Louisiana map, abortion send Supreme Court emergency docket roaring back

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The Supreme Court’s emergency docket is roaring back. 

After a lull in activity, requests for quick action on redistricting, abortion and Big Tech have landed on the justices’ desks. 

It’s dominating the agenda as decision season fast approaches for the Supreme Court’s normal docket, a time the justices typically spend working on drafting those opinions. 

Louisiana’s congressional map 

Last week’s blockbuster Supreme Court decision abating a central Voting Rights Act provision struck down Louisiana’s congressional map. But it left questions as to whether the state had time to redistrict before the midterms. 

A massive emergency docket battle was rapidly born, leaving Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson locking horns. 

On Monday night, Alito and the majority agreed to forego the Supreme Court’s normal 32-day wait before formally releasing a case upon handing down the opinion. In legalese, that final step is called “sending down the judgment.”  

Normally, no one bats an eye. The wait just gives the losing side time to ask the justices to rehear the case. (The last time we’re aware of the court agreeing to do so was 1965, but if you know of a more recent time, we’re all ears: email us!) 

But in Louisiana, time was of the essence. Overseas ballots were already going out for the primary. 

With state Republicans wanting to redistrict immediately, the high court agreed to speed things up.  

It left Jackson fuming. In a four-page solo dissent, the junior liberal justice said the majority “unshackles itself” so that its “principles give way to power.”  

“To avoid the appearance of partiality here, we could, as per usual, opt to stay on the sidelines and take no position by applying our default procedures,” she wrote.  

No other justice joined her. 

Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch, felt compelled to respond in remarkable terms. The conservative justices called Jackson’s argument a “groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.” 

“The dissent offers two reasons for its proposed course of action. One is trivial at best, and the other is baseless and insulting,” Alito wrote. 

The order removes a potential roadblock to Louisiana Republicans’ plans to immediately redraw their map and potentially give the party a pickup opportunity for the midterms. 

Separate lawsuits challenging Louisiana’s primary delay remain in the lower courts, but even civil rights groups acknowledged the inevitability of the Supreme Court’s influence.  

“How the Supreme Court behaves is definitely relevant in this circumstance,” Sarah Brannon, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, told reporters ahead of the justices’ emergency order. 

She declined to say if the group would drop its case following the justices’ intervention. 

“I think it’s fair to say, I don’t think this is a confidential or sophisticated legal opinion, that the Supreme Court has made a mess and let a mess run amok.” 

Mail-order abortion pill 

Louisiana’s big Monday at the Supreme Court wasn’t just on redistricting.  

Hours earlier, Alito intervened in a new emergency case over the state’s lawsuit concerning mifepristone, one of two pills used in medication abortion. 

It has become one of the prominent legal battlefronts on abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

The Supreme Court fight was sparked by a Friday opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. It agreed to Louisiana’s request to block a Biden-era regulation that allows mifepristone to be prescribed through telehealth, the mail and in pharmacies. 

Over the weekend, brand-name manufacturer Danco Laboratories and generic maker GenBioPro raced to the Supreme Court. 

Alito has paused the ruling for one week as the court takes a look. 

It’s called an “administrative stay” and is not an indication of how the case will shake out. Alito handles emergency matters arising from the 5th Circuit by default, and major cases are ultimately often referred to the full court for a vote. 

Danco has warned an emergency intervention is needed to alleviate the “immediate uncertainty, with no transition period and no practical guidance.” 

It also has a dramatic, alternate suggestion. 

Rather than sending the case back to the 5th Circuit, Danco suggested the justices could leapfrog the lower court and take up the case on their normal docket to resolve the issues fast. 

It’s a big ask. Danco proposed the justices could convene a special argument session to hear the case and race to write a full-fledged, final opinion on a hot-button issue before their summer recess begins in July. 

That’s quite a contrast from the Supreme Court lawyers we told you about last week, who joked about the justices’ disappearing time window as they argued some of the final regularly scheduled cases. 

Alito’s timetable sets up some potential action in a matter of days. Look out for a ruling between when Louisiana submits its written response on Thursday afternoon and Monday at 5 p.m. EDT, when Alito’s one-week pause expires. 

Apple’s contempt fight 

Apple added to the pileup on Monday by bringing its dispute with Epic Games to the justices’ emergency docket. 

For years, the Fortnite developer has battled with the iPhone maker........

© The Hill