Wednesday round-up

On the second day of the Supreme Court’s new term, the justices heard arguments in Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (involving states’ efforts to regulate the private intermediaries between insurance companies and pharmacies) and Tanzin v. Tanvir (involving the availability of money damages in religious-freedom lawsuits). In the latter case, Amy Howe reports for SCOTUSblog (in a story first published at Howe on the Court), the justices appeared divided — and not necessarily along ideological lines. Also on Tuesday, Justice Stephen Breyer rejected a request from Maine Republicans asking the court to block the state from using ranked-choice voting in next month’s presidential election.

Other Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:

• Supreme Court Weighs Monetary Damages Under Religious Freedom Law (Jess Bravin, The Wall Street Journal)
• Supreme Court Hears Case of Muslims on No-Fly List (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• Supreme Court opens politically charged term with major business cases involving Google, Oracle and Ford (Tucker Higgins, CNBC)
• Term opens with Texas-N.M. water war; Barrett hearings loom (Pamela King, E&E News)
• SCOTUS Questions Whether States Can Regulate Pharmacy Middlemen (Ariel Cohen, Inside Health Policy)
• RBG’s Human Rights Legacy (Risa Kaufman & Martha Davis, American Constitution Society)
• How a Supreme Court with eight justices works (Elizabeth Slattery, The Detroit News)
• Covid-19 complicates Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nomination (Steven Mazie, The Economist)
• Three Supreme Court Justices Just Showed They’re Willing to Throw Out Mail-In Ballots (Mark Joseph Stern, Slate)
• Justices to Referee Florida-Georgia Water Fight’s Latest Round (Ellen Gilmer, Bloomberg Law)
• Supreme Court’s Climate Case Focuses on Procedure, Not Policy (Ellen Gilmer, Bloomberg Law)
• Catholic Foster Care Agency Defends Children and Religious Freedom (John Bursch, Newsweek)
• Don’t Further Delay the Amy Coney Barrett Confirmation (Stephanie Taub, Newsweek)
• Here We Go Again: The Supreme Court Considers Whether to Further Narrow the Law of Personal Jurisdiction (Laura Dooley & Rodger Citron, Verdict)
• Ford v. Montana, et al.: Specific Jurisdiction’s Next Mile Marker (Nathaniel Fowler, Frost Brown Todd)

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 [email protected]. Thank you!