Conservative Supreme Court majority takes aim at ‘administrative state’ in latest rulings

Geoff Bennett:

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down rulings in a number of high-profile cases this morning.

Amna Nawaz:

The justices ripped up a controversial bankruptcy deal, one that would have provided billions of dollars to states devastated by the opioid epidemic and shielded the family accused of pushing painkillers in search of profits.

The justices also reinstated access to abortions for those facing medical emergencies in Idaho for now, and the court temporarily blocked a Biden environmental policy regulating air pollution from taking effect.

Geoff Bennett:

To help unpack the details and significance of the rulings, we're joined first by John Yang, anchor of "PBS News Weekend," who also covers the Supreme Court for us.

It's good to see you again, John.

So let's start with this abortion case, because the Supreme Court, as you well know, formally dismissed an appeal over Idaho's strict abortion ban. How did that ruling track with the case document that was mistakenly uploaded to the Supreme Court Website yesterday?

John Yang:

It was essentially what we got the sneak preview of yesterday, Geoff.

The six — 6-3 majority, rather, said this case isn't ready to decide yet, so they're going to allow emergency care abortions in Idaho while the Idaho law is challenged. And to get that challenged, they're sending it back to the lower courts.

Now, this also means that there are a lot of unanswered questions and there's no guidance for lower courts about how to deal with similar laws around the country. In Texas, for instance, an almost identical law is gone — has gone into effect with the blessing of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals over the Biden administration's objections.

Now, here is Mary Ziegler. She's a law professor at U.C. Davis and she's written extensively on abortion.

Mary Ziegler, University of California, Davis: The impact in the short term is going to be pretty limited. The court's ruling will have the effect of reinstating the injunction in the district court that allowed emergency abortions to continue in Idaho.

It doesn't really have any impact on any of the other states with narrow abortion bans or on any of the other litigation around these questions that's been proceeding in other courts. So, for the most part, this is deferring a decision and kicking the cat down the road, although it will have immediate impacts in Idaho.

Geoff Bennett:

So, what were the major differences between how the liberal justices and the conservative justices approached this case?

John Yang:

It was very interesting, because, essentially, this is an administrative order, but there were four written opinions.

The conservatives, the three most conservative justices, Justice Alito, who, of course, wrote the opinion overturning Roe two years ago, Justice Thomas and Justice Gorsuch, dissented. They said that they could have decided the case now and they would have upheld the Idaho law.

The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all sided with the Biden administration and indicated that they would overturn the Idaho law. And, in fact, Justice Jackson said the court shouldn't have waited, the court should have decided this now.

She wrote an opinion. And to show how strongly she felt, she took the unusual step of reading it from the bench this morning.

She wrote, in part: "This court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to a tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price."

As for the other justices, Justice Barrett wrote an opinion in which she agreed that it should go back, that it wasn't ready, but she didn't tip her hand on the larger question. And Chief John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh didn't write at all, so we have no idea where they are.

Geoff Bennett:

OK.

Well, as Amna mentioned, the court also blocked an EPA regulation meant to protect states downwind from polluting neighbors. Tell us about that ruling.

John Yang:

This is a plan called — that the EPA calls Good Neighbors.

They wanted to work with the states to limit air pollution that drifts across state lines. This was challenged by the state of Ohio and some corporate interests. Today, in a 5-2 — 5-4 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the challenges were unlikely — I'm sorry — the challengers were likely to prevail in the end because the EPA had not fully justified what they were doing.

Geoff Bennett:

The EPA has lost a handful of cases before the court in recent years. Is there a theme that connects these cases?

John Yang:

Oh, absolutely. There is a — this conservative majority in this court has really — it's been consistent in trying to rein in what they call the administrative state.

They say — they have said in case after case, not only in environmental law, but in other regulatory agencies, saying that the regulators can't do anything unless they're specifically authorized to do it by law.

Here's Coral Davenport, who covers environmental policy for The New York Times.

Coral Davenport, The New York Times:

The broader theme of this is the court kind of really acting consistently in this very preliminary fashion to kind of shut down regulations before they even get on the books, before they're even hitting the American economy.

And that's a really striking new trend from the court. We're really seeing it. In particular, this is a court that doesn't like regulations, that doesn't like the administrative state, but the Environmental Protection Agency, environmental rules, in particular, are really kind of being hamstrung before they even get out the door.

John Yang:

And, in fact, today, the state — the court took another swipe at a regulatory agency. They said the SEC's use of internal panels, of administrative judges, to decide or to judge civil claims about securities fraud were unconstitutional because they violated the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.

Geoff Bennett:

And lastly, John, there was this major ruling where the justices rejected this bankruptcy agreement that would have protected the personal finances of the family behind Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

And there were a lot of states that were depending and they were expecting to get some of that money. Why send this back to the negotiating table?

John Yang:

Well, the major issue here was the fact that this agreement, or what they originally agreed to, painstakingly negotiated over a series of months, protected the Sackler filing — family, said they could not have — that shielded them from civil lawsuits against them.

That made a lot of the families angry, but also some of the families wanted this to go forward, so they would get the money from this agreement, this settlement. And also the states wanted to get the money from the settlement to fight opioid addiction.

But the — there was another 5-4 decision, and Justice Neil Gorsuch said there was nothing in the bankruptcy law that allowed this, because the Sacklers weren't filing for bankruptcy themselves. They were a third party, and you can't do that, according to how Justice Gorsuch interpreted the bankruptcy law.

Geoff Bennett:

John Yang, thank you so much for walking us through all this. We appreciate it.

John Yang:

Thanks.