Nuts and Bolts is a recurring series by Stephen Wermiel providing insights into the mechanics of how the Supreme Court works.

 An important window may be closing at the Supreme Court.

No, not because of the current renovation taking place on the Supreme Court Building at One First Street.

The window that is closing is the opportunity for petitioners – that is, litigants who lost in the lower courts and want the Supreme Court to weigh in – to have their cases argued and decided in the current court term rather than having to wait until next fall. Both by tradition and because of the amount of time it takes to file briefs in cases, January is typically the cut-off for scheduling a case for argument in the same term.

Tuesday’s argument in M&K Employee Solutions v Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund showed a bench skeptical of forcing actuaries to use out-of-date assumptions when they work on pension plans.

Justice, Democracy, and Law is a recurring series by Edward B. Foley that focuses on election law and the relationship of law and democracy.

The defining theme of the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency, at least from the perspective of those who focus on the Supreme Court, has been whether the court is able and willing to protect America’s constitutional democracy from a president who seeks to be an autocrat.  

Rights and Responsibilities is a recurring series by Richard Garnett on legal education, the role of the courts in our constitutional structure, and the law of religious freedom and free expression.

I have observed that, when it comes to religious freedom and church-state relations – and contrary to some commentators’ complaints – the Roberts court has been conducting a “doctrinal clean-up,” moving the law “toward coherence and clarity, and better align[ing] it with American history, tradition and practice and with an appropriate understanding of judges’ capacities and the judicial role in a democracy.” In one particular case category, though – namely, disputes having to do with public religious symbols and officials’ religious expression – confusion and uncertainty remain. An ongoing controversy in the Massachusetts state courts provides an interesting and instructive illustration.

It is a crisply cold winter morning in Washington as people filed into the Supreme Court for Trump v. Cook, about President Donald Trump’s effort to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.