Closing summary
The supreme court turned down an attempt by Republican-led states to block the Biden administration’s coordination with social media companies on fighting disinformation, one of only two decisions the conservative-dominated panel released today. They still have yet to rule on cases concerning Donald Trump’s prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election and the scope of federal government regulations, but will issue more opinions on Thursday and Friday. But perhaps an even bigger story than what the court actually decided is what it inadvertently decided. Bloomberg Law noticed that the court had accidentally posted its opinion in a closely watched case pitting Idaho against the Biden administration, and a 6-3 majority was going to require the Republican-led state to allow emergency abortions – at least for now.
Here’s what else happened today:
House Republicans convened a little-known congressional body to intervene on behalf of top Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s attempts to stay out of jail.
The supreme court once again overturned the ultra-conservative fifth circuit court of appeals, in its ruling over social media disinformation. Here’s why that’s significant.
Trump claims he can get detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich out of jail in Russia, if he wins the November election. The Wall Street Journal reporter’s trial began behind closed doors today.
Encounters at the southern border dropped by 40% after Joe Biden imposed restrictions that will temporarily restrict access to asylum seekers, the homeland security department said.
Progressives are not pleased after congressman Jamaal Bowman lost his Democratic primary yesterday, and are training their ire on the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
A group of Black campaign surrogates for Donald Trump met at a barbershop in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood Wednesday, ahead of the head-to-head between Trump and Joe Biden here tomorrow.
Trump made a phone appearance to tout his accomplishments for the Black community while in office and his proposal to end taxation on tips.
“Let the people earn what they earn,” Trump said, adding that he was aware he was talking to people in a barbershop who do tipped service work. “And it has been so popular beyond anything.”
Both Trump and Biden are blitzing metro Atlanta with events leading up to the debate. Rocky’s Barber Shop, a Black-owned business in Atlanta’s more affluent neighborhood, hosted conservative Black leaders from metro Atlanta. Shelley Winter, a conservative talk show host here, asked Trump if he thought that CNN debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would treat him fairly.
“Well, I think it would be good for them if they did,” Trump replied. “I think probably not,” he added, expressing lingering ire about Tapper cutting off his televised victory speech after winning the primaries.
So they cover the whole primary, but they don’t cover my victory speech. So am I going to get it fair? Probably not, but it would be very good for CNN. They’re having a lot of ratings problems.
Two potential choices for vice president who did not need a haircut found themselves at the shop anyway Wednesday: congressman Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and former housing and urban development secretary Dr. Ben Carson.
“I just want to encourage you to continue to speak out because the attacks on you have been absolutely ridiculous,” Carson said. “We’re praying that God will give you the strength to bear it because you’re standing in there for all of us.”
Donalds said we would see if he was Trump’s vice presidential pick. Does he want to be vice president? “Of course!” he replied.
Trump said on Saturday that he had already made up his mind about who he would choose to be vice president, and that his choice would be present in Atlanta for the debate.
The number of encounters at the south-west border was down 40% in the three weeks since Joe Biden announced new rules restricting asylum, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday.
According to a DHS fact sheet, the average daily arrests over a seven-day period has fallen to under 2,400 encounters per day, the lowest level of encounters since January 2021. It is still not low enough to lift the order. Asylum processing resumes when encounters fall to an average of 1,500 encounters across a seven-day period.
“It’s a remarkable feat that our personnel have accomplished in just such a short period of time,” DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday. “Congress failed to act. The president has acted.”
But he said congressional action was needed to send more resources to border patrol and that without legislation the order could be lifted or reversed by the courts or a future administration.
Last week, CBP said encounters fell by 25%, meaning illegal border crossings dropped significantly since then.
Encounters were already on a downward trend before Biden’s asylum order, due in part to a crackdown on northward migration by Mexican officials. Seasonal patterns also affect crossings.
Opponents have sued the administration to block the order.
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Cori Bush, the Democratic congresswoman of Missouri and another prominent member of the progressive “Squad”, has issued a statement calling Jamaal Bowman her “brother-in-service” and attacking Aipac’s role in his primary defeat last night.
Bowman is the “true representation of transformational leadership and brings … the power of everyday people from our communities to Congress each and every day,” Bush wrote.
