June 30, 2025: What's in the Senate's Big Beautiful Bill? Plus Birthright Citizenship Ruling Explained, What We Know About the Idaho Brush Fire Shooting, and More.
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Welcome back to unbiased politics. Today is Monday, June 30. Let's talk about some news. A few notes before we do. I know last week, I said we would cover the recent Supreme Court decisions on Thursday. We're actually going to cover those today. There were 10 decisions released in the last two days of the term. But I am going to go over five of them today. And I'm going to go over five of them today.

So it's the five that most people are talking about. Also, because of the nature of some of these stories we're covering today, like the Big Beautiful Build, the Idaho shooter, I just want to give a heads up that I am recording today's episode at 2 p.m. Eastern time. I do anticipate some developments pretty soon after or in each of those stories. So just know that whatever we cover in today's episode is up to date as of 2 p.m. Eastern time. And then as a final note, I

am sending out a new edition of my newsletter tomorrow early morning. So as always, you can find the link to subscribe in the show notes of the episode. With those things out of the way, let's talk about some news. Starting with some sad news. Unfortunately, yesterday, two firefighters were fatally shot and a third was injured when a sniper shooter ambushed them after allegedly starting a brush fire in Idaho.

The sniper shooter was later found dead, but investigators are now trying to pinpoint a motive. So what we know at this point is that the man is believed to have intentionally started a brush fire on Canfield Mountain in North Idaho. It's unclear whether this man called to report the fire or he just waited for firefighters to arrive, but whether or not it was him, the county sheriff's office received a call reporting the fire at 1.21 p.m. local time.

Firefighters headed to the scene shortly thereafter. Around 2 p.m. is when they reported the shots fired. For the next 90 minutes, law enforcement agencies responded and exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was sitting somewhere in the trees.

Around 300 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies were a part of the response. The local police department, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office, the Spokane Police, the FBI, neighboring counties, a lot of law enforcement. Around 6.30 p.m., agencies were told the situation was still an active shooter situation and that the suspect needed to be neutralized as quickly as possible. However, we know that...

After investigators tracked a cell phone to the same location it had been since around 3.16 p.m. local time, meaning there had been no additional movement since then, officers did find a deceased male with a weapon at that location.

around 7.40 p.m. is when it was reported that the shooter was dead. So what we don't know is at what time the shooter died. We don't know whether it was closer to that 3.16 p.m. time when the, you know, when the phone stopped moving, although law enforcement did say as of 6.30 that it was still an active shooter situation, or whether it was closer to 7.30 when, you know, he was ultimately found. We also don't know as of now whether it was a self-inflicted

gunshot wound that killed him or if he died as a result of the gunfire with the officers. Investigators are saying that the suspect acted alone. Unfortunately, like I said, two firefighters were killed. Another is in the hospital after undergoing surgery Sunday night. Initial reports are saying the suspect has been identified as 20-year-old

Wes Rowley. That report originally came from the Associated Press, who said that a law enforcement official spoke with them on the condition of anonymity. The sheriff's office did say that it was going to be holding a news conference today at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern, so I'm sure we will learn more then.

Alright, let's talk about this big, beautiful bill. Just to catch everyone up to speed for a second, we know that the big, beautiful bill passed the House last month. It's been with the Senate ever since, and the Senate's been working on some revisions in the time that it's had the bill.

But just before midnight on Friday, the Senate voted to advance the bill to open debate in a close 51 to 49 vote. One Republican senator originally voted no. He then changed his vote to a yes, which meant that Vice President Vance did not need to come in and break a tie. In case you didn't know, the vice president also serves as the president of the Senate, which breaks ties if need be.

Now, in the Senate, they have some funky rules, which in most cases requires it to actually vote to send a bill to a debate.

And it's not until after open debate that they can actually vote to pass a bill. So there's an additional hurdle in the Senate before a bill passes. And that first vote is what happened on Friday. After that, the 940 page bill was read in full on the Senate floor. Republicans and Democrats each got 10 hours to debate the bill. All of that happened over the weekend.

This morning, the Senate started what's called a voterama, which is a series of amendment votes that has no set end. It only ends once there are no other amendments to vote on. So because of that, the opposing party, in this case, the Democrats, often propose amendments that are unlikely to even pass just to kind of add time to the process and delay the vote.

But a Voterama usually lasts anywhere from 8 to 24 hours, so it could even be done by the time this episode is out. We just don't know. Senate Republicans are hoping to finish the Voterama by the end of the day or the latest tomorrow so they can vote on the bill and then send it as soon as possible to the House. Republican lawmakers are hoping to get it signed into law by the start of the holiday weekend, which means the House would have to pass it in the next few days. So we'll see.

