Civil Discourse

The final episode of the three part finale of Season 10 explores the upcoming docket of the U.S. Supreme Court for the Oct 2022 through June 2023 term.

What is Civil Discourse?

This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.

Announcer: Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.

N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.

J. Aughenbaugh: Morning, Nia. How are you?

N. Rodgers: I' m good. How are you?

J. Aughenbaugh: I'm good. In part because listeners, this is our third of three episodes of where we're wrapping up the current Supreme Court term. The current Supreme Court term is the October 2021 through June 2022 term.

N. Rodgers: We can consider it a wrap because now, we're looking forward. We're looking forward to the October 22 to June 23.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.

N. Rodgers: Term. I know, it's not a season. It's not like it's episodic television. It feels that way.

J. Aughenbaugh: It really fascinating because and I oftentimes, Nia have to tell my students this. The Supreme Court year is much like the Federal government's fiscal year.

N. Rodgers: It is exactly like the Federal government fiscal.

J. Aughenbaugh: It runs from the beginning of October until the end of September. So technically, the Supreme Court current term doesn't end until the end of September, but effectively, let's be very clear.

N. Rodgers: Yeah. You couldn't pay them to stay in town over the summer. They got stuff to do.

J. Aughenbaugh: The only folks who are working at the Supreme Court or the clerks that they already hired for the next term, we have to wade through all of the appeals that gets submitted during the summer months.

N. Rodgers: The 10,000 requests that they get to hear and that are just mostly rejected out of hand. Just in case you are wondering, they get thousands of request and this year they had 60.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: So it's not like the odd [inaudible 00:01:48] .

J. Aughenbaugh: But that's it. This podcast episode is going to look at some of the noteworthy cases the Supreme Court has already announced, it will hear in its next term. Listeners, if you think the most recently completed Supreme Court term was chock-full of controversial landmark, I either love them or hate them decisions, the next term also has, shall we say, a robust a gender.

N. Rodgers: That's one way to put it.

J. Aughenbaugh: Of similar thesis.

N. Rodgers: You should get a comfortable seat because it's going to be a bumpy ride. Can I just say that the thing about the upcoming docket, as far as I can tell, is that it is once again like this docket. It's all over the place. We're only going to focus on these two issues. Like the Supreme Court does, it takes a variety of issues in part because nine people have variety of interests in points of the law, and in part because the country is so divided and mixed and contagious, we have cases of all sorts that are coming. Although, we got a couple of redistricting cases.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: There is one tiny little theme.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Yeah. But to your point, the Supreme Court, typically every term gets well over 9,000 appeals. They're called cert writs. You just think that within those 9,000 cases, you're going to see some variety. But then you throw in the Justices, their clerks, in the fact as you pointed out. The United States is rather polarized right now. Some of these cases reflect that kind of polarization. There are cases the court has already agreed to hear their deal with voting in elections. Do you want to start with the voting and election cases first?

N. Rodgers: Sure.

J. Aughenbaugh: We have one case from the state of North Carolina.

N. Rodgers: My beloved home state.

J. Aughenbaugh: I wanted to be very clear to our listeners, Nia. I started with this case in my notes because it is your home state. The name of the case is more versus Harper. This is a case where the North Carolina's state legislature drew a redistricting map after the 2020 census. The map was rejected by the State Supreme Court as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

N. Rodgers: North Carolina unconstitutional.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Not the federal?

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.

N. Rodgers: The State Supreme Court is only judging the North Carolina State Constitution, not the federal constitution, just as a clarification in case.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, because these listeners may recall the US Supreme Court a couple of years ago, went ahead and said that partisan gerrymandering was a political question that should be decided by the states. So?

N. Rodgers: North Carolina was like?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. We got this. North Carolina State Supreme Court, went ahead and said that this redistricting map was unconstitutional. Now, of course, there is a partisan angle to this. The state legislature is controlled by the Republican Party. A majority of the State Supreme Court justices were appointed by a Democratic governor. The state legislature files an appeal with the US Supreme Court and says, "The North Carolina State Supreme Court has no authority to tell us that our map was a partisan gerrymander. Because according to the US Constitution, only state legislatures get to decide the time, place, and manner of voting in elections within their state." For our longtime faithful listeners, yes, we are once again talking about the independent state legislature theory, which in a previous podcast episode, Nia and I spent a whole bunch of time exploring.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: It basically the state legislature saying only we, the state legislature, get to decide how North Carolinians may vote and where their district is, etc. Whereas, the North Carolina State Supreme Court says, "No, no, no, no, wait a minute."

