The U.S. Supreme Court issued its final opinions for the current term just last week.

The court issued 164 opinions during the most recent term, the highest number in a decade.

Earlier today, I caught up with Samuel Markson, a professor of law at the University of Louisville, who breaks down how some recent rulings are impacting Kentucky.

The United States Supreme Court concluded its latest term last week.

Let's talk about some of the important rulings issued in the final days, starting with Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton.

Now, this case is centered around whether or not Texas could enforce a state law requiring pornography sites to verify a user's age.

Joining us is UFL professor Sam Marcus.

And now we're talking about this case because Kentucky has a similar law.

So walk us through this case in the ruling.

Yeah.

What Texas did as you say, Kentucky has done a similar thing pass a similar law.

Texas said if you want to access sexually explicit content on the internet, there has to be age verification to make sure that you're an adult entitled to see that that content.

And states have a lot more leeway in regulating access to sexual content when it comes to minors than they do to adults.

So the idea was to stop minors from accessing this material by forcing people to say, I am an adult by showing ID.

Privacy advocates who felt that this would burden people who didn't want to have to show ID that could compromise their anonymity or perhaps lead to identity theft, sued to say, this law burdens my right as an adult to access this information.

But what the Supreme Court said was because the Texas goal was to prevent minors from having access to material that would be harmful to them.

The state could require age verification that internet providers of this material require you to go through a screening and provide that proof that you are an adult.

And the Supreme Court said because of the important state interest that was involved, Texas and Kentucky and other states could do that.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, let's turn to the case about birthright citizenship.

A lot has been made about this ruling.

This case is about an executive order issued by President Donald Trump to end birthright citizenship.

Which challengers in this case argue violates the 14th amendment?

But the Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of the executive order in this case.

What did they do instead?

Instead, what they said was they address an issue that's percolating in the courts for quite a while now, which is the scope of injunctive relief that the federal courts can offer an order if there's been a violation.

And what the court said was what are known as nationwide or universal injunctions that are inappropriate because they cover and give protection to people who aren't actually before the court, so that the remedy could only be for relief given to those who are suing themselves.

And so if, let's say I was an undocumented immigrant and but was not before the court, and I had a child who was not before the court, I couldn't get relief, but only those who actually sued, essentially.

Now, the court left open the road of class action lawsuits where people can sue as a class if they're certified under the rules that govern class action lawsuits.

But it it very, to a great degree, limited who can get relief and the scope of orders that federal courts, especially district courts, can order and that some of the critics of the court, myself included, believe that this was truly troubling, because it meant that the government can, with impunity, the executive branch, issue orders that violate people's rights and and not be held accountable and not have the courts step in and say you are violating the Constitution, making it much more difficult to get real relief.

That stops illegal, unconstitutional executive branch action.

Okay.

And we know Republican Congressman Andy Barr in Kentucky's sixth district, who is seeking an endorsement from President Trump in his U.S. Senate campaign.

He was quick to say he's introducing an amendment to end birthright citizenship.

What's that going to look like?

How will that factor in?

Well, that would be the appropriate way to do what the president tried to do, which is to say the Constitution's 14th amendment provides citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

What's become known as birthright citizenship?

That's been the law for, well over 100 years, settled in Supreme Court precedent, the plain text of the 14th Amendment.

And if we're going to change that, we ought to change it by amending the Constitution as Congressman Barr is proposing to do, rather than by an executive order that the president, in my view, has no authority to issue.

I don't think that's going to go anywhere because of how difficult it is to amend the Constitution.

You have to have supermajorities in both the House and the Senate, and then an even greater supermajority of the states to ratify a constitutional amendment.

And there's no indication whatsoever that those supermajorities exist, either in Congress or in the states, to ratify such an amendment.

But it's the right approach if you want to change the Constitution, to propose it and go through that process that the Constitution provides, rather than doing it by an executive order that is blatantly inviolate of the Constitution.

Well, Professor Sam Marcus from the University of Louisville, thank you so much for your time and expertise.

Happy to be here.