Divided Argument

We open with the usual grab bag—the "foot fault" pun buried in a Justice Thomas opinion, reading Justice Alito's clerk-hiring tea leaves, and a detour into the metaphysics of conditional resignations and whether you can be confirmed to a vacancy that doesn't exist yet. Then to the merits: Keathley v...

After puzzling over an interesting follow-up question about Pitchford v. Cain, we unpack a summary vacatur in Whitton v. Dixon . We then spend a while breaking down the latest developments in Allen v. Milligan line, in which we discuss the future of the Purcell principle and whether the Court should...

The Court has been busy, and we somehow manage to cover a number of developments with unpredictable efficiency. We talk about the Court's latest summary reversal on the "party presentation principle"; Justice Kavanaugh's vindication of his law journal student note in Pitchford v. Cain ; Rutherford a...