AIPAC and their allies—backed by far-right Donald Trump megadonors—poured a tidal wave of cash into this primary race showing us just how desperate these billionaire extremists are in their attempts to buy our democracy, promote their own gain, and silence the voices of progress and justice. There should be no question about the need to get Big Money out of politics.
A recent poll shows Bush at risk of losing in her own primary contest for Missouri’s 1st congressional district, one point behind challenger Wesley Bell. The pollster, The Mellman Group, said:
Bush is still seen favorably, but assessments of her and her performance are moving in a negative direction, while Bell’s image is improving, leaving him with an underlying image advantage. With some six weeks to go and 11% [of voters surveyed] still undecided, this race can go either way, but Bell has achieved a slight advantage.
Jamaal Bowman’s primary defeat on Tuesday was a “loss for young people and anyone who cares about our continued movement toward justice, peace, and building a multiracial democracy,” Protect Our Power said in a statement.
The progressive group blamed “Aipac and the Maga billionaires who recruited and paid for George Latimer’s campaign from start to finish” for the defeat, and vowed “to tell Aipac they have no business creating division in our democracy”.
In a separate letter of protest, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP) said it was “saddened” by the results that had unseated a congressman who “has been one of the few members of Congress committed to defending Palestinian human rights”.
“Today is a sad day for American democracy,” said JVP’s political director, Beth Miller. She added:
To protect progressive candidates moving forward it is essential that Democrats reject Aipac.
Jamaal Bowman’s primary defeat leaves progressives angry at role of Aipac
Progressive groups are calling on House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to reject the endorsement and donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) in the wake of congressman Jamaal Bowman‘s primary loss in New York.
The United Democracy Project, a super Pac affiliated with Aipac, dumped nearly $15m into Bowman’s district as part of its successful effort to elevate George Latimer to the Democratic nomination.
A coalition of progressive groups, outraged over Aipac’s involvement in the race, sent a letter to Jeffries today demanding that he reconsider his association with the group and denounce its tactics.
“AIPAC turned the NY16 race into the most expensive Democratic primary in history, waging an
unacceptable assault on our democracy, our communities, and our shared future. We call on you to take action to address this threat,” the letter reads.
AIPAC’s interference in Democratic politics poses a grave danger to the vision our organizations fight for every day: a future in which everyone can access a high quality education, comprehensive healthcare, a liveable climate, affordable housing, good jobs for good pay, humane immigration policies, human rights centered foreign policy — and more.
Latimer defeated Bowman by 17 points yesterday, and he is now heavily favored to win the seat in November, as the Cook Political Report rates the district as solid Democrat.
The abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All has said it agrees with Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson’s reported reservations in the copy of the opinion briefly posted on the supreme court’s website.
“This is not a victory but a delay,” the group said in a statement responding to the court’s reported decision to permit abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho.
The abortion bans that are putting people’s lives on the line in the first place will continue to remain on the books. We’re grateful that the Biden administration is fighting to preserve the shreds of access possible in states where anti-abortion extremists are doing everything in their power to block people from the care they need, even under the most dire of circumstances.
The group said it will not forget that Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans are responsible for those bans, adding:
Our rights are on the line, and we must send President Biden back to the White House to restore the federal right to abortion and end these bans once and for all.
The copy of the opinion suggesting that the supreme court may rule to permit abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho may not be final and could be changed.
According to the copy obtained by Bloomberg, a majority of justices will reportedly dismiss the case as “improvidently granted”, meaning the supreme court should not have accepted the case.
The ruling would reinstate a lower court’s order that had allowed Idaho hospitals to perform abortions in cases where a woman’s health may be endangered, according to the outlet.
Currently, the state’s law only allows abortions when a woman’s “life” is in danger. Idaho has sought to have abortion exempted from the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala), a precedent critics said would endanger pregnant people in any state that has abortion restrictions.
Although many states allow doctors to perform an emergency abortion when a woman’s life or health is at risk, effectively mirroring Emtala, Idaho only allowed doctors to intervene when a woman was on the brink of death, a much higher bar for intervention. The Biden administration sued Idaho to enforce the law.
The Emtala law, signed by abortion opponent Ronald Reagan, sought to protect pregnant women in active labor in particular. Until its passage, hospitals often transferred or “dumped” women who could not pay when they suffered an emergency on public hospitals, even when in advanced stages of labor.
