Cases and Controversies

Lower court rulings that largely halted Biden administration communication with social media companies to combat misinformation about Covid and the 2020 election faced skepticism from Supreme Court justices. Cases and Controversies hosts Kimberly Robinson and Lydia Wheeler break down the March 18 arguments in Murthy v. Missouri and NRA v. Vullo, a second First Amendment fight about alleged governm...

The Biden administration and others are asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender kids despite its refusal to resolve related disputes over youth sports and student bathroom use. The ACLU’s Li Nowlin-Sohl joins Cases and Controversies to discuss bans out of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Idaho pending before the court, and the chances that the justices w...

Headlines touting the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to keep Donald Trump on the Colorado presidential ballot obscured division among the justices over the Constitution’s insurrection clause. UC Davis School of Law professor Ashutosh Bhagwat joins Cases and Controversies to explain what the justices did and didn’t agree on March 4 regarding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and what that means...

It was a big week at the Supreme Court with arguments over social media and guns, and a grant on Donald Trump’s bid for immunity from prosecution over alleged election interference. Cases and Controversies hosts Kimberly Robinson and Lydia Wheeler detail arguments in Garland v. Cargill, the challenge to the federal government’s ban on so-called bump stocks, and Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v....

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday in fights over laws in Florida and Texas that seek to stop social media platforms from censoring conservative speech online. At issue are provisions that require platforms to keep up certain kinds of content and inform users when posts are removed. The justices are being asked to decide if those requirements are constitutional under the First Amendment’...

Supreme Court justices have a number of things to sort out before deciding whether to take up or reject the question of whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted for election interference. Should the justices give Trump another crack at the DC Circuit on his immunity claim? And how should they decide special counsel Jack Smith’s request to treat Trump’s appeal as a petition for a full review? Georget...

Supreme Court arguments in Colorado’s bid to remove Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot tested a number of legal principles and scenarios. The justices dove into the potential impact on their deliberations of a case from the 1860s as well as whether state governments have powers to effectively decide a presidential election. Cases and Controversies hosts Kimberly Robinson and...

The Supreme Court will hold a special session Feb. 8 to consider whether Colorado can keep Donald Trump off the primary ballot. Notre Dame Law School professor Derek Muller joins Cases and Controversies to explain the legal issues at play and the potential impacts of a court ruling that fails to give a definitive answer before the presidential election. Do you have feedback on this episode of Case...

Supreme Court justices will soon hear argument on Donald Trump’s appeal to stay on the Colorado primary ballot, but another question for the court is whether the former president will attend the proceedings. Trump has done so in other court hearings of late around the country, creating unprecedented security challenges. While the Supreme Court is used to heightened security for the justices, hosti...

The conservative-led Supreme Court seems primed to nix a bedrock principle governing the relationship between administrative agencies and federal courts. Cases and Controversies hosts Kimberly Robinson and Lydia Wheeler break down the 3 1/2-hour argument on Jan. 17 in Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. From the justices different understandings of t...

Big challenges to federal agency regulatory powers at the Supreme Court could end up as a footnote to what’s shaping up to be a momentous term. Hosts Lydia Wheeler and Kimberly Robinson discuss how the court set up a historic sitting in agreeing to hear Donald Trump’s fight to stay on the 2024 primary ballot in Colorado and a second abortion case. It was already a significant term with two challen...

The Supreme Court’s January sitting starts Monday and most of the focus will center on administrative law cases. But important arguments on government gamesmanship and property rights are also on tap. Anastasia Boden of the Cato Institute joins Cases and Controversies to break down upcoming arguments. Do you have feedback on this episode of Cases and Controversies? Give us a call and leave a voice...

Arguing at the Supreme Court is no walk in the park. The justices ask tough questions and give hypotheticals that can trip up even the most prepared advocate. As the year comes to a close, Cases and Controversies hosts Lydia Wheeler and Greg Stohr look back at the most memorable moments from Supreme Court arguments so far this term since the court follows its own calendar. There were some uncomfor...

The Supreme Court added two high profile disputes to its docket and suggested it will fast-track a third involving former President, adding to an already consequential term. Hosts Kimberly Robinson, Lydia Wheeler, and Greg Stohr discuss the new cases on access to the abortion drug mifepristone, a challenge to Jan. 6 prosecutions, and immunity for former President Donald Trump on his efforts to ove...

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor solidified her legacy as the first female jurist to sit on the Supreme Court. One of her former clerks, Tamarra Matthews Johnson, joins Cases and Controversies to discuss her former boss as a justice and as a role model for women. She touches on O’Connor’s career hurdles and how her political experience came through in her time on the high court bench. Johnson recalls O...

The Supreme Court appeared likely to require the Securities and Exchange Commission to bring certain enforcement actions in federal court, rather than resolve them in-house. The only question appeared to be whether the justices' ruling will ensnare other federal agencies.  Cases and Controversies hosts Kimberly Robinson and Greg Stohr discuss how the court might limit its ruling. Do you have feedb...

The Supreme Court’s inaugural code of conduct, issued under pressure from transparency advocates and Congress, does little to quell concern over how the justices conduct themselves on ethics, critics say. The Brennan Center’s Jennifer Ahearn joins Cases and Controversies to talk about how the lack of an enforcement method, special recusal rules, and general tone are unlikely to result in many chan...

A lopsided Supreme Court appeared ready to side with the Biden administration in a Second Amendment challenge to a federal gun ban for those subject to domestic violence restraining orders. The real issue for the justices is how to apply their new test, established in the court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that requires courts to look for historical su...

The justices searched for the proper line to balance free speech protections for public officials and their constituents online, in the first of several disputes involving social media this term. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's David Greene joins Cases and Controveries to explain the competing First Amendment issues at play in Lindke v. Freed and O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and how the cases...

Justice Amy Coney Barrett made news this week when she became the latest justice to back a high court ethics code, but her tale of rocking out to the turn-of-the-century hit "Who Let the Dogs Out" in the stately halls of the highest court in the land stole the show.  Cases and Controversies hosts Kimberly Robinson and Greg Stohr catch up on all the justices' latest activities. They also highlight...

Fresh off last term’s win in an Alabama redistricting case, civil rights groups returned to the Supreme Court to argue that voting maps drawn by South Carolina Republicans disenfranchise Black voters and should be redrawn. But arguments in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference on Oct. 11 seemed to favor the GOP-led legislature despite a deferential standard that limits the justices’ ability...

Whether funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unlawful or not could rest with conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, one court watcher says. Brennan Center for Justice President and CEO Michael Waldman joins Cases and Controversies to discuss a challenge to the Obama-era agency that was set up in the aftermath of the financial crisis to regulate mortgages, au...

The Supreme Court kicks off its 2023 term on Monday with guns, abortion, and affirmative action potentially coming back—whether the justices are ready for them or not. Advocates and lower courts are emboldened by the high court’s recent rulings in key areas and are bringing aggressive claims that the justices might not have anticipated, University of Chicago law professor David Strauss said. The “...

Death penalty cases are often adjudicated for years, if not decades, before they reach the Supreme Court. But once they do, the justices must make life-or-death decisions in a relatively quick amount of time. Death penalty cases at the Supreme Court often come through the court's emergency, or "shadow" docket. In recent years, the court's conservatives have handed down rulings that closed off seve...

From Antonin Scalia’s sudden death, to four new justices, a leaked opinion draft, the overturning of abortion rights, and the pandemic-era introduction of live audio for oral arguments—a lot has happened at the Supreme Court in the past decade and Cases and Controversies has been there for all of it. The Bloomberg Law podcast started in very lo-fi way in a virtual closet has grown over the years a...