Supreme Court Rulings

While the Supreme Court hears many important cases each year, I expend my hopes and energy on the outcome of only a couple.  After all, I'm not a liberal, I don't have limitless outrage!

As of today, I'm 1-0-1.  The win was today's ruling regarding the president's "travel ban" on nationals from 7 countries.  For those (idiots) who want to call it a "Muslim ban",

The court sided with the government, which argued in April that the restriction "would be the most ineffective Muslim ban that one could possibly imagine."

Roberts agreed with that argument. Though the ban applies to five countries with Muslim majority populations, "that fact alone does not support an inference of religious hostility," Roberts wrote, noting that those five countries amount to only 8 percent of the world's Muslim population...

While the court upheld Trump's travel restriction, Roberts noted that the ruling did not reflect the court's judgment on the "soundness" of the policy.

Good. That's not the role of the Supreme Court. Their role is to determine the legality of the presidential action, and they ruled correctly.

Liberals don't have to like this ruling, but it's the law whether they like it or not.

The tie was the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.  I'd have preferred that the Court go further than they did.  Must a lawyer accept every case?  Must an artist accept every commission?  Clearly not, but why not, when a store must sell to everyone?  There's clearly a difference (I'd argue there's an issue of "compelled speech"), and the Court should have addressed this issue once and for all rather than merely sending the case back to lower courts because of the obvious anti-religious animus shown by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission:

The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility toward the baker based on his religious beliefs. The ruling is a win for baker Jack Phillips, who cited his beliefs as a Christian, but leaves unsettled broader constitutional questions on religious liberty. 

"Today's decision is remarkably narrow, and leaves for another day virtually all of the major constitutional questions that this case presented," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "It's hard to see the decision setting a precedent."

My last big case for this term is, obviously, Janus. The Court has only a couple more days in which to issue a ruling.  For all of us agency fee payers, I hope they rule in Mark's favor.  And when they (hopefully) do, the next fun battle to watch will be this one:

Public-sector workers across the country are seeking to recover back wages they paid to labor organizations in the event the Supreme Court declares mandatory union fees unconstitutional. 

Class action suits have been filed against eight unions in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Maryland, California, and the state of Washington, accusing individual unions of violating workers' rights by collecting mandatory dues payments.

Update, 6/27/18: 2-0-1! The Court's ruling in the Janus case came down today!