So now the Court has five opinions left to release for this term, including SSM. Expect one or more tomorrow, Friday June 26. And the rest on Monday June 29.
What’s left?
Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission
Can a state pass authority to re-draw Congressional district lines to a non-partisan authority or must the legislature do it? And does the state Legislature have authority to bring a challenge to the constitutionality of the redistricting commission?
Likely to be authored by Kennedy or Ginsburg based upon remaining workload. My guess is Kennedy. He still needs 2 more to balance the workload over the entire term and I already think he has the SSM case so this could be his other one.
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency
Was it unreasonable for the Environmental Protection Agency to refuse to consider costs in determining whether it is appropriate to regulate hazardous air pollutants emitted by electric utilities.
Likely to be authored by Scalia based upon remaining workload. He is the only Justice who has not yet written an opinion for the March sitting.
Johnson v. United States
Is mere possession of a sawed-off shotgun to be treated as a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act? And is a portion of the Armed Career Criminal Act unconstitutionally vague?
From the April sitting, so not as certain who will author it. Best bet is on Scalia, Kennedy, or Ginsburg authoring the majority opinion. My guess is Ginsburg gets this one.
Glossip v. Gross
A constitutional challenge to new drug protocols for lethal injection.
Also from the April sitting. Again smart money is on Scalia, Kennedy, or Ginsburg writing the opinion. My guess is Scalia get this one.
And of course Obergefell v Hodges, the SSM case, as discussed above.
I’ve already stated that I think Kennedy writes the majority here.
My issue (with expecting a certain justice to write an opinion based on the term they haven’t written for yet) is that it’s entirely possible that particular justice was in the minority on most of those cases, and there just aren’t any opinions for them to write. If Scalia is in the minority on all the remaining cases, he’s not writing any opinions.
I had thought about the same question. Over on SCOTUSblog they pointed out that so many of the more mundane opinions are near unanimous that is is almost unimaginable that a Justice wouldn’t be in the majority in at least one case per monthly sitting.
So if, for example, Scalia is not writing the Utility Air case, then why did he not write at least one of the other opinions from the March sitting in which he was in the majority? After all there were three unanimous cases that sitting and he was in the 6-3 majority in Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises, Inc. Could Scalia have resisted the Spider-man case if he didn’t have another to write?
Someone posted the same reasoning on SCOTUSblog, and the bloggers there didn’t think much of it. Apparently SCOTUS doesn’t care much for historic dates.
That doesn’t mean it’s NOT coming out tomorrow, just that reading the tea leaves is only marginally accurate.
It’s tea leaves, sure, but it couldn’t have been a coincidence that the Massachusetts Supreme Court issued *Goodridge *on the 50th anniversary of Brown.
Betcha Mama Kennedy never thought her little boy would grow up to be the Gay Rights Justice.
That’s a bit much. He’s the Gay Rights Moderator. He could just have sided with the liberal wing on prior decisions and found that sexual orientation was the sort of classification that required strict or elevated scrutiny, but instead we’ve been through a 20-year dog and pony show of “rational basis with bite.”
Wonderful news this morning. It seemed clear that we could not go on the way we were with some states having SSM and some not, but I long ago stopped expecting that the government would do the right thing. Today, at least, five justices did the right thing.