CRS Reports – Week of 10-26-24 – Supreme Court Jurisdiction

This week the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published a report on: “The Exceptions Clause and Congressional Control over Supreme Court Jurisdiction”. The report looks at the constitutional differences between the different types of cases that the Supreme Court may here. It describes the cases over which the Court has ‘original jurisdiction’, cases that are brought directly to the Court dealing with Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party. All other cases reach the Court on appeal of judgements of the lessor courts. It takes special pains to discuss the fact that the Constitution limits those appeals under the ‘Exceptions Clause’ (Article III, Section 2, Clause 2) by making those appeals subject to ““such Exceptions, and … Regulations as the Congress shall make”.

The ‘Considerations for Congress’ section of the report is much more detailed than typically seen in these CRS reports. Instead of laying out specific actions that Congress could/should consider in respect to this topic, the Report continues the legal discussion about practical limits on the topics Congress could expect try to address in regulating the topics of potential litigation before the Court.

To anyone that has taken any courses on constitutional law (and I have taken a handful of undergraduate courses when I was a political science major), this discussion is hardly unusual, but for most folks (including the majority of congresscritters) it demonstrates how complicated these matters can get. Still, this relatively short report (20 pages) is well worth reading. 

CRS Reports – Week of 7-1-23 – Supreme Court Rulings

In a holiday shortened week there is little of specific interest here in this week’s reports from the Congressional Research Service, but there are six reports looking at recently released Supreme Court rulings. Those reports include:

LSB10997 - Supreme Court Invalidates Student Loan Cancellation Policy Under the HEROES Act,

LSB10998 - Polselli v. IRS: Supreme Court Clarifies Notice Requirements for a Third-Party IRS Summons,

LSB10999 - Groff v. DeJoy: Supreme Court Clarifies Employment Protections for Religious Workers,

LSB11000 - 303 Creative v. Elenis: Supreme Court Recognizes Free Speech Exception to Nondiscrimination Law,

LSB11001 - “Reserved” but Not “Secured”: Supreme Court Sinks Navajo Nation’s Attempt to Compel Federal Action on Tribal Water Rights, and

LSB11002 - Allen v. Milligan: Supreme Court Holds That Alabama Redistricting Map Likely Violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,

These are annotated discussions of the issues presented in these cases. It is important to remember that these reports (and all CRS reports) are targeted at a legislative audience (Member and their staffs), so entire discussion is designed to lead up to the ‘Considerations for Congress’ section at the end of each report. Having said that, these are still more comprehensive reviews than almost any that you are going to see in the press, including the legal press.