The worst time of year is almost here. The Supreme Court’s term usually ends by late June or early July, which means that in the next few weeks, the justices will begin handing down their blockbuster bad opinions—which, this year, could include protecting racial gerrymanders, cutting off access to abortion medication, and giving Donald Trump a free pass for crimes.

Brett Kavanaugh is trying to get out ahead of the coming public outrage. Last Friday, the justice attended a conference in Austin, Texas, for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals—the origin point of many of the Court’s bad decisions—where he sat for an interview with the Circuit’s chief judge, Priscilla Richman. In this interview, Kavanaugh argued that unpopular Supreme Court decisions aren’t necessarily bad—and suggested that their unpopularity may be evidence that they are good and correct.

Kavanaugh specifically highlighted some of the landmark Supreme Court cases from Earl Warren’s tenure as chief justice: Brown v. Board of Education, the school desegregation case, which only 53 percent of the public approved of when it was decided in 1954, and Miranda v. Arizona, the 1966 case that obligated police to warn suspects of their constitutional rights, and that Richard Nixon used to fuel his successful presidential campaign two years later. According to Kavanaugh, decisions like these made the Warren Court “unpopular basically from start to finish.” But, he said, many of those “unpopular” decisions are “landmarks now that we accept as parts of the fabric of America, and the fabric of American constitutional law.”

The implication here is that perhaps this Supreme Court, which needed just three years’ worth of a six-justice conservative supermajority to reverse longstanding protections for affirmative action and end the right to abortion care, is not behaving in a way that is so unusual, after all. Perhaps it’s fine that the Court’s approval ratings are embarrassingly low! (Last month, its approval creeped up to its highest level in over a year: all of 47 percent.) After all, what’s right isn’t always popular, and what’s popular isn’t always right.

The Supreme Court delivered a firm and unambiguous rebuke to some of America’s most reckless judges on Thursday, ruling those judges were wrong to declare an entire federal agency unconstitutional in a decision that threatened to trigger a second Great Depression.

In a sensible world, no judge would have taken the plaintiffs arguments in CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association seriously. Briefly, they claimed that the Constitution limits Congress’s ability to enact “perpetual funding,” meaning that the legislation funding a particular federal program does not sunset after a certain period of time.

The implications of this entirely made-up theory of the Constitution are breathtaking. As Justice Elena Kagan points out in a concurring opinion in the CFPB case, “spending that does not require periodic appropriations (whether annual or longer) accounted for nearly two-thirds of the federal budget” — and that includes popular programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Nevertheless, a panel of three Trump judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — a court dominated by reactionaries who often hand down decisions that offend even the current, very conservative Supreme Court — bought the CFPB plaintiffs’ novel theory and used it to declare the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unconstitutional.

In fairness, the Fifth Circuit’s decision would not have invalidated Social Security or Medicare, but that’s because the Fifth Circuit made up some novel limits to contain its unprecedented interpretation of the Constitution. And the Fifth Circuit’s attack on the CFPB still would have had catastrophic consequences for the global economy had it actually been affirmed by the justices.

Steve Vladeck
@steve_vladeck

Third (and last) decision is CFPB.

For 7-2 Court, Justice Thomas *reverses* Fifth Circuit; upholds CFPB funding scheme.

Alito, joined by Gorsuch, dissents:

https://supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-448_o7jp.pdf

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a conservative-led attack that could have undermined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The justices ruled 7-2 that the way the CFPB is funded does not violate the Constitution, reversing a lower court.

The CFPB was created after the 2008 financial crisis to regulate mortgages, car loans and other consumer finance. The case was brought by payday lenders who object to a bureau rule.

The CFPB case is among several major challenges to federal regulatory agencies on the docket this term for a court that has for more than a decade been open to limits on their operations. The CFPB, the brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has long been opposed by Republicans and their financial backers.

Unlike most federal agencies, the consumer bureau does not rely on the annual budget process in Congress. Instead, it is funded directly by the Federal Reserve, with a current annual limit of around $600 million.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says he will spend more than $500,000 from his political committee to help a state Supreme Court justice he appointed win election.

The Republican Kemp isn't the only conservative supporting Justice Andrew Pinson in his May 21 nonpartisan election against John Barrow, a former Democratic congressman who has built his campaign around abortion rights.

It’s a notable escalation as Barrow tries to knock off an incumbent justice, something almost unheard of in Georgia. While the contest hasn't grown as intense as high court races in other states including Wisconsin, attention and spending are higher than in the state's historically sleepy judicial campaigns. Three other justices are running unopposed for new six-year terms, despite Georgia's battleground status in partisan elections.

At least two religiously conservative groups are also spending to support Pinson, while some backers of abortion rights are trying to mobilize votes for Barrow.

Kemp rolled out a television ad Tuesday endorsing Pinson that campaign strategist Cody Hall said is airing on Atlanta-area stations.

“We need judges who follow the law and uphold the Constitution, not more partisan politicians in the courtroom,” Kemp said in the ad, describing Pinson as “a conservative voice we can trust.”

Steve Vladeck
@steve_vladeck

#BREAKING: #SCOTUS issues stays in Louisiana congressional redistricting case; clears way for second majority-minority House district in 2024 election.

The three Democratic appointees publicly dissent, with Justice Jackson worrying about the apparent expansion of Purcell.