N. Rodgers: We decide whether is North Carolina State Constitutional.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. My colleagues who do voting and elections are like retro shaggy because when the Supreme Court said that we're going to take this case, they're having a whole bunch of wow, the Supreme Court is going to wade in on this dispute. The potential here is huge.

N. Rodgers: Right. If they find that state legislatures can, in fact, create redistricting maps because it's part of their voting power thing.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's how governors and a cuts out state supreme court. There is no check on that power.

N. Rodgers: Would be quite the difference in what we've had up until now historically in the United States, where we have defined democracy as the check-in balance of powers between the three branches of government.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Huge.

N. Rodgers: That has the potential to really rock about or alternatively, they could say, no, this violates the checks and balances and go back North Carolina, you're going to have to redraw your map because they have the power to tell you that it violates the Constitution. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Alabama's a little different.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. In the case of [inaudible 00:09:12] versus [inaudible 00:09:13], what's at issue is whether the state of Alabama has 2021 redistricting plan for its seven seats in the House of Representatives violated a federal law, specifically Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Now, for listeners, this was the landmark federal voting law. It was passed in 1965, and its provisions basically prohibited discrimination in the voting in election practices by states. Now, in a previous Supreme Court ruling, Shelby versus Holder, the Supreme Court called into question Section 5 of that law, which was the section that listed the states that had to get preclearance. Neither the federal courts or the United States justice.

N. Rodgers: Because of historical discrimination.

J. Aughenbaugh: Nation. The Supreme Court held at Section 5 was unconstitutional because the United States Congress didn't update the list.

N. Rodgers: One could argue that the Supreme Court could potentially be dismantling the Voting Rights Act section by section and trying to get Congress to rewrite it in some way that is clearer?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Now, what's going on in the state of Alabama is that, roughly, a third of Alabama's population is African-American. But the state legislature in Alabama basically drew up congressional districts to where it would only be likely one of those seven districts.

N. Rodgers: Okay.

J. Aughenbaugh: Would be a majority African-American.

N. Rodgers: As opposed to two-and-a-half, which would be the correct.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. If Alabama really wanted to be cautious, they would have gone ahead and carved out three majority, minority, districts. But, at least, two.

N. Rodgers: They chose to carve out one.

J. Aughenbaugh: One.

N. Rodgers: Oh, Alabama.

J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, it's not just Alabama, this is going on all over the country.

N. Rodgers: Redistricting is a nightmare. It's a nightmare in almost every state because whoever's in charge tries to protect their party and their holdings. If you're Republican or Democrat, it happens on both sides and you hold the majority to redistrict, you will only strengthen your majority. You will only try to make sure that you stay in power and it's not Alabama, it's all states. If you think you live in a state where people don't do that, you are wrong. You are completely wrong because it is a very hard thing to get people power share. Why should they, if they don't have to is how they justify that and clearly that's an American tradition. Why should I share power if I don't have to?

J. Aughenbaugh: There are very few voters who are willing to go ahead and say, my political party, which may be in control currently within my state, should give up its ability.

N. Rodgers: Stay in power forever.

J. Aughenbaugh: Stay in power forever. There are very few partisans who were like, no, that's anti-democratic and I mean, small d.

N. Rodgers: Exactly. Democratic in the sense of we should share power because that's how we get one.

J. Aughenbaugh: Why the voters to pick instead of elected officials getting to decide who their voters are because that's what gerrymandering is.

N. Rodgers: What gerrymandering does is, it moves us away from moderate and into streams.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: No matter what state you're in, there are fewer and fewer moderates because they are forced into.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, if you think about competitive districts. You might get more moderate candidates because it is a competitive district.

N. Rodgers: Because you're trying to reach across the aisle. You're trying to get both sides to vote for you.

J. Aughenbaugh: In extreme and potentially go ahead and turn it off 50 percent of the electorate. You got to be a little bit more.

N. Rodgers: There should be a better way to do this.

J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, this is not for nothing. The Supremes are going to hear these two cases, but the decisions won't come down before the midterm. Midterm elections will happen in November under the current system.

