AI Summary
5 min readIn the final week of the Supreme Court’s term, Justice Samuel Alito responded from the bench after Justice Sonia Sotomayor read a portion of her dissent in an asylum case—a move so rare it has happened only once or twice before. Alito then intimated he would have said more had he known Sotomayor would summarize her dissent, a petulant exchange that law professor Leah Litman described as “unbefitting of a justice.” The moment captured the mood of a term in which the Court’s six conservative appointees issued a series of sweeping decisions that, taken together, dramatically narrowed who can sue to enforce their rights—and who cannot.
Who Gets to Sue—and Who Doesn’t
The most consequential pattern across the Court’s recent decisions is a sharp contraction in who has standing to challenge government or corporate action. In a 6–3 ruling on Temporary Protected Status (TPS), the Court held that courts cannot review whether the executive branch complied with statutory procedures before ending TPS for 350,000 Haitian nationals and thousands of Syrians. The Trump administration had ended the program despite evidence that it failed to consult other agencies as required by law—in the case of Haiti, the Department of Homeland Security asked the State Department for input and then canceled TPS before the State Department responded. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion declared that co
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:45) **Introduction and Guest** - Dan Pfeiffer introduces Leah Litman, law professor and co-host of Strict Scrutiny, to discuss the Supreme Court's recent and upcoming decisions.
- 2 (03:31) **Court's Failure to Finish on Time** - Leah Litman criticizes the Supreme Court for not releasing all opinions before the July 4th break, breaking historical tradition.
- 3 (04:14) **TPS Case: Gutting Statutory Protections for 350,000 Haitians** - The 6-3 decision allows the Trump administration to rescind Temporary Protected Status for Haitian and Syrian nationals.
- 4 (13:46) **Asylum Case: Redefining "Arrive" to Block Asylum Claims** - The 6-3 decision holds that individuals stopped outside U.S. borders have not "arrived" and thus are not entitled to have their asylum claims processed.
- 5 (24:15) **Monsanto/Roundup Case: A Rare Win for Corporate Accountability Limits** - The 7-2 decision (Kagan and Sotomayor with the majority) blocks state lawsuits against pesticide manufacturers over inadequate warning labels.
- 6 (31:49) **Birthright Citizenship: The Looming Threat** - The court is expected to rule on Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship, despite the 14th Amendment's clear text.
- 7 (44:18) **Pending Cases: Trans Sports Ban, Federal Reserve Firing, and Election Rules** - Overview of major unresolved cases.
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Show Notes
Dan is joined by Strict Scrutiny's Leah Litman to talk about this week's big Supreme Court decisions giving Trump the right to kick out Haitian immigrants and deny asylum claims for people stopped just shy of the American border, as well as a ruling — with some surprising ideological crossover — tossing out claims against Monsanto for how it labels Roundup, its popular weedkiller. Then Dan and Leah discuss all the major decisions still to come this week, on birthright citizenship, trans rights, and more. Lastly — rage warning! — Leah reacts to Susan Collins's claim that her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh *didn't* have an impact on Roe v. Wade getting overturned.
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