Keep in mind, the House and Senate have to pass the exact same version of the bill. If the bill passes the Senate and it goes to the House and the House makes any changes at all, it has to go back to the Senate and pass again. Now, because all of this is still very much up in the air and a lot can change, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on the bill tech.

I'll spend more time on it once it actually passes and once we know for sure what the bill includes. But I know a lot of you had questions about it. So what I'll do is I'll briefly cover some of the changes that the Senate has made to the House version of the bill because I already covered the House version last month. But I will keep it brief because, like I said, this stuff is just it's subject to change.

Starting with the first notable change, the Senate version of the bill would allow Americans to deduct up to $25,000 for tips and $12,500 for overtime pay through 2028. However, those making more than $150,000 annually would not be entitled to those deductions, and that's different from the House version of the bill, which did not set an income limit on the deductions.

The child tax credit would increase from $2,000 to $2,200 per child under the Senate bill and adjust for inflation after 2025. But that's different than the House version, which would increase the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,500 through 2025, but then lower.

lower it back down to 2000 and adjust for inflation. So the House would give a bigger increase initially and then bring it back down. The Senate would give a smaller increase, but keep it at that number.

The Senate bill would permanently expand the standard deduction to $32,000, which differs from the House temporary expansion through 2028. The Senate version also increases tax deductions for people over 65 years old to $6,000, which is higher than the $4,000 increase in the House version.

The Senate version would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion, which is higher than the $4 trillion increase in the House version. For SNAP, the House version says that able-bodied adults aged 18 to 64 who either have no dependents or have children over the age of 7 will have to work 80 hours per month to be eligible for SNAP.

Currently, this 80-hour work requirement applies to people aged 18 to 54 who have no dependents and are able to work. So basically, the house plan would expand the current age range from 55 to 64 and extend the requirement to include parents with children older than 7.

The Senate version would apply the work requirements to parents with children over age 14, but would also limit states' ability to waive these federal requirements.

When it comes to Medicaid eligibility, the House version of the bill requires able-bodied childless adults to work 80 hours per month to qualify unless they have an approved exemption, which is, you know, seniors, people with disabilities, caregivers for dependent people, pregnant people. Whereas the Senate's version goes further and expands that work requirement to include able-bodied adults with children aged 15 or older.

Next, the SALT deduction. I covered this a few weeks ago when the House passed its version of the bill, but the SALT deduction is the ability to deduct high state income and property taxes when you're filing your federal taxes.

The deduction limit is the cap on the amount of expenses that you can subtract from your federal taxable income. So currently, there is a $10,000 limit on the SALT deduction. That is per the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But the big beautiful bill, both the House and Senate version, would increase that deduction cap to $40,000.

The difference between the House and Senate version is that the Senate would increase the cap through 2028 and eventually return to $10,000, whereas the House would increase the cap for this year, make that cap permanent, but then begin a process of phasing it out for incomes over $500,000.

When it comes to AI regulation, the House version had imposed a 10-year outright ban on all state-level AI regulations. But the Senate version imposes a shorter five-year ban, and the Senate also ties federal funds.

to the ban. So states can regulate AI if they choose to do so, but they risk losing federal funding unless states are regulating AI in areas like child online safety or personal likeness protection. Those types of state regulation will be allowed in the Senate's version of the bill.

And then finally, the Senate version allows a cap and gradual reduction on states' ability to tax Medicaid providers with a phase-out beginning in 2028 and ending once a 3.5% cap is reached. So how this works is this. States impose taxes on health care providers, usually hospitals or long-term care facilities.

Those tax dollars are then used to increase Medicaid payments, triggering a higher federal match, up to 90%.

Currently, states can tax providers up to 6% of net patient revenue. The Senate proposal would lower that cap to 3.5% by 2031, but only for expansion states. Non-expansion states would see their existing tax rates frozen and be barred from implementing new ones. Notably, nursing homes and intermediate care facilities are carved out of this provision, but hospitals and outpatient providers are not.

Republican senators also worked with the Treasury Department to get rid of the revenge tax, as they call it in the House version of the bill, which would have implemented retaliatory measures against foreign countries whose taxes on the United States were deemed to be discriminatory. So under the Senate version, there will be no retaliation from the United States, even if foreign countries impose discriminatory taxes on us.

Now, both the House and Senate versions of the bill will make Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent, reduce taxes on tips and overtime pay, add fees for asylum seekers, overhaul student loans, increase border security funding, and cut energy tax cuts that were passed during the Biden administration. And this includes that $7,500 credit for buying electric vehicles like Teslas and other electric cars.