Emtala had endured a series of attacks, including by some hospital administrators who viewed it as an “unfunded mandate”. Although the federal government required hospitals to treat sick patients, it never provided money to care for indigent patients.
Bernie Sanders has joined those blaming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) for congressman Jamaal Bowman’s primary loss in New York last night.
Bowman, whose criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza made him a target for pro-Israel lobbying groups, was defeated by George Latimer, a pro-Israel centrist, after Aipac and an affiliated group spent almost $15m to defeat him.
Sanders, in a statement today, said it was an “outrage and an insult to democracy that we maintain a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaire-funded super PACs to buy elections.” He added:
AIPAC and other super PACs spent over $23 million to defeat Bowman. He spent $3 million. That is a spending gap which is virtually impossible to overcome.
It is not a coincidence that with our corrupt campaign finance system we also have a rigged economy that allows the very rich to get much richer while many working people are falling further behind. Big Money buys politicians who will do their bidding, and the results are clear.
Updated
The Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus has responded to the news that the supreme court may be poised to allow abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho.
“We are all watching,” the caucus posted to X, adding:
With lives hanging in the balance, we hope this indicates a step forward for patients’ access to emergency abortion care.
Now, it is up to #SCOTUS to confirm that this is true and they will indeed protect that right and uphold federal law.
We are all watching. With lives hanging in the balance, we hope this indicates a step forward for patients' access to emergency abortion care.
— Pro-Choice Caucus (@ProChoiceCaucus) June 26, 2024
Now, it is up to #SCOTUS to confirm that this is true and they will indeed protect that right and uphold federal law. https://t.co/1KrfNLdhLs
Alexis McGill Johnson, the head of Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider, writes that any decision that falls short of guaranteeing patients’ access to abortion care in emergencies would be “catastrophic”.
We're watching SCOTUS – any decision that falls short of guaranteeing patients' access to abortion care in emergencies would be catastrophic. https://t.co/ePzAf70bqq
— Alexis McGill Johnson (@alexismcgill) June 26, 2024
Supreme court says Idaho abortion ruling 'inadvertently' published - report
The supreme court has acknowledged to Bloomberg Law that the ruling in a case over whether hospitals in Idaho can be required to carry out abortions in emergencies was published by accident.
The court’s public information officer Patricia McCabe told the outlet: “The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website. The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course.”
Bloomberg Law goes on to report that the ruling is 6-3 in favor of the Biden administration, with conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissenting. However, the ruling is structured to allow litigation over the issue to continue, and not resolve the broader question of whether the federal government can require emergency abortions be performed in states where the procedure is banned:
The high court decision “will prevent Idaho from enforcing its abortion ban when the termination of a pregnancy is needed to prevent serious harms to a woman’s health,” Justice Elena Kagan said in a concurring opinion.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote separately to say that she wouldn’t have dismissed the case, according to the copy that was briefly online.
“Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she wrote. “While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”
The posted decision indicates the court won’t resolve broader questions about the intersection of state abortion bans and a federal law designed to ensure hospitals treat patients who arrive in need of emergency care.
The case is the supreme court’s first look at a state abortion ban since the conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. The court on 13 June preserved full access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone, saying anti-abortion doctors and organizations lacked legal standing to press a lawsuit.
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A supreme court opinion in a high-profile abortion case that is revealed to the public before it is supposed to be?
If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
Just over a month and a half before the supreme court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which five conservative justices overturned the 49-year-old constitutional protections on abortion created by Roe v Wade, someone leaked the majority’s draft opinion.
To this day, it has not been revealed who was behind the disclosure, though there are plenty of theories as to why someone would want to leak it.
In that case, the leaked draft generally lined up with how the court ended up ruling, and gave the public early warning that Roe was poised to fall. And indeed it did, setting the stage for states to ban abortion, and an array of legal battles to play out over circumstances in which the procedure should remain available – which is what the Idaho case is about.
Here’s more on the unsuccessful investigation into the Dobbs leak:
According to the eagle-eyed sleuths at Bloomberg Law, who somehow spotted the apparently erroneously published opinion in the Idaho abortion case, or had someone give it to them, the supreme court will dismiss the state’s case as “improvidently granted”.
