Advisory Opinions - Third Time’s the Charm?

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Sarah Isgur and David French discuss the Missouri redistricting case now that the 8th Circuit has weighed in. Let’s stipulate that everything is a mess. Then, the two go through a few listener mailbag questions, including controversial school murals, marijuana law, and court packing.  The Agenda: –SCOTUSblog coverage on the redistricting case –India’s Supreme Court, standing doctrine, and stagnation –The Rohrabacher–Farr Amendment and David being wrong –Sarah’s favorite sentence and Judge Jeff Sutton –Rage bait: Congress is maybe not the problem –How many justices is too many? Order Sarah’s book here. Advisory Opinions is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes—click here. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I was born ready. Welcome to advisory opinions. I'm Sarah Isger. That's David French. Oh my God. We're going to try to break down the Missouri redistricting case for the third time because it's going to the Supreme Court for the third time. So the first time, we didn't cover it enough. The second time, maybe we did, but it doesn't matter because now the Eighth Circuit has weighed in. The Eighth Circuit has entered the chat. Okay, so we will do that. And then we have got some amazing listener questions, including my favorite line that has ever been in a listener email. But we've got questions on. standing on marijuana, on what would actually happen if we made the Supreme Court 15 seats, and a mural that has been in that middle school for 10 years. Can they paint over it? All this and more on advisory opinions. All right, David, before we get to the mailbag, we do have some Supreme Court news to do.

I can't believe we're still doing this, but Missouri's redistricting map is headed up to the Supreme Court for the third time. Now, we are taping this on Wednesday afternoon, Justice Kavanaugh has asked for briefing within minutes, David. It is due. In fact, by my clock, they currently have 22 minutes left to file their briefs. Yes, we are looking at the same clock, 22 minutes to get your brief in, guys. So while I'm not expecting the decision today, you know, within hours or a day or two of this podcast coming out. I think we will have the Supreme Court's third decision. That being said, let's lay the groundwork for how we got here, where we are right now, and our best predictions as to where we're going, which at this point, I don't know whether to like pick the obvious or

if I need to start like thinking in like interdimensional space by the time we're here three times in a month. We're on the same page. We're on the same page. A bit of befuddlement going on here. but yes, let's lay it out. Okay. So, David, last time you laid out the facts, correct me if I get anything wrong, because I do think you're the better fact expert than I am. But the short version is Missouri has a new map, we'll call it the 2025 map. It replaces the 2022 map and gets rid of a democratically held congressional district and redistricted it to make it Republican.

This is the same thing that we're seeing happen in Texas. and Virginia and California and all the states, right? They're all doing these mid-decade redistricting as, you know, a sort of, this is why we can't have nice things, but also like once one state moved, in this case, Texas, all the other states reacted in kind to try to undo Texas and then undo California, and here we are. Okay, so they have this 2025 map, and under Missouri law, citizens can basically always ask for a referendum on like any, well, for our purposes on these changes.

And so they do. They file their petition. They have all the signatures that they need. And then the Secretary of State has until August 5th to say whether or not they get that referendum. The primary was on August 4th. So he waited lawfully. Did the primary in August 4th. And on August 5th was like, oh, yeah, I guess. guess we do need a referendum. I mean, he didn't actually acknowledge that, but like kind of did. He did go by the deadline, the final, final deadline. The referendum folks sued the Missouri Supreme Court because actually he said he didn't need a referendum because it didn't apply to redistricting. The Missouri Supreme Court was like, yes, you do. And the 2025 map that you used for the primary

was never the map because they used this referendum policy. So basically, like, the primary didn't happen, and you need to go back to the 2022 map. The Secretary of State, Missouri, the one who wants to use the 2025 map, went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Justice Kavanaugh backhanded him and was like, gnaw dog, Missouri Supreme Court said this and, like, we're done. Footnote, by the way, of why that goes to Justice Kavanaugh, as we've explained before, every circuit in the United States has a circuit justice. So Justice Alito has the Fifth Circuit. Justice Kavanaugh has the Eighth Circuit. So if you've got a case coming out of Missouri and you're trying to get the Supreme Court to do something on the interim docket, it will first go to your circuit justice. They can then refer it to the court. In this case, Justice Kavanaugh. No. Loves him some Missouri Supreme Court reading state law.

Okay. So then they go to federal court. This had all been in state court. Then they go to federal court. then they go to federal court. The district judge is like, look, I get that the state law says that that referendum is valid and all of that, but to hold a general election with a different map than you had the primary election would violate federal law. So actually, go back to the 25 map and hold the general election under that. Then the other side takes it to the Supreme Court. This time, it is referred to the full court. And the full court. And the full court, court nod-dogs it. And David, the language that the full court uses is kind of important here. It says, pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari in this court, if such writ is timely sought, you can't use the 2025 math. Well, they've since then been to the Eighth Circuit. The Eighth Circuit fast-tracked the whole thing and issued its opinion. It was, for our purposes, two to one, two to one saying, yes, use the 2025 map. And so now they're like, great. Missouri's like, wonderful. We're going to use the 2025 map. And the other side's like, wait a second. The Supreme Court said that you have to use the 2022 map pending the disposition of the appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Okay, check. And disposition of a writ for

certiorari at the Supreme Court. But that hasn't happened. So what are you talking about? You're going to use the 2025 map. So, David, we have a couple things to discuss here. Yes. One. Did the Eighth Circuit get it right

on the substance, which can be a totally different discussion than which map they should use for 2026, by the way? Right. Correct. Because you might have Purcell problems. There could be all sorts of reasons for this. Basically, is there a federal problem, even if the state of Missouri says use the 2022 map, is there a federal problem

that would cause you to need to use the 2025 map? Okay, that's question number one. Two, did the Supreme Court's disposition of the last federal appeal, which was the district court, already mean that, like, what are we doing here? Why? Huh? Like, does that just handle this entirely? And then number three, if not to, what's the Supreme Court going to do? those are my three questions to you. It's a mess. Yeah. Okay, so let's answer, try to do our best on number one. then I think number two and three are a little bit easier maybe to answer than number one. So number one, and maybe. I mean, I don't know.

