The Supreme Court's decision to hear the TikTok divestment statute case is better for TikTok than the alternative: The D.C. Circuit had upheld the statute, and now TikTok has a chance to try to reverse that.
But it's not a high chance, I think, chiefly because the D.C. Circuit opinions on the First Amendment were detailed and careful, and were written by a highly respected and ideologically mixed group of judges: Douglas Ginsburg, a Reagan appointee; Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee; and Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee. Srinivasan took a different approach on the First Amendment issue than did Ginsburg and Rao, but he reached the same result: All three voted to uphold the law.
It seems to me a good bet that most of the Supreme Court Justices will take a view similar to either Ginsburg's and Rao's or Srinivasan's. It's hard to identify up front any Justices who, as a matter of their general jurisprudence or of their particular First Amendment views, are likely to be quite different than all three of the D.C. Circuit judges. There are certainly highly plausible arguments against the law, as well as in favor. It just seems unlikely to me that those arguments will persuade five Justices when they persuaded neither Ginsburg nor Srinivasan nor Rao.