N. Rodgers: under the current maps.

J. Aughenbaugh: That's voting.

N. Rodgers: Let's talk water.

J. Aughenbaugh: Waters?

N. Rodgers: Yeah. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a drought.

J. Aughenbaugh: There's a huge drought.

N. Rodgers: I'm just saying that at this point Lake Mead, you could just walk across it.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: There are some parts where votes are getting beached because people go away for a weekend when they come back their boats no longer in the water. That's how fast the water is dropping in Lake Mead.

J. Aughenbaugh: There are water restrictions in the states of California and Arizona where people are getting prosecuted for water in their yards.

N. Rodgers: By the way go on record, I have been anti because for a long time, sitting in the desert, yada, yada, yada, Vegas actually has some of the best conservation policies compared some other places. What we need to do, we need to get rid of almonds. Almonds are a huge water sink, they take up an enormous amount of water comparatively. We all need to start eating some other kind of nut and we need to not grow almonds in the desert. Vegas, I'm going to give you a break and almond farmers. I'm going to say, you probably can't grow almonds in the desert forever. You're going to have to find some other crop.

J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, Nia and I are not anti-nut.

N. Rodgers: No, we love almonds but they are very thirsty crop.

J. Aughenbaugh: We know that nuts in their various forms are generally good for you in terms of your health. We're just saying that perhaps we might need to go head and re-calibrate our agricultural policies particularly in the State of California because of water issues.

N. Rodgers: They might need to be grown somewhere else.

J. Aughenbaugh: But speaking of water.

N. Rodgers: But we have a water scarce.

J. Aughenbaugh: Water scarce. Again, faithful listeners, Nia and I have a previous podcast episode about waters.

N. Rodgers: Waters of the United States.

J. Aughenbaugh: Waters of the United States, which has a statutory term. In the case of second versus the Supreme Court hopefully will decide once and for all, what is the appropriate definition of Waters of the United States, because this is a case where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling. There are some question as to whether or not they chose the correct definition of Waters.

N. Rodgers: You think that's silly but if you go back and you listen to our episodes, if you have not listened to the water issue episodes, water is more valuable than gold, it's more valuable than oil, it's more valuable than anything else in the West because agriculturally it's more valuable also because cities are still growing in the West, Phoenix is growing, cities in Texas are growing.

J. Aughenbaugh: It's an extremely important concept in regards to the Endangered Species Act.

N. Rodgers: Because guess what, fisher people too.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes and basically the Supreme Court is going to have to clean up some of its own mess from a previous case where the court majority had two definitions of waters of the United States. Justice Scalia's interpretation, which was a body of water that's connected to another body of water physically connected. If the EPA or the Army Corps of Engineers can show that connection then they can regulate both bodies of water but in a concurring opinion, Justice Kennedy had a different definition. His definition was, shall we say, a broader one, a looser one, which gives both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers much more authority to regulate a water of the United States because for Kennedy, he said if the government could show a significant nexus so let's say for instance, there was a lake and then there wasn't any water and then there's a river and if the federal government can show that there is some ecosystem nexus between the lake and the river, the federal government can regulate both.

N. Rodgers: Can I just say that Congress could solve this?

N. Rodgers: Congress could solve this by just defining what they consider to be waters in the United States.

J. Aughenbaugh: This has been an issue for nearly 20 years.

N. Rodgers: I didn't say they were going to. I said they could. I don't think they're going to because it's hard and they don't like to do things that are hard. Can we talk about, our two cases that we might have to embroil Hilary in?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. The first case is?

N. Rodgers: Andy Warhol Foundation, the goldsmith?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Let me make sure that I understand the case. goldsmith took a picture of Marilyn Monroe.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

J. Aughenbaugh: Andy Warhol took that image and used it to paint her in that one that's pretty famous where there's lots of colors. It's maryland blue, maryland pink, maryland yellow. It's all these colors.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: The goldsmith family was like, hey, that's our image. That's my father, grandfather, whoever it is, that's his image. Warhol is saying, I transformed it.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because I transformed it per copyright law, the Warhol Foundation doesn't owe the goldsmith family. Listeners this gets us at what are our colleague, Hillary Myers, went ahead and disgust with us in regards to one of the exceptions of copyright law which is if you take a copyrighted piece of art, but then you transform it, you might not necessarily owe the copyright owner any money for its use.

