-I think the best way to characterize the 2019/2020
Supreme Court term is surprising.
-The Supreme Court has ruled
that a Louisiana abortion law is unconstitutional.
-Well, the Supreme Court has issued
a pretty important decision on freedom of religion.
-The Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ employees
cannot be discriminated against at work.
-And in all of these cases,
the decision was made on a more liberal side,
and I don't think that was what I or most other observers
was expecting when the term began.
One of the cases that was both the most surprising and perhaps
the most illustrative was the abortion case.
-The Supreme Court has blocked a Louisiana abortion law
from going into effect.
The challengers said would have left just one doctor
in the entire state able to perform abortions.
-You might have déjà vu about this case
because it is the exact same case
that the court ruled on four years ago.
-Back in 2016, the Chief Justice voted to uphold the Texas law.
This year, with an almost identical law from Louisiana,
he voted to strike it down,
talking about the importance of precedent.
-So the Chief Justice, what he says is,
"I didn't think this was right when we decided
it two years ago, but that is what we decided,"
and under this longstanding view of the Supreme Court
that once you decide a case,
you don't simply switch and go the other way,
what lawyers call "stare decisis,"
meaning the law should stay the way it is.
-So that's an illustration of a court,
and in particular, a chief justice,
that wants to move pretty slowly.
At the same time, the standard that the Chief Justice
used in striking down the Louisiana law
could actually make it easier for states that want to come up
with other ways to put restrictions on abortion.
So liberal result in the sense that the Louisiana law
was struck down,
but moving the law actually in a more conservative direction.
-Tonight, the Supreme Court ruling on the DREAMers,
blocking President Trump's plan to end the program
that protects nearly 650,000 young immigrants
who came to America as children,
protecting them from being deported.
Chief Justice John Roberts
joining the court's more liberal justices
in the 5-4 decision saying the president
has the right to dismantle the program,
but that the administration failed to provide
"a reasoned explanation for its action."
-So, the DREAMers case provides a very good example
of a situation in which the Chief Justice
isn't telling the Trump administration
that it can't revoke the protections for DREAMers.
He's just telling the Trump administration
that if it wants to change the rules,
it has to follow the rules about how to change the rules.
If you're gay and you're fired
because you're attracted to a man
and a woman who is attracted to a man
wouldn't be fired in the same situation,
then you were fired because of your sex,
because you are a gay man.
How did a conservative court get to this result, you may ask.
And the answer is that Justice Gorsuch
and the Chief Justice,
along with the four liberal justices,
read the words of the law,
and it says you can't discriminate because of sex.
And they said they'd used a conservative technique
to get to a liberal policy result, which is sex means sex.
That is a case that is gonna have,
first of all, practical implications
for thousands of people across the country,
and, second of all, is going to spawn
a lot of litigation going forward
about how those protections that were written into law intersect
with the activities of religious institutions
that might not want to follow the law.
The conservative justices, are very, very deferential
to making sure that religious institutions
aren't held to a higher standard.
-A major ruling by the US Supreme Court Tuesday
narrowed the separation of church and state
by endorsing Montana tax credits
that helped pay for students to attend religious schools.
The decision now paves the way for more public
funding of faith-based institutions.
-At the same time, the court told religious institutions
that they have special protections
from the demands of laws that apply to other people.
So for example, teachers at religious schools
aren't subject to the usual protections against being fired
on the basis of race or sex or age.
So it's a very deferential court when it comes to religion.
In one case which was the Manhattan District Attorney
suing not the president, but issuing a subpoena
to the president's accountants
to get a bunch of his financial records,
including his taxes, the court faced the question
for the first time of whether a state prosecutor
could issue a subpoena to a sitting president.
-In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that President Trump
must cooperate with the Manhattan District
Attorney's investigation into his finances.
It's part of the investigation in the hush-money payments
to women who claim they had extramarital affairs with him.
-The Supreme Court saying that the president
is not absolutely immune from these criminal subpoenas.
-It's gonna be a while before these documents
are ultimately ordered to be transferred
over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
-We will not see the president's tax records very,
very likely until after the election.
So in that sense, as a practical matter, the president won.
As a legal matter, no matter what the White House
and White House Press Secretary is saying.
-That this was a win for the president.
-It was a resounding loss for the president.
The companion case,
the second case that the court decided today,
is probably in some ways the more important one
because it went to a dispute
that's much more likely to arise in the future,
which is when Congress wants information from a president
and that the information isn't forthcoming,
can the Congress subpoena the information from the president
and what does it have to show in order to get that done?
-Now, this has to do with the three House committees
that had gone to these two banks and financial companies
that hold his records with subpoenas,
and they have said, "Listen, we're gonna comply with
legally what we're told to do."
But today that is going to remain unresolved.
The court recognizes that Congress has the power
to go and issue subpoenas that deal with the president,
but what they do in walking through this today
is saying there are all kinds of considerations
that have to be taken into consideration.
-Future Congresses, future presidents
will know the rules of the road
and they'll understand that Congress, as long as it says,
"Here's why we need it,
here's why we can only get it from the president,
here's what we need it for,"
will be able to get this information going forward.
I thought it was a very reasonable decision
that took into account both the legitimate needs of Congress
and the legitimate needs of a future president.
As we've watched a number of institutions,
most particularly Congress and Republican members of Congress,
fail in what I think is their constitutional
and institutional duty
to stand up to the president, we have watched time
after time the courts being pretty stalwart,
even this conservative Supreme Court,
in standing up for the rule of law.
And if Trump in this term or in a second term
were to get additional seats on the court,
everything positive that I said about the rule of law,
you can throw that out the window.