throw out a lower court decision that barred that state from redrawing its congressional maps before 2030.”
First refunds of Trump tariffs to start as early as May 12, customs agency says
Reuters
In a Monday message to shippers seeking refunds for tariffs paid before the Supreme Court struck them down, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said “it now estimates the first electronic refunds ... will start as soon as May 12, a day later than an earlier estimate,” according to Reuters. “Up to $166 billion of CBP collections from [President Donald] Trump’s tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are subject to CBP refunds” after the Supreme Court ruled that Trump did not have the authority under IEEPA to impose them.
250+ Democrats urge Supreme Court to overturn abortion pill ruling
Ashleigh Fields, The Hill
On Monday, 47 “Democratic senators and 212 House members urged the high court to overturn the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling reinstating an in-person requirement to obtain mifepristone” in an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief. “Mifepristone, which patients have used for more than 25 years as part of the most common and recommended regimen for medication abortion, should not be made more difficult to access across the entire country,” the brief said. “The amicus brief effort was led by Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.); Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.); along with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Reps. Katherine Clark (Mass.), Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), Diana DeGette (Colo.), Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.).”
Amid attacks by President Trump, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says "my loyalty is to the Constitution"
Melissa Quinn, CBS News
As he continues his press tour for the children’s book he co-authored with Janie Nitze, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, Justice Neil Gorsuch spoke with CBS News’ Jan Crawford about what a justice owes to the president. The question came up because President Donald Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly criticized the Republican-appointed justices who ruled against his signature tariffs, including Gorsuch. “My loyalty is to the Constitution, the laws of the United States,” Gorsuch told Crawford. “That’s the oath I took. It’s really just that simple.”
How the Wrong Supreme Court Reforms Could Expand Presidential Power
Bob Bauer, Executive Functions
In a post for the Executive Functions newsletter, Bob Bauer responded to the calls for court reform that have surfaced since the Supreme Court released Louisiana v. Callais last week. In particular, he reflected on how proposed reforms like expanding the number of justices could (unintentionally) expand presidential power by weakening the Supreme Court. With court packing, according to Bauer, we end up with a “large and ever-expanding” group of justices “jousting continually—just as their nominating presidents intended—across the political and ideological divide.”
On Site
From the SCOTUSblog Team
The nine lives of Employment Division v. Smith
As commentators debate the Roberts court’s willingness to overturn precedent, the journey of Employment Division v. Smith, a much-debated 1990 decision that limits the reach of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, illustrates just how complicated that process can be.
Contributor Corner
The Supreme Court’s indefensible evisceration of the Voting Rights Act
In his Justice, Democracy, and Law column, Edward Foley reflected on what he believes was a “singularly horrendous decision” in Louisiana v. Callais. The court’s ruling, according to Foley, “misunderstands what the Constitution requires in this context and directly contradicts the text and purpose” of the Voting Rights Act.
Podcasts
Advisory Opinions
Justice Alito Stays Ruling on Abortion Pill by Mail
Sarah Isgur and David French discuss the mifepristone dispute on the court’s interim docket, the role of standing in judicial review, and how abortion access has changed over time.
A Closer Look
Waiting for the Justices’ Papers
At first glance, some might view this as a rather boring topic. Who cares what happens to the justices’ papers from their time on the court? Haven’t they already done their job? Haven’t they opined on all they needed to opine on?
But a justice’s collection of papers is not just a tidy file of finished opinions: It can include early opinion drafts, memos distributed among the justices, and law clerk bench memos. Justice Harry Blackmun’s collection, for example, also included his notes from the justices’ private conferences, cert pool memos, notes passed along the bench during oral arguments, and even letter grades he gave to oral advocates that appeared before the court. Justice William O. Douglas’ papers at the Library of Congress contain the notes he took at weekly conferences recording how each of his colleagues actually voted. Other collections contain handwritten letters, journals, and personal correspondence: Barack Obama, then a Harvard Law student, wrote to Justice William Brennan in the early 1990s reflecting on his judicial opinions.
No federal law governs these collections. Unlike White House and presidential records, which are governed by a 1978 statute, a justice’s papers have no equivalent legal framework. Instead, they are treated as personal property, meaning it is left to each individual justice to decide what to do with their documents and when. Justice Louis Brandeis started donating some of his papers to the University of Louisville before his 1939 retirement, which some note as the earliest systematic effort by a sitting or recently retired justice to preserve that justice’s papers. Others from that era either restricted access to their papers or had their papers destroyed (such as Justice Hugo Black, who had his son burn his conference notes before he died).
The “timing” question – that is, when such papers should be disclosed – has generated contentious internal disputes among the justices. When Justice Thurgood Marshall died in January 1993, his papers, which he had personally donated to the Library of Congress in October 1991 with instructions that they be open to the public upon his death, became available shortly thereafter (the first research request was made and granted nine days after his death). The 173,000 document collection dated back to Marshall’s early career with the NAACP through his 24 years on the court. Starting in late May 1993, The Washington Post published a three-part series on its findings, containing “descriptions of the Supreme court’s activities and procedures during Justice Marshall's tenure.” In response, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in a letter to the Librarian of Congress that the LOC had used “bad judgment” in granting such early access and suggested that, in the future, justices would donate their papers elsewhere. The Librarian refused to reseal the files, saying in late May that he was obligated to honor Marshall’s explicit wishes. The Librarian also noted that Marshall was not the first justice to request his papers be opened immediately after his death.
Justice Harry Blackmun’s papers were similarly controversial given they were “more thorough than others” (the 1,576 boxes of papers contained exchanges between the justices on Roe v. Wade and a 38-hour oral history by Blackmun). Blackmun’s papers became public in March 2004 and generated extensive coverage in NPR and The New York Times.
Most justices have dictated more restrictive terms. Chief Justice Warren Burger chose to restrict his papers for “10 years after the last Justice who served with [him] has passed away, or 2026, whichever comes later.” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, his last living colleague, died in December 2023 – meaning the papers now have a release date of 2033. Rehnquist, who died in office in 2005, directed that his papers be held at the Hoover Institution at Stanford until the last of his colleagues on the bench died. Justice David Souter said his papers were not to be opened until 50 years after his death (Souter died in May 2025, meaning a papers-release date of 2075).
In the meantime, some of the legal media have found ways around closed collections, relying on the papers already disclosed by other justices or, more rarely, leaked internal memos like those recently disclosed by The New York Times concerning the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.
SCOTUS Quote
JUSTICE GINSBURG: “…[W]hy should it be enough that the prosecutor said something? Why shouldn’t the defendant have to say, yes, I broke and entered the grocery store?”
MR. HORWICH: “Because we can treat – because we can treat the proceeding in this colloquy as the defendant adopting that factual basis offered by the prosecutor, accepted by the court.”
JUSTICE SCALIA: “Qui tacet consentire videtur. Why don't you quote the maxim?”
(Laughter.)
MR. HORWICH: “Because your Latin is better than mine. But, I expect –“
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE SCALIA: “He who remains silent appears to consent.”
— Descamps v. United States (2013)