At this point, I don't know. But, okay. So if you read the Eighth Circuit opinion, what it essentially says is, look, there was a constitutional violation if you have a primary election under one map and a general election under another map. What you've done is you've disenfranchised those voters who voted for one candidate in the primary, but then find out that in the general election, you're not. going to be deciding based on the candidates you voted for in the primary. And so the Eighth Circuit puts a lot of, puts a great deal of weight on the fact that plaintiffs tried to enjoin the primary before the primary was held and failed. So a lot of plaintiffs were like, hey, we got a referendum. Don't hold this primary. You can't hold this primary while this referendum is pending. And court said,

well, essentially the argument was, well, wait a minute, we have the primary on the calendar. The Secretary of State doesn't have to respond yet, okay? And so how can we block a primary when we don't even know if the referendum is legally valid? But here's the part that I think the Eighth Circuit didn't put enough weight on. Both state and federal courts said to the Secretary of State, you're playing a dangerous game here, dude, because if the referendum is valid, this new map isn't law. If the referendum is not valid, then the new map is, the new map is in place. So he was warned. Your referendum can't be valid if the referendum is valid. And so that's why the timing here is so, means so much,

because he waited until the very end to deem the referendum invalid, but what the Missouri Supreme Court said is under Missouri law, you're completely wrong. This referendum was valid. And because it was valid, the new map was never law. And so the whole proceeding up,

the courts were saying to the Secretary of State, you better pray this new map, the referendum isn't valid. because if it is valid, you got a problem, dude. And now what he's doing is he's going to the federal court and going essentially trying to get the federal court to use his bullheadedness and pushing forward with denying the referendum

at the same time he goes with the primary as creating a constitutional cause of action for the people in the districts that voted in the primary. And so it's a very very, very squirrelly fact situation where this guy was warned repeatedly, if this referendum is valid, you don't have a redistricting map. But they couldn't go ahead and preemptively say, you can't hold the primary because he was not opining on the legality of the referendum. He was waiting until

the literal day of the primary to do so. And so the Missouri Supreme Court, here's the language from Missouri Supreme Court. The Secretary devotes a significant portion of his briefing to discussing the confusion expense and practical difficulties that may result from not utilizing the congressional redistricting for the November 26th election. Besides being irrelevant to the Secretary's sole basis for declaring the referendum petitions insufficient,

these arguments are particularly misplaced given the Secretary's delay created the confusion expense and practical difficulties of which he complains. In December 2025, a federal district court advise the secretary in the state that if the referendum petition is sufficient, the new map will be frozen until after the referendum, which could significantly disrupt the 2026 elections. And so this is part of that, you know, when I was talking about,

we were having this conversation when we first talked about this case, about the difference between legal gamesmanship and defiance, that there are lines that are gamesmanship can be gross and unethical, but it's not illegal. In this case, they were saying, we see what you're doing here. You are engaging in gamesmanship, and you better pray it works out for you

because if it doesn't, there will be consequences. And so they pushed forward anyway, and it's going to be very interesting. So that's my thought on number one. I'm on number one, I feel like the Eighth Circuit is not grappling with the actual course of events here.

And so I don't think the Eighth Circuit's decision is valid legally, which should be upheld, legally. However, that's not relevant to points two and three that you raised. And so maybe we should pause there because I just dumped a bunch of additional sort of facts into the mess. Yes. So this is a mess no matter what happens at this point, David. So the challengers who want to use the 2025 map are two congressional candidates. They are arguing that if November's election go forward, using the 2022 map, their districts would be significantly different from the districts in which they

won the nomination. And then some of the individual voters who are also challenging say that they would vote in a different district in November under the 2022 map than they had in August. Obviously, that's a mess. But there's more mess because the other side is noting that it's actually too late to go to the 2025 map. The ballots have already been set. to military and overseas voters, and September 22nd was the deadline for election officials to print and make available absentee ballots. Indeed, the guy who runs the referendum group,

who is also an individual person in the lawsuit, now this was also clever, had already cast his ballot for the November general election on Tuesday using the ballot issued under the 2022 map. 22 or 20? Yes. 22. I'm tracking.

So he rushed in to vote so that way he could argue that he will be harmed because either his vote will be thrown out or he will need to vote again unclear what they would do with people who already voted like him. So stipulated. No matter what happens, this is a mess. Side quest, David, though, we did get an email from a listener who was really upset. by some of what I had argued when we first talked about this, where I was making the point that what the Secretary of State did by waiting until August 5th, the day after the primary, that I was arguing that that was lawful under Missouri law. And he was like, no, it wasn't lawful because the Missouri Supreme Court said that that was never the lawful map.

Both of those statements can be true at the same time. And maybe we're using sort of imprecise. terminology. Under statute, he was lawfully allowed to wait until August 5th. I think it was the same day as the primary fourth, I believe. But yeah. Whatever. Distinction without a difference for our purposes. He lawfully complied with the statute on when he could wait until. Now, that doesn't mean he has clean hands and we can, you know, as you said, David, like the moral ethical side of this separate. He created a mess and then comes in and says, but it's a mess. No. Courts very much take that into consideration.

But to this listener, just because a court says something violates the law does not mean that when the official was acting, they were acting unlawfully. And I know that's kind of weird. But think of this in the Biden context. Biden signs an executive order for giving student loan debt. The Supreme Court later holds that that executive order is without statutory authority and therefore invalid, unlawful executive order. Joe Biden didn't break any laws by signing that executive order. even though a court later held it was an unlawful executive order, again, take away the clean hands problem and all of that, David, but the Missouri Secretary of State did the same thing. He was following exactly what he was allowed to do, and then a court said, ah, but, basically. And that's fine. So, like, everything in that sense went the way it was supposed to go. That was my side quest with the listener question. Very good side quest.

And let me try to explain it like this. So when the plaintiffs were trying to stop, and guys, let me just say, we are summarizing thousands of pages of court records right now. So this is a top line summary, but bear with us. Okay, let's suppose you're the Secretary of State, Sarah, and I'm one of the plaintiffs. I'm suing you because you're going to run the primary in August 4th, and I turned in 300,000 signatures. You have a deadline of August 4th to respond. I go to a court and I say, stop Sarah from holding the primary. We have filed a valid petition.

