The Supreme Court on Monday morning added one new case, involving challenges to veterans’ benefit laws, to its docket for the 2026-27 term. The justices also sent the case of Stephen Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump who was convicted of contempt of Congress, back to the lower court, where the Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss his indictment. And the court rebuffed, without comment, a challenge to an Illinois law banning guns on public transportation.

All of these actions came as part of a list of orders released from the justices’ private conference on April 2. The justices’ next conference is scheduled for Friday, April 17; orders from that conference are expected at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, April 20.

Justice, Democracy, and Law is a recurring series by Edward B. Foley that focuses on election law and the relationship of law and democracy.

“Original public meaning” has become the prevailing method of constitutional interpretation at the Supreme Court. The idea, which is at the heart of originalism, will be familiar to many SCOTUSblog readers. It is that the text of the Constitution must be understood and enforced by the court today in the same way that the text was understood by members of the public at the time the text became law.

By now, readers of SCOTUSblog are quite familiar with the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, where parties come to the court seeking emergency orders, oftentimes without full briefing and oral argument. Much of the discourse surrounding this docket centers on its opacity. In 2015, Will Baude pointed out that, unlike with typical cases, we simply do not know how the justices vote on emergency applications. Occasionally, a public dissent or a noted disagreement statement gives us a partial glimpse at the underlying tally. But these are exceptions. Instead, the court usually issues a one-line order and the public is left to guess which justice voted which way.

Justice Samuel Alito was hospitalized on March 20 “[o]ut of an abundance of caution” and at the recommendation of his security detail, the Supreme Court’s Public Information Officer, Patricia McCabe, said in a statement released to reporters on Friday afternoon. The statement came in response to inquiries prompted by a story by CNN’s Joan Biskupic, who reported on Friday that Alito “was taken to a hospital after becoming ill last month at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia.” McCabe’s statement did not indicate whether doctors had provided Alito with a diagnosis or, if they had, what that diagnosis was.

Empirical SCOTUS is a recurring series by Adam Feldman that looks at Supreme Court data, primarily in the form of opinions and oral arguments, to provide insights into the justices’ decision making and what we can expect from the court in the future.

As Amy Howe reported for SCOTUSblog on Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard just over two hours of oral argument on April 1 in Trump v. Barbara, the challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are undocumented or present in the country on temporary visas. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued for the government. ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang argued for a class of affected children and families. Trump attended the argument – the first sitting president to do so – and departed shortly after Sauer finished his presentation.