But again, keep in mind that more change is likely to come specifically when it comes to the national debt and Medicaid. We still have to finish that voterama process in the Senate. Then it has to go to the House. And even in the House, we don't know what will happen. As we know, House Republicans have a slim majority in the House. And as of now, it's being reported that at least six House Republicans are currently planning to vote no on the bill, assuming 5%.

full attendance and full Democratic opposition, Republicans can really only afford to lose three GOP votes for the bill to pass. Of course, if the bill does pass the House, once it passes the Senate, it would go to the president for a signature and become law. If it doesn't pass the House, there are a couple of options.

Either the House can propose additional changes until it does pass, and then it would have to go back to the Senate, and that sort of back and forth would continue until both chambers agree on identical text, or...

or House and Senate leaders could come together, appoint members from each chamber to work together, come up with a final compromise, and then hopefully maybe it'd be a little easier for both chambers to pass that final compromise. If it were passed by both chambers, it would go to the president. If it fails, it fails, it goes nowhere. At the end of the day, here's what I want you to remember. If the text is not identical, there is no law. The Senate and the House have to pass identical text. That is what it comes down to.

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Welcome back. On Friday, President Trump announced that he is suspending or discontinuing trade talks with Canada, citing Canada's digital services tax as the reason behind the decision. By Sunday night, Canada's prime minister said trade talks have resumed after it rescinded its digital services tax plan. So a bit of whiplash, but let's talk about how all of this unfolded.

On Friday, President Trump posted a Truth Social quote.

which is a direct and blatant attack on our country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing and is currently under discussion with us also. Based on this egregious tax, we are hereby terminating all discussions on trade with Canada effective immediately. We will let Canada know the tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven-day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

End quote. Now, I know a lot of you are wondering what digital services taxes are and how they work because I know I was. So unlike taxes on physical products, a digital services tax allows countries to tax online services, right? It's pretty self-explanatory when you think about it. So countries with digital services taxes can collect revenue from companies that operate online regardless of whether the company has a physical presence in the country imposing the tax.

As an example, if a company based in the United States is selling to customers in Canada and Canada has a digital services tax, Canada can collect taxes on the Canadian sales of that U.S.-based business.

In the summer of 2024, Canada approved the Digital Services Tax Act, which would require technology firms making more than $820 million in global revenue and more than $14.7 million in revenue from Canadian users to pay a 3% tax on revenues generated from those Canadian users. So one company that comes to mind is Meta, right? Under this Digital Services Tax Act,

meta would have had to pay a three percent tax on the revenue that it earned from canadian users not only this year but also 2022 2023 and 2024 and then each year going forward and the first of those payments were due was due today

Now, several other countries have introduced similar digital services taxes like France, the UK, Spain, Italy, etc. In 2019, France was actually one of the first to introduce this type of tax, which, like Canada, imposed a 3% tax on revenues from digital platforms, online advertising, and the sales of user data. Other countries like the UK, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Turkey have rates ranging from 2% to 7.5%.

So these taxes certainly exist, but Trump cited this digital services tax specifically from Canada as the reason he was ending trade talks with Canada. According to a report by the bipartisan Congressional Research Service, big tech companies like Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are disproportionately affected by these digital service taxes.

Earlier this month, 21 bipartisan lawmakers sent a letter to President Trump asking him to address Canada's Digital Services Tax Act. That letter said in part, quote, We write to express our serious concerns regarding Canada's discriminatory Digital Services Tax Act

and urge you to push for its removal before the first payment is due on June 30th, 2025. This first payment retroactively covers 2022, 2023, and 2024 and will cost U.S. companies $2 billion. Going forward, U.S. companies are expected to pay up to $2.3 billion annually. In fact, 90% of what Canada will collect under the law will be from U.S.

companies, end quote. So once Trump announced on Friday that trade talks were being suspended, Canada then went ahead and retaliated by imposing a quota on certain steel imports as well as a 50% surcharge, which is basically an extra fee for those steel imports that exceed the quota.

According to Canada, this was a temporary measure to help stabilize the Canadian steel market. But then a couple of days pass and on Sunday night, Canada's prime minister said Canada would actually rescind the Digital Services Tax Act in anticipation of a trade deal with the United States. His statement said, quote, today's announcement will support a resumption of negotiations towards the July 21st, 2025 timeline set out at this month's G7 leaders summit.

So as of today, trade talks will resume and U.S. businesses will not face that 3% Canadian digital services tax.

