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All the Awful Supreme Court Rulings You Probably Missed

In this week’s Elie v. US, our justice correspondent delves into 7 cases that got overlooked in the end-of-term frenzy.

The Supreme Court’s term ended this week amid a flood of consequential—and in many cases, disastrous—rulings. I used to believe the institutionalists who claim that the court releases opinions “when they’re ready”—and that the reason the most important cases are clustered around the last week of the term is that those cases are more complicated and therefore take longer for the justices to write. 

I no longer believe that. The court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which murdered the Voting Rights Act, is an example of a complicated, contentious case that the court released in April in order to give Republicans the maximum amount of time to gerrymander their way to victory in the midterms. Meanwhile, the transgender rights ruling that was released on Tuesday was largely unanimous, yet the justices waited to dump it alongside three other rulings, likely because they thought the media would overlook its bigotry in their rush to praise the court for its birthright citizenship decision. 

I have been able to write about the court’s rulings on: birthright citizenship, transgender rights, Trump’s ability to fire top regulators, the denial of temporary protected status to Haitians and Syrians, the denial of a Rastafarian prisoner’s right to sue over the violation of his religious freedom, and the liberalization of drug laws—for gun owners. It’s been a busy two weeks. 

But there are a number of other important cases I haven’t been able to write  about. To counteract the Supreme Court’s version of an end of term “news dump,” I’m going to do a lightning round about cases I think still deserve attention. 

National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission: This was the big campaign finance case this term, and it came out like all the other ones: Billionaires are allowed to buy politics. Alleged attempted rapist Brett Kavanaugh ruled for the 6–3 majority, which broke along normal partisan lines, that dark-money super Pacs are allowed to coordinate with their preferred candidates, which makes a mockery of what few remaining campaign finance restrictions we still have left. You can make an argument that NRSC v. FEC is the most important case about democracy since Citizens United, since the court has used the case to, once again, allow the direct corruption of our politics by moneyed interests. 

Watson v. Republican National Committee: This is the mail-in ballots case. The court ruled, 5–4, that states are allowed to accept ballots mailed by Election Day, even if they are received days later. Trump and the Republicans had argued that counting votes after Election Day violates federal law. The case hinged on the definition of the word “choice” –namely the issue of when voters complete the act of choosing a candidate. Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority—in what was probably the best decision she’s ever written—argued that the voter’s choice is made when they fill out their ballot and put it in the mail, thus completing the process of choosing by Election Day. Samuel Alito argued, in dissent, that the choice was not made until the ballot was received by an elections official. It’s not........

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