And the court says, well, if you filed a valid referendum petition, we can stop it. Is it a valid referendum petition? Yes, Mr. Secretary of State, is it valid? We have not determined that yet. It is not time to determine it. Then I'm the court. And I go, Sarah, you're playing an interesting game here. If you turn down the ballot referendum, or if you, if you,

you turn down the referendum on valid grounds, in other words, let's say, of the 300,000 signatures, $290,000 were fake, then there's no referendum, and the primary goes forward. If you turn down the referendum on illegitimate grounds, you're going to be in a world of hurt because you're not going to be able to, this primary is just not going to exist, basically. And so the courts had to wait to see what grounds the Secretary of State if he was going to accept the petition, referendum, or if he wasn't, and if not, and if the grounds that he would refuse it,

would be lawful. It was only after the secretary issued the refusal and stated the reasons for it that the court was able to adjudicate that. And that's when they knew that the new maps were never the law because the referendum was valid. but you didn't know the referendum was valid until you could see the Secretary of States

reasoning for rejecting or accepting it. So you can see when we talk about the term gamesmanship, that's exactly what was happening here. So the retroactive, the illegality of the map was only established retroactively after you saw the Secretary of States reasoning. And so I think what's tripping up a lot of people, maybe including federal judges here,

is that there is a separate sovereignty issue here. And so once the state says this was not the law and has never been the law because there was never a valid reason for rejecting the referendum, how much opportunity or right or legal opportunity does a federal court have to come in and say, no, no, no, this is the map.

When under state law, it's not the map and it's never been the map. And so it's a very, I mean, we keep using the word mess, and it just keeps being super appropriate. And so it could very well be leaving our side quest back to main quest, that the Supreme Court essentially says,

we're not going to deal with the mess. What we're going to do is, look, we told you the old maps are in force until we decide a cert petition. We haven't decided the cert petition. come back. You know, we'll decide that. And in the meantime, the old maps are in place.

And so that's what I think is the most likely outcome, Sarah. Although, I don't know. I don't know. Okay. So as I think you've said, and most people who've been following this have described, the Secretary of State doesn't have clean hands because he's the one that caused the delay. Exactly. And there's all sorts of actual legal doctrines about clean hands. But for our purposes, there's also just vibes about clean hands. If you're the one who caused the mess, you don't get to run in and say, but it's a mess. Courts don't like that. So with that in mind, I want to read to you the end of the Eighth Circuit's majority opinion. And then I want to read to you a piece of Judge Strauss's what amounts to a dissenting opinion. Okay, this is the majority. The Constitution. the federal law, does not permit Missouri to use a different congressional district map in the

November 26th general election than it used in the August 2026 primary election. So, David, they do walk through this in 30 pages. So I don't, I just want to make a little note. I'm not sure that's true. Oh, I don't think that's true. They didn't have to have a primary. We didn't used to have primaries. Frankly, the primaries that we have are quite modern. You know, this was sort of a populism in the 1970s. I'm thinking here of the presidential primaries.

But like, the parties used to just decide who their nominee was, and that was the nominee. You didn't have a right to vote in a primary. Now, of course, there was the Texas v. White case. that was a whites-only primary. They were like, yeah, yeah, anyone can vote

in the general election, but our primary is whites only. Right. No. Primaries are no long. longer purely a party function. So that's all to say, that sentence sounds like, oh, well, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Of course, you have a right to vote in the primary and have that carry over into the general election. But I guess I'm like, do we? I mean, think about it this way.

We just went through a presidential election in which Joe Biden won the primary and was replaced on the ballot. Great example. Recent example. Did that, was that a constitutional violation that disenfranchised the between 14 and 15 million people who voted for Biden? Or was the Democratic Party, or is the Democratic Party, a private organization that can use its own rules to advance a particular candidate to a general election? And the answer is plainly the latter, that the Democratic Party is a private organization that can utilize its own rules. Now, of course, subject to things like naming a candidate by particular filing deadlines, under state law, et cetera. But that part of the opinion was the part, Sarah, that was most puzzling to me. The majority said it violated Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, for those who have their pocket constitutions handy, quote,

Which is all of you. All of you. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states. Among other things, voters who, as a result of the change in MAPS did not have an opportunity to vote for the nominees that will appear on their November 26th general election ballot are deprived of their constitutional right of choice. So look, just before everyone screams into their AirPods, I get it. The way we vote for president under the Constitution, because of the electoral college, you, as we mentioned in a previous podcast, technically aren't voting for president. you are voting for electors, which may or may not be a state office and not a federal office,

Cough Cough, Cof, Arizona. So there is a difference. I get it. But at the same time, again, this idea that the primary is somehow constitutionalized, I don't think it's true. Okay, David, so that was the majority.

Let me read you a few bars from the dissent by Judge Strauss because that is one of those judges I look to to be like, Okay, what's actually happening here? Judge Strauss, explain it to me. So there are multiple problems with this appeal. I wish there were a footnote for that one, which was just like, duh. Okay, but no, that's not Judge Strauss. I mean, look around. A footnote that says waves at everything. Look around, look around. Yes, okay. There are multiple problems with this appeal. The court names one,

a probable violation of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution as interpreted. But I would not even get that far because the referendum organization and the individual voter lacks standing. Oh, no. That was me adding that. Okay. Cases and controversies are our bread and butter. Anyone suing or appealing needs standing. At each stage, a personal stake in the outcome must exist.

A generally available grievance seeking relief that no more directly or tangibly benefits a party than it does the public. at large, does not cut it. Sometimes overlooked is that standing must persist throughout all stages of the litigation, even on appeal. It must be met by persons seeking appellate review, just as it must be met by persons appearing in courts of the first instance. Intervenors, who often join the litigation only because someone else had enough of a stake to bring the case in the first place are no exception. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized to appeal a decision that the primary party does not challenge, an intervener must independently demonstrate standing. Okay, so then he says, first, you have the ballot referendum organization.

But it's not clear at all why they would have an interest in what map is used for the general election. Their interest is in the referendum. He basically is like, maybe, but let's assume that it is. We've already said the referendum is going to happen. So, like, you're done referendum organization. your referendum is happening. And then he's like, okay, now let's get to the individual voter. And he basically says, he doesn't say why he was hurt. Now, I think that's a little weird because he did say he had already voted. Yeah.

