The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in two challenges to Texas' newest abortion law in Whole Women's Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas.

The law at issue, Senate Bill 8, effectively bans most abortions from taking place once a fetal heartbeat is detected. Only two months ago, the Supreme Court declined to grant an injunction to suspend the law, with Roberts siding with the liberal Justices. The law has remained in effect since.

As the liberal justices grow older and as the conservative majority decides an increased number of controversial cases, the Supreme Court is feeling more pressure from the Left. The Justice feeling it the most is Justice Stephen Breyer. Despite Justice Breyer generally championing the viewpoints of the Left, many are pressuring him to retire so the President can nominate a younger justice to replace him.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied the Biden Administration's request to block a Texas federal court's order to reinstate the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy. The Court explained:

On this day in 1937, the Senate put an end to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's court packing plan. Commentary from The Heritage Foundation explains:

Many Americans may have heard about how President Franklin Roosevelt’s proposed court-packing scheme failed in the 1930s. During Roosevelt’s first term, the Supreme Court struck down several laws enacted to address the Great Depression because they exceeded Congress’ power.

On Tuesday, the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States held its third meeting and 2nd round of hearings since being formed by President Joe Biden earlier this year. The meeting consisted of 6 panels of experts that commissioners questioned about various proposals for changes to the Court.  This one was much more partisan then the first two with progressive panelists making outrageous claims.  However, Harvard Professor Stephen Sachs summed up the commission well:

The public will see through efforts to recast court-packing as “court expansion,” jurisdiction-stripping as “jurisdiction channeling,” and so on. It will see through efforts to pursue short-term partisan payback under the guise of long-term reform. And because legitimacy is a two-way street, reforms that are not perceived by both sides as enhancing the courts’ legitimacy will never succeed in doing so.

On Thursday, the United States Supreme Court struck down California's donor disclosure requirement for non-profits in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta. As Ilya Shapiro observed, the Court's decision is a victory for Americans' freedom of association.

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee to uphold Arizona's common-sense voter integrity laws is perhaps the most significant win for federalism and election integrity in recent history, especially at a critical time when Democrats are doing all they can to undermine the security of elections. 

BREAKING: The Supreme Court issues its opinion in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee. https://t.co/lwki9GofGX

— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) July 1, 2021

On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the U.S. Department of Justice would be using Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to sue the state of Georgia over its 2021 election law package recently signed into law. As reported by Margot Cleveland for The Federalist:

First, the DOJ complains that Georgia prohibits the distribution of unsolicited absentee ballot applications then also bars private organizations from distributing duplicate absent ballot applications. Next, the DOJ challenges Georgia’s requirement that in requesting an absentee ballot that voters either provide their driver’s license number or present a photocopy of another form of identification — but even a utility bill would suffice.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Brandi Levy who sued her high school district after being punished for posting a profanity-filled rant on Snapchat upon not making the varsity cheerleading team. The New York Times reported:

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a Pennsylvania school district had violated the First Amendment by punishing a student for a vulgar social media message sent while she was not on school grounds.

In his upcoming book The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics, United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer reflects upon the "authority of the Supreme Court—how that authority was gained and how measures to restructure the Court could undermine both the Court and the constitutional system of checks and balances that depends on it." 

And if Justice Breyer's motivation for writing the book wasn't easy enough to see from the book's description, "measures to restructure the Court" is Justice Breyer's way of calling out Democrats' efforts to – you guessed it – pack the court.  Justice Breyer's opinion on court-packing could not be any clearer:

“Proposals have been recently made to increase the number of Supreme Court justices,” [Justice] Breyer notes. “I aim to make those whose reflexive instincts may favor significant structural (or similar institutional) changes, such as forms of court-packing, think long and hard before embodying those changes in law.”