N. Rodgers: Right. You've transformed it sufficiently but it is something different. Hillary, hopefully when this comes out, she'll come back and talk to us about this because this is a weird thing. If you see a photograph and you substantially change the photograph, then do you owe? I'm not even sure that it's so much about the money as it is about.

J. Aughenbaugh: Who's going to get credit for it.

N. Rodgers: Credit for the image, right?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: I don't know the goldsmith was worried. I mean, I don't know that their family is worried so much about the money as they are, about the royalties, as they are about recognizing that it's his photograph, it's his image of her.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because most adults who are familiar with this particular, if you will, Image, know what, because of what Andy Warhol did to it.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Very few of us are actually aware, and I got to be honest, before this case arose in the lower federal courts, I was unaware of this. Who took the original picture.

N. Rodgers: Me too. I just assumed that he had done it from his head. I didn't really think about the fact that he had a photographic reference.

J. Aughenbaugh: Here's what's also fascinating, the division between the federal courts on how to define when a work of art is transformative. There's this huge conflict. Because you got the supreme court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and other Appeals courts that have one definition. But then you have the Second Circuit Court of Appeals with a completely different interpretation.

N. Rodgers: Right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Part of the reason why the Supreme Court will take a case is when there is disagreement among the lower courts. In this case it has it all.

N. Rodgers: It's got Mandy Roe, it's got Andy Warhol, right?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. It's a pretty fascinating case.

N. Rodgers: The other case that involves an artist is actually a free speech case. It's technically not Hillary, but it's Hillary because she also is one of our open access librarians, which is about free speech.

J. Aughenbaugh: But this case, Nia you're referencing is 303 creative versus Alaina. Really, the case is about whether a Colorado public accommodations law can force an artist to speak or stay silent. We're once again back to this issue of can states force businesses to provide goods and services, for individuals that might contradict their deeply held, for instance, religious beliefs.

N. Rodgers: Forgive me for putting it so crudely. Is this the gay cake case?

J. Aughenbaugh: This is a similar case.

N. Rodgers: By that, I'm referring to a bakery that refused to sell cakes for gay weddings, because they had a religious belief.

J. Aughenbaugh: In the case, you're referencing Nia is the masterpiece cake shop case.

N. Rodgers: Sorry. I get them mixed up.

J. Aughenbaugh: We studied a couple of years ago. But the court majority avoided the tough constitutional question because in that case, they went ahead and said that Colorado's commission, they decided that the cake shop violated the Colorado law, was so obviously biased against religion that the hearing violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Though they never got to this issue of can the government force you to engage in speech as part of your business? Does that violate the First Amendment?

N. Rodgers: What are the facts of 303 created?

J. Aughenbaugh: Basically, I think it was a wedding. I'm blanking on the phrase. It's one of those firms that organize imports on weddings.

N. Rodgers: In event planning sort of a thing.

J. Aughenbaugh: Wedding organizer, wedding planner business. But they don't want to go ahead and plan gay weddings. But according to the Colorado accommodations law, as a business, you can't discriminate against.

N. Rodgers: I see.

J. Aughenbaugh: They would be lesbians. This is your standard state accommodation law. Just like for instance, you can't discriminate against, patrons because of their race, but the question becomes, can a state force you because of your business, to engage in speech that you object to.

N. Rodgers: Got you.

J. Aughenbaugh: Of course, the argument of 303 Creative is, I'm an artist, this is my speech.

N. Rodgers: I shouldn't have to make websites for gay couples, weddings.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: I don't believe in gay marriage and I shouldn't have to engage in that, I see. That'll be interesting.

J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, my goodness.

N. Rodgers: Can we talk about the students for fair admissions? They're going to be a little busy, aren't they?

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: They've got two cases.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. What Nia is referring to is two challenges to university affirmative action programs. One case is Students for Fair Admissions versus the University of North Carolina, which is what the flagship university of your home state.

N. Rodgers: Hey, you did not just say those words to me. I am a graduate of NC State. Golf wolf pack. I don't care about you saying anything about North Carolina don't talk to me.

J. Aughenbaugh: That is the land grant of your home state, is NC State. The flagship according to your state law is UNC.

N. Rodgers: I'm not even speaking to you right now.

J. Aughenbaugh: No, it's going to make this podcast episode a really difficult to pull off. The other case is preferred emissions versus Harvard.