As clear as it is that a generalized interest in upholding the law does not satisfy Article 3's case or controversy requirement, it is equally clear that voters who allege facts showing disadvantage to themselves as individuals do. But nowhere in the fight. are there any allegations about how his interests as a voter would be harmed by using the 2025 map instead of the 2022 map? Um, I mean, he might have a little bit of a point there. There's nothing that says that he would have voted, you know, in a different district or whatever else. It just says he's already voted.

Okay. So, David, that's Strauss. He says, I have no doubt that both the referendum organization and the individual who runs the referendum organization are deeply committed to zealously challenging the district court's order. But the plea heard throughout oral argument, if not us, then who, not only ignores obvious alternatives, but has never been a reason to find standing. Regardless of whether they would rather fight on, neither can do so without it. So David, we're actually going to get to a listener question on standing, but I wanted to flag this as the ongoing standing wars continue. Yeah. Last few things on this, the way that the Eighth Circuit actually resolved this, they instructed the district court to basically put back in place the 2025 map,

but also stay that until September 28th. So that gives the Supreme Court until September 28th. Yeah. And I would be shocked if the Supreme Court hasn't done something by close of business, Friday, it would surprise me. I think this is going to unfold pretty fast. I think that's right. And their order says until the disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari in this court. So, like, I argue that the Eighth Circuit's decision does not go into effect on September 28th. Yeah. They don't get to set any deadline because the Supreme Court's order sits on top of that

and they can, they were allowed to make whatever decision they wanted. But the whole thing stays on ice until the disposition of the Supreme Court deciding whether they're going to take the case or not. So if I'm the Supreme Court, I would just be like, how interesting. Yeah. No, I think that's the easiest course of action for the Supreme Court. You don't have to, right at this point, you don't have to dive into all of that complexity that we just talked about at length. You can say, look, read the words on the page. We haven't disposed to the cert petition. So therefore, the older maps are in place. I mean, I keep going between 2022, 2025, the 22 maps are in place.

Bottom line, you and I both think this election will get held under the 2022 maps. Yes. The Supreme Court has a couple options on how to get there, but I don't see a world in which, when you already have ballots out, the ballots have already, like, been voted. No. Yeah. I mean, but with the giant footnote, asterisk caveat, whatever you want to say, that this thing has gotten so wild that I'm no longer as certain

as I want it as I like to be. But the district court's decision to me is not so fundamentally different from the circuit court's decision. It's not like the circuit court found new facts or something that I thought made it more compelling. It's the same thing that it violates the federal constitution to hold the map

under the 2022 map, but the Supreme Court already weighed in on that. Yeah. I mean, the Supreme Court weighed in on the district court decision that was based in disenfranchising primary voters. The Eighth Circuit has a decision based on disenfranchising primary voters with no new legal doctrine, no new facts. How do you have a different outcome? All right, David, when we get back from this break, we're going to do some listener questions. And I'm going to start with a standing question.

But my answer comes from another listener who wrote in. Ooh, I love it. And David, you and I don't do comparative law on this podcast. We are barely experts in American law. God help us if we try to do other countries' laws. This, like, took us a lifetime to learn this much about our own. But that doesn't stop me from using a listener's comparative law. And this one, I think, is, like, really good.

Okay, stand by. Hey, y'all, it's Sarah Isgar. We just had our SCOTUS blog summit on September 16th, and we are so grateful to Cooley, our presenting sponsor. For this break, we're going to share a clip between Scotis Blog executive editor Zach Shemtob and Elizabeth Preloger. She served as the Solicitor General during the Biden administration and is now the head of Cooley Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group. Elizabeth talked about what changes and what doesn't after you've argued before the Supreme Court many times. Here's a piece of it.

It definitely gets easier. Or at least you get to a level of comfort with it where for me at least I feel like I've kind of locked in. on what process I need to feel prepared. And then I really take comfort in the idea that if I have followed that process and I've put in the time to try to make sure that I have thought about my case from every angle, then I'm going to be best positioned

to have the chance at oral argument to actually persuade. But it's not like it ever is just cruising and you're completely relaxed. There's certainly a level of intensity to arguing in the Supreme Court. I will say, I actually think, Many people say it's hard to sleep the night before.

I find it harder to sleep the night of the argument because I'm lying in bed, replaying the argument in my mind and kind of thinking back through every question and answer. So maybe it's too bad night's sleep in a row. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins,

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Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. All right, David, we got no fewer than a zillion questions about how we can so blithely stand by while a president does something unlawful, and no one has standing, and we're just like, shrug, hashtag American law. And we got different versions of this question. Speaking of ballroom here, yeah. Yes, definitely the ballroom.

Different versions were like, well, how do you stop him? And what have Congress created an agency specifically for the purpose of having standing and all these things? And my overall answer to all of those questions was a version of written words on a parchment will not stop anything, right? If you move it out to its logical conclusion, the Constitution doesn't do anything. It is the abiding by the Constitution, and that requires people who want to abide by the Constitution. And if you elect people who don't want to do that, whether they're president or in Congress or anything else, the Constitution at the end of the day is neither a sword nor a purse. It's just rules that we agreed to be governed by. It's not self-executing.

That's right. Yep. So coming up with all these, you know, more and more and more little things to stick into the cracks, I will argue to you will do no good because at the end of the day, if you elect bad people, they're going to do bad things. And this is why America is the oldest written constitution in effect. A lot of those other countries had constitutions. Like Justice Scalia likes to point out, North Korea has freedom of speech, y'all, in their constitution. So does Russia, by the way. A bunch of good it's doing them. So they could have all the rules in the world, but it won't matter. And one version of this question, David, was, you guys are just wrong on standing. You say it's going to flood the courts. So what? Why would that be so bad? At least we would have one branch of government writing constitutional wrongs, things that are unlawful. And another listener wrote in, and I will read you what they wrote, David. Coming into its independence in the mid-20th century, India had a fairly restrictive standing doctrine inherited from the English legal tradition, similar, though of course not identical to the American doctrine. In the 1980s, however, the Supreme Court of India decided to broaden its standing doctrine. In doing so, it developed the class of public interest litigation with a different sense to how that term is normally used

here, according to which, quote, anyone acting in the public interest is permitted to file a petition on behalf of those unable to do so themselves, or for issues of grave public importance. Lawyers, social activists, concerned individuals, and even judges approach the courts. By the way, there are citations for all these quotes in it, David. So in case anyone needs them. How has this all played out?

