The Supreme Court announced on Friday afternoon that it would weigh in on the legality of the Trump administration’s approval of Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas and New Hampshire. In a brief order, the justices granted review in Azar v. Gresham and Arkansas v. Gresham and consolidated the cases for one hour of oral argument.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in February that the approval should be thrown out. The court ruled that, in green-lighting the work-requirement programs, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar failed to consider whether they would result in Medicaid beneficiaries losing health coverage. By tying Medicaid coverage to employment, job training or community service, the programs risked undermining the goal of furnishing health coverage – which, the court of appeals reasoned, is a “principal objective of Medicaid.”
Both Azar and Arkansas went to the Supreme Court, telling the justices that the D.C. Circuit’s decision is wrong and, if allowed to stand, could threaten efforts by other states to implement programs that promote the “health or financial independence, or both,” of Medicaid recipients. Continue reading »
This week we highlight cert petitions — and one original action — that ask the Supreme Court to consider, among other things, whether Massachusetts may tax New Hampshire teleworkers, whether Kentucky’s attorney general may step in to defend a Kentucky abortion restriction, and whether police officers at traffic stops may conduct criminal-records checks even when they are not concerned about their safety.
The Supreme Court is a court “of review, not first view” — except in a limited set of cases that fall under the court’s original jurisdiction, most notably controversies between two or more states. New Hampshire v. Massachusetts presents the justices with a tax dispute brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. In April, Massachusetts adopted a temporary emergency regulation that subjected nonresident income for services performed outside Massachusetts to the state’s income tax. (Massachusetts has since adopted the regulation as a final rule.) New Hampshire’s bill of complaint offers the example of a New Hampshire resident who used to commute to Boston but has worked at home since the pandemic began. Massachusetts seeks to tax that worker’s entire salary, even though the work has been performed entirely in New Hampshire for most of the year. New Hampshire argues that the Massachusetts tax violates its state sovereignty.
Continue reading »
The justices will meet Friday for a private conference to consider which, if any, cases should be added to the court’s docket. Among the petitions slated to be discussed are a pair of consolidated cases on the legality of Medicaid work requirements, a challenge to a Kansas law that requires applicants to prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and a lawsuit against President Donald Trump alleging that he violated the First Amendment when he blocked critics on Twitter. A full list of the petitions we’re watching is here. Orders from the private conference are expected later on Friday or on Monday. Continue reading »
John Elwood reviews Monday’s relists.
I really am stretched thin this week, so we’re offering the affordable luxury of Relist Watch SelectTM. Both cases involve the authority of the secretary of health and human services to allow states to add work requirements to their Medicaid programs. Hopefully, we’ll be back next week with a full write-up.
New Relists
Azar v. Gresham, 20-37
Issue: Whether the approval by the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the Arkansas Works Amendment was lawful.
(relisted after the Nov. 20 conference)
Arkansas v. Gresham, 20-38
Issue: Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in concluding that the secretary of health and human services may not authorize demonstration projects to test requirements that are designed to promote the provision of health-care coverage by means of facilitating the transition of Medicaid beneficiaries to commercial coverage and improving their health.
(relisted after the Nov. 20 conference) Continue reading »
Last week the Supreme Court granted requests from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and two Orthodox Jewish synagogues to lift New York’s coronavirus-related attendance limits on worship services. The broader impact of that ruling became even more apparent on Thursday morning, when the justices ordered a federal district court to take another look at a southern California church’s challenge to that state’s restrictions on indoor worship services.
The lawsuit was filed over the summer by the Harvest Rock Church, a Christian church with multiple campuses in California. The church contends that the COVID-19 restrictions imposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), which prohibit or limit in-person worship services, depending on the number of cases in the county where the house of worship is located, violate its right to freely exercise its religion. The church argues that it is treated less favorably than businesses like grocery stores, malls, swap meets and card rooms, which can remain open with less stringent attendance limits – or, in the case of essential retail in the state’s least restrictive zones, with no attendance limits at all. Indeed, the church notes, it can still carry out its charitable work in its buildings. Moreover, the church adds, Newsom “openly encouraged” Black Lives Matter protests involving tens of thousands of people in May and June. Continue reading »
Here’s a round-up of Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:
We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Wednesday in the case of Thedrick Edwards, a Louisiana man serving a life sentence for his role in a series of crimes in 2006. The jury that convicted Edwards, who is Black, was not unanimous; the lone Black juror voted to acquit him. In April 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Ramos v. Louisiana that the Sixth Amendment establishes a right to a unanimous jury that applies in both federal and state courts. The court in Ramos was divided on both the result and the reasoning for its ruling, and the justices proved to be similarly divided on the question before them on Wednesday: whether their decision in Ramos applies retroactively to cases, like Edwards’, that had already become final.
André Bélanger, for Edwards, and Elizabeth Murrill, for Louisiana (Art Lien) Continue reading »
Cameron T. Norris, counsel for CIC Services (Art Lien)
The Supreme Court in Tuesday’s argument in CIC Services v. Internal Revenue Service tried to clarify the scope of the Anti-Injunction Act, which generally prohibits lawsuits seeking to block the assessment or collection of a tax. The case specifically asks whether a company can sue to block the enforcement of an IRS notice that imposes certain reporting requirements, or whether the company must wait and sue only after the IRS assesses tax penalties for non-compliance with the notice. To arrive at an answer to that question, the court will have to resolve a clash between the AIA and another important federal statute: the Administrative Procedure Act. Continue reading »
Tuesday’s argument in Nestlé USA v. Doe I and Cargill, Inc. v. Doe I addressed an important question about whether American companies can be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute. Less important to the larger world, but still important to those who practice law before the Supreme Court, has been a tempest over the role of the defendants’ lawyer, Neal Katyal. Liberals have gone after Katyal, who has generally been regarded as a progressive hero for very visibly taking on the Trump administration, for defending the companies in lawsuits alleging that they were involved in child slavery.
Because these sorts of attacks on lawyers in the Supreme Court have become more and more common, I thought it would be worth taking a moment to explain why I think they are so misguided. Katyal and I have also been on the opposite sides of a whole series of cases over the past few years, so I think I have a good sense of whether his arguments are extreme. And lawyers like Katyal are not really able to defend themselves, because the Justices expect them to stay largely silent while a case is pending. Continue reading »
In its final oral argument of the week, the Supreme Court will hear Edwards v. Vannoy on Wednesday, which involves non-unanimous jury verdicts. Earlier this year, the court decided in Ramos v. Louisiana that the Sixth Amendment guarantees a right to jury unanimity. Now, in Edwards, the justices must decide if that right applies retroactively to defendants who were convicted with non-unanimous juries before Ramos was decided. Our case preview is here. Continue reading »
Submit Event
