The Supreme Court on Monday morning denied review in several notable cases, leaving lower-court outcomes in place in disputes involving voting rights, the environment and a trademark fight tied to a company founded by LeBron James.
The denials came as part of a list of orders released from the justices' June 18 conference, and they landed on a day when the Court was also signaling that other fights were not finished. In separate action, the justices asked for the federal government's views in challenges involving a state bar association's leadership-selection process and an Oregon reporting requirement for prescription drug makers.
That mix matters because it shows the Court choosing not to intervene in some cases while keeping others alive for more briefing. The requests for views from the U.S. solicitor general in Saadeh v. New Jersey State Bar Association and in Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. O'Day mean those disputes are still moving, even as the Court let the denials stand without comment in several noteworthy cases.
Saadeh reached the Supreme Court in February after a state appeals court upheld the New Jersey State Bar Association's practice under the First Amendment. The appeals court said forcing the association to change or scrap its diversity program would significantly burden its expression, while Saadeh argued that illegal discrimination does not become constitutional just because it is done in the name of diversity. The Oregon case, meanwhile, centers on a law that requires prescription drug makers to report information about some drug prices to the state, which generally posts the material on a website.
The Court's own sequence leaves one thing unresolved for readers looking specifically at voting rights: the orders did not identify which petitions in that category were turned away. The justices will meet again on Thursday, June 25, and the Court is likely to release the next batch of orders on Monday, June 29, at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