Estimates are that the Indian Supreme Court faces a backlog of more than 96,000 cases, 10,000 of which have been pending for more than 10 years, and the judicial system as a whole has a backlog of 56 million cases. Some argue that judicial overstretching in India is at least a significant cause of continued underdevelopment. To be sure, many other factors contribute to this problem, the Indian Supreme Court is far less judicious than the United States Supreme Court in granting certiorari, and petitions can be made directly to the Indian Supreme Court rather than having to

rise up through the lower courts, but it is difficult to deny that the relaxation of the standing doctrine has at least made this situation far worse. It is striking how similar the justification for relaxing the standing doctrine in the 1980s, India, is to contemporary American arguments. At that time, India had just emerged from the emergency, 1975 to 1977, a period during which Prime Minister and Dera Gandhi suspended the Constitution and ruled by Fiat. Many felt that the relaxation of standing doctrine was necessary to allow someone to challenge the clear injustices that have been perpetrated by that government. Quoting again, it was recognized in 1980 by judges, activists, lawyers, and academics that something needed to be done. And the courts were

perceived as the only alternative, the last resort, short of extra legal action. Predicting the course of a new kind of judgment, Justice Krishna Eyre was able to concentrate on a social justice orientation that could only be realized along with procedural changes. And in 1980 judgment, he stated that the issues before the court necessitated a shift from the traditional individualism of the requirements of Locus Standai to the community orientation of public interest litigation. David, that feels like game set match if you're asking what's the worst that could happen? Having no actual court system is the worst that could happen. I don't think you actually, You know, number one, I love that email because it is a demonstration of what the extreme can look like.

But we don't even have to go all the way across the ocean to India. For our listeners who think we really need to open the doors of the courthouse much more broadly than we do now, I would ask you to read my colleague Ezra Klein's book, Abundance. Because one of the things that he talks about is the way in which the ability, and this is all, also something he's talked about in his podcast, is how providing more people, more opportunity to speak into more processes has led to an awful lot of the stagnation that is bedebbling us, like the inability to develop new housing, for example, the inability to build things, the astronomical cost increases. They don't actually come, in some cases, from too little

democracy, they can come from too much democracy. And so it is just not the case that there are never any tradeoffs to various decisions. It is absolutely the case that you can overly restrict access to the courtroom. No question. But it is also the case that there can be severe downsides to overly opening the doorways to the courthouse. And you can slow down the entire economy. You can slow down the entire government. You can create a sense of stagnation that is its own injustice. And so this is a balance. It is a difficult balancing.

And we're right now at a period in American history where there is strong temptation to send more stuff to the judiciary because, as a very, very, very popular book said, it's the last branch standing. And so there is a lot of impulse to say, okay, we're going to try to deal with the deficiencies and other branches of government by just injecting the judiciary with human growth hormone and bury bondsing the judiciary. Well, that will have negative external effects that will not occur if you readdress and re-address the balance of power between the branches to be more appropriate.

And so of the two options, fixing having Congress rediscover its integrity and its own identity versus let's just go ahead and make the judiciary that much more potent by giving them that many more cases, I know which outcome I think would be better for the United States of America. And I don't think it's super close. I don't think it's close. But David, if anything, I would actually continue to restrict standing. Like when we talked about aesthetic standing and other things and the abundance argument and all of that,

I actually think we are still a little, not a lot. I'm talking about tinkering here on the edges. But by and large, I think we are actually still a little too lenient on standing. I really, really think the person who's suing needs to have an actual injury with actual damages. Like, I don't know that the dollar damages thing makes a lot of sense when it's not real, if that, you know. I could absolutely be persuaded to your position.

In fact, that has been generally my position over the last 20-plus years, is that, if anything, were maybe a little bit too generous on standing. Now, the dollar standing is partly as a result. Some of that's a result of if, you know, the tension involved in when you're suing over something like First Amendment violation for which how much, what's the monetary measure of losing your right to speak? It's very difficult to measure. but I am generally,

dispositionally, with you on that. And part of the reason why I'm with you on that is our current efforts to open standing more have made standing doctrine and in my view more incoherent, more difficult to parse and to understand. More incoherent. And the result has just been

more political litigation. I don't like this law. I will find someone who maybe kind of has standing and I'll bring this lawsuit. But the purpose is, is to thwart the political side, if that makes sense. Right.

Now, a lot of the times there will be standing, and there's nothing I can do about that. But I really wish we would spend more time at the ballot box on these political questions and less time at the bar. Yes. David, you have our next question. Yep. Which is on marijuana.

It is indeed. Okay. Got a email, a great email from a longtime listener of advisory opinions. Long time listener, first time. Oh, nope. you actually emailed a few years ago. Long time, listener, second time emailer. And he said, there is something you said on the last podcast.

It is arguably incorrect but not widely known. And I figured I'd reach out to clarify. In your discussion of the marijuana contract case in the Sixth Circuit, you said there's been no change to federal law in marijuana and that the government has not been enforcing the Controlled Substances Act against legal marijuana companies, thanks to prosecutorial discretion. This has not been true for about a decade. So, Sarah, I only was off 10 years. But, you know, when you're as old as I am, what's 10 years?

Right. Anyway, he says, the Rurabacher-Far Amendment bars the DOJ from using any funds to prosecute the Controlled Substances Act against persons compliant with state marijuana legalization regimes. It is an appropriations provision that has passed every year since 2014. So the federal government has no discretion to provide. prosecute at least those marijuana users and companies in compliance with state marijuana legalization regimes at least as long as the amendment continues to be law. Every circuit that is ruled on this issue has held as much. So that is without question something that we should have

brought up. I should have brought up. I should have brought up that there is currently a funding bar for prosecution when you're compliant with state marijuana legalization regime. But as you pointed out in the green room before we started recording, that's a funding bar. That is not any form of actual amnesty. It is not actually a repeal of the CSA. Like, for instance, if Congress passed a law that legalized marijuana and then they repealed that law two years later, you couldn't go prosecute someone who had, you know, sold marijuana during that interim period, right? they were relying on the fact that it had been legal at the time, it was legal at the time.

