While currently the Supreme Court can (and does) deny certiorari to the vast majority of cases appealed to the court, prior to the Judiciary Act of 1891 all properly filed appeals had to be heard by the SC as a matter of right. Just as Congress removed this requirement through its Constitutional powers, it could in the future legislate that the SC must take up specific categories of appellate cases.
There are still categories where the Supreme Court has mandatory appellate jurisdiction. Certain redistricting cases, for example, get heard by a three-judge panel in district court, and appeal is directly to the Supreme Court by right. That’s how the South Carolina redistricting case earlier this year got to the court; instead of granting cert, they simply said that “Probable jurisdiction is noted” (page 2).
In 2016, the Supreme Court declined to take the following original jurisdiction case:
“Supreme Court Won’t Hear Nebraska-Oklahoma Pot Lawsuit Against Colorado”.
Yes, sorry -that’s what I meant/thought. They do have to acknowledge they received it and declined to hear it? How long can it sit ignored before they must do something? (Must they?) I’m assuming by the end of the session in July, or if they have not responded by then the default is they’ve declined?
But as the article says, quoting the fed’s legal brief:
"this is not an appropriate case for the exercise of this Court’s original jurisdiction. Entertaining the type of dispute at issue here — essentially that one State’s laws make it more likely that third parties will violate federal and state law in another State — would represent a substantial and unwarranted expansion of this Court’s original jurisdiction.
So they declined to hear (possibly, they didn’t say) because it was not considered a valid instance of their original jurisdiction. I suppose that’s a call the court can make too - whether in fact the case actually falls under original jurisdiction. Presumably they’re telling the states “go sue in Colorado courts”.