That would reinstate a lower court decision allowing hospitals to perform abortions when the health of the mother is at risk.
The court did not respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg Law, which notes that the copy of the ruling is not necessarily the final decision.
Updated
Supreme court inadvertently releases opinion requiring abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho - report
The supreme court today published an opinion, apparently by accident, that shows the justices will rule in favor of the Biden administration in a dispute with Idaho over whether hospitals there can be required to carry out abortions in emergencies, Bloomberg Law reports.
The opinion, which was later taken down, indicates the court will dismiss Idaho’s challenge to the regulations and require federally funded hospitals to perform the procedure in emergencies, despite the state’s strict ban on abortions.
The day so far
The supreme court turned down an attempt by Republican-led states to block the Biden administration’s coordination with social media companies to fight disinformation, one of only two decisions the conservative-dominated panel released today. They still have yet to rule on cases concerning Donald Trump’s prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the scope of federal government regulations, or emergency abortions, but answers could come soon: the court is set to issue more decisions on Thursday and Friday.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
House Republicans convened a little-known congressional body to intervene on behalf of top Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s attempts to stay out of jail.
The supreme court once again overturned the ultra-conservative fifth circuit court of appeals in its ruling over social media disinformation. Here’s why that’s significant.
Trump claims he can get detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich out of jail in Russia, if he wins the November election. The Wall Street Journal reporter’s trial begins behind closed doors today.
Donald Trump is gearing up for his debate with Joe Biden tomorrow in Atlanta, as are his allies.
In remarks to reporters today, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson made the argument, often repeated among conservatives, that Biden’s energy levels are no match for Trump’s:
.@SpeakerJohnson on President Biden in the CNN Presidential Debate: "It doesn't matter if he drinks a whole gallon of energy drinks, he's not going to be able to match the acumen and the readiness of Donald Trump, and that is what we expect." pic.twitter.com/iIrCEoG8x9
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 26, 2024
We’ll see who’s right when the parlay kicks off tomorrow at 9pm ET.
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Trump claims Russia will release jailed reporter Evan Gershkovich if he wins November election
The behind-closed-doors trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich begins today in Ekaterinburg, Russia, and the US government has decried it as politically motivated.
To Donald Trump, it’s yet another thing he can use to convince voters to elect him over Joe Biden in November. On Truth Social, the former president has alleged that he can somehow get Russia to release Gershkovich if he wins the election:
EVAN GERSHKOVICH, the young Wall Street Journal reporter who is being harshly detained in Russia as his ESPIONAGE TRIAL is about to begin, will be released prior to my taking office if I WIN the Election on NOVEMBER 5th. Crooked Joe can’t do anything right, although it is likely… pic.twitter.com/qWdyz1vhu4
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) June 26, 2024
Here’s more on the start of the trial:
Shortly before a judge confirmed that he must indeed report to prison by Monday, Steve Bannon spoke for a very long time to the Guardian’s David Smith. Here’s what he said:
It is not your typical man cave. Christian iconography. A bust of Julius Caesar. A painting of John Paul Jones, the revolutionary war naval officer. A book, The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes, sitting on a crowded desk. A sign resting on the mantelpiece declares: “There are no conspiracies, but there are no coincidences.”
Welcome to the War Room, where the classical, contemporary and conspiratorial nourish Steve Bannon’s grand vision of himself as a historical figure. Each day he holds court in this basement on Capitol Hill to plot not only Donald Trump’s return to power but the next American revolution. Screens, microphones and other podcasting paraphernalia sit above piles of books and newspapers, namely the Financial Times and New York Times.
“I was a paper boy so I love papers,” explains Bannon, picking up his phone as he continues: “You can’t read it on here. It’s not the same. First off, one of the most important things is the editorial choices. Very important how they place it, how they do it.”
The 70-year-old – once featured on the front of Time magazine with the headlines “The Great Manipulator” and “Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?” – is constantly thinking about the media and shaping narratives. He believes that he wields more influence through his War Room show, which launched in October 2019, than he did working on Trump’s first election campaign or during a brief, ill-fated spell as White House chief strategist.
His impact on the 2024 election is about to be severely disrupted: Bannon must report to prison by 1 July to serve a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the congressional committee that investigated the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. That means he should be back on air just before the 5 November presidential election.