Okay, so for today's Supreme Court discussion, we are going to cover a few recent decisions, but I want to start by talking about one ruling from last week that a lot of you had questions about, and that is the ruling that allowed the deportation of migrants to third-party countries. So soon after President Trump was elected, he reinstated the safe third-country policy, which allowed the removal of immigrants to third countries or countries other than their country of origin.

Earlier this year, a court issued a nationwide injunction blocking these kinds of third country deportations. Last week, the Supreme Court paused that nationwide injunction, meaning the administration could continue deporting individuals to third countries.

At the same time, or I guess I should say shortly before that, a judge in Boston in a different case had ruled that eight specific migrants that are currently being held in East Africa are still protected under an earlier ruling of his that afforded them 15 days notice and a meaningful opportunity to

prove that they would face torture or death if deported to a third country. So even after the Supreme Court put on hold that nationwide injunction in that separate case, the Boston judge essentially argued, well, you know, even though my ruling has to do with third country deportations, my ruling is different because I specifically ruled on these eight individuals. I did not issue a nationwide injunction.

And consequently, despite the recent Supreme Court ruling, these eight individuals are entitled to 15 days notice and a meaningful opportunity to challenge their removal.

So now what happens is despite the Supreme Court issue that order, the judge in Boston said my order is still in effect. So the Trump administration has actually gone back to the Supreme Court asking it to clarify whether its decision last week cancels all lower court barriers to third country deportations or if individual judges can still block specific removals like this Boston judge did.

From here, the Supreme Court will have to clarify its order from last week and tell us whether that ruling applies also to these more specific rulings.

But speaking of nationwide injunctions, let's talk about Trump versus Casa. So Trump versus Casa is the birthright citizenship case. But remember, the ruling we got last week did not settle the issue of whether Trump's birthright citizenship policy is constitutional or unconstitutional. Instead, the question was much more specific. It was whether courts are allowed to actually shouldn't even say the question is more specific. The question was just

very different, right? The question was, are courts allowed to issue nationwide injunctions? So let me give you some context. And if you already saw my post to social media on Friday, this might sound a little redundant, but I'll be adding in a few extra details throughout. Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order, which basically said that to be granted citizenship at birth when born on U.S. soil, at least one of your parents has to be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States.

Currently, under our precedent, so long as you are born on U.S. soil, you automatically receive U.S. citizenship. The status of your parents is irrelevant. They just have to live here. Now, the debate is over a particular phrase in the 14th Amendment. So the 14th Amendment says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.

Now, ever since 1898, the established precedent has been that a child born in the United States to non-citizen parents is a U.S. citizen at birth so long as their parents are domiciled in the U.S., meaning the parents were living in the U.S. permanently and continuously. Legal immigration status has never been required.

Now, the question back in 1898 and now focuses on whether a child's parents are subject to the jurisdiction thereof, right? Meaning they live here, they work here, they're subject to U.S. laws. So on one hand, you have the argument that undocumented or illegal immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because they're actually subject to the jurisdiction and laws of their home country. They're not permanent lawful residents here.

On the other hand, you have the argument that regardless of immigration status, they're still subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because they're living here, in most cases working here, and they have to abide by the laws while they're here. So that's the debate, just to touch on it briefly. I don't think now is the time to get deep into those arguments because the debate isn't even what we're talking about here. I'll talk about that more later.

when the merits of the case are actually at issue. Like I said, the Supreme Court's recent ruling had nothing to do with the merits of the case. It had everything to do with whether courts are allowed to issue nationwide injunctions.

So once Trump issues this policy, this birthright citizenship order, it was challenged in the courts. And what the district court judge did is he said, while the merits of this case are being considered, while the constitutionality of this order is being considered, I'm going to prohibit the administration from enforcing this order nationwide. Now, that's called a nationwide injunction or a universal injunction. These kinds of broad injunctions aren't unheard of. They've definitely become more and more common in the last 10 to 15 years.

The alternative course of action is a regular injunction, which just protects the individuals that actually filed the lawsuit. As an example, you're my neighbor. I sue you because you're a nuisance. You play music too loud. The judge might issue an injunction prohibiting you from playing your loud music and being a nuisance to me, but the judge probably won't prohibit you from being a nuisance to the rest of the neighborhood unless the other neighbors sued you as well. Now, a lot of presidents have, or I shouldn't even say a lot of presidents, because I'm

nationwide injunctions are just this new thing in the last 10 to 15 years. So really, Presidents Trump, Obama and Biden are the ones that have taken issue with these nationwide injunctions. And it's because as they argue, these nationwide injunctions interfere with their ability to enforce their presidential policies. In fact, for years, while President Biden was in office, he asked the justices to weigh in on the issue of nationwide injunctions, but they chose not to.