That's not true for this, because it's only a funding bar. If at any point, DOJ receives funding again for this, or rather just the bar is removed, they can prosecute whoever they want for as long as the statute of limitations allows. There's no ex post problem when we're talking about only a funding bar. So, David, like, we should have mentioned it, but at the same time, it changes nothing. about what I'm saying in terms of the illegality of marijuana at the federal level. There may be changes to that. There have certainly been administrations that have just said they're not going to prosecute it. This funding bar is a version of that, actually. It's just Congress

saying, for right now, that's not where our prosecutorial priorities are. That's all it is, though. It's just priority. Yeah. Let's put it this way. That amendment drops and you have millions upon millions of people who are vulnerable to prosecution under the CSA. Millions of people vulnerable to prosecution under the CSA. So it is a weird tension in the law that we have bandated over. But I so appreciate that email. That's a great email. Thank you for it.

And it is absolutely something that we should have raised to begin with. So thank you. Thank you very much. All right. We've got more listener questions after this break. But before we go to break, I want to read you my favorite sentence that has maybe ever been in a listener email, David, of all times. We've had good emails. So that is a, I mean, high praise, Sarah. Yeah, I know. This is it. Yeah. This is the best sentence. Okay. So the email itself is about the AUMF after 2001. And, you know, post-September 11th authorization for use of military force and the president and what associate.

forces me and he has lots of questions and lots of hypotheticals, really smart email, et cetera, et cetera. But this is how the email ends. For good measure, I did a quick check to see of Judge Sutton has ruled on or written about the 2001 AUMF, but it does not appear that he has. I want to be clear, Judge Sutton had nothing to do with anything else in this email. This is just a listener who has been trained by advisory opinions and by me that anytime you have a question about the law, you should visit the Oracle. See if the Oracle has already given you the answer. And the Oracle is Chief Judge Jeff Sutton of the Sixth Circuit. Now, if the Oracle has not written or, you know, spoken about this legal question, then you can come to advisory opinions. But

obviously, it's not the Supreme Court you're checking with. It's not a law review you're trying to review. It is just Judge Sutton. And I loved it so much. It was just out of nowhere. And I'm like, that's amazing. You already checked. So we're good. That is fantastic. I love that. That tells you, like, we've actually built something of a community here. You know, not just the two of us, but the listeners as well, that there's an ethos. There's a culture. I love it. It's my WWJ.D. I'll tell you that. Like, if you see me wearing that bracelet, all the 90s. What would Jeff do? What would Jeff do? All right, David. When we get that,

back. I've got a listener who has some, as he says, admittedly rage bait, but does he have a point? Mm-hmm. Hi, everyone. This is Zach Shamptop, the executive editor of SCOTUS blog, the gold standard for independent insights and analyses of the Supreme Court. I want to invite you to sign up for a recently launched SCOTUS Blog Plus. This gives you access to, among other things, our daily newsletter, Scotus Today, extra deep dives on the court, live and insight behind our coverage from those reporters and experts most familiar with SCOTUS, super interesting stats on the court you won't be able to get anywhere else, and even text alerts on the latest decisions, orders, and assignments from the justices as they're announced.

This also helps SCOTUS vlog to continue doing what it does each and every day. You can sign up for SCOTUSBlog Plus as a founding member for $199 a year at SCOTUSBlog.com slash join. That's scotisblog.com or just visit our website at scotisblog.com and go do plus. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system. And it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running.

Bring it with SAP Grow. AI Cloud ERP for any size. business. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function, and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving.

Or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Nispresso. Okay, David, here's the email. I hope you are well. I just finished Last Branch Standing and greatly enjoyed it. It occurred to me while reading that many of your arguments about how media treatment of the Supreme Court is unfair can also be applied to your treatment of Congress.

I present the following. We only consider our congressmen to be partisan hacks because the media solely focuses on the divisive bills. We treat Congress sucks as axiomatic, but rarely set out to prove it. After all, Congress funded every department but one, and the media solely focuses on DHS. Congress has passed 67 bills this year. How many of those were discussed at length in the media? While Congress passes fewer bills than it used to, the drop is far lower than the media coverage would suggest, not to mention this reduction is also true of the courts. But of course, not all bills are created equal. The biggest ones, both in length and effect, must be fewer,

further between and more partisanly divided, but we don't consider a bill big unless it gets media coverage. The most covered bills are always the most partisan. This quickly becomes circular. If we focus on all the bills, we could find that a purely partisan breakdown is insufficient to understand Congress.

Perhaps all we need is a singular value decomposition to elucidate the true 33, 33, 34 nature of the Senate. Are we blaming the wrong brand? Perhaps if Scotus did its job properly, no one would be looking to Congress to pack the court. I mean, he said, admittedly, the last point is rage bait. But is he not showing some logical consistency here? Why is he wrong? Well, I would put it this way.

Very cleverly done email. Bravo. Bravo. However, one of my answers to this is when we say Congress do your job, we're not talking about like doing things like renaming post offices in rural West Virginia or declaring, you know, various bills that they don't get a lot of attention, not just because they're not controversial, but because they're not impactful in a meaningful sense. Because I would push back. We had a lot of coverage when COVID hit and Congress acted with extreme speed and with extreme bipartisan,

near unanimity to enact various emergency economic measures to sustain families during all the lockdowns. We do and have seen circumstances where Congress does act in a way that that is bipartisan and gets a lot of media attention. So, for example, when it covered, when it reformed the Electoral Count Act, to much applause, for example, and that was bipartisan. So there are circumstances in which bipartisan action does get attention, but it's a tension. I think that the real impetus between Congress do your job is really twofold. One is, I'll admit, somewhat partisan, and the other one I think is kind of not. So let's start with the one that's kind of not. For a very long time, we have known about some issues, whether it is the border, our immigration

system, our entitlements, and we can just go down a long list where the only entity that can fix the issue as Congress, and Congress hasn't done it. And not because they don't think there's an issue. This is, it's because there has just been an inability to behave in a functional way in the way that previous Congress has behaved to fix equally difficult issues. So from that standpoint, you have a lot of things that are just hanging out there that are massive culture-distorting, politics distorting problems that Congress has just not weighed in on. Now, secondly, and this is where it gets

somewhat partisan, is I think this is related to the impeachment issue. Impeachment was supposed to be the arena where Congress would demonstrate its independence, operating as kind of a freestanding jury and then judge of elected officials from the

officials from the executive branch judges, even Congress's own authority over its own members serves as a kind of impeachment. You can expel a member from Congress. And I think that a lot of people would look at the course of the last 30 plus years, beginning in Clinton and moving to now, and say that mechanism is totally broken. It doesn't exist in any way, shape, or form the way the founders wanted it to exist. And that's on Congress. Now, what's kind of partisan about that is I said, notice I said the last 30 years. So I'm including Clinton impeachment in that. And I might lose a lot of Democratic listeners on that point.

