The Latest Breaking News from Gorsuch

In April 2009, a law student at American University asked Justice Scalia how a student from her school could become "outrageously successful" without "connections and elite degrees." (The clip begins around 52:00.) Scalia laughed out loud. He answered, "Just work hard and be very good." But then he digressed to…

The Court's originalists and traditionalists break out into their camps.

And what would have happened if Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch did not vote to grant the stay?

And how it relates to Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy.

Brief responses based on the second oral argument this morning: Starbucks wins. The Court will hold, as it should, that the four-factor test should be applied. The general principle here (see Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo, Nken, e.g.) is that we presume all the traditional principles of equity apply unless there is…

Justice Kavanaugh laid out a unifying theory for the Shadow Docket.

The walls are closing on universal, non-party injunctions against state laws.

That happened in yesterday's opinions respecting the stay in Labrador v. Poe, twice in Justice Gorsuch's concurrence (joined by Justices Thomas and Alito), and once in Justice Jackson's dissent (joined by Justice Sotomayor). Nice! For Sam's substantive analysis of Labrador, see this post.

Yesterday the Court stayed most of the district court's injunction in Labrador v. Poe, narrowing the injunction so that it protected only the plaintiffs from the enforcement of Idaho's statute restricting surgeries and other kinds of medical interventions for minors related to gender identity. Accompanying the Court's stay were three…

If Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine lacks standing, so should progressive groups.

The states do not need Section 3 to impose qualifications on state-created positions. But only the national government should decide questions about the President.