An Explosive Supreme Court Term Ahead

Bloomberg Law, Supreme Court Reporter. So let's start with abortion rights, which has almost become a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. The Justices will get their first chance to ship away at abortion rights since Trump's conservative nominees took the bench. Tell us about the case the Court's going to be considering next week, Well, sir, this case is June Medical

Services versus Russo. And what's our issue here is a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals. And if this sounds familiar, that's because the Supreme Court actually struck down a very similar Texas law in so it brings up the issue here not just abortion, but also a precedent and how closely the Supreme Court is going to follow its own precedent, especially

recent precedent. So this will be a test for Chief Justice Roberts, who was in the dissent in the Texas case that you mentioned. That's precedent here, that's right. But then when the Louisiana case came to the Court early last year, Justice Roberts actually voted to put the law on hold, that is, he voted against the Louisiana law here. So you're right that really all eyes are going to be on shape Justice Roberts in this case. But that's really going to be the case for most of the

blockbusters that the Court is hearing this term. You mentioned precedent here. Are there going to be several cases that are going to deal with precedent which has been a growing concern for some of the liberals the court. Well, it really has. We have seen a lot of petitioners bringing cases to the Court that specifically asked the newly reconstituted Court to overturn its precedent, and we saw the

Court do that a couple of times last term. And in one of those cases, which dealt with a decades old precedent, we saw one of the liberals on the Court, Justice Brier actually say that it makes you wonder what precedents are next, and he not so subtly cited to the Court's abortion dockets. So that's definitely been on the minds of liberals and court watchers in general, how the Court will treat its precedent in the abortion case. Have

any of the advocates asked the Court to reverse Roe v. Wade. No, So this case doesn't directly implicate Roe v. Wade or some of the other courts more foundational abortion precedent, But as you mentioned at the top of our segment, it does provide the justices with a chance to kind of chip away at abortion rights. And that's something that actually court watchers think may be more preferable to the Roberts Court, which tends to do things more incrementally rather than in

these big broad strokes like overturning Row versus RDS. Now, at the end of March, there'll be three cases concerning access to Trump's financial records. Tell us about those, well, right, so these are a trio of cases, but they really deal with two separate issues. And so in one of the cases, House committees are trying to get financial records of the president, and then the other it's New York

who's trying to get these financial records. Now, in the New York case, the private attorney for the president famously said that the president could shoot someone UM on Fifth Avenue and that New York couldn't even investigate the president for criminal wrongdoing. Well, he was in office, and so what the president is asking here UM in both of these cases is really a very broad immunity from an investigation while he's the sitting president. Let's turn to some

other decision. There'll be decisions on cases that could change the landscape of federal protections for workplace discrimination. And the Justices have already heard arguments in a trio of cases concerning lgbt Q workers. Right so, at the beginning of the term, the justices UM heard several cases that ask whether or not federal antidiscrimination laws that are meant to

protect workers protect LGBT workers as well. And it's a really interesting case in that kind of the legal theories that most of the conservative justices UH say that they rely on actually wagh in favor of finding that the law does protect LGBT workers. So it'll be an interesting

UM case to see how they turn out. In particular, Justice corsage Um, President Trump's first nominee is being really torn at the argument about how to deal with those um those legal theories and how they work in that case. But there are other discrimination cases that are ring under the radar, just because this term is filled with so

many blockbusters like the one we just talked about. I've been talking to Bloomberg Law Supreme Court reporter Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson about the second half of the Supreme Court's term. It will be filled with high profile, politically charged arguments and blockbuster opinions. In the coming months, the justices will consider whether President Trump can avoid congressional inquiries into his financial history. They'll also get their first chance to chip

away at abortion rights since Trump's conservative nominees took the bench. So, Kimberly, we were talking about cases that could change the landscape of workplace discrimination. Tell us about the cases that could make it harder to even bring a discrimination case based on race or age in federal court. Well, there are two cases. One is Comcast and the other is BAB And Comcast deals with racial discrimination and bad deals with

age discrimination. But the question in both cases is what a plaintiffs must allege in or to even bring their case in federal court. And in particular, it could make it harder for plaintiffs to even bring these discrimination suits if the Supreme Court says that they have to prove that their race or their age was the only factor in their adverse employment decision, rather than just one of many factors. So those are two cases to watch, even though it's hard to keep tabs on everything going on

this term. Really, the Court has taken several cases involving religion, from the public funding of religious schools to religious exemptions from Obamacare. Tell us about the religion cases, right, So, religion has been a very popular topic um with the Robbers Court, especially in recent years, and they've been dealing with it on many fronts, um some of them on you know, the lines between LGBT rights and religious freedom, and also, as you mentioned, on public funding of schools.

And so the Justice has recently heard a case Espinosa about whether or not ministers or Montana can ex food religious schools uh from a scholarship program, or whether the federal free exercise actually requires that Montana include religious schools so as not to show hostility towards them, And there is a case involving what's called the ministerial exception. Well, that's right, and so as I mentioned, these religion cases are really just all over the map and so on.

