Tuesday round-up

The justices are meeting privately on Tuesday for their so-called “long conference,” during which they will review hundreds of cert petitions that have accumulated over the summer and decide which of those cases to add to the Supreme Court’s docket for the 2020-21 term. In an essay for SCOTUSblog, Steve Vladeck writes that some of the most high-profile cases the justices are considering have the potential to become moot if Democrat Joe Biden replaces President Donald Trump in January, and Vladeck proposes a way for the justices to schedule oral arguments in order to minimize the risk of “significant wasted effort.” Meanwhile, apart from reviewing piles of cert petitions, the court has another issue on its immediate agenda: In an important battleground-state election dispute, Pennsylvania Republicans asked the court on Monday to issue an emergency order preventing the state from counting certain ballots received after Election Day. Amy Howe explains the dispute for SCOTUSblog (in a story first published at Howe on the Court).

Briefly:

• In The Hill, John Kruzel writes that the cases the justices decide to take during Tuesday’s long conference may be the first signal of the direction of the court after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
• AARP’s “Take on Today” podcast airs a previously unheard interview with Ginsburg about her love of opera.
• At Tableau Public, Spencer Baucke offers six charts that display the changing ideology of Supreme Court justices since 1937.
• At the Take Care blog, Nicholas Stephanopoulos analyzes the “Purcell principle” — an important doctrine in election law that the Supreme Court frequently invokes when deciding emergency election litigation.

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