>The memo claimed the department has the legal authority to demand sensitive voter data not because of some federal law, but because the DOJ said so. 

>Judges in the Michigan case last week didn’t get much of a chance to discuss the OLC memo filing during oral argument, since DOJ filed it the night before. But the memo was a major point of contention in DOJ’s argument Tuesday before a panel of three judges for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

>Judge Lucy Koh, a Biden appointee, used DOJ’s own words in the OLC memo against itself. The memo claimed that DOJ is only seeking state voter rolls to comply with President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order on elections that directs the Department of Homeland Security to use federal databases to check state voter rolls. 

>“The executive order only says the Department of Homeland Security shall review each state’s publicly available voter registration list — it doesn’t say the unredacted,” Koh said. “So if you are basically trying to implement this executive order, why are you now seeking the unredacted [voter rolls]?”

>The DOJ also argued states have to hand over their full voter rolls — which include sensitive personal information of every voter like social security numbers and dates of birth — hinged on a vague statute in the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) that requires local and state election officials to “retain and preserve” documents related to registration that “come into [their] possession,” and hand them over to the government upon request.

Courtlistener: United States of America v. Weber, et al. (9th Cir. 2026)

• Brief of Trump admin
• Brief of California
• Brief of NAACP
• Brief of League of Women voters
• Trump admin's reply brief

Context: 'Griffin' refers to defendant Melanie S. Griffin, Esq., who serves as the Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, representing the state. 'Hamburger Mary's Florida' refers to Hamburger Mary's, a drag-friendly restaurant and bar located in Orlando, Florida.

Relevant excerpt from the SCOTUS denial to grant certiorari on Florida's appeal to stay the decision of the 11th Circuit, authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh: "To begin with, although Florida strongly disagrees with the District Court's First Amendment analysis, Florida's stay application to this Court does not raise that First Amendment issue. Therefore, the Court's denial of the stay indicates nothing about our view on whether Florida's new law violates the First Amendment. [...] The issue arises here in the context of a First Amendment overbreadth challenge, which presents its own doctrinal complexities about...relief."

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the majority.

The 11th Circuit en banc re-evaluation will include the following reviews:

• (1) Whether the state law regulates content in a way that violates the First Amendment, or if it constitutes a valid regulation to protect children from "obscene" performances.
• (2) Whether state definitions provide adequate notice to businesses and performers.
• (3) Whether the State of Florida can lawfully still prosecute "non-parties" to the lawsuit.

Notably, the original 2-1 decision against the Florida "anti-drag" law repeatedly mentioned Rep. Randy Fine (R-Daytona Beach), a key sponsor of the disputed law who is running for re-election in 2026.

During floor debates, Fine defended the law, stating it was aimed at going after "Drag Queen Story Time" and declared, "If it means erasing a community...then damn right, we ought to do it". House Speaker Paul Renner confirmed that Fine's bill was a response to drag performers engaging with children during a press availability.

"What it is (HB 1423) is a response to an effort, a regrettable effort, by adults, in this case drag queens, who seem to be obsessed with pushing their lifestyle on children," said Renner. "So my point, and I think the point of our members and my side of the aisle, is let kids be kids."

Fine had previously tried to add drag queens to Florida's obscenity statutes, which failed. According to the Orlando Sentinel, "At least the savvy Republicans tried to act like [suppressing speech] wasn't the case. The same can't be said for Fine. Newly released emails show [that] Fine originally tried to target drag acts by tinkering with a statute that mentions 'bestiality' and 'sadomasochistic abuse'...records obtained by Jason Garcia, formerly of the Sentinel, show [that] Fine sent emails to Gov. Ron DeSantis's staff earlier this year (2023) calling for new language that explicitly cracked down on 'drag performances'."

The governor's staff didn't take Fine's suggestion. Instead, they tried a more nuanced approach. Unfortunately for them, Fine had already admitted the state's true motivations multiple times, so the judge actually quoted Fine saying he wanted to target drag performances as evidence that the state was lying when claiming that wasn't the case.

