Friday round-up

The Supreme Court issued two noteworthy shadow-docket orders on Thursday — one involving mail-ballots in Montana and another involving access to a prescription drug used to induce early-term abortions. In the Montana case, Justice Elena Kagan rejected a request from Republicans to block county officials from sending mail-ballots to all registered voters. In the abortion case, the court — over dissent from Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — declined to act for now on the Trump administration’s request to reinstate in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion pill during the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the justices have another census case on their emergency docket, this one asking whether the federal government can end field operations several weeks early.

Other Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:

• Supreme Court Refuses To Block Lower Court Order On Abortion Pills (Nina Totenberg, NPR)
• Biden and Harris Need an Answer on Court Packing (Emma Green, The Atlantic)
• The Supreme Court is already pulling us back to the future (Harry Litman, Los Angeles Times)
• Feud over car defects could affect climate law (Pamela King, E&E News)
• ADF: Supreme Court Should Rule To Protect Free Speech On Campus; This Egregious Case Shows Why (Kristen Waggoner, The Daily Wire)
• Amy Coney Barrett is as Anti-Worker as the Rest of Trump’s Judges (Andrew Strom, On Labor)

We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!