So, when the district court issued this nationwide injunction in the birthright citizenship case and in effect prohibited the administration from enforcing this order against anyone,

The Trump administration took it to the Supreme Court and argued the same thing that the past administrations have argued, which is that district courts do not have the authority to remedy situations for individuals who have not brought suit. And therefore, district courts or courts generally cannot issue these broad universal injunctions that apply to everyone, even to non-plaintiffs. And this all goes back to what's called the Case in Controversy Clause of the Constitution, which...

which says that federal courts can't decide hypothetical questions, right? There has to be a real concrete dispute between parties. So the administration's argument is that if the whole nation didn't bring the lawsuit, you can't remedy a situation for the whole nation because that's not the controversy before the court. The argument on the other side of this, though, is that if courts can't issue these universal injunctions,

The executive order would harm those people who didn't bring suit. So the only way to give complete and equitable relief, as a court is supposed to do, is by blocking the order nationwide. But on Friday, the court sided with the administration. The majority of justices held that universal injunctions likely exceed the authority of federal courts

and said that injunctions have to be limited to what is necessary to give complete relief to the plaintiffs who actually sued. If a policy harms other people, those other people have to sue too, or the plaintiffs have to properly use a class action. And we'll talk about that more in a minute. But what this means is that

The district court can only prohibit the administration from enforcing its birthright citizenship order against the individual plaintiffs that challenged it, not the whole country. So a few things to note here. Number one, this decision allows the administration to start enforcing its order against those not named in a lawsuit 30 days from the date of the Supreme Court's ruling. However, what the district court judge could do is certify the lawsuit as a class action. Now, why would he do that?

Well, if he did that, it would allow him to issue an injunction for an entire class of people without issuing a nationwide injunction. So, for example, maybe the certified class is all pregnant undocumented women. If the judge issued an injunction prohibiting the administration from enforcing its order against the certified class, that would be a lawful way to protect all pregnant undocumented women.

Now, if that happens, if the judge does certify the lawsuit as a class action and defines the class, we might see the administration appeal that certification, too, because there's certain factors and requirements that have to be met to certify a case. But we could see the administration appeal that, too. This case could come right back to the Supreme Court. However, it's worth noting class action status is something that the Supreme Court intentionally left open here.

Now, the other thing to keep in mind is that this decision affects all universal injunctions, not just the universal injunction issued in the birthright citizenship case. So any universal injunction currently in place in the United States will have to be modified unless, of course, it's issued under valid class action authority. And then the last thing I'll say is the question of whether Trump's birthright citizenship order is constitutional or unconstitutional. Statistically,

still has yet to be answered by the courts. The district court, which is the lowest federal court, hasn't even gotten there yet. Once the district court answers that question, it'll likely get appealed to the appellate court and then eventually to the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court will have to get involved in this case again to answer the question of constitutionality, but that'll happen with time. And of course, the Supreme Court could always decide not to get involved and just leave the decision with the court below, but we won't know that until the time comes. So for

now the administration can begin enforcing the birthright citizenship order in about 27 days and the injunction will only protect those that bring suit unless the judge certifies the suit as class action and defines the class that the suit covers first i know a lot of you had questions about that ruling so hopefully that clears up some of those questions

For now, let's move on to another recent decision, which was the decision in Medina versus Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court held that Planned Parenthood and an individual patient do not have legal standing. They do not have the legal right to challenge South Carolina's decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from the state's Medicaid program. So in July 2018, South Carolina decided that Planned Parenthood could no longer participate in the state's Medicaid program.

And it cited state law that prohibits the use of public funds for abortion, which, by the way, multiple states have enacted similar laws. But at the time, Planned Parenthood operated two clinics in South Carolina, which offered a variety of services, abortions as well as non-abortion services, to both Medicaid and non-Medicaid patients. Now, it's important to note, too, that federal law generally prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for abortion, but Planned

Planned Parenthood can still receive funds for other services that it provides. So the South Carolina governor argued that because those funds can be kind of used interchangeably, they could be used for abortion. That's why all this happened. So the law was enacted and Planned Parenthood and an individual patient sued the state, arguing that the exclusion of Planned Parenthood from the state's Medicaid program violated what's called the Any Qualified Provider Provision of Medicaid.

Now, what the any qualified provider provision says is that if a state receives federal funds for Medicaid, states have to ensure that Medicaid beneficiaries can receive medical treatment from any qualified provider. If states don't do that, they can lose federal funds.

But South Carolina's argument was, look, we might have cut off a specific provider, but you, Planned Parenthood and patient, you guys can't sue us for that. This is for the government to handle with us if they want to. If the government has an issue with it, they can do something about it, but you guys can't bring a private lawsuit.

