Justice Neil Gorsuch's first week on the Supreme Court bench features an important case about the separation of church and state that has its roots on a Midwestern church playground. But Gorsuch will be on the bench for one of the court's biggest cases of its current term on Wednesday in a Missouri church's lawsuit that tests the limits of religious rights. The justices released no high-profile decisions, added no new disputes to their docket, and heard three hours of oral arguments in dry, technical matters.
About 10 minutes into the first case, the new justice opened his mouth and asked his first question, which was both thoughtful and lengthy. It may have been Gorsuch's first argument, but Alito stole the show with his complaints to Fletcher about how "unbelievably complicated" the governing statute is.
But a federal appeals court ruled they have no right to a judicial review of such claims.
"I'm sorry for interrupting, counselor", Gorsuch said.
He'll have help from the four law clerks he has already hired.
Gorsuch formally joined the Supreme Court on April 10 after being confirmed three days earlier by the Republican-led Senate over broad Democratic opposition. Instead, he focused on preparing for arguments, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg told Bloomberg. By one empiricist's count, he spoke more words than six other justices.
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Gorsuch could have taken part in that conference but instead made a decision to focus on preparing for arguments, Arberg said. For example, Gorsuch will take over the court's internal Cafeteria Committee, dealing with the vexing questions of food service in the building. Gorsuch is publicly quoted as referring to Katyal as "my friend". Another of his duties will be to answer the door when the justices meet for their weekly closed-door conferences, and keep notes at the conferences.
"That's just their little hazing ritual for the junior justice", Volokh said. Gorsuch wrote that the doctrine has allowed "executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little hard to square with the Constitution". "The one thing about this case that seems perfectly clear to me is that nobody who's not a lawyer - and no ordinary lawyer - could read these statutes and figure out what they are supposed to do".
The first case was so dense that even the justices who can wax eloquent over a misplaced comma were beside themselves. And justices routinely hear cases involving lawyers with whom they once worked or are friends.
On Tuesday, the court will consider the scope of a favorite tool used by the Securities and Exchange Commission to recoup money from people found to have violated the law.
A lawyer for the church said in an interview with The Associated Press that the case would be unaffected because Greitens' policy change does not resolve the legal issue. Missouri is one of about three dozen states with a constitution that explicitly prohibits the use of public funds to aid religious institutions. But she too jumped in with several queries, and now Sotomayor and Kagan are among the court's most active questioners. But at age 49, he is only getting started.
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