Alaska is asking the justices not just to hear as a trial court its challenge to the EPA's veto of the "Pebble Mine," but to overrule a 52-year-old precedent holding that the Court doesn't have to
Would the court want the additional origination cases to bolster its power as a powerful administrative third branch of the federal government? (I'm not an attorney so my word choice may be wrong in the legal world)
I find your argument about Wyandotte very convincing on the policy merits (perhaps a bit less so on the Constitutional merits…I’m not sure that the fact that the Wyandotte standard works better means it’s what’s required or allowed by the Constitution, but I’m not an expert here and I guess that’s an issue for another time).
I’m not so convinced by this part of your argument: “Nebraska could have forced the justices to decide whether Colorado should have been allowed to legalize marijuana possession.” Could they have? That feels like a very easy case to dismiss at the filing stage by saying that Nebraska has no legally cognizable interest in other state’s laws when said laws are not binding in any way on Nebraska. I grant you it may take a bit more time away from the Justices than just not allowing such cases to be filed through the Court’s original jurisdiction in the first place, but the Court is very good at getting rid of cases it doesn’t want to decide, and I don’t know that I believe that would change very much even under this scenario.
[Not to mention SCOTUS is deciding about half the number of cases in a year they did in the 1980s. They clearly can (and, in my opinion, should) be doing more with their time.]
Alaska's non-Wyandotte argument is the district court/CFC split. But it seems to me that if that door is cracked, states can slam it open simply by structuring their complaints in a similar way. There's nothing particularly hard about asking for an injunction and laying a claim (takings or otherwise). So hearing this case at all, whether or not Wyandotte is overturned, means that the Court will be flooded with more original jurisdiction cases they don't want.
I am a little puzzled as to why it would be a writ of mandamus rather than a writ of prohibition in Mountain Valley. The latter addresses situations where a court is proceeding in excess of its jurisdiction. The former would seem to be more appropriate to compel transfer to the DC Circuit. Am I missing something?
I guess I don’t understand what a special master is as the definition from Oxford Languages is “a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.”
The Special Master is sort of like a magistrate judge? The master takes evidence and conducts fact-finding and decides questions of law as described, for subsequent review by the Court. SCOTUS doesn't have magistrate judges, so they call their version a "special master".
Not for nothing, but 28 USC 1500 itself is just an absolutely crazy statute that's less an absolute bar and more a jurisdictional trap. Under the current precedent, Alaska would be able to bring both cases so long as it filed the complaint in the Court of Federal Claims the day before filing in district court (and potentially even if it filed earlier in the same day)
Would the court want the additional origination cases to bolster its power as a powerful administrative third branch of the federal government? (I'm not an attorney so my word choice may be wrong in the legal world)
I find your argument about Wyandotte very convincing on the policy merits (perhaps a bit less so on the Constitutional merits…I’m not sure that the fact that the Wyandotte standard works better means it’s what’s required or allowed by the Constitution, but I’m not an expert here and I guess that’s an issue for another time).
I’m not so convinced by this part of your argument: “Nebraska could have forced the justices to decide whether Colorado should have been allowed to legalize marijuana possession.” Could they have? That feels like a very easy case to dismiss at the filing stage by saying that Nebraska has no legally cognizable interest in other state’s laws when said laws are not binding in any way on Nebraska. I grant you it may take a bit more time away from the Justices than just not allowing such cases to be filed through the Court’s original jurisdiction in the first place, but the Court is very good at getting rid of cases it doesn’t want to decide, and I don’t know that I believe that would change very much even under this scenario.
[Not to mention SCOTUS is deciding about half the number of cases in a year they did in the 1980s. They clearly can (and, in my opinion, should) be doing more with their time.]
Alaska's non-Wyandotte argument is the district court/CFC split. But it seems to me that if that door is cracked, states can slam it open simply by structuring their complaints in a similar way. There's nothing particularly hard about asking for an injunction and laying a claim (takings or otherwise). So hearing this case at all, whether or not Wyandotte is overturned, means that the Court will be flooded with more original jurisdiction cases they don't want.
I am a little puzzled as to why it would be a writ of mandamus rather than a writ of prohibition in Mountain Valley. The latter addresses situations where a court is proceeding in excess of its jurisdiction. The former would seem to be more appropriate to compel transfer to the DC Circuit. Am I missing something?
I guess I don’t understand what a special master is as the definition from Oxford Languages is “a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.”
The Special Master is sort of like a magistrate judge? The master takes evidence and conducts fact-finding and decides questions of law as described, for subsequent review by the Court. SCOTUS doesn't have magistrate judges, so they call their version a "special master".
Stay safe out there.
Not for nothing, but 28 USC 1500 itself is just an absolutely crazy statute that's less an absolute bar and more a jurisdictional trap. Under the current precedent, Alaska would be able to bring both cases so long as it filed the complaint in the Court of Federal Claims the day before filing in district court (and potentially even if it filed earlier in the same day)