And in a six to three decision, the justices agreed with the state. They basically said that, yeah, Medicaid law says states can't stop you from using any qualified provider. But this language doesn't amount to an enforceable personal right. Instead, it's a general condition that Congress puts on funding. So if a state violates it, it's up to the federal government to enforce not individual patients through private lawsuits.

In effect, what this decision does is it places limits on private enforcement of Medicaid rights. OK, so patients now under this precedent, not just when it comes to Planned Parenthood or abortion, they have to rely on the federal government to step in to enforce violations of Medicaid law. Patients can't necessarily take matters into their own hands unless specifically allowed by law. Let's take our second and final break here. When I come back, we'll talk about a few more cases out of the Supreme Court before getting to quick hitters and critical thinking.

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Welcome back. The next case we are going to cover, just kind of moving right along with these Supreme Court decisions, is Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton. Now, this case dealt with

a state law requiring porn sites to verify the age of users before providing access. So in 2023, Texas passed a law which required websites to verify the age of users if more than one third of the site's content contains sexual material that could be harmful to minors.

In response, the Free Speech Coalition, which is a trade association for the adult entertainment industry, sued the state arguing that the law violated the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause. The plaintiffs alleged that adults have a right to access this content, which is protected by the First Amendment, and that this new law hinders that access and therefore violates the First Amendment. Now, when a court is deciding whether a law violates the Free Speech Clause, it's

The court considers both the nature of the speech and the burden imposed by the law. So what kind of speech is it and what kind of burden is the law placing on that speech? And as we've talked about before, without getting too too into it, there are three different standards of scrutiny that courts can apply, right? So...

Under strict scrutiny, you know, which is the highest level of scrutiny and applies to laws that infringe on our fundamental rights, the government has to show that there is no better, less unfair way to do what it's trying to do.

Intermediate scrutiny is the middle level of scrutiny. To pass, the law has to further an important government interest in a way that is substantially related to that interest, use means that are a close fit to the government's goal, and be content neutral. And then finally, you have rational basis review, which is the lowest level of scrutiny that the courts apply. And it's easiest for laws to pass this because the law just has to be rationally related to a legitimate government interest.

The idea here is laws should be harder to pass constitutional muster if they infringe on more important rights.

So in this case, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court said that intermediate scrutiny should apply here because the law only incidentally burdens adult speech. The law doesn't ban adults from accessing porn. It just makes them prove that they're adults first. So because intermediate scrutiny was applied and because the courts found that minors have no right at all to this type of content and privacy,

protecting kids is an important government goal and age checks are a reasonable way to achieve that goal, the law could stand. Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion. And again, the court's three liberal justices, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissented.

In the dissent, Justice Kagan argued that the Texas law should have been reviewed using strict scrutiny because it, quote, covers speech constitutionally protected for adults, impedes adults' ability to view that speech, and imposes the burden based on the speech's consequences.

content. End quote. At least 21 other states, by the way, have laws similar to Texas's law, so this decision upholds each of those 21 laws as well. So as long as laws don't outright ban adults from accessing porn, age verification laws do not violate the First Amendment.

The next case to talk about is Mahmoud versus Taylor. This one, I think this is the second to last case we're talking about. This one is about parents being offered an opportunity to opt their children out of school instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation. And we're actually going to come back to this case in the critical thinking segment.

So this case stemmed from a school district's introduction of storybooks like Pride Puppy and Born Ready, which had LGBTQ storylines and were incorporated into the curriculum without offering prior notice or the ability.

for parents to excuse their children. And that was actually a policy reversal from earlier in the school year. Previously, parents were given the opportunity to opt their children out, but the opportunity was taken away by the district because the district said that there were too many opt-outs and the number of opt-outs were disrupting the classroom. So various parents from different religious backgrounds end up bringing a lawsuit, and they argue that the mandatory exposure to this kind of material, which conflicted with their faith,

placed a substantial burden on their ability to exercise their religion freely and to direct their children's religious upbringing under the First Amendment. And they relied heavily on a 1972 case where the court said, the Supreme Court said, that Amish parents could remove kids from high school to protect their religious teachings.

But when they sued, they also asked for a preliminary injunction, which, as we've talked about before, requires the defendant to stop doing something while the lawsuit plays out. In this case, if the preliminary injunction were granted, the school district would have had to give the parents an opportunity to object while this litigation continued, right? But the district court denied the parents' request for an injunction, and the appellate court also denied the parents' request.

