Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina ("the UNC case") and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College ("the Harvard case"), which, together, are expected to overturn Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that the use of affirmative action policies in college admissions is unconstitutional.

Happening now: about 100 people, mostly Asian, are gathered in front of the Supreme Court to rally against affirmative action, one day before hearings begin in the Harvard/UNC cases. They are holding signs like: “I am Asian American, I have a dream too” pic.twitter.com/J6f4FKzian

— Amy Qin (@amyyqin) October 30, 2022

Leftists have been waging an endless war on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, often resorting to attacking the spouses of Conservative Supreme Court Justices—especially Ginni Thomas, wife to Justice Clarence Thomas. But this time, the attacks were broadened to include not only the spouses of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett but also liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. A September article appearing in Politico posits that conflict of interest disclosure requirements for the Justices' spouses are far too lenient, "fanning fears of outside influences."

Straight from the Democrat playbook: if you can’t beat ‘em, just ignore the fact that you lost.

Today, the Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit’s horrible ruling in Ritter v. Migliori and along with it took the air out of the sails of Democrats who continue to cry wolf over commonsense election procedures.  But after the loss, of course, Democrat consigliere Marc Elias and other Democrats attempted to soften the blow.

The liberal mainstream media is using the opening of the Supreme Court’s term this year as an excuse to attack its conservative members in an attempt to undermine its legitimacy.  As Mark Paoletta writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The ascendant originalist approach at the court is more faithful to the Constitution, but it is less welcoming to the liberal policy-making many have come to expect from the court since the Warren era. Expect to see many more baseless attacks on the court’s conservative members in the future.

As Peter Roff points out this effort has been somewhat successful in swaying surface level public opinion polls of the Court.

The undermining of the court’s legitimacy is part of the political process, not the legal and certainly not the democratic one. Everything from the references to its poll numbers to the way the current majority is described – conservative, far-right, hard right – rather than originalist, constitutionalist or even as justices favoring a narrow interpretation of the Constitution’s meaning rather than an expansive one – are all notes in the same song. Progressives want to restore the court’s position as the final word on liberal causes it’s been since FDR and are not especially concerned about how they do it. They reject the idea it should function as the referee in disputes between the branches of the federal government, the states and, on occasion, the people.

The Supreme Court has officially wrapped up its first week of oral arguments for the 2022-2023 term. Two cases cases that especially stand out are Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency and Merrill v. Milligan. The Sackett oral arguments seemed to suggest that the Court may be heading towards changing the standard used for determining whether the federal government has regulatory jurisdiction over an issue:

If oral argument was any indication, the justices recognize the need for greater regulatory certainty, but also recognize the difficulty in drawing a clear line to demarcate where "waters of the United States" end and non-federal waters or lands begin. Much of the argument focused on precisely this question, causing the justices to explore the meaning of the word "adjacent," as the Court previously upheld the EPA and Army Corps' authority over wetlands adjacent to navigable waters in United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, perhaps the high-water mark of Court acquiescence to broad assertions of federal regulatory power under the CWA. Accordingly, the justices considered whether "adjacent wetlands" must be physically connected to navigable waters, must be neighboring to such waters, or must merely be nearby, and most seemed unconvinced with the answers they received from the advocates.

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court kicked off its 2022-2023 term by hearing oral arguments for two cases. The first case before the Court was Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, which considers:

Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit set forth the proper test for determining whether wetlands are "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1362(7).

At the beginning of what is certain to be a historic Supreme Court term, the Court will hear oral arguments next Tuesday in Merrill v. Milligan, a case that considers whether Alabama’s 2021 congressional maps violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Much drama unfolded earlier this year when Alabama’s newly adopted congressional maps were challenged. Now, the Supreme Court will hopefully resolve the issue once and for all, and with it, clarify how race should be considered in the redistricting process.

Ahead of the 2022-2023 Supreme Court term, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Neil Gorsuch are speaking up about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court after the Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, was leaked earlier this year. Chief Justice Roberts spoke to a group of lawyers and judges last week where he specifically addressed those who seek to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court simply because they disagree with its decisions:

Chief Justice John Roberts said disagreement with the Supreme Court’s decisions is “not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the court,” on Friday in his first public remarks since the Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

It appears that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has quietly "un-recused" herself from the UNC affirmative action case coming before the Court during its 2022-2023 term. As Dan McLaughlin explained, the case was previously consolidated with a case implicating Harvard in a similar alleged violation:

As I set forth in detail back in February, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has an obligation to recuse herself from the pending case on racial preferences in Harvard admissions because she sat on the Harvard Board of Overseers not only during the events under challenge — which are ongoing — but also during the yearslong defense of the litigation, including at the Supreme Court. Justice Jackson agreed, and testified at her confirmation hearing that she would recuse. But Jackson’s recusal obligation should have extended as well to the consolidated case, for two reasons: because Harvard was engaged in a joint defense of the case with the University of North Carolina (the two cases were consolidated) and because a victory for UNC could redound to the benefit of Harvard in the event that the Court divided 4-4 or reached a fractured outcome in the Harvard case (granting that the two legal standards could end up differing). . .

Polling recently commissioned by the Judicial Crisis Network shows that Americans wholeheartedly reject the intimidation and violence that pro-abortion activists have promoted in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned last month. Over half of the respondents believed that the law against protesting at Supreme Court Justices houses should be enforced by Attorney General Merrick Garland and believed that such protests undermine democracy. The Federalist reported:

Americans do not believe it is right to protest outside the home of Supreme Court justices or conduct protests that interfere with the justices’ personal lives, a new poll found.