But I firmly believe the Clinton impeachment was a partisan farce. Just a partisan, highly partisan farce. It was not a... That's funny, because they all agree with you on that, but just not the way you're saying it. They agree it was a partisan farce. Exactly. In the opposite direction. And the same thing with the part of it.

with the impeachments that followed of Trump. They would say it's a partisan farce, but you flip around. So that's where I would say that's more, I think it is easier to say, we have significant issues in this country that must be addressed, that only Congress can address,

and it's not doing it. That would almost be like the Supreme Court just refusing to grant cert in truly significant constitutional and legal issues indefinitely, leaving circuit splits in place indefinitely. Now, there are some circumstances like Gunrights cases where they kind of sort of did that for a while. Remember before Bruin and Rahimi, you and I were like, hey, guys, the doctrine has matured. It has a driver's license. It's running around the driving around the countryside. It's all the way through puberty. The doctrine is

ready to be ruled upon. And finally, the court did it. But I'd like to think if there was a big issue that was hovering out there that the court, everyone knew only the court could resolve, only the court can deal with this, and they just punt and punt and punt and definitely. I think we would have very good reason to say Supreme Court do your job, but that's not been the case. In fact, the opposite has been the case. A lot of people have been saying Supreme Court, do less of your job. And so that's how I answer it. But I love the email. I thought it's super clever and very well done. David, I think all that's true. The only other thing I add is the difference between a counter-majoritarian branch that sort of isn't supposed to be popular,

we're not supposed to pay a ton of attention to it versus Congress, which is supposed to be the most majoritarian branch. You get to complain more about that one when they are not being representative, which, by the way, I don't think is like, do, you know, what a poll of your constituent says by any means. I really believe in representative government. I pay them my tax dollar, so I don't have to know every single bill and, you know, understand all of the tradeoffs of everything. but nevertheless, they are supposed to be responsive. So just a different model in that branch than the other. All right, David, I set you a picture earlier today

and told you that we were going to talk about the picture. So now I'm going to describe it for listeners. This is a mural that has been painted on a school wall. It has four arms of varying shades. one I'm going to describe as light brown, one is dark brown, and one is white. Two of the arms are making sort of the power fist. One of the arms is doing the I Love You, you know, symbol with the two outer fingers and the thumb out. Then there's little hearts around. The hearts have different puzzle pieces and colors. Some of the hearts have rainbow stripes. Some don't. Then there's

circles, one has a cross, one has the moon and star, one has the star of David. There are some other circles with other symbols that I can't quite make out because the picture's a little blurry. But the point, and I will, you know, take the point as the author told us, was basically be kind to everyone. Just, you know, be a nice person. Okay, so here's the listener email. I'm your biggest English teacher fan. Okay, that's a little specific, but actually, I love it and appreciate it. I love it. I love it. I found the discussion of the pride flag in the classroom. What I've pasted was a student-painted mural on a hallway wall at our middle school that has been there for over 10 years. We elected ourselves a fairly nutty right-wing board of education a few years back. They insisted on having this mural painted over, and it was. I guess my question is around when does Be Kind, which is what the mural represented to me,

cross over to a political position or some violation of government speech. Even in public schools, a substantial portion of curriculum is spent reinforcing what I think we would all generally call pro-social behaviors. Is it political in a pluralistic society to signal support for all? Or as my students would say, you do you? David has worked hard to thread this needle for a long time, but I think it's not easily or comfortably. threaded. Well, I've got good news for you, English teacher. This one is actually easily threaded because absolutely, government schools, which I'll call them for this purpose here, but public schools that are paid for and run by the government, absolutely get to have

pro-social behaviors as their message. They get to speak any pro-social way that they want because it's government speech. So the mural on the wall is definitely government. speech. And that means it's up to the elected government to decide what that speech is. So they can paint over the mural because it's old because they actually love the message, but they think the students have become like immune to it and they want to have a different, more, you know, grabs you by the throat version of the be kind message. Or they can paint over it because they don't want that to be the message anymore. And that all comes down to elections. That is very different than the legal question over must they have the mural or must they not have the mural? Is it government speech?

That's what the teacher's pride flag was about. It was actually what they held in the end was identical to a mural in the hallway. They said, you know, that huge pride flag on the side of the classroom was government speech. It's the same as the mural. And therefore, it's up to the school, whether they consider that pro-social speech, part of their curriculum. And at the end, that's left up the elected representatives of the school board, the state legislature, the governor, again, depending a little bit on the state of how exactly that shakes out. But at the end of the day, the principal. Yeah, when we're talking about the pride flags, my position on that was that that's actually personal speech. It's not government speech, but under the pickering analysis,

that it is too much, too far. There is an extent to which your use of personal speech can, is become so excessive that it begins to crowd out the government's interests in the use of the classroom, the classroom's walls, et cetera, et cetera. That is not your playpen, that that might have been your speech, but the classroom is not your playpen. And so that's different from Garcetti, which would say, that's just not your speech at all. But I agree with you, the mural is a much easier question in my mind for two reasons. It's, one is, just as a matter of law. And then one is sort of a matter of kind of fairness.

So here's on the matter of law. Even if that's a student-created mural, the fact that they allowed that this to be put on a government wall, that by the way, was not a government wall set aside for free speech. So this was not like a... I was just going to say,

this question becomes a lot harder when you have something like Northwestern has, which a lot of schools have, the rock, where students get to paint the rock with any message that they want, they have to guard the rock if they don't want other students to paint over the rock.

I think the school has actually stepped in and now said you get 24 hours, you don't have to guard it because the students are all wusses. Get there overnight like we did in the snow. But you could imagine a billboard area, like a cork board or whatever where you get to put up whatever flyer you want as a student.

