I got myself rather behind, as I didn't realize they were issuing cases so quickly!
Since there are so many cases, I decided to put my summaries in a Google Doc ... hubski's formatting starts to break down with something this long (I had 12 cases to get to!). If you turn on the document outline (under the Tools menu), you can see a listing of the cases and what area of law they cover. Questions are welcome, as always!
These are fascinating and really help me to keep up to date with some of the workings of this country, as always, thanks a ton for putting this together. So, does that open the possibility for a case to brought up on if the districts were properly drawn? Or is this a completely closed issue? Is there any obligation for the court to accept (reasonable) facts provided by other parties involved in the lower courts? This seems to be a pretty obvious outcome, unless I'm missing something?SCOTUS didn’t actually address whether the 11 districts were properly drawn. Instead, they just said that the lower court used the wrong standard in evaluating those challenges.
Note that because the Court is reviewing an order dismissing a suit, they have to accept all (reasonable) facts alleged by Manuel in analyzing the case. So this is Manuel’s version of events, and it has not been proven by trial.
Specifically, the question is whether it simply tells merchants that they cannot charge more for using credit cards, in which case it’s a simple commercial regulation and not subject to the First Amendment. On the other hand, if it does affect speech, he finds this to probably be pretty minimal, since “the merchant would remain free to say whatever it wanted so long as it also revealed its credit-card price to customers.”
Nope, that's basically the idea; the case goes back to the lower court for it to re-evaluate them in light of the standard SCOTUS set down. It depends on the situation. Usually, appeals courts defer entirely to fact-finding at the trial level unless the lower court's conclusions just seem batshit. But the standard changes sometimes. So with the case we're talking about, there was a motion to dismiss a civil suit. The nitty-gritty can vary, but basically a motion to dismiss is the defendant saying "even if everything you say is true, there's no valid legal claim here." Hence the courts assuming all the plaintiffs' allegations to be true for the purposes of evaluating the motion to dismiss. I don't think you are, and that was kind of my reading to it. The main points of contention among the justices were (a) whether the law regulated speech or not, and (b) whether that's even something SCOTUS should be deciding on its own without having lower courts address that question first.So, does that open the possibility for a case to brought up on if the districts were properly drawn? Or is this a completely closed issue?
Is there any obligation for the court to accept (reasonable) facts provided by other parties involved in the lower courts?
This seems to be a pretty obvious outcome, unless I'm missing something?
You bet, and I'm glad people are finding them worthwhile!