House Republicans attempt unusual intervention as Steve Bannon fights to stay out of jail
Ever heard of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (Blag)? Many people who watch Congress have not, but the panel has received an injection of prominence today from the Republican leaders of the House, who are attempting to use its powers to help influential Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon appeal his contempt of Congress conviction.
Bannon is supposed to report to prison by 1 July, after being convicted of charges related to defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection in 2022. He is nonetheless continuing to appeal his conviction, and that’s where the Blag comes in.
The five-member panel “is responsible for articulating the House’s institutional position in legal filings with federal, state, and local courts”, and is composed of the top Republicans and Democrats in the chamber. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson, majority leader Steve Scalise and whip Tom Emmer voted to intervene in the case, over the objections of Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and whip Katherine Clark. Here’s what the GOP had to say about that:
The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group voted 3-2 to file a brief with the D.C. Circuit in the case against Steve Bannon. The amicus brief will be submitted after Bannon files a petition for rehearing en banc and will be in support of neither party. It will withdraw certain arguments made by the House earlier in the litigation about the organization of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol during the prior Congress. House Republican Leadership continues to believe Speaker Pelosi abused her authority when organizing the Select Committee.
Updated
Jerrold Nadler, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, saw the supreme court’s decision in Murthy v Missouri as a direct rebuke of Jim Jordan’s campaign to characterize social media firms as complicit in censorship.
“As expected, the Supreme Court has issued a stinging rebuke to Jim Jordan and his multimillion-dollar conspiracy theory fueled witch hunt,” Nadler said in a statement.
He continued:
The Court concluded that the social media platforms ‘exercised their own judgement’ with regards to content moderation—which is precisely what we have heard from the dozens of witnesses that Jim Jordan has dragged before this committee. The Court also pointed out that the basis for House Republicans’ partisan reign of harassment against social media companies was inaccurate and outright false. I hope that after this humiliating defeat Chairman Jordan and his colleagues will end their failed investigation into the companies, universities, and individuals who have been trying to stop the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation on social media.
Jim Jordan, the rightwing Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, has been a prominent voice alleging that the Biden administration is censoring conservatives on social media.
The supreme court did not exactly weigh in on that claim, but did find that the Republican-led states who challenged the White House’s contacts with social media companies in Murthy v Missouri did not have standing to sue. Here’s what Jordan, who also chairs the subcommittee on the “weaponization of government”, had to say about that:
The First Amendment is first for a reason, and the freedom of expression should be protected from any infringement by the government. Our country benefits when ideas can be tested and debated fairly on their merits, whether online or in the halls of Congress.
The Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have uncovered how and the extent to which the Biden Administration engaged in a censorship campaign in violation of the First Amendment. While we respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, our investigation has shown the need for legislative reforms, such as the Censorship Accountability Act, to better protect Americans harmed by the unconstitutional censorship-industrial complex. Our important work will continue.
An emerging pattern: ultra-right fifth circuit court of appeals v US supreme court
With the Murthy v Missouri ruling, we are seeing the emergence of an interesting and potentially critical pattern involving relations between the ultra-right fifth circuit court of appeals and the US supreme court.
In both today’s decision and the momentous opinion earlier this month to allow continued access to the abortion pill mifepristone, the supreme court slapped down the fifth circuit on grounds of standing. They found that the appeals court had been mistaken in allowing the cases to proceed, because the challengers in each case were not directly injured by the actions to which they objected.
The fifth circuit is the most hard rightwing court in the country – of its 17 active judges, six were appointed by Donald Trump. As a result, it has become a channel for Maga legal actions, with rightwing activists creating extreme cases designed expressly for the court.
Take the mifepristone case. Anti-abortion activists picked a particular judge in Texas with a known hard-right track record, knowing that he would side with them and that the case would then go through the fifth circuit up to the supreme court.
That a majority of the court has seen through this tactic and rebuffed it in both the mifepristone and today’s Murthy ruling is a sign that the wildest extremities of far-right legal thinking are not yet upon us. But watch this space.
Updated
More supreme court rulings expected on Thursday, Friday
The supreme court has just wrapped up releasing decisions for the day, but they’re far from finished.
