CNN senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic says that over the past day, "all of the tensions on so many issues" were on display among the justices. Biskupic was in the room for over an hour Friday as the justices read their decisions and dissents for the final decisions of the term.
On the decision limiting LGBTQ protections: Justice Neil Gorsuch presented the conservative majority's side of the case, and all the context he drew out had to do with free speech, Biskupic said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, sitting right next to him, then drew a contrast in her dissent. She said it was not about freedom of speech but about conduct and status, asserting that it could lead to other forms of discrimination. She also said that the court has changed in just five years, according to Biskupic.
"The cases she invoked had to do with serious discrimination," Biskupic said, pointing to Sotomayor bringing up a case from the Civil Rights era regarding a barbecue restaurant that wouldn't serve Black customers at their tables and only at the window.
"She said, 'It is as if this Lorie Smith in this case, who runs this 303 Creative enterprise, will only sell at the side counter,'" Biskupic said, referring to the Colorado web designer who cited religious objections in refusing to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings.
Gorsuch, who Biskupic said usually just tilts his head toward Sotomayor, looked straight at her, "not flinching at all," she said.
Sotomayor "referred to the kind of discrimination that gays and lesbians face right now, and the kinds of, you know, movements that we have seen in the states. And she referred to state laws that are right now being created across the country that could allow discrimination against gay rights. And she said, 'At this kind of time, what does the Supreme Court do? It shrinks back from duty to protect people, and instead, signals that these people's rights are not in need of protection,'" Biskupic recalled.
On the student loans decision: In a "brisk voice and tone,"Chief Justice John Roberts "cut to the chase," according to Biskupic.
"He said something that will have reverberations in so many areas of regulation and protection for people that government wants to protect – in environment, student loans, health, welfare — he said that the secretary of education went beyond what Congress would have wanted to do at all in this matter," Biskupic said.
Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent, then said that Roberts had "picked out parts of the statute that suit the majority's interest," and she stressed the reverberations the decision would have in other areas of government regulation and protection.
"What a different Court we have in America today," Kagan concluded, according to Biskupic.
Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, Roberts closed out the high court's term, "and to paraphrase what dissenters said last year, I am sure this majority is not quite done with its work going forward, beginning in the fall," Biskupic said.
