Yesterday marked four years since Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court, paving the way for her to become the first Black woman to serve as a justice.
At the Court
In a new request for interim relief, the court has been asked to bar Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and the Franklin County Board of Elections from removing Sam Ronan, a candidate for Congress in the state’s 15th district, from Ohio’s Republican primary election ballot. LaRose’s response is due today by noon EDT.
The court will next hear arguments on Monday, April 20, the first day of its April sitting.
Morning Reads
Carey's GOP primary challenger booted from race, SCOTUS appeal filed
Jordan Laird, The Columbus Dispatch
The Columbus Dispatch reported on the legal battle that led to the new interim relief docket filing, which began after LaRose sided with Republicans on the Franklin County Board of Elections in their push to remove Ronan from the Republican primary ballot. After initially allowing Ronan to remain in the race, U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison “determined Ronan lied about being a Republican,” clearing the way for the state to disregard votes for him. “Ronan argues,” in response, “that he should be allowed to present his progressive ideology as a Republican and let the GOP voters decide.” If the Supreme Court leaves Morrison’s decision in place, the Franklin County Board of Elections “will notify absentee voters that votes for Ronan will not count and post notices at polling places.”
Eighth Circuit lets Iowa enforce school book ban, LGBTQ+ teaching limits
Rox Laird, Courthouse News Service
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Monday held in two related cases that “Iowa’s state law that bans sexually explicit books in school libraries and regulates teaching related to LGBTQ+ issues is likely constitutional,” according to Courthouse News Service. In the ruling on the school book ban, “the Eighth Circuit cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, in which the Supreme Court said ‘expressive activities that students, parents, and members of the public might reasonably perceive to bear the imprimatur of the school’ constitute school-sponsored speech, over which a school can exercise editorial control, ‘so long as [its] actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.’” “[U]nder Hazelwood,” the 8th Circuit continued, “a school library bears the imprimatur of the school and is properly characterized as part of the school’s curriculum.”
Documents from State Show the Justices Are Well-Traveled and Well-Covered
Fix the Court
On Tuesday, Fix the Court shared highlights from documents it received in response to its 2024 FOIA request to the State Department. The documents emphasized “Supreme Court justices’ penchant for traveling abroad when they’re not pouring over briefs or writing opinions and show that the justices have security agencies worldwide working diligently to guarantee their safety.” Among other findings, Fix the Court noted “that security responsibilities” during the justices’ trips abroad were “divided up among various agencies. … When Roberts, Kagan and Breyer visited Canada in 2023, special agents of the Supreme Court Police’s Dignitary Protection Unit, with assistance from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, took the assignment. When Justices Gorsuch and Kagan traveled to France in 2024, the U.S. embassy asked that the French Interior Ministry send guards from the National Police.”
Historians, watchdog group sue Trump to preserve White House records
Mike Scarcella, Reuters
A new lawsuit aims to force the Trump “administration to comply with a presidential records preservation law” that the Justice Department has described as unconstitutional. “The American Historical Association and American Oversight on Monday asked the federal court in Washington to declare the nearly 50-year-old Presidential Records Act to be lawful and to bar federal agencies from relying on the Justice Department’s legal memo that deemed it illegal,” according to Reuters. The two groups “argue that the memo contradicts a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a prior presidential records preservation law, and that the executive branch doesn’t have authority to nullify the opinion.”
Democrats’ Colossal Missed Opportunity to Shape the Supreme Court
Peter S. Canellos, Politico
In a column for Politico, Peter S. Canellos, author of a new book on Justice Samuel Alito, revisited President George W. Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court seat that Alito was eventually confirmed to fill. Bush ultimately withdrew Miers’ nomination after facing pushback from “conservative judicial activists,” and after Democrats, according to Canellos, failed to do enough “to rescue” her. Canellos described “the Miers debacle” as a “colossal missed opportunity for the Democrats.” According to Canellos, Miers “was emphatically not a creature of the conservative legal movement,” and the Democrats should have celebrated the opportunity to add Miers to the court, especially given a Republican was in the White House and Republicans controlled the Senate.
On Site
The who, what, and where of gun control
In her A Second Opinion column, Haley Proctor explored how the court has analyzed gun regulations that limit (1) who may possess a firearm, (2) what arms people may own or carry, and (3) where they may take them.
What oral arguments and opinion authorships can actually tell us
In his Empirical SCOTUS column, Adam Feldman analyzed what aspects of oral argument are most helpful in trying to predict who will write a majority opinion.
The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause is not trapped in amber: a reflection on oral argument
In a column for SCOTUSblog, Pete Patterson drew on his work in the Second Amendment context to challenge some of the arguments put forward by Cecillia Wang last week against President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship.
Podcasts
You’re Fired, Pam Bondi
Pam Bondi is no longer attorney general, Steve Bannon’s case is sent back to lower courts, and the Chiles decision on conversion therapy becomes nonpartisan. Sarah Isgur and David French discuss this and more on the latest episode of Advisory Opinions.
Potential Black Supreme Court Nominees
In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson made history when he nominated Thurgood Marshall to replace Justice Tom Clark. Marshall’s nomination as the first Black justice was groundbreaking and hard-fought. But before Marshall, the names of several Black individuals were floated as potential nominees to the Supreme Court.
Perhaps the earliest serious contender was William Hastie. After serving as the first Black territorial governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hastie was appointed by President Harry Truman to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit – becoming the first Black federal court of appeals judge. President John F. Kennedy included Hastie on his Supreme Court shortlist but opposition from Chief Justice Earl Warren (who believed Hastie was not liberal enough) and individuals inside the White House (who opposed nominating a Black person) kept Hastie off of the court. (Johnson was also reported to have considered nominating Hastie but ultimately went with Marshall.)
Another name on Johnson’s shortlist was Spottswood Robinson III. Robinson worked alongside Marshall on Brown v. Board of Education and its companion cases while at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Following his time with the NAACP, Robinson served as dean of Howard University School of Law (from where he had graduated and briefly taught). In 1964, Johnson nominated Robinson to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, making him the first Black judge to serve on that court. Just two years later, Johnson nominated Robinson once again – this time to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he served until 1989 and was the chief judge from 1981 to 1986.
Though not formally considered for the court, Charles Hamilton Houston was also a remarkable figure, and someone well known by the justices. Hamilton attended Harvard Law School and became the first Black student to serve on the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review. While working for the NAACP, Hamilton mentored Hastie and Marshall. He also argued several major civil rights cases before the Supreme Court. Although he died in 1950 (four years before Brown v. Board of Education was decided), he is widely recognized as the “architect” of dismantling the “separate but equal” doctrine which was accomplished in Brown. Marshall reflected on Houston’s impact after his death, stating: “We wouldn’t have any place if Charlie hadn’t laid the groundwork for it.”
SCOTUS Quote
MR. SINGH: “But I don’t want this to sound just like my naked litigation preference as it is also my –“
JUSTICE GORSUCH: “No, I – I – I want to know your naked litigation preferences.”
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