N. Rodgers: Wait, so.

J. Aughenbaugh: One is public and one is private.

N. Rodgers: I see. It's the same question.

J. Aughenbaugh: Basically, the Supreme Court is being asked in both of these cases whether it should overrule its decision in the Grutter versus Bollinger case. In the Grutter versus Bollinger case, the Supreme Court once again affirmed that colleges and universities may use race as a factor in admissions because it serves the compelling interests of diversity in the student body. But in the Bollinger case, just like the landmark Bakke case from 1978, what the Supreme Court said was you can use race as one of a number of factors, but it cannot be the deciding factor and you can't use quotas.

N. Rodgers: Your 31st Pacific Islander, we only need 30 so we're not going to accept you, that's not how.

J. Aughenbaugh: You can't use race that way.

N. Rodgers: But you can say, everybody in our university is white and we're going to find a way to encourage.

J. Aughenbaugh: More African Americans.

N. Rodgers: More African, more Asian-American, Pacific Islander, so that we can get a diverse body because it will be better for everyone if you bring together this diverse group of people in order to have an education.

J. Aughenbaugh: Basically, that's always been problematic for conservatives, because it's basically saying colleges and universities can use race in some undetermined manner to achieve a more diverse student population and the Supreme Court, is going weigh back into this very controversial topic, with both the UNC and Harvard cases.

N. Rodgers: This is going to be messy.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is going to be messy. Because, what has saved colleges and universities affirmative action programs. Since the Bakke decision in 1978 are moderates on the court like Lewis Powell who wrote the majority opinion in the Bakke case, and then the Bollinger case, Justice O'Connor, who wrote the majority opinion. But they were moderates, they were swing voters. Who are the moderate or swing voters? What, the current Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts?

N. Rodgers: That's it he's alone. I don't know that he's moderate and so much as he's less conservative than the others, that's not the same thing as being moderate. He's only moderate in comparison. We're going to have an interesting.

J. Aughenbaugh: We're not done yet Nia, we've got a couple of more.

N. Rodgers: Do we?

J. Aughenbaugh: Well, we got to at least one more that I wanted to go ahead and mention. I apologize, listeners, this is the administrative law geek in me, so please forgive me. The name of the case is Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC versus Cochran and this is a case whether or not federal district courts have jurisdiction where the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to enjoin a proceeding and you might be like, that sounds really technical and really boring. Here's the rubbish Shakespeare would say. At issue in this case is the role of administrative law judges. Let's just say for instance, Nia, you own a publicly held corporation with stockholders, and you do something nefarious that the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn't walk. Let's say I'm the commissioner of the SEC. Now if I want to stop your behavior, I don't go to federal court. I go to a Securities and Exchange Commission hearing that is conducted by an administrative law judge and I might say Nia's behavior is so bad, and, so harmed her shock as to

J. Aughenbaugh: Shareholders.

N. Rodgers: Shareholders, okay.

J. Aughenbaugh: That she should be fined $1.5 million, and an administrative law judge might say, I agree with you, Commissioner Aughenbaugh, Nia in your corporation owes $1.5 million to the SEC, because we want to set an example to other corporations you can't engage in this behavior. Problem is administrative law judges employed by the Securities and Exchange Commission are actually employed by the commission, hired by the commission, it can be removed by the commission, so are they independent?

N. Rodgers: Well, no, I mean the likelihood is that they are going to fine for the administration for which they work.

J. Aughenbaugh: Thus the nature of this challenge.

N. Rodgers: Okay, because we've talked about this before that SEC is not the only, there are lots of administrative agency or agencies that have.

J. Aughenbaugh: Administrative law judges, and they're not part of Article Three of the Constitution, they're not part of the ''federal judiciary.''

N. Rodgers: Which is probably good for J. Rob because that would just be thousands more people that he would have to administer their work lives.

J. Aughenbaugh: But from a checks and balances perspective.

N. Rodgers: Where do you go if you disagree with that person?

J. Aughenbaugh: Do you have to wait until the Securities and Exchange administrative law judge, rules against you before you can go to federal court? This can have a huge impact on our business. Really are they independent when they are picked by the agency, employed by the agency, and can be fired by the agency?

N. Rodgers: Well, it's another one of those conflict of interests things, I think sometimes we forget that the various agencies of the government are both regulatory, but also are charged with encouraging whatever behavior or the thing is. If you're thinking in terms of, I'm going to give a different example so I can put it in my brain properly, the Department of Agriculture theoretically protects the agriculture of the United States, protects you from getting salmonella every time you eat a meal, it tries to do that, but it also encourages agriculture in the United States, it's charged with both of those things.