Garcia asked Fine to comment, but Fine claimed "he did not remember proposing the amendment, so he could not say why he ultimately chose not to pursue it". However, Fine also included a line that other "anti-drag" politicians struck, and which may have given the law more standing in court: "The provisions of paragraph (a) do not apply to a minor when the minor is accompanied by his or her parents or either of them."

The third judge on the panel, Senior Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat, was appointed by President Gerald Ford. (The other two were appointed by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.) Tjoflat's objection to the majority's decision primarily involved a belief that the injunction came too early, and the courts should have demurred until they saw how the state enforced the law in practice. This means that the plaintiff would have to be prosecuted to seek relief.

Among the most interesting points made in the opinion:

• The Court found the penalties for violations under SB 1438 "grievous". The penalties for violations include a $5,000 fine for a first offense or a misdemeanor prison sentence of up to a year, both of which were found to be too harsh, and likely unconstitutional.
• On protecting First Amendment rights, they noted that "The government cannot shroud rules in foggy language, and then blame would-be speakers for their fears of what may lurk in the fog." Laws like this use vagueness as a means to get private individuals and businesses to obey in advance, staying as far back as possible from the line of conduct the law prohibits in order to avoid the consequences of violating it. In this way, the state restricts far more First Amendment-protected conduct than they are legally entitled to. Furthermore, the other two judges agreed that "[even] the dissent seems to implicitly recognize [the law] suffers from constitutional problems".
• The judges noted that "[T]he Act's vagueness…means it is likely to stifle a substantial amount of protected speech", explaing that at oral argument, the state had been unable to explain how to decide what kind of performances would be acceptable for kids of different ages, which the law requires venues to do to avoid penalties. They concluded, "If the Secretary's attorney can't articulate the difference, it's hard to imagine how we could expect performance proprietors to know what the Act means".

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the en banc oral argument for Griffin v. HM Florida will be held in Atlanta, Georgia in June 2026, with no exact date yet.

The fact that Republicans, or whatever the current conservative political party is at the time, are the ones who historically violated the Voting Rights Act and that it is currently the Republican Party that is gaining an advantage because the court increased the burden of proof required to prove Section 2 violations.

The fact that, based on the current actions of the Republican Party, these recent rulings serve to benefit one political group or ideology more than another kind of makes it hard to justify claims that SCOTUS isn't a political body.

It doesn't matter if the wording on a ruling is politically neutral if the _**effects**_ of a ruling benefit one political party or ideology over another.

By ignoring the political impact in order to issue an, on paper, politically neutral ruling, SCOTUS is explicitly being political. When ignoring the political impact of a "politically neutral" ruling, you are explicitly being political when those alleged neutral rulings only benefit one political party/ideology.

By ignoring the actual impact of their rulings in order to issue neutral rulings, they are in fact being political.

Regardless of if the _**words**_ of the ruling are neutral, if the _**impact**_ of a ruling benefits one political group over another, then that makes the ruling political in implementation even if it is apolitical on paper.

How do you square the "politically neutral" wording of SCOTUS rulings with the "politically advantageous" impact of the rulings and the arguments that people, even in this very subreddit, make to try and show that the court isn't political?

DOJ recently announced the creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of a settlement agreement in Trump’s lawsuit against his own IRS.

>The Settlement Agreement in Trump v. Internal Revenue Service, No. 1:26-cv-20609 (S.D. Fla.). has created the Anti-Weaponization Fund (the “Fund"). The Settlement Agreement directed the Attorney General to issue an order establishing funding and any other relevant requirements for the Fund.
...
Within 60 days of the Effective Date, the United States shall provide the U.S. Department of the Treasury with all necessary forms and documentation to direct a payment of $1,776,000,000 to an account for the sole use by the Anti-Weaponization Fund ("Designated Account").

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the fund is intended to compensate “victims of lawfare and weaponization” under the Biden administration, so that presumably includes participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, who were prosecuted for their involvement.

The problem is that any compensation for involvement in Jan. 6 is in tension with Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which, in relevant part, states:

>[N]either the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

The Supreme Court in Perry v. United States stated that Section 4’s “language indicates a broader connotation” beyond its Civil War context.

