Ep 242 — SCOTUS Wanders Off For Summer, But State Judges Keep Delivering – Law and Chaos

DOCKET ALERTS:

House Speaker Mike Johnson sent everyone home for vacation rather than deal with a dissident faction in his own caucus that keeps demanding a vote on the vote-suppressing SAVE America Act Trump keeps braying for.

A federal judge in New Hampshire became the tenth to dismiss a DOJ lawsuit seeking full, unredacted state voter rolls — or eleventh if you include the Sixth Circuit.

In 2024, Florida sued to force DHS to bulk verify citizenship data so states could "audit" their voter rolls. In 2025, DHS entered into a "settlement" with Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana agreeing to do it, and handing power to a Trump-appointed judge in Florida to ensure compliance. But that database has now been enjoined by a judge in DC for violating the Privacy Act of 1974, so Florida is moving to enforce the settlement in Florida.

And in DC, Judge Emmet Sullivan barred the Post Office from complying with Trump's executive order requiring the mailman to claw back ballots from any voter not on an approved list. This order violates a 2021 settlement the government made with the NAACP after Trump's last postmaster general tried to mess with mail-in ballots.

A judge in Louisiana has dismissed a lawsuit against several academics associated with the now-shuttered Stanford Internet Observatory. The online wingnut plaintiffs alleged that they had been "censored" by scholars who pointed out that they were violating Facebook's TOS.

Former CIA Director John Brennan is suing Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in DC, seeking an injunction forcing prosecutors investigating him to retain all records. He hasn't been indicted yet, but, with Trump's minions planning a giant conspiracy indictment in Florida, he wants an order to preserve evidence for an eventual motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution.

Prosecutors trying to convict a former US Attorney in Florida for emailing herself a copy of Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on the stolen documents case were forced to admit that they'd done the exact same thing, sending copies of it to defense counsel in discovery disclosures.

MAIN SHOW:

The Supreme Court issued its final opinions of the term.

In Trump v. Barbara, a narrow majority upheld birthright citizenship, refusing to invent some kind of exception to the plain terms of the 14th Amendment.

The conservative justices continued to tear down barriers to corruption in politics, invalidating the Federal Elections Campaign Act's bar on campaigns coordinating spending with outside committees in NRSC v. FEC.

And in West Virginia v. BPJ/Little v. Hecox, the six conservatives allowed states to ban trans athletes from sports.

Finally, we discuss a new class action lawsuit challenging labor practices at the online gaming platform Roblox for violating child labor laws.

US v. New Hampshire Secretary of State [Voter rolls]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71453646/united-states-v-nh-secretary-of-state/

State of Florida v. DHS [SAVE voter verification database]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69271601/state-of-florida-v-department-of-homeland-security

Hines v. Stamos [Stanford Internet Observatory]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67310145/hines-v-stamos

NAACP v. US [Mail-in ballots]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17461792/national-association-for-the-advancement-of-colored-people-v-united-states

Brennan v. Blanche

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73562893/brennan-v-blanche/