To explain why the three Democratic appointees are (likely) dissenting, it’s not that they oppose this *outcome*; it’s that they think that the Supreme Court’s intervention here is both premature and potentially setting a problematic precedent going forward.

In other words, it’s a short-term win for Black voters in Louisiana, but a long-term expansion of a controversial principle for how federal courts handle election-year voting cases going forward.

When it was Shawnna Bolick’s turn to speak, the words tumbled out of her for 20 minutes. The conservative lawmaker was in the middle of a heated debate in the Republican-led Arizona Senate on a bill to repeal an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions.

Democrats needed at least one more vote from the right to advance the bill.

Bolick, head hung low and tripping over her words, described her three difficult pregnancies, including one that ended in miscarriage. She said she wouldn't have got through it "without the moral support of my husband.”

Her husband, Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, was part of the majority that voted in April to restore the near-total ban.

Observers in the gallery jeered as the senator declared herself “pro-life." Only in the final moments of her speech did her intention become clear.

“I am here to protect more babies,” she said. “I vote aye.”

Many Floridians are in the dark about the state’s six-week abortion ban going into effect this month, Democrats said at a press conference.

“Most people don’t know, but this not knowing is going to have a forever impact on people’s lives,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.

Fried and other Democratic leaders spoke at a virtual press conference that centered around the upcoming Amendment 4 November ballot question on abortion rights.

Florida’s 15-week abortion ban was replaced with the six-week ban as of May 1. Abortion rights advocates argue that many women don’t even realize they are pregnant at six weeks, so the new policy feels like a total ban.

“We’re going have to continue telling these stories from every advocate to every elected official, to the media. We’re going to have to keep talking about it to make sure that more and more people are hearing it,” Fried said on the call.

Many Floridians are in the dark about the state’s six-week abortion ban going into effect this month, Democrats said at a press conference.

“Most people don’t know, but this not knowing is going to have a forever impact on people’s lives,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.

Fried and other Democratic leaders spoke at a virtual press conference that centered around the upcoming Amendment 4 November ballot question on abortion rights.

Florida’s 15-week abortion ban was replaced with the six-week ban as of May 1. Abortion rights advocates argue that many women don’t even realize they are pregnant at six weeks, so the new policy feels like a total ban.

“We’re going have to continue telling these stories from every advocate to every elected official, to the media. We’re going to have to keep talking about it to make sure that more and more people are hearing it,” Fried said on the call.

Originalism is now the dominant approach to constitutional interpretation for the Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, at least when originalism suits the ideological agenda of the modern Republican Party. In doing this, the Republican-appointed supermajority has effectively turned the Constitution into an Etch-A-Sketch, the popular children’s toy that makes it easy to erase and insert whatever the user dreams up. Sections of the Constitution—in fact, some individual clauses of the Constitution—have been supersized by originalists, while others have been effectively erased.

An illustrative example is the Second Amendment: The preamble, affirming that the amendment’s purpose is to further the goal of a well-regulated militia, has been effectively erased, while the latter part of the amendment, affirming that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, has been enlarged and effectively rewritten to read that just about everyone in America has the right to carry guns in public no matter what. For originalists, the First Amendment and the Second Amendment are cut from the same cloth. The only problem with this claim is that the texts share little in common. That the amendment’s original authors did not view the terms “abridge” and “infringe” as synonyms (the former meaning to reduce and the latter meaning to transgress) is just one of the many sleight-of-hand tricks originalists have used to rewrite the Constitution to suit their ideological preferences. Critiques of originalism are now legion. But what has not drawn much attention is the vast ecosystem created by originalists to weaponize and deploy their faux historical method to advance the goals of the modern Republican Party. The creation of a vast and sprawling “originalist industrial complex” is one of most the most impressive and alarming changes in American law over the past generation.

The originalist industrial complex includes far more than the Federalist Society, the right-wing fraternity, funder, and employment agency for those eager to advance the legal and political goals of the modern Republican Party. What has flown below the radar is the weaponization of originalism by a small number of academic centers that package, market, and provide an array of custom concierge surfaces for would-be originalists.

One example is the Claremont Institute’s John Marshall Fellowship program, which targets future judicial clerks. Participants in these seminars have the chance to study with John Yoo, author of the war on terror’s torture memo, and John Eastman, the primary legal architect of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The mission of the fellowship is to spread the gospel of originalism, according to the website: “The John Marshall Fellowship Program is intended for prospective clerks and legal scholars who will have opportunities to educate the judges and Justices with whom they work, and the legal community at large.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — An anti-abortion activist who led others on an invasion and blockade of a reproductive health clinic in the nation's capital was sentenced on Tuesday to nearly five years in prison.

Lauren Handy, 30, was among several people convicted of federal civil rights offenses for blockading access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic on Oct. 22, 2020. Police found five fetuses at Handy's home in Washington after she was indicted.

A clinic nurse sprained her ankle when one of Handy's co-defendants forced his way into the clinic and pushed her. Another co-defendant accosted a woman who was having labor pains, preventing her from getting off a floor and entering the clinic, prosecutors said.

Inside the clinic's waiting room, Handy directed blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains and block the doors. A co-defendant used social media to livestream the blockade, which lasted several hours before police arrested the participants.

Handy declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced her to four years and nine months in prison.