Hot Button Cases Disappear From Supreme Court Docket

the Supreme Court term. Joining me is Bloomberg new Supreme Court reporter of Greg's store has been sort of a Supreme Court detective. With his latest story, Greg explain what other polarizing cases the Court has been putting off June. There's quite a list of them, and there there's some of the biggest issues in the country. Uh. There are several abortion cases that the Court has been a deferring action on. There's a big case involving uh, gay rights.

And it's another appeal by a baker who was penalized for not making a cake for a same sex wedding. Um very similar to the case the Court had a couple of years ago. Uh, there's a case involving transgender student bathroom rights. Uh. The list goes on and on, and they're all in different situations, and in many cases it's really not clear what the delay is all about. Is there any way to tell if this is the

work of all the justices or specific justices. Well, there's some reason to think that it's it's the justices who are right now are most important on the court. John Roberts the chief Justice, and Brett Cavanaugh, the newest Justice, because they seem to be the ones who are putting the brakes on some of the more ambitious agenda items of the more conservative justices. Um, you know, both of them have reasons why they want might want the Court

to move pretty slowly on these hot button issues. John Roberts has talked a lot about the institutional standing of the court as chief Justice. He seems to feel it's his his duty to really protect that, and he's concerned about the Court seeming too political too fast. And Brett Havanaugh, you know, may well have a desire to just kind of lay low a little bit after the very divisive

confirmation fight that he had last year. Now, abortion is an area where conservative state legislatures are pushing the court. Alabama just passed the strictest abortion law in the country as a way to get the justices to reconsider and overturn Roe v. Wade. Is the Court going to have to take up an abortion case if these laws are passed, Yes, Um, but it may not be the big cases that we're

talking about. UM. You know there are right now. There are several significant abortion cases that are waiting for the Court to act. There's one that the Court has repeatedly deferred to action on involving in Indiana law that requires abortion clinics to dispose of an aborted fetus either by bear a real or through cremation. Uh. That is a kind of smaller case that you could see the court

taking up first. Uh. There's another case that they've really signaled that they're going to take up because they blocked a lower court ruling, which generally means that they they are going to take up the case. That one involves hospital admitting privileges. And if that sounds familiar, the court a couple of terms ago, Uh, yeah, struck down hospital admitting privileges requirement Uh in the state of Texas. Uh.

This is a UM. Uh, Louisiana law that is very similar to that, but the lower court came out differently on it, UH and upheld the law. The Supreme Court with John Roberts Jordan, the Liberals put that lower court decision on hold so that the law is not currently in effect. That could well be one that the Court decides to take up next term, and that may be the one and only case they take up before the

next election. So if that resurfaces, and if some of the other cases or issues resurface and they decide to take them, the timing would put them right before the or in the heart of the presidential election campaign. And isn't that something that Roberts would want to avoid at least? Yeah, you might think he would want to. And you know, one of the people I talked to for the story I wrote wrote on this last last week was Don Vally,

the former Obama administration's solicitor general. And the way he put it was essentially that it's it's um you know, MA seem like the Lusser of two evils for for Roberts, you you know, he has made the calculation, for whatever reason,

that it's better to have these issues come up. Uh. Next year, so that he can have at least a year of breathing room for everybody after the Kavanaugh confirmation, even though everybody is well aware that the more issues like this the Court is deciding next year, the more it becomes a big political issue. Now, there are a few political cases or questions they've taken up this term,

part of in gerrymandering and the citizenship question on the census. Yeah, and both of those I think are fairly described as cases the Court had to take UM. In the case of the census, UH, in the issue of putting a citizenship question on it, first of all, UH now three UH federal trial judges have blocked the administration from doing that UM and the Census Bureau essentially has a deadline of this summer where they have to start printing the questionnaires.

And so you really needed an answer one way or another. And this is the kind of issue you would expect the Supreme Court would would feel, you know, we have to decide this, whatever the right answer is. And then the partisan gerrymandering cases, there's a kind of a procedural issue there where under federal law, a lot of cases that involve voting rights, UH get directly appealed to the Supreme Court from a three judge panel, and the Supreme

Court doesn't have discretion. For the most part, the Supreme Court can decide what case as it wants, what cases it doesn't want. With these sorts of cases, including political jurymandering, the Court has what's known as mandatory jurisdiction. Now, sometimes they can deal with those cases summarily without actually holding arguments. But obviously the jurymandering cases a is a you know, real serious issue, and it's the kind of thing that the court, uh, you know, generally would want to hear

arguments in before making a decision. Now they are going to take up a few cases next term involving employment discrimination against gay and transgender people. Yeah, that that was a set of big cases they just agreed, after you know, months of delay, agreed to hear. And it could have been a case that they heard this term, we could be talking about the arguments that just happened. Instead, it will be next fall, I think most likely in November.

The issue there is the interpretation of the main federal job discrimination law known as Title seven, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex, and so the question, uh, there's actually three case is. Two of them involve sexual orientation, one involves gender identity. And the question in all those cases is is that form of discrimination discrimination on the basis of sex? All Right, thank you so much. Greg. That's Greg Store, Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter. Thanks for

listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brolso this is Bloomberg. Yeah,