The Daily Signal - BONUS: SCOTUS 101 on the Dobbs Leak

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

Today on "The Daily Signal Podcast," we are featuring the latest episode of "SCOTUS 101" a sister podcast on the Heritage Podcast Network. Subscribe to SCOTUS 101: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scotus-101/id1282064006 This week saw the biggest leak in Supreme Court history: a leaked opinion. And not just any opinion, but an early draft of a purported majority decision in the Dobbs case, which would, if issued, overrule Roe v. Wade and return abortion policy to the people of each state. Zack and GianCarlo chat about the leak, what it means for the Court, and what ought to happen to the leaker. They also discuss all the other news that was drowned out by the leak including the memorial service for Justice John Paul Stevens and a major First Amendment opinion issued this week. GianCarlo then interviews Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and they talk about her career and her legal strategy in Dobbs. Finally, Zack quizzes GianCarlo about Justice Stevens' life and career. Here's a link to Zack and John Malcolm's article about whether the leaker can be criminally prosecuted. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court. I'm John Carlo Canoparo. I'm Zach Smith. And welcome to SCOTUS 101, where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government. Welcome back to another week of SCOTUS 101. We've got a lot to cover this week, and we'll get to what I'm sure is on everyone's mind, the leak of the draft Dobbs opinion in just a minute. But first, G.C., can you tell us about any new grants or other orders? You bet.

But before I do that, I wanted to pause to note a bit of Supreme Court news that got lost in the drama of the week. The court held a long overdue memorial service for the late Justice John Paul Stevens, who died in 2019. The memorial service was postponed due to the pandemic, but it was good that they finally held it. Absolutely. So we'll turn to grants. We had three this week. The first was in health and hospital corporations. versus Talevsky.

The court will decide whether state-owned nursing homes can face private lawsuits for allegedly violating Medicare and Medicaid rules. The second was Barton Wifer v. Buckley, where the court will decide whether a bankruptcy debtor can be liable for someone else's fraud, even if she was not aware of it. The facts of the case are interesting. So a couple husband and wife sold a home, and the husband, without his wife's knowledge, made false statements to the buyer. The buyer later sued and then got a judgment.

The couple declared bankruptcy and the wife is trying to discharge the judgment from her husband's fraud because she didn't know anything about it. Those bankruptcy issues, G.C., they get tricky fast. They certainly do. Finally, the court agreed to hear Helix Energy Solutions v. Hewitt, where it will decide whether a supervisor making over $200,000 each year is entitled to retroactive overtime. The tricky thing about this case is that there's a regulation that carves out highly paid executives from overtime rules, but it determines who qualifies as highly paid executives based on a weekly pay rate, and the guy in this case was paid at a daily rate. Very interesting. The court did issue one other order of note, and it was in the Biden v. Texas case. If you recall, this is the case involving the Biden administration's attempt to cancel the remain in.

Mexico policy. The court heard oral arguments last week, and on Monday, the justice has asked for quick supplemental briefing on three issues. One, whether a specific provision of federal immigration law, a specific provision at issue in this case, limits the relief that a federal court can award, two, whether those limitations can be waived or forfeited if they're not raised by a party, and three, whether the court has jurisdiction to consider the merits of the case. Now, there were no oral arguments this week because we are done for the term. So, without further ado, we'll turn to the Dobbs leak. By now, you have almost certainly heard that a draft opinion from February has leaked out of the court. The opinion was written by Justice Alito, is labeled a majority opinion,

and would overrule Roe v. Wade and return abortion policy to the people of each state. This leak is pretty dramatic and pretty terrible for the court. As far as we and anyone else knows, A draft opinion has never leaked out of the Supreme Court before. There have been leaks, but certainly not one of this nature. This is certainly a stain on the court's record, on the Chief Justice's record, and as he said in a statement that he issued the next day, it's a huge betrayal of loyalty. That's right. The court's deliberations are secret and meant to be so.

We don't know if this is the majority opinion, if there are still five votes to overrule row, although the leaker said to Politico that there were still five votes at the time of the leak. And we don't know if the opinion has changed at all. But the result of this leak is that the justices and their staffs will be less able to trust each other as they hash out these issues and work towards final opinions. Not only in this case, but in any other future high profile cases. I think that's an important point, G.C., because the justices and their clerks are not politicians and they really depend on being able to freely exchange information. to reach the right result in cases. Right, that's right.

I mean, the work, any opinion that the court issues is a tremendous amount of work of back and forth between chambers and justices. You know, this draft was from February. The thing we know for sure is that it almost certainly has changed in some respects since then. Certainly suspect so. Right. There's no signers on to this opinion. It was probably a first draft post-conference.