So the parents went to the Supreme Court and in another six to three decision on Friday, the justices sided with the parents saying that a preliminary injunction was necessary because requiring kids to engage with these books substantially interferes with the parents right to teach their own religious views.

The dissenting justices, Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, argued that the books are just mere exposure to ideas and not forced indoctrination, and therefore the preliminary injunction was not necessary. So what this really means is that while the district court considers the merits of this case,

The school district has to offer parents the opportunity to opt their children out of LGBTQ classroom instruction. Once the district court renders a decision on the merits, the losing party will, I'm sure, appeal to the appellate court. From there, this case could very well make its way back to the Supreme Court. And at that point is when the Supreme Court would decide the actual merits of the case. But this decision was based on the preliminary injunction.

The next case, and I think this is the last one, is Braidwood Management v. Kennedy. So this case arose when Braidwood Management, a Christian-owned company in Texas, challenged the Affordable Care Act's requirement that insurance plans cover certain preventative services, like an HPV prevention medication called PrEP.

Now, the reason that Braidwood objected to this ACA requirement is because it's a Christian-owned business that doesn't feel that its company insurance should cover preventative medication for HIV. Braidwood management argued that such mandates violated their religious beliefs. But the way that they went about challenging the ACA mandate is by arguing that the task force members who made these preventative recommendations

that ultimately led to insurance coverage were not properly appointed under the Constitution's Appointments Clause. And therefore, any recommendations that they've made should be declared void. So just to back up a little bit, under the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommends which preventative health services, like cancer screenings, have to be covered by insurance for free. No copay, no deductible, no cost sharing, etc.,

The task force is made up of 16 volunteer experts, which are appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Now, under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, we have inferior officers and we have principalities.

principal officers. Principal officers require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, whereas inferior officers can simply just be appointed by department heads. So Braidwood Management argued that these task force members are actually principal officers, and therefore they have to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, not just appointed by the HHS secretary. The core legal question here was, of course,

What kind of officers make up the task force? Are they inferior or are they principal? And in yet another six to three decision, this one authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the court ruled that the task force members are inferior officers and can therefore lawfully be appointed by the HHS secretary. The majority reason that because the HHS secretary has the power to appoint, oversee, and remove task force members at will is

and has the power to block or modify the task force's recommendations before they actually bind insurers, this level of control by the HHS secretary is sufficient to meet constitutional requirements for inferior officers. In other words, these task force members work under the secretary's supervision. They are not independent principal officers like the HHS secretary, the secretary of state, the attorney general, etc.,

So because the appointments of the task force were upheld, the decision effectively preserved the ACA's preventative care mandate, which means that services like PrEP, cancer screenings, immunizations, et cetera, will continue to be covered by insurance companies.

unless, of course, the task force removes those recommendations, but that's a whole other thing. The dissent in this case, written by Justice Thomas and joined by Justices Alito and Gorsuch, which are the three more conservative justices on the bench, criticized the majority for skipping what they call a more foundational question, which they said was whether Congress had even delegated the authority to appoint task force members to the HHS secretary in the

Thomas argued that the court should have sent the case back to the lower courts to resolve that statutory issue first, suggesting that the delegation itself may have been flawed regardless of whether the appointments were constitutionally sound.

All right, so those are the cases that we needed to cover. Those are the ones most people are talking about. A couple more things about the Supreme Court, though, before we get into quick hitters. And these are just some interesting statistics that I wanted to share with you from this term. These statistics actually come from the SCOTUS blog, which I recommended to all of you in the past.

Skoda Swag does this really cool thing called the stat pack where they compile all of the trends that we saw from the Supreme Court during their term. So for this most recent term, there was a 42% unanimity rate, meaning 42% of the court's opinions were decided unanimously. This is actually down from 44% in the previous term and 50% in the 2022-2023 term. A

About 9% of the opinions this term were decided in a 6-3 vote, which is along ideological lines, right? The conservative justices up against the liberal justices. And this is compared to an average 13.7% ideological split in the 2020-2024, or I should say 2020 through 2024 terms.

Chief Justice Roberts was in the majority in 95% of the opinions of the court this term, which is the most of any justice. The justice that was in the majority the least was Justice Jackson. She was in the majority in 72% of the court's opinions this term. And you can access even more statistics like this by going to SCOTUSblog.com and downloading their full stat pack.

I use SCOTUSblog for a lot of reasons. They always have this live chat whenever Supreme Court decisions come out. That's really fun. It's just honestly a really great resource for everything Supreme Court related. And that brings me to my reminder that I just want to give you before we get to quick hitters. I'll be posting a special Supreme Court episode in a few weeks, I believe Monday, July 21st.

