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The Courts blog
Sackett v. EPA and the Wetlands the Clean Water Act No Longer Covers An Idaho couple's fight over a lot near Priest Lake led to a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that sharply narrowed which wetlands federal law protects. The Case for Cameras at Supreme Court Arguments Since May 2020 anyone can hear Supreme Court arguments live. Here is the case for taking the next step to video, and a fair look at the justices' reasons for refusing. Abbott v. Burke and the New Jersey Courts That Ordered School Money For four decades New Jersey's highest court ordered the state to fund its poorest city schools. How Abbott v. Burke worked, what it won, and what it cost politically. Bostock v. Clayton County and What Title VII Now Protects at Work A Georgia child-welfare worker joined a gay softball league and lost his job. The 2020 ruling in his case reads the 1964 Civil Rights Act's ban on sex discrimination to cover gay and trans workers. Brown Was Decided in 1954, and Making It Real Took Much Longer Brown v. Board ended legal school segregation on paper in 1954. Turning the ruling into integrated classrooms took troops, new laws and decades of local fights. Carpenter v. United States and the Trail of Data Every Phone Leaves What the Supreme Court decided in 2018 about cell-site location records, what it deliberately left open, and how the ruling bears on geofences, data brokers and the rest of your digital trail. Carson v. Makin and Public Money for Religious Schools A Maine tuition program for towns without high schools became the case that requires states to fund religious schools when they fund private ones. Then came Oklahoma's charter test. Clarence Earl Gideon's Pencil Petition and How a Case Reaches the Supreme Court Follow one handwritten petition from a Florida prison cell to a unanimous ruling, and learn how cert petitions, conferences, oral argument and opinion day really work. DHS v. Regents and the Paperwork Argument That Saved DACA in 2020 How the Supreme Court kept DACA alive in 2020 without ruling on whether it was legal, and why an argument about agency paperwork still shapes the fight over Dreamers. Eisenstadt v. Baird and Birth Control for Unmarried People How a 1967 lecture at Boston University, a package of contraceptive foam and a jail sentence led the Supreme Court in 1972 to extend the right to birth control to unmarried people. From Bakke to Grutter, the Long Legal Life of Affirmative Action How one justice's solo opinion in 1978 made 'diversity' the legal basis for race-conscious admissions, how that rationale survived for 45 years, and why it was always fragile. From Bowers to Lawrence: Seventeen Years to Correct a Mistake How an Atlanta bedroom arrest produced a 1986 ruling upholding sodomy laws, why one justice later regretted his vote, and how a Houston arrest in 1998 led the Court to overrule it in 2003. Furman, Gregg and the Four Years the Death Penalty Stopped How Furman v. Georgia emptied America's death rows in 1972, how states rewrote their laws in four years, and why the questions Gregg v. Georgia claimed to answer in 1976 never went away. Gideon v. Wainwright and the Handwritten Petition From a Florida Cell How a drifter's pencil petition from a Florida prison led a unanimous Supreme Court in 1963 to promise every poor felony defendant a lawyer, and why that promise is still unfinished. Griswold v. Connecticut and the Clinic Opened in Order to Be Closed In 1961 Estelle Griswold opened a New Haven birth control clinic hoping to be arrested. Here is how that deliberate test case created the constitutional right to privacy. How a 2012 Supreme Court Ruling Made Medicaid Expansion a State Choice NFIB v. Sebelius saved the ACA's insurance mandate as a tax but let states refuse Medicaid expansion. Here is how that ruling created the coverage gap and how voters answered it. How DACA Works and Why It Has Lived on Court Orders Since 2012 What Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals gives and never gave, how it survived a rescission and a Supreme Court case, and why its future still rests with judges and Congress. How Euclid v. Ambler Made Exclusionary Zoning the Law of the Land A 1926 fight over 68 acres outside Cleveland gave every American town the power to ban apartments. Here is how that happened and what reformers are doing about it. How Obergefell v. Hodges Made Marriage Equality the Law Everywhere A plain guide to the 2015 marriage ruling: the couples behind it, the two constitutional clauses it relied on, the dissents' strongest points, and what keeps it standing a decade later. How Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Worked, and What Louisiana v. Callais Changed For forty years, Section 2 let minority voters challenge maps that diluted their votes. How those claims worked, how Louisiana got a second Black district, and what Callais narrowed in 2026. How the Emergency Docket Became a Second Supreme Court What stays, applications and unsigned orders are, how a term coined in a 2015 law review article came to describe a parallel Court, and why it now decides fights over presidential power. Humphrey's Executor, the 1935 Case Behind Independent Agencies Roosevelt fired a conservative FTC commissioner in 1933 and lost in the Supreme Court. How that case built independent agencies, and how Trump's 2025 FTC firings led the Court to undo it in 2026. Incorporation, or How the Bill of Rights Came to Bind the States The Bill of Rights once limited only Washington. Here is how the Fourteenth Amendment, a 1925 sedition case and decades of rulings made it bind your state and city too. Janus v. AFSCME and Public-Sector Unions After Mandatory Fees The 2018 Supreme Court ruling that ended mandatory fees for government workers was expected to gut public unions. Here is what it held, what happened next and what it means for bargaining. Marbury v. Madison and the 1803 Ruling That Gave Courts the Last Word How a stack of undelivered commissions from John Adams's last night in office became the case that let federal courts strike down laws, and why that power still