That is a long standing exception um for religious discrimination claims against religious employers. The idea there being that you don't want federal courts and the government to get involved in all kinds of religious decisions. Do you want them to kind of you know, separation of church and state and keep their hands off. So this case will will take a look at that ministerial exception and seeing if it is still good law and how broadly it should

be applied. And the Court in recent terms, would you say the court has been expanding religious rights? They certainly

seemed to expand certain religious rights. And so there's really this tension that it seems that the justices have been dealing with between the two religious clauses in the first Amendment, one the free exercise, which says that the government you can't inhibit religion or show hostility towards religion, and one the establishment clauset, says that you know, government has to keep its hands off of religion, and so the justice have really been um broadening the reach of the free

exercise clause at the expense of the establishment clause. But yes, they've been dealing in a lot of these religion cases that, as I mentioned a couple of times, just reached on touch on so many different issues. Now, administrative law is something that people usually you know, yawn at and say, oh, administrative law, but there are a number of cases that

could reshape the way agencies operate. Well, that's right, And this is a particular area that court watchers have been keeping their eye on UM since President Trump nominated both Justice Corsets and Justice Kabinat to the bench, because they've indicated that this is an area that they're interested in reigning in, that is reigning in the administrative state. And so there's been a number of cases I'm sprinkled over the last three terms, and there are several this term.

I think the one that most people are watching are one is one about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that the Justices will here soon UM that asked whether or not you know, putting a single person in charge of the agency who can only be fired for cause actually violates the separation of powers clause by taking away power

from the president to control the executives. It's sort of an odd case for the Trump administration because right now they have in there someone that Trump appointed, and presumably they'd want that person to stay there even if a

Democrat becomes president. But with this case, if the justice is a rule a certain way, the Democrats could remove the person that Trump put in all right, So there are in these administrative cases kind of some um, you know, tough lines for any administration, but especially for the Trump administration, who we see is generally wanting to rain in the administrative state. UM. Here, the person who has now been a Trump appointee has said, has agreed that she is

removable um at the will of the president. And one of the big questions in the case is going to be, so what happens now to the rest of the statute? If one part of it is ben constitutional, does that mean that the whole statute falls and there's no longer a CFPD or can you kind of separate that from the rest of the statute. Now, in light of all these big blockbuster cases, a copyright case that should be a blockbuster involves Google and Oracle is sort of lost

in the shadows. So tell us about that case. Well, it really is. I mean, this is really one of the biggest UM I P cases of our generation, and you know, it's it has been really lost in the shuffle here. But it's Google versus Oracle and deals with you know, several billion dollars of code that is meant to make it easier for UM developers to speak with different kinds of technology. And the question is whether or not firms can copyright that and how other firms can

utilize that if it can be copyrightable. Kimberly, have they decided yet whether they're going to take the case on Obamacare, Well, they haven't decided that, uh as far as we speak. They are going to be considering it at another conference UM. But there's really been some kind of conflicting indications on whether or not the court will take up that case right now. So the issue, uh is about the individual mandate, which a lower court said UM is no longer legal.

But there's still a question hanging out there about, similar to the CFBB case, what to do with the rest of the statute is all of Obamacare and constitutional. So the justices are weighing whether to take the case now, um, when it's kind of halfway done, or whether to send it back down to the lower courts and take it back up when the whole case is ready for the

justices to hear. Which cases could show the trajectory of the Roberts Court, whether the new Conservatives will take the court sharply to the right, or whether the Chief will keep that move gradual. Well, I think there's a temptation to really look at these big blockbuster cases, these cases like the LGBT case that we were talking about, the case about DOCCA, to see how the court is going

to go. But I think some of these smaller cases that we were talking about, the cases about um administrative law about religion, is really going to show whether or not the Court has any appetite to take really broad moves that could overturn really longstanding doctrines that touch all of our lives, or if they're going to go more incrementally and take on things just kind of chip away

at them, as we suggested with the abortion cases. You know, you just mentioned DOCCA, and I realized we hadn't spoken about DOCA, And last year when they took doc everyone said that's going to be the biggest case of the term or one of the biggest and it's see to have faded into the background and tell us what that's about. Yeah, I mean, this term is really just seems like it's

on steroids as far as the number of blockbuster cases. Um. But DOCCA is, of course a program that was put in place by President Obama to defer deportation for individuals who were brought to the country illegally when they were children, and these so called dreamers. There's been a lot of um question about how to handle uh, these young individuals.

And the Trump administration wants to unwind the policy, not because, it says, not because it doesn't want to give some relief to dreamers, but because it thinks that President Obama didn't have the authority to issue the DOCTA program in the first place. So the justices will and they have agreed to decide whether or not the Trump administration can actually begin winding that program down, and then of course it will be up to Congress to decide what to

do with Dreamers. Liberals have been watching the health of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg because of her brushes with the medical problems. Tell us about those for those who don't know, and how she's doing well. She has had UM several recent brushes UM with cancer lately. UM she's actually had four bouts of cancer, but she says she regularly goes to the doctor and that she is cancer free right now and feeling healthy, and all indications from her work

product seem to be that she's feeling pretty good. She's already issued three opinions UH in cases in majority or three majority opinions in cases so far this term, whereas all the other justices have only gotten one UM. And she's written a several very robust descents in cases, including one simply for herself. So she's she's working hard and

seems to be doing well. Also, she seems to be making a lot of appearances, at least when the court was in a recess, so I saw her in time and time again more than any of the other justices. She is she famously, you know, is a frequent UH on the opera circuit. But she has been around talking with students, talking with a lot of groups around town. It's actually funny. I was talking to my editor the other day about covering another one of her events, and we said Oh, we're kind of we've kind of had

enough of Justice Kinsburg lately. She's just everywhere. Thanks so much for being on Bloomberg Law. Kimberly, that's Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg Law Supreme Court Reporter. And that's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. Remember you can listen to all the latest legal topics in the news anytime on Bloomberg Lawn Podcast. You can find them on iTunes, SoundCloud, or

Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast, Slash Law and Attorneys. You can find exceptional legal research and business development tools at Bloomberg Law dot com. I'm June Grosso. Thanks so much for a listening, and remember to tune into the Bloomberg Law Show tomorrow night at ten pm Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio