On May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court struck down three of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signature New Deal policies. The day came to be known as Black Monday, and it helped spark Roosevelt’s (unsuccessful) push to expand the court.
At the Court
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the Trump administration in a dispute over immigration judges’ speaking engagements, declined to serve as the court of first review in Florida’s challenge to other states’ policies on driver’s licenses for immigrants, and denied a few notable petitions for review. For more on Tuesday’s , see the Morning Reads and On Site sections below.
The court has indicated that it may announce opinions on Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT. We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30.
Morning Reads
Court Rejects Alabama House Map, Calling It Unfair to Black Voters
Emily Cochrane and Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times
“A panel of federal judges on Tuesday rejected Alabama’s effort to use a new voting map for the November midterm elections, saying that the districts discriminated against Black people and could not be used so shortly before a vote,” according to The New York Times. The Supreme Court had sent the dispute over Alabama’s map back to the panel for another look in light of the court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which “sets a high standard to challenge maps for race discrimination.” “The lower court judges made clear that they had reviewed the arguments through the lens of” Callais “but maintained that the state’s map failed under the new standard by intentionally discriminating against Black voters.” “Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, announced in a court filing Tuesday afternoon that he would immediately appeal to the Supreme Court.”
South Carolina Senate blocks redistricting plan in blow to Trump
Julia Mueller, The Hill
After the Supreme Court released its Callais ruling, “Republicans in the South Carolina state House voted … to approve new congressional lines,” according to The Hill. But on Tuesday, state senators blocked the House plan, “putting a pin in the state’s GOP-led redistricting push amid the national back-and-forth ahead of the midterms.” “I can no longer support the passage of this bill for one simple reason: South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said in a press release. “Neither my conscience nor common sense will allow me to stop an election that has already begun.” The Hill noted that “Tuesday’s move effectively blocks the plan from further action before the midterms, but the state Senate could pick the matter up again next session.”
Supreme Court rejects Michigan police officer’s bid to toss out an excessive force claim from a George Floyd protest
Lawrence Hurley, NBC News
On Tuesday, the court announced that it will not weigh in on “a Michigan police officer’s attempt to evade an excessive force claim arising from an incident that took place during a protest in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing,” according to NBC News. Sean Hart sued officer Phillip Reinink after being hit and injured by a tear gas canister that was “designed to be fired into the air,” not toward protesters. Reinink contends that the suit should be barred by the “legal doctrine of qualified immunity, which often protects police officers from civil rights claims alleging they violated individuals’ constitutional rights.” As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, a May 2025 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit holding that Hart’s case against Reinink can proceed will remain in place. “Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, noted they would have ruled in favor of Reinink.”
Supreme Court rejects NFL’s bid to step into coach Brian Flores’ racial discrimination suit
Melissa Quinn, CBS News
In early 2022, coach Brian Flores filed a “landmark racial discrimination lawsuit” against the NFL and three of its teams, alleging that “the league had discriminated against him and other Black coaches based on their race and denied them coaching and general manager positions.” Soon thereafter, the suit expanded to include two other coaches and additional teams. “In response to the lawsuit, the NFL and teams sought to compel arbitration based on the coaches’ employment contracts and a provision of the NFL Constitution that gives the NFL commissioner, [Roger] Goodell, authority to arbitrate disputes between coaches and member clubs,” according to CBS News. A federal judge and then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit sided in part with the league and in part with the coaches, holding that some of Flores’ claims could move forward in federal court. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied the NFL’s request for it to review the 2nd Circuit’s ruling, clearing the way for part of the case “to move forward in open court instead of arbitration.”
Supreme Court Clerk Hiring Watch: Feeder Frenzy
David Lat, Original Jurisdiction
In a post for his Substack, David Lat offered an update on Supreme Court clerk hiring. Among the takeaways is that Yale Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, Stanford Law School, the University of Notre Dame Law School, and Harvard Law School “sent the most grads to coveted clerkships in 2025” (based on a percentage of the class, rather than the raw number of clerks). (The actual names of the latest hires are behind Original Jurisdiction’s paywall.)
On Site
Court sides with Trump administration in dispute over immigration judges, declines to hear Florida suit against other states over immigrant driver’s licenses
By Amy Howe
The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning reversed a ruling by a federal appeals court that had revived a dispute over a policy governing speaking engagements by immigration judges. In a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week, the court also declined to serve as the court of first review for Florida’s contention that California and Washington are allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain commercial driver’s licenses.
Read more How Callais broke the Voting Rights Act and weaponized the equal protection clause: part 1
The Supreme Court’s drug test
By Kelsey Dallas
The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in United States v. Hemani, a closely watched case addressing drug users’ gun rights. When it does, the ruling will likely reignite not just the debate over how the court approaches the Second Amendment, but also the debate over how justices rule in cases involving drugs, and whether they apply a different standard in such cases.
How Callais broke the Voting Rights Act and weaponized the equal protection clause: part 1
By Issa Kohler-Hausmann & Kevin Z. Yang
Much of the reporting on Louisiana v. Callais suggests the court stopped short of finding Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (which prohibits racial discrimination in voting) unconstitutional. According to Issa Kohler-Hausmann and Kevin Z. Yang, Callais did something far more extreme: it rewrote the VRA, and in doing so, made vote-dilution claims impossible.
Podcasts
SCOTUS Through the Decades | Interview: Nina Totenberg
Sarah Isgur and David French discuss an anticlimactic DIG from the Supreme Court over IQ tests and the death penalty, as well as challenges to the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion slush fund on weaponization. Plus, they talk with NPR’s Nina Totenberg about covering the Supreme Court.
Ask Amy
On Tuesday’s , Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from the decision whether to grant review in U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops v. O’Connell, citing “prior judicial service.” But on the same day, Justice Samuel Alito recused himself in Union Carbide Corp. v. Sommerville without providing any explanation. Are the justices required to explain their decisions to recuse themselves and, if not, why do some do so but not others?
The justices are not required to explain why they do not participate in a particular case, although some do, as this example from Jackson – who served on the district and appeals courts in Washington, D.C., for nine years before joining the Supreme Court – illustrates. Justice Elena Kagan, who served as the U.S. solicitor general for a year before she was confirmed to the court, also often attributes her recusals to “prior government service.”
In an appearance at the SCOTUSblog Summit last fall, Justice Amy Coney Barrett discussed the reasons why the justices might not want to explain why they are recusing. She noted that sometimes the decision to recuse can also affect (and bring attention to) a justice’s friend or family member. As a result, she said, she was inclined to err on the side of not providing any explanations, because you “don’t know what might arise in the future.”
SCOTUS Quote
JUSTICE SCALIA: “Well, so, if there is one State that would not have an adequate remedy for any – any single bad thing that could happen in prison, there’s a Bivens action for everybody for everything? Is that what you’re saying?”
Read more The Supreme Court’s drug test
MR. PREIS: “Yes, Your Honor, we are.”
JUSTICE SCALIA: “Wow.”
MR. PREIS: “I think if the Court were to write an opinion in that case –”
JUSTICE SCALIA: “I certainly wouldn’t want to hold that.”
(Laughter.)
MR. PREIS: “I’m not surprised that you wouldn’t want to hold that, Your Honor.”
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE BREYER: “I would find that rather surprising, too, actually.”
— (2011)