Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts Slate Podcasts

What’s this? A bonus Opinionpalooza episode for one and all? That’s right! The hits just keep coming from SCOTUS this week, and two big decisions landed Thursday that might easily get lost in the mix: Ohio v EPA and SEC v Jarkesy. Both cases shine a light on the conservative legal movement (and their billionaire funders’) long game against administrative agencies. In Ohio v EPA, the Court struck down the EPA’s Good Neighbor Rule, making it harder for the agency to regulate interstate ozone pollution. This decision split along ideological lines, and is part of a stealthy dismantling of the administrative state. SEC v Jarkesy severely hinders the agency’s ability to enforce actions against securities fraud without federal court involvement, and the decision will affect many other agencies. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out how this power grab by the court disrupts Congress's ability to delegate authority effectively. Project 2025 just got a jump start at SCOTUS, and we have two more big administrative cases yet to come, the so-called Chevron cases: Loper Bright v Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v Department of Commerce. This is shaping up to be a good term for billionaires and a court apparently hungry to expand its power. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern (of course) and they are saved from any regulatory confusion by environmental and administrative law all-star, Lisa Heinzerling, the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, who served in the EPA under President Obama. 

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)
Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
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On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued two important decisions in its traditional fashion: a box of printed copies for those journalists in the press room, and furious SCOTUS website refreshing for those who were not. 
Murthy v Missouri was one of the closely watched social media cases of the term, about “jawboning” or when and if the government can ask/prod/urge private social media companies to moderate content in the interest of things like public health or election integrity, or whether such conduct constitutes censorship. Snyder v US concerned corruption and the difference between bribes and gratuities under a federal corruption law. 
Somewhere in between the publishing of these opinions, however, the court inadvertently and very briefly published what may or may not be its opinion in a pair of emergency abortion cases, Moyle v United States and Idaho v United States. The Court spokeswoman urged us all to pay no attention to the early draft. Chaos ensued. On this extra, members-only episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to try to get our arms around a day of big news, including the “now you see it, now you don’t” abortion news at the highest court in the land. 
This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
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On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued two important decisions in its traditional fashion: a box of printed copies for those journalists in the press room, and furious SCOTUS website refreshing for those who were not.

Murthy v Missouri was one of the closely watched social media cases of the term, about “jawboning” or when and if the government can ask/prod/urge private social media companies to moderate content in the interest of things like public health or election integrity, or whether such conduct constitutes censorship. Snyder v US concerned corruption and the difference between bribes and gratuities under a federal corruption law.

Somewhere in between the publishing of these opinions, however, the court inadvertently and very briefly published what may or may not be its opinion in a pair of emergency abortion cases, Moyle v United States and Idaho v United States. The Court spokeswoman urged us all to pay no attention to the early draft. Chaos ensued. On this extra, members-only episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to try to get our arms around a day of big news, including the “now you see it, now you don’t” abortion news at the highest court in the land.

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)

This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Louisiana lawmakers believe the United States is such a godly nation that they simply must put the Ten Commandments (the Protestant ones) into all of the state’s classrooms.

Meanwhile, SCOTUS decides a shoot-for-the-moon tax case that would have overturned much of the U.S. tax code.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia Lithwick in this week’s super secret subscriber-only episode.

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)

This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes of Amicus, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Another major case for the “not a loss/not exactly a win” pile this term at SCOTUS. A majority of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority said what we knew all along - adjudicated domestic abusers shouldn’t hold onto second amendment rights and the guns that they are statistically, horrifyingly, apt to use to harm their intimate partners. In an 8-1 decision in United States v Rahimi, the Roberts Court looked frantically for a way to reverse out of – while still technically upholding – its bonkers extreme originalism-fueled Bruen decision from two terms ago.  
This week Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are joined by Kelly Roskam, the Director of Law and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Later in the show, Mark and Dahlia look under the hood of Department of State v Munoz - an immigration case decided this week that Justice Sotomayor says is sewing seeds for the end of marriage equality as we know it.  
This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!)
Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A bump stock is an attachment that converts a semi automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire as many as 800 rounds per minute - an intensity of gunfire matched by machine guns. The deadliest mass shooting carried out by a single shooter in US history - the October 2017 Las Vegas massacre - was enabled by a bump stock. On Friday, the US Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era bump stock ban introduced in the wake of that tragedy, in which 60 people were killed and hundreds more injured. Writing for a perfectly partisan six to three majority, gun enthusiast and ultra conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, decided the administration had overstepped its authority enacting the ban, and based the decision in a very technical, very weird reading of the statute. On this Opinionpalooza edition of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s senior writer on the courts and the law - Mark Stern, and David Pucino, Legal Director & Deputy Chief Counsel of Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Together, they discuss the careful reasoning and research behind the ban, Justice Thomas’ self-appointment as a bigger gun expert than the agency charged with regulating guns - the ATF, how the gun industry used its own “amicus flotilla” from extreme groups to undermine the agency, and how the industry will use this roadmap again. But, please don’t despair entirely, you’ll also hear from David about hope for the future of gun safety rules. 

This is part of Opinionpalooza, Slate’s coverage of the major decisions from the Supreme Court this June. We kicked things off this year by explaining How Originalism Ate the Law. The best way to support our work is by joining Slate Plus. (If you are already a member, consider a donation or merch!) Plus listeners have access to all our Opinionpalooza emergency episodes.
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