Skrmetti

Yeah, I missed badly on this one, sorry to say. 6-3, by the Chief, following the usual political lines and arguments. Justice Kagan's short dissent argues the position I thought the Court would take--heightened scrutiny applies (she joins Sotomayor's primary dissent on this), kick it back to the lower court.

Also, I hope this ends the "Barrett is less conservative and more moderate than everyone thinks" bullshit in non-legal media. On every "culture-war" issue (such as equal protection and discrimination), she is in lockstep with the Republican-appointed supermajority. In fact, she went further than the majority here, with a concurrence (joined by Thomas and echoed by Alito in a separate concurrence) arguing that transgender people are not a discrete-and-insular minority with a history a de jure discrimination as to warrant quasi-suspect classification and heightened scrutiny. (The majority said the law did not discriminate on trans status and thus no need to decide the suspect-class issue).

Now, that is fine if that is her jurisprudential position. She is a member of the Court and gets to make those decisions according to her judicial philosophy. But the mainstream media continues to fail (and fail and fail) at its basic job if it writes softball stories suggesting Barrett is something other than what she is, at least on the stuff of larger societal import.*

[*] See also all the simplistic stories about the Court's new-found unanimity.