The main issue that remains unaddressed is whether the events of January 6 qualify as an “insurrection” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Mark Graber, the author of Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty, persuasively summarizes the historical arguments supporting that position in this article: Treason, Insurrection, and Disqualification: From the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 to Jan. 6, 2021.

According to Graber, leading legal treatises and federal judges, including some Supreme Court justices, defined “insurrection” as “organized resistance to any federal law” motivated by a “public purpose.” Blackman and Tillman take a more limited view, but they do not offer any contemporaneous historical evidence or refute the sources cited by Graber. By contrast, during the Anderson litigation, they directly engaged with many of Graber’s arguments on the officer issue.

There is also a middle-of-the-road definition of the term by Ilya Somin that calls Graber’s definition overly broad but still classifies Jan. 6 as an insurrection.

>I am not convinced that courts should actually adopt such a broad definition. It could set a dangerous precedent. As Graber notes, on that theory people who violently resisted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act would qualify as insurrectionists, too.

>But January 6 was an insurrection even under a narrow definition that covers only violent attempts to illegally seize control of the powers of government. After all, the attackers were using force to try to keep the loser of the 2020 election in power, blocking the transfer of authority to the rightful winner. If that isn’t a violent attempt to seize government power, it’s hard to know what is

EDIT (in response to comments):

Is a conviction required to withhold monetary benefits from insurrectionists? No.

The Reconstruction-era Congress passed a law that mandated:

>No money on account of pension shall be paid to any person, or to the widow, children, or heirs of any deceased person, who in any manner voluntarily engaged in or aided or abetted the late rebellion against the authority of the United States.

There is no evidence that a conviction was required to make this enforceable. In fact, one former Confederate veteran, who tried to claim a pension by falsely informing the Pension Bureau that “I was not in the Confederate army,” was prosecuted for perjury (United States v. Hampton)

The Department of the Interior considered many factors in applying this provision, but conviction was not one of them. See, for example, the case of Hustwell. Additionally, when intent was unclear, mere involvement in an insurrection raised an “adverse presumption,” and the burden of proof was on the claimant to demonstrate his participation was involuntary.

>Where there is a record of service in the Confederate army, either by conscription or otherwise, and it does not appear from the face of said record whether the service rendered was voluntary or involuntary within the meaning of section 4716, such record raises an adverse presumption and the burden of proof is on the claimant to establish that by such service he did not voluntarily engage in, aid, or abet the late rebellion against the authority of the United States. He should be required in such cases to furnish the next best evidence on the point where the record is silent, and what would constitute such evidence, as well as its sufficiency, must depend upon each particular case. Source

Even payment of taxes to confederate government created a "presumption of disloyalty."

>Paying taxes to Confederate government held to be a disloyal act, and forfeits pension. [Source]

>Presumption of disloyalty raised by the fact of payment of taxes to the Confederate Government and furnishing food and clothing to sons in the Confederate army, from motives of "love, affection, and the dictates of humanity," may be rebutted by showing distinctly and positively that the taxes were paid under duress, that claimant opposed the enlistment of said sons, and that he was opposed to the rebellion and distinctly in favor of its suppression. [Source]

Date: 05/19/2026

Miscellaneous Order

[While Mostly Talking About How They Often Agree and Get Along], but that part doesn't sell print, I guess.

I *do* this is worth reading despite its NYT-typical mediocre commentary on the Court. It's a good collection of quotes from the most recent rounds of tours, and a couple of those quotes are accompanied by links with more details on the Justices' appearances.

A 3 judge panel of the 2nd Circuit ruled on the permanently enjoined cases of BRETT CHRISTIAN, FIREARMS POLICY COALITION, INC., SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, & JOHN BORON v. STEVEN G. JAMES, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SUPERINTENDENT OF THE NEW YORK STATE POLICE, MICHAEL J. KEANE, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR THE COUNTY OF ERIE, NEW YORK; & BRETT CHRISTIAN, FIREARMS POLICY COALITION, SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, JOHN BORON, v. STEVEN G. JAMES, MICHAEL J. KEANE, ACTING DISTRICT ATTORNEY, Nos. 24-2847; 25-384(Cases were enjoined at the SDNY).