J. Aughenbaugh: That could be contradictory.

N. Rodgers: The same thing, if you have an administrative judge who is hired by the institution he's administering, how can he not be somewhat influenced by the fact that he works for the institution, that's a mess.

J. Aughenbaugh: The Cochran Case in particular says or asks the question, do we have to wait to challenge what the SEC is trying to do to us until the administrative law judge gets done with the administrative hearing, or can we go to federal court?

N. Rodgers: Because that length of time could harm your business.

J. Aughenbaugh: Could harm your business.

N. Rodgers: I'll get to you next year, I won't have a business by next year.

J. Aughenbaugh: This is the next year, right?

N. Rodgers: Okay.

J. Aughenbaugh: A bunch of my shareholders are just going to go ahead and drop the stock.

N. Rodgers: They're going to bail.

J. Aughenbaugh: The value of the company and the liquidity of a company might suffer dramatically by the time this wraps up.

N. Rodgers: Got you, that's a math, huge implications.

J. Aughenbaugh: Huge implications. Because again, if you're the SEC, you don't want to always go to federal court, you want to basically threaten an administrative hearing to go ahead and get offending businesses to change their behavior. But if the Supreme Court says otherwise, then this force is yet again the United States Congress, to go ahead and clarify.

N. Rodgers: We cannot rely on the Congress, they are unreliable.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.

N. Rodgers: We have another fun term to look forward to, of things that are going to make us there in various stages happy, angry, confused.

J. Aughenbaugh: One other thing to note, Nia, the bulk of the Supreme Court's docket for it's next term has not yet been decided.

N. Rodgers: This is just the start.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, these are the cases between courts. The Supreme said we agreed to take these and here these in the fall.

N. Rodgers: I can tell you what they do over the summer they drink heavily, in preparation for coming back and dealing with this stuff.

J. Aughenbaugh: Because the Supreme Court term.

N. Rodgers: I'm kidding.

J. Aughenbaugh: One day in October, we don't know right?

N. Rodgers: We don't know, but I doubt I would hope that they get a lot of R&R because it's going to be another year of stuff like this.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, I've had students ask me all the time Nia, professor Aughenbaugh, I bet your dream job is to become a Supreme Court justice, I'm like, oh my goodness, no, you could not pay me enough money to become a Supreme Court Justice, never.

N. Rodgers: I'll give you $10 billion a year, you'd be like, no.

J. Aughenbaugh: No.

N. Rodgers: Because my mental health is worth more than that.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It hasn't been a long time for me just to get to this state of equilibrium anyways, but the thing to remember is when the justices actually return, they have this huge, big blowout conference. The week before the first Monday of October where they decide what other cases they want to hear for the upcoming term.

N. Rodgers: In early October we'll get another list.

J. Aughenbaugh: Of cases, you imagine what that conference is like a day long?

N. Rodgers: Yeah, because you have to be voted at least four, so we want to take it and I'm sure there are no negotiations, I'm sure that somebody has to go out for pizza and it's a very long day, oh my goodness.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: Although it'd be interesting to be a clerk during that because the clerks are the ones that write the briefs, that get people's juices flowing.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah that the justices rely upon in deciding whether or not to actually vote to hear a case, but in the conference room itself, it's just the justices.

N. Rodgers: We'd really funny, is if they voted on it in the first 20 minutes and then they just stay in the room and pretend to yell at each other and throw things around and now you make a really loud thump and I'll moan. Go ahead, so that people outside the room, they're like, oh, what's going on in there? Either that or they just turn on the daytime soap operas and then like all good we can catch up on.

J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.

N. Rodgers: It has the world turns or whatever it is.

J. Aughenbaugh: Or they binge-watch.

N. Rodgers: Or they binge-watch, that's right.

J. Aughenbaugh: Binge-watch on Amazon Prime doing this. Anyways Nia so we got a lot of really difficult, controversial cases coming up, so for those of you who need to recover a little bit from the most recently completed Supreme Court term, you better rest up because the next one also has.

N. Rodgers: It's going to make you as irritable as this last one did, just in different ways.

J. Aughenbaugh: All right Nia, thank you.

N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie.

Anouncer: You've been listening to civil discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.