The Morning Dispatch: Supreme Court Reportedly Poised to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Happy Tuesday! Dispatch Live is back tonight at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT! As you will soon see, there will, uh, be no shortage of things to talk about.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • Late Monday night, Politico published what it reported as a draft majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito showing the Supreme Court is prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade this term. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett reportedly voted with Alito to overturn the legal precedent governing abortion, and, according to Politico’s source, that lineup remains unchanged as of this week. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes in the initial draft, which is not final until released by the Court—likely in the next two months. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

  • In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the city of Boston violated the First Amendment by blocking Harold Shurtleff’s request to fly a Christian flag on one of three flagpoles outside City Hall during an event in 2017. The city had approved nearly 300 such requests between 2005 and 2017 but rejected Shurtleff’s application out of fear flying a religious flag on government property would violate the Establishment Clause. Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer argued Boston’s “lack of meaningful involvement in the selection of flags … leads the Court to classify the third-party flag raisings as private, not government, speech.”

  • U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly—a Trump appointee—rejected the Republican National Committee’s effort to block one of its third-party vendors from releasing records to the January 6 Select Committee, arguing the subpoena does not violate the First or Fourth Amendments. Kelly also shot down the RNC’s broader claim that the Select Committee itself is illegitimate because Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected GOP members recommended by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The committee subsequently announced it was requesting testimony from GOP Reps. Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, and Ronny Jackson about the events leading up to January 6.

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