There are just under a dozen matters the nine justices have yet to weigh in on, but we will hear from them soon: the court has scheduled tomorrow and Friday as days to release more opinions.
The last opinion of the day is Snyder v US, which deals with federal bribery law, and is not among the politically charged matters the court is considering.
The court’s six conservatives have found in favor of the former mayor of an Indiana city, who challenged his conviction for bribery by arguing the money he was prosecuted for receiving does not violate federal law. The three liberals dissented.
Here is the lineup of justices that concurred and dissented in Murthy v Missouri:
Much as with the conservative attempt to roll back the availability of abortion medication mifepristone, the decision in Murthy v Missouri over the Biden administration’s contacts with social media firms hinged on whether the justices believed the plaintiffs had standing to sue.
Writing for the majority, conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett found that they did not:
The plaintiffs, two States and five social-media users, sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that they pressured the platforms to suppress protected speech in violation of the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit agreed, concluding that the officials’ communications rendered them responsible for the private platforms’ moderation decisions. It then affirmed a sweeping preliminary injunction.
The Fifth Circuit was wrong to do so. To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek. Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.
Supreme court rejects conservative challenge to Biden administration's contacts with social media companies
In their first decision of the day, the supreme court’s liberals and some conservatives banded together to reject a challenge, brought by Republican-led states, to efforts by the Biden administration to work with social media companies in combatting misinformation over the coronavirus.
Here’s more on the case:
New supreme court decisions are imminent
It’s almost 10am in Washington DC, when the supreme court will begin issuing decisions.
We don’t know which cases they will rule on in advance, but will let you know what they are as they come out.
Updated
Guns, Trump and abortion: the supreme court's major decisions thus far
In about half an hour, the supreme court may release one or multiple decisions with major impact on US politics and policies. But the conservative-dominated panel has already handed down several important rulings this term so far. Here are a few of them:
In March, it rejected a challenge to Donald Trump’s presence on Colorado’s ballot, putting an end to efforts by advocacy groups to bar him from running for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The decision was unanimous, and in their opinions, the justices avoided weighing on whether they believed he was guilty of insurrection:
Earlier this month, the court rejected a challenge to the availability of mifepristone, a common abortion pill, again unanimously. That all the justices signed on to the decision wasn’t an indication of broad agreement over abortion, but rather the view that the groups who brought the case did not have standing to sue:
Last week, the court’s three liberals and five of its six conservatives joined together to uphold a federal law that prohibited gun possession by people under a domestic violence restraining order, in a case gun control advocates feared could be used to further erode controls on firearms:
But the three liberals were in the minority earlier in the month, when the conservatives overturned a Trump-era ban on “bump stocks”, a device that can make weapons fire rapidly, and was used in the deadliest mass shooting in US history:
Supreme court may issue potentially blockbuster decisions on Trump, abortion and federal regulation
Good morning, US politics blog readers. We are bracing for a morning that begins with a relative bang, when the supreme court releases another batch of opinions at 10am ET. The court, where conservatives have a six-justice supermajority and liberals a three-justice minority, has been steadily working through its backlog of undecided cases over the past weeks – meaning that most of the outstanding matters carry significant political weight. Among these are Donald Trump’s petition for immunity from the federal charges brought against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the squabble between the Biden administration and Idaho over whether states can be required to carry out emergency abortions, and cases that could upend federal regulations, and social media moderation.
It is unlikely that decisions on all of these cases will come out today, since the court has also scheduled Thursday and Friday to release more opinions. We won’t know in advance how many cases have been decided, or on which subjects, but chances seem good for at least one major decision to be published. We will be blogging live as they are released.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Washington DC will be digesting the fallout from yesterday’s primaries in Colorado, Utah and New York, as well as runoffs in South Carolina. Progressive Jamaal Bowman is on his way out of the House of Representatives after losing his primary, rightwing star Lauren Boebert has succeeded in winning the GOP primary in a deeply conservative Colorado district, and several Trump-backed candidates were turned away by voters in different states.
House Republicans are attempting an unusual procedural tactic to prevent top Trump ally Steve Bannon from having to report to prison by Monday to serve his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress.
Julian Assange is back in Australia, ending the WikiLeaks founder’s long and controversial entanglement with the US justice system. Follow our live blog for the latest.
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