I cover the Supreme Court for The Wall Street Journal. Priors: Politico, SCOTUSblog, et al. Briefly was a lawyer until I remembered I like journalism too much.
Washington, DC
Joined July 2009
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TELLING: The Supreme Court could've blocked the Postal Service ballot plan based purely on the "equities"—i.e., it's too late in the cycle to enforce the plan. That's what Kavanaugh would've done. But a majority evidently felt it important to signal their view of the merits, too.
This is a great new resource for SCOTUS watchers.
New cert-probability model improvements to supremecourt.report. It now considers, among other factors: 1) length of petition by word count (longer is better); 2) better ID of dissents below; and 3) # of dissenting opinions cited in the petition (positive grant signal)
SCOTUS GOLDILOCKS: Trump has two big emergency appeals pending at the Supreme Court right now. In one of them — his bid to restrict mail voting (left) — Trump says it's too early for courts to weigh in. In the other — the White House ballroom (right) — Trump says it's too late.
Endearing soccer oddities:
1. That they call the rules “law.”
2. That they call flopping “simulation.”
3. John Strong’s “45 minutes down, 45 to go!” catchphrase.
Maddening soccer oddity:
1. That they use plural verbs with singular country names.
NEW: Since the start of Trump’s first term, Samuel Alito has been more likely than any other justice to rule in Trump’s favor, a WSJ analysis found. In 100 major cases involving the Trump administrations or Trump’s personal interests, Alito sided with Trump 89% of the time.
Big shoutouts to @greta_reich_ and @WheelerLydia for helping with the laborious data collection and analysis for this story, and to @chiquiesteban for the slick graphics.
Surely not the biggest SCOTUS news today, but the justices' annual financial disclosures are out.
Top tidbit I've found: Sonia Sotomayor was gifted $4,333 worth of concert tickets. The concert isn't disclosed, but the gifter is the record label of fellow Puerto Rican Bad Bunny.
Drinking a tankard of hard cider with breakfast this morning to celebrate my first A-hed for WSJ.
wsj.com/us-news/law/supreme-…
James Romoser retweeted
Dozens of Supreme Court rulings are due in the next few weeks before the justices wrap for the summer, including its ruling on Trump's plan to end automatic birthright citizenship.
Keep tabs on them in @chiquiesteban and @jamesromoser's handy graphic👇
wsj.com/us-news/law/see-how-…
Today's 8-1 SCOTUS decision in Havana Docks v. Royal Caribbean Cruises is the first time Elena Kagan has ever been the lone dissenting vote.
By contrast: Clarence Thomas has been the lone dissenting vote in 52 cases. Sonia Sotomayor has been a solo dissenter 18 times.
James Romoser retweeted
It's fascinating to hear the way the justices describe their departed colleagues at oral arguments.
Justice Elena Kagan, for instance, referred to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as "the court's leading proceduralist" during a hearing yesterday.
And in a moment from a December campaign finance case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed touched that an advocate borrowed a line "from my sister, Ruth Bader Ginsburg."
You hear it often with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Justice Samuel Alito dubbed the "founding father of textualism" during a November argument.
James Romoser retweeted
It's newsworthy in the sense that the SCOTUS majority has repeatedly in recent Trump cases indicated that the government faces irreparable harm when its policies are blocked. Here, the discussion of irreparable harm focuses exclusively on those challenging the Obama policy.
NYT has obtained and published seven internal memos by Supreme Court justices in February 2016 regarding application for stay of Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
I'm skeptical that the memos are as newsworthy as NYT maintains, but the fact that *someone* leaked them to NYT is very newsworthy.