Held: We conclude that the Private Property Provision, as applied to private property open to the public, is unconstitutional because the State did not carry its
burden of demonstrating that the restriction falls within our Nation’s historical tradition of gun regulations, as required under the framework set forth in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). On the other hand, we conclude that the Public Parks Provision survives Plaintiffs’ facial challenge because the State has carried its burden of showing that regulation is
consistent with our Nation’s historical tradition of banning gun possession in urban public parks. Finally, we decline to address any as-applied challenge to the
Public Parks Provision, to the extent it applies to rural parks, because Plaintiffs failed to raise that challenge in the district court.

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the permanent injunction against the Private Property Provision, as applied to private property open to the public, and AFFIRM the judgment in favor of the State on the Public Parks Provision.

Opinion:

https://ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/OPN/24-2847;%2025-384\_complete\_opn.pdf?fbclid=IwdGRjcAR4TB5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEen5TvDFG1pwKh5FlpU42P\_cK8YX4dkNAL54Tp6Ww9EkfM0atU7WSUHmJ6vrE\_aem\_D0qMFTTyyRW5rCOc6RHVeA

Date: 05/18/2026

Order List

Welcome to the r/SupremeCourt 'In Chambers' discussion thread!

This thread will be pinned at the top of the subreddit and refreshed every Monday @ 6AM Eastern.

This replaces and combines the 'Ask Anything Monday' and 'Lower Court Development Wednesday' threads. As such, this weekly thread is intended to provide a space for:

• General questions: (e.g. "Where can I find Supreme Court briefs?", "What does [X] mean?").

• Open-ended discussion starters requiring minimal input from OP: (e.g. "Predictions?", "What do people think about [X]?", "What's your favorite [X]?")

• U.S. District and State Court rulings involving a federal question that may be of future relevance to the Supreme Court.

TL;DR: This is a catch-all thread for legal discussion that may not warrant its own thread.

Our other rules apply as always. Incivility and polarized rhetoric are never permitted. This thread is not intended for political or off-topic discussion.

Facts of the case

Mirsad Ramic is a Bosnian refugee who became a naturalized US citizen living in Kentucky. During his naturalization ceremony, he refused to recite the oath of allegiance to the United States and instead "proclaimed an Islamic oath and cursed all nonbelievers".

After his naturalization, he attempted to travel abroad to join jihadist groups, eventually traveling to Syria to join ISIS. There, he completed military training, fought in the siege of Kobane, and praised beheadings / threats against Americans online. Eventually, he felt ISIS was too moderate and fled to Turkey, where he was arrested and held in custody for five years for supporting terrorism and then turned him over to the US.

District court sentencing

A jury convicted him of providing material support to ISIS and receiving military training from a foreign terrorist organization. The advisory Guidelines range was 360–600 months.

However, the district court reasoned that Ramic had not committed terrorism in the "common sense" since he had not personally carried out bombings or mass shootings against civilians. The court instead characterized him as a "fighter" or "soldier" who joined an army seeking to create its own state. The court also relied on national sentencing statistics showing a median terrorism sentence of 168 months, then reduced that figure further to account for the time Ramic had already spent in Turkish custody.

Ramic and the US both appealed to the sixth circuit.

Argument #1: Assad's government wasn't recognized by the US (rejected)

Ramic argued that the terrorism enhancement should not apply because ISIS fought against the Assad regime, which the US hadn't recognized as the legitimate "government" of Syria. The Sixth Circuit rejected this, holding that the ordinary meaning of "government" in the statute is not limited to regimes formally recognized by the President. Even ignoring Syria, the enhancement would have applied anyway because Ramic intended to influence or affect the United States itself, as seen in his own statements.

Ramic's other argument that applying the enhancement would implicitly recognize Assad's government as the legitimate government of Syria also failed, but I gotta be honest I give him points for creativity for trying that one.