decides our fights. Mifepristone, the FDA and the Supreme Court Case Thrown Out for Standing Why the Supreme Court's unanimous 2024 mifepristone ruling turned on standing rather than safety, what the doctors who sued actually claimed, and how the challenges kept going afterward. Miranda v. Arizona and the Warning Every Officer Learned to Recite How a 1963 Phoenix confession produced the 1966 Miranda warnings, how they work in an interrogation room today, and how a long line of later rulings narrowed what they protect. Originalism Explained, With the Strongest Case Its Critics Make What originalism actually claims, how it grew from Edwin Meese's 1985 speech into the Court's dominant method, and the strongest arguments its critics make against it. Qualified Immunity, the Court-Made Rule That Shields Officers How a 1967 case about clergymen arrested in a Jackson bus station grew into a doctrine that blocks civil-rights suits, and why critics on the left and right want it gone. Roe v. Wade Began as a Dallas Lawsuit Filed in 1970 How a 1970 complaint filed by two young Texas lawyers against the Dallas district attorney climbed to the Supreme Court, and what its long road says about rights won in court. Roosevelt's 1937 Court-Packing Plan and the Lesson Both Parties Took From It Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 bid to add justices failed in the Senate even as the Court changed course. Here is what happened, and what today's reformers should learn from it. Rucho v. Common Cause Closed the Federal Courts to Partisan Gerrymandering Claims What the Supreme Court decided on June 27, 2019, why it called partisan maps a political question, and the routes that remain open to anyone who wants fair districts. Shelby County v. Holder and the Day Preclearance Went Dark On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court struck the formula behind preclearance. What preclearance did, why the Court ended it, and what changed in the states it had covered. Standing Doctrine, the Gate That Decides Who Gets Into Federal Court Injury, causation and redressability explained through Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, and why the rule about who may sue now shapes environmental, voting and executive-power cases. Stare Decisis and the Rules for When the Court Reverses Itself A chambermaid's back-pay claim overturned a 1923 precedent in 1937. Here is how stare decisis works, the factors justices cite to overrule, and why both sides invoke it. State Constitutions Are Where Rights Are Being Won Now From Pennsylvania's 2018 map ruling to abortion ballot measures and youth climate cases, state constitutions now protect rights federal courts will not. Here is the case for fighting there. Texas SB 8 and the Private Lawsuits Designed to Dodge Judicial Review How Texas wrote a six-week abortion ban that no state official enforced, why that design kept federal courts from blocking it in 2021, and why the trick outlived Roe. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and Its Revival in 2025 How a 1798 wartime law was used in March 2025 to fly Venezuelan men to a Salvadoran prison, what the statute actually says, and what the Supreme Court required before anyone else could be removed. The Bork Hearings and a New Senate Majority's Power Over Nominations How a new Democratic Senate turned Robert Bork's 1987 Supreme Court nomination into a national debate about rights, and why that fight still shapes every confirmation. The Case for Eighteen-Year Terms on the Supreme Court Why staggered 18-year terms for justices would lower the stakes of every vacancy, how the plan would work, and honest answers to the strongest constitutional objections. The Comstock Act of 1873 and an Old Law Back in the Abortion Fight Why an 1873 anti-vice law that banned mailing contraceptives and abortion supplies is still on the books, how courts narrowed it, and why it now hangs over abortion pills by mail. The Leaked Dobbs Draft and the Last Weeks of Roe v. Wade A leaked draft in May 2022 told the country Roe was about to fall. Here is what the final Dobbs ruling held, how it differed, and how it moved abortion law to the states. The Pullman Strike and the Courts' War on Labor in 1894 In 1894 a railroad boycott led by Eugene Debs was crushed by a federal injunction and Army troops. How the courts became labor's chief opponent, and what it took to change that. The Respect for Marriage Act and What It Does if Obergefell Falls The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act passed with votes from both parties. Here is exactly what it guarantees for same-sex and interracial couples, and the gap it leaves. United States v. Skrmetti and the Limits of Equal Protection for Trans Youth What the Supreme Court decided in June 2025 when it upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, how it reached rational-basis review, and which big questions it left open. What Biden's Supreme Court Commission Found, and What It Left Unsaid A close reading of the 2021 Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court: what it concluded about expansion and term limits, what it declined to decide, and what happened next. What Happened When Arkansas Tied Medicaid to Work Hours in 2018 Arkansas was the first state to enforce a Medicaid work requirement. Over 18,000 people lost coverage before a judge stopped it, and the research found little change in employment. What the Dobbs Opinion Actually Held, and What It Left to the States A plain reading of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization: the majority's reasoning, the three concurrences, the joint dissent, and the open questions it handed to legislatures. Why State Supreme Court Elections Now Help Decide Congressional Maps Wisconsin's 2023 court race was the costliest judicial election in US history because state justices now decide map fights. Why these races deserve your vote. Wickard v. Filburn and the Ohio Farmer's Wheat That Expanded Federal Power How one Ohio farmer's extra acres of wheat led to a 1942 ruling that upheld the New Deal's reach, later supported the Civil Rights Act, and still divides the Court today.