But even then, the government would probably have the ability to take down speech that they thought was bad in that area. But that becomes a much more interesting legal question. The way you know that this wasn't that is that no one painted over it for 10 years and they would have gotten in trouble if they had because the government was saying, only we can paint over it. That's a clear sign that it's government speech. And lots of colleges have things like a free speech wall or a free speech

tunnel or whatever, where you can put up whatever you want. And I've never seen that in like a middle school or a high school. But in theory, they could do that. And that would be a different thing. but this is a wall. So this is school-sponsored speech, and there's precise case law on school-sponsored speech. If you are engaging in school-sponsored speech, you're as a student, you don't have those same First Amendment rights. So I think the legal issue there is very easy.

And then there's also a fairness issue, Sarah. If this was student expression, how long can students from 10 years ago, how long does their expression govern the wall? And so, you know, it'd be entirely reasonable. And I think one of the things that trips people up is, I think if somebody had painted over that and they said, we appreciate that message for 10 years, let's give another group a chance, is one kind of way of dealing with it.

Another one that particularly rankles people is when they say, we don't like this message of tolerance and inclusion, therefore we're going to paint over it. So that creates tension, but it doesn't change the underlying reality. and also doesn't change the underlying fairness issue of how long does one class get, one class's expression get to be the expression that's painted on the walls of a school. And so that is a much easier question

both legally and I think conceptually to the teacher speech question, which has become easily legally because of Garcetti, which I hate. But even if you had pickering in place, which I love, pickering is not anything goes. You know, Pickering, you still have a balancing of government interest in the place of employment that would factor in.

And again, just to repeat, if you put up a giant Christian flag or a giant pride flag to cover a big wall of your classroom, I have the same view of both. Either one of them would fail the Pickering analysis in my view. And I think they definitely end up failing the Garcetti analysis. David loves himself some balancing. He's gone full Justice Breyer on this pod. No. Last question, and it's a quickie.

In a recent episode, you talked about the argument that adding more, say, 15 total justices, would lead to better judgments. I'm not particularly persuaded by this, as I've been in enough meetings with more than 10 people that accomplished nothing. Two heads may be better than one, but it's not as obvious that 15 are better than nine. However, I have not heard anyone arguing that adding justices would be beneficial because we'd get more opinions. Would more justices mean more cases? Or would the drafting process become unwieldy with so many justices weighing in? And would oral arguments get out of control with so many justices asking questions? So, David, I can see the argument that if you've got 15 people, you can split up the workload

and, like, churn out a lot more cases. But given the way the Supreme Court actually operates today, I think you would churn out far fewer cases, unless, again, you change the way they operate. Because right now, they're all going into conference after oral argument to discuss the case. And every justice gets to speak once before another justice can speak twice. Going from nine to 15 substantially lengthens the amount of time that that takes and I think lowers the interaction between justices because everyone at some point just wants to like get out of that room for anyone who's been in any sort of organization that has meetings. To the drafting process.

process, again, if you kept the current drafting process where you circulate and people weigh in and they have concurrences and can you add this, can you change this line, becomes very unwieldy with 15. Oral arguments, I predict, would in the short term become out of control, a lot of people jumping in. And in the long term, I think they would die. So you know how like there's this weird, not weird, a very plausible theory that actually climate change as we consider it will lead to another. snowball Earth, that once we heat the atmosphere enough, that in fact, science, science, science, you know, one big snow, it bounces all the sun off and you're screwed forever and the earth can

never recover and it becomes a vicious cycle where the earth never warms up. The end, the end. I can see that actually happening where a few justices are like, this isn't even interesting to ask questions. They stop and the whole thing just cools down so much that then oral argument basically ends. I love thinking this through, and all it's doing is just making me more committed to nine. That's why I would love, you know, that's one of the constitutional amendments, you know, we've talked about. Nine. Let's have nine justices. Let's just fix it. And mostly just quit having it as a threat over the justices head that you can change the

number if you don't like their opinions. Again, it's not that I'm that committed to nine, but continuing, as we've seen now, twice in the last hundred years, threatening to change the number for the purpose of changing outcomes is not great. Not good at all. And so, but it's also correct, I think, could you imagine this podcast if you're like, okay, we have an eight, seven, with an opinion of the court, five concurrences, a dissent, and four additional dissentals. I mean, what?

At some point, it would just get absolutely unwieldy. And I just have never heard an argument. The only argument I've ever heard is when we floated, that sort of this wisdom of crowds type argument. The bottom line is every argument that I've ever heard about expanding the court is ultimately rooted and I don't like how they ruled. And that is when you scratch off and you get past all the veneers of this and that,

it really is, I want row back. or I want, you know, Calais overturned, or I want this or that. And that's a terrible reason to do it. And look, just as we've seen, you know, the right going hard after the filibuster, you know, if you had a circumstance where you had, you know, a Justice Roberts retires and, you know, a Justice Thomas retires, you know, in a ex-democratic administration, all of a sudden it goes from six three to five, four. and within 18 months,

Dobbs is reversed and Roe is back, I guarantee you you would have calls to pack the court. Guarantee you you'd have calls to pack the court. This is a thing that we're just seeing back and forth, almost any malady, process-related malady that comes up on one side will come up on the other side when they're disgruntled at the outcomes

that processes influence. And that brings me to my newsletter, which is coming out at the very end, is mainly about the Department of Defense and transparency and all of that. But at the very end, I say something that I think you'll really like, Sarah. And at the very end, I say, in the military, people say, amateurs talk tactics, professionals discuss logistics. I think in politics, amateurs talk outcomes, professionals discuss process.

And I think one thing we're learning over the last decade is process really, really, really matters. And if you ditch process to get to outcomes, you will suffer for it. Now, that's not to say you can't overburden the world with process. We just walked through that. But if you cut through process to just, quote, unquote, do things, you will regret it. And often you will not even be able to do the thing you want to do because you cut through the process. And there are many such examples, shall we say. All right, David, that will do it for this advisory opinions episode.

Next week, you, my permanent guest, are now permanent guests hosting for the week with Ellie Honig, CNN Legal Commentator. So I'm super pumped to listen to those. I have also prepared you a special audio rant for you guys to address. So we'll see how you do with that. Cannot wait. Cannot wait to hear that rant. See you when I get back.