And in that episode, I cover everything from when the Supreme Court was founded to where it was originally located, how many justices sit on the bench, who they are, how they're chosen, the difference between the chief justice and the associate justices, how the court's procedure works, how opinions are issued, the format of oral arguments. I mean, there's just so much information in that episode for you to learn from. So stay tuned for that. Like I said, I think it's July 21st.

All right, let's do some quick hitters. Jury deliberations began in P. Diddy's trial today. He's been charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking, and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. If found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, though the sex trafficking charge also has a mandatory minimum of 15 years, just two hours extra

After the jury went into deliberations, they sent a note to the judge saying that they were worried that juror number 25, quote, does not follow, end quote, the judge's instructions. So that'll be tough. The judge ultimately sent the jury a letter back reminding every juror of their duty to deliberate on a verdict.

If there are any other updates between now and late tonight, I will be including it in tomorrow's newsletter. So this is a great reminder to subscribe if you're not already. Like I've said a million times now, you can always find the signup link in the show notes.

The Trump administration told Harvard today that a federal investigation found that it violated federal civil rights laws over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students. In a letter to the university, the administration accused Harvard of knowing that Jewish and Israeli students felt threatened on campus and acted with deliberate indifference.

The letter said failure to institute adequate charges immediately will result in the loss of federal funds and resources. The letter comes one month after Columbia University received a similar letter. And to be clear, these kinds of formal notices typically come before either a lawsuit or a voluntary resolution between the parties.

The Supreme Court said today that it would hear a case about campaign finance restrictions next term. The case was originally brought on behalf of two Republican candidates running for Senate, one of those Republican candidates being now Vice President Vance. But the judges will ultimately have to decide whether federal limits on campaign spending by political parties violate free speech protections under the First Amendment.

This decision could obviously have major implications on campaign spending in the United States going forward, so we'll have to see what happens with it. And finally, a new iPhone app is helping people track ICE sightings. The app, which is called IceBlock, alerts users about nearby ICE activity. Users can drop a pin on a map that shows where they last saw ICE agents and can also include notes describing details about the officers or their cars.

Anyone else that has the app within a five mile radius will then get a notification about the sighting. The app's creator said the goal isn't to interfere with ICE operations, but rather to help people avoid agents. Okay, so finally, we're going to do some critical thinking. I try to include these in every episode, but it just gets away from me because the episodes get too long and

whatever. You know how it goes. Maybe you don't, but either way. Let's do today's critical thinking segment, which is just an exercise to get you to kind of jog your brain and challenge the way that you think, challenge your own opinions. It's not meant to be too complex. It's not meant to stump you. It's just, like I said, kind of meant to be a challenge. So for today's critical thinking segment, I want to go back to the case of Mahmoud versus Taylor, the one that dealt with the LGBTQ lessons in the classroom and the rights of parents. There

There are a few things that we could think about here, and I want to preface this by highlighting the fact that the court's decision last week dealt with the permissibility of a preliminary injunction. The court did not issue a decision on the merits of the case, but I want to talk about the merits of the case anyway because I think the arguments pose interesting questions. So first, if...

the court says that parents have a constitutional right to opt out of lessons that conflict with religious beliefs, it could raise the question of could parents now demand opt-outs for other topics that they find to be, you know, objectionable on religious grounds, right? So topics like evolution, sex education, maybe even climate change. So my question for you is this. Where should courts draw the line, if at all, between parents

protecting religious freedom and ensuring students receive a consistent education, meaning consistent with the other students. If every parent is able to pick and choose the curriculum, do we end up with a fractured public education system where kids are not sharing a common foundation? Is that practical? And if not, how would you deal with that? The second thing to think about is exposure versus indoctrination. And this is something that we saw in the decision. It was a big tension.

It's whether merely exposing children to certain books or ideas actually infringes on parental religious freedom or whether it's just part of an education. So the majority and the parents argue the former, the dissent and the school district argue the latter. The school argued that kids aren't being forced to believe or adopt LGBTQ identities. They're just seeing that LGBTQ people exist.

The parents argued and the majority argued that even exposure, you know, pressures young kids to accept ideas that conflict with their religious teachings about sexuality and gender. So the deeper question here is, is there a difference between teaching about something and promoting something? When does exposure cross the line into indoctrination and why? Why are you drawing the line where you are?

And then if you want a bonus question, you can think about age. Should age affect how much control parents have over curriculum content? So if a 17-year-old high school student reads an assigned novel about, you know, a controversial topic, is that the same as a first grader reading a picture book? And how would you draw that line? That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, don't forget about that newsletter and I will talk to you again soon.