Argument #2: the court minimized Ramic / ISIS actions (accepted)

The Sixth Circuit held that the district court fundamentally understated the seriousness of both ISIS and Ramic’s conduct. The panel criticized the district court for repeatedly describing Ramic as a "fighter" and ignoring evidence showing Ramic enthusiastically embraced ISIS ideology (e.g. supporting beheadings and bragging about owning 'slave girls'). Beyond his beliefs, Ramic literally participated in the siege of Kobane, and even if he didn't gun down civilians himself his contributions caused death and suffering in support of ISIS mission. At sentencing, Ramic made it clear he felt this was a "sham prosecution" and demonstrated no remorse at all.

Argument #3: the court improperly relied on statistics (accepted)

The Sixth Circuit also held that the district court placed excessive weight on generalized national sentencing statistics. The district court relied on a median terrorism sentence derived from 9 defendants without meaningful analysis of whether they were comparable -- many defendants who engaged in less serious conduct (e.g. unsuccessfully attempting to join ISIS, sending money) received substantially longer sentences than Ramic had.

The panel's final thoughts

The panel remanded the case for resentencing, ending with an interesting note:

>These concerns about Ramic returning to terrorism upon his release aren’t merely hypothetical. Courts’ refusals to incapacitate terrorists for a long period of time have had deadly consequences. See, e.g., Vienna Reels From a Rare Terrorist Attack (describing a terrorist who was sentenced to just 22 months in prison for traveling to join ISIS, was released after one year, and then launched an attack in Vienna that killed four people and wounded another 23); Old Dominion Shooting Suspect Had ISIS Conviction, Was Subdued by Students (describing a terrorist who provided material support to ISIS, received a sentence far below the Guidelines range, was released, and then opened fire in a university classroom, killing the instructor and wounding two others). The district court here repeated that mistake and didn’t reckon with the very real possibility that Ramic could participate in future attacks after his release. When sentencing terrorists, protecting the public is of primary importance. The district court’s failure to properly weigh this factor when dealing with Ramic makes his sentence substantively unreasonable

Check it out, it challenges a lot of the previously perceived views on judicial review as a whole and I think really shows a completely different understanding of how many framers and ratifiers actually viewed the judiciary during the founding era. The article compiles an enormous number of statements from founding figures at the constitutional convention suggesting that judicial review was widely understood as an inherent part of the constitutional system before Marbury v. Madison, rather than simply being a later invention by Chief Justice Marshall.

What’s especially interesting is how the article argues that courts refusing to enforce unconstitutional laws may have been seen by many framers as a natural consequence of having a written constitution with limited delegated powers in the first place. It also pushes back on the idea that there was little originalist or historical support for judicial review by showing how debates from the Constitutional Convention, ratification period, and early American legal thought often assumed some form of judicial invalidation of unconstitutional statutes.

I previously made a post on this issue, and since then Justice Thomas has provided three additional data points supporting the proposition that he applies inconsistent reasoning depending on which side he favors:

1. In his Alexander concurrence, Thomas concluded that “racial gerrymandering and vote dilution claims brought under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are nonjusticiable,” and that the "Constitution contemplates no role for the federal courts in the districting process.” Yet he joined the majority in Callais in declaring Louisiana’s map “an unconstitutional gerrymander” based on those same precedents.
2. Thomas did not object to the Fifth Circuit’s grant of a nationwide stay under the APA in Danco Laboratories, but he joined Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in United States v. Texas, which argued that Congress did not pass the APA to “overthrow the bedrock practice of case-by-case judgments with respect to the parties in each case and vest courts with a new and far-reaching remedial power.”
3. In Danco Laboratories, Thomas called the makers of mifepristone a “criminal enterprise” based on his view of the Comstock Act, an argument Louisiana did not raise in its brief. That is plainly inconsistent with his position in Trump v. Illinois, in which he joined Justice Alito’s concurrence stating that if a party “passes up what seems to us a promising argument, we do not assume the role of advocate.”