Well, June has come and gone, leaving the Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) juiciest opinions in its wake. As ever, SCOTUS waited until the very end of the term to release its most controversial opinions, including birthright citizenship, search of location data, transgender men in women’s sports, and Election Day ballots.
First up we have Chatrie v. United States, in which the court held that location data is considered a search under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. Obviously, in this new age of technology and data tracking, the law on what constitutes a search is ever evolving. One way to determine if something is a search is if a person has a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in a certain area. The Supreme Court held in this case that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to data tracking his location. Thus, police cannot gather data tracking your location as it is Fourth Amendment violation.
Next, we have Watson v. Republican National Committee. In this case the Court ruled that ballots do not have to be received and counted all in one day in elections. In other words, you can have a ballot dump at 2 a.m. the day after Election Day and all those ballots count.
This case came down to an interpretation of what “election” means. (Lest my Calvinist friends get too excited, please note that theology was not discussed.) In filing this case, the Republican National Committee argued that the word “election” means the two-step process of casting a ballot and counting the ballots, all to be done in one day. The majority of the Court disagreed, holding that the word “election” means simply the process of choosing a leader.
Justice Barrett is catching a lot of flak for her role in the election ballot decision. I’ve seen stories suggesting that she did this because she hates Trump, an assumption stemming from the faces she’s made around him. I don’t think this line of thinking is honest. In her opinion, Barrett doesn’t rely on ideology or pragmatism. She is honestly wrestling with the word’s original meaning and how it would have been understood at the time of the law’s passage. I don’t agree with her, but her conclusions are reasonable and it is a very tough call. The dissent agrees with her definition, but also points out that the process must end on Election Day. I tend to agree with the dissent, but the debate is a close one.
Moving on to Trump v. Barbara, a case which deals with Trump’s executive order concerning birthright citizenship. I am not an immigration attorney but I am very pro-Trump. Despite this, I still think this is a tough decision. I don’t agree with where the Court landed, but again, it is difficult to call this just an anti-Trump opinion. Instead, it was yet another battle over originalist principles.
The majority argued that citizenship comes jus soli, or right of the soil. The dissent argued that citizenship hinges on domicile, or actually living on the land. Again, I agree with the dissent, but the majority opinion wrestles with the common law, and I think it has a colorable argument, though ultimately wrong.
Finally, we arrive at transgenders in sports. Can a man who believes he is a woman play in women’s sports? And if he does, must the state allow him to do so under Title IX? In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Court answered no to that last question: a state does not have to allow delusional men to play in women’s sports. I won’t get into the details of the reasoning, but I do want to highlight Justice Thomas’ opinion. That wonderful justice wrote separately to say that transgenders are not a class of people. They are just people experiencing “a mutable mental state that is the object of psychiatric treatment.” He further wrote, “Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are.” Finally, Thomas warned, “To use language to obscure reality—to show “indifference regarding the truth”— is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens ‘as equals.’” God bless Clarence Thomas and may he never leave the court!
So there is your rough flyover view of cases. As ever, if you have questions about them, feel free to reach out. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to seeing what the next SCOTUS term brings.
Laura Clark is a wife, mother, and community activist. She currently serves as the interim president of Alabama Center for Law and Liberty, a conservative nonprofit law firm that fights for limited government, free markets, and strong families in the courts. Anything written by Laura for this publication does not constitute legal advice.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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