And let's turn to the stress. of this leak, it's not really clear that this is a good strategic move no matter what side of the case you're on. The only thing that it's going to do for sure is weaken the court's greatest strength, which is its careful, trusting, and deliberative process. But that might have been the goal all along, just feeding the narrative raging on the left right now that the court is illegitimate. Just undermining the court may have been the goal regardless of changing justice's outcomes on this particular case. it's worth noting that with very, very few exceptions, notably Neil Katyal, those on the left are unwilling to condemn the leak. The White House itself has refused to condemn the leak. And on the contrary, a lot of left-wing pundits, lawyers even have celebrated it.

You know, I think that's the real shame here, G.C. You know, we've heard a lot of hand-ringy on the left about the institutional legitimacy of the court. And if there was something that was going to undermine the legitimacy of the court, this certainly seems the most likely culprit to do that. So I don't really know how the court can rebuild a culture of trust among the justices, among the justices and their staffs, but they have to find a way to do it somehow. Now, we don't know who leaked the document or why they did it. We've all seen different theories going around, but the chief justice has tasked the marshal of the Supreme Court with finding out who did it. And whoever did it should be severely punished.

Yeah, absolutely. One question going around. is whether the leaker might be criminally prosecuted. Zach, you and our boss, John Malcolm, have written an article about it, which I'll put in the show notes. In the meantime, wherever you fall on this issue of whether Roe should be overruled, just remember, this chicken has not yet hatched. For my part, I will be patiently waiting for the real opinion. Yeah, don't count those eggs before they hatch. Zach, what can you tell us about the one opinion we got this week? Well, we actually got a big opinion this week. It was overshadowed by the Dobbs News, obviously, but the court issued its opinion in Shirtleaf v. City of Boston. If you remember, this was the case involving a request to raise a Christian flag over the city of Boston outside of City Hall. The city denied it. And the federal trial court and the First Circuit said that it was government speech, so that there was no First Amendment violation. Now, in a unanimous opinion, which was written by Justice Breyer and joined by the

Chief Justice and Justices Sotomayor, Cagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett in full, the justices disagreed with that. They said this was a First Amendment violation. And in its opinion, the court held that the city of Boston by allowing private groups to fly their flags outside of City Hall, it does not engage in government speech. And because there is no government speech, the city's refusal to allow this religious group to raise its flag, the Christian flag, that group's force. First Amendment free speech rights were violated. The court said when government invites the public

to participate in a program, a court must conduct a holistic inquiry to determine whether the government intends to speak for itself or whether it intends to regulate private expression. The court held that based on the facts specific to this case, the city of Boston was not speaking and that by excluding private speech based on a, quote, religious viewpoint, the city impermissibly engaged in viewpoint discrimination. Now, there were a couple of concurring opinions filed as well. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion, emphasizing his belief that the government violates the Constitution when it excludes religious persons or organizations from speaking

because of the religious nature of that speech. Justice Alito also filed a concurring opinion, which Justice Chomas and Justice Gorsuch joined, and Justice Alito argued that the factors the court considered in the majority opinion are not hard and fast rules and that they should not obscure what he views as the appropriate inquiry in government speech cases, which is whether the government is speaking or whether it's regulating private speech. Now, there was a very interesting concurrence from Justice Gorsuch, which Justice Thomas joined, and Justice Gorsuch argued that the real problem in this case stemmed from a very bad precedent

of the court, Lemon v. Kurtzman, which established the dreaded lemon test for determining whether an establishment clause violation has occurred. Justice Gorsuch said the court should finally formally overrule Lemon and kind of put everyone out of their misery from having to deal with it. And, you know, this was a remarkable coincidence or maybe a bit of a clever last-minute editing, G.C. But Gorsuch wrote that the Lemon Test should be, quote, cut in half. And if you'll recall during last week's argument in the Coach Kennedy case,

Paul Clement said that the Lemon Test should, be, quote, sliced in half. So maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe Justice Gorsuch just really loved Paul Clement's line. I could just see Justice Gorsuch thinking, oh, that's a great line. I got to claw back my concurrence really quick and throw that in there. Or maybe great minds, just think alike. Correct. Quite possible. Well, turning now to our interview for this week. We're joined today by the Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch. Attorney General Fitch, Welcome to the show. Thank you.

It's an honor and pleasure to be joining you on the show today. We're delighted to have you. So before we dive into your career and you've got the Dobbs case, the hottest case on the docket, I had heard a rumor about you that somehow you had gone through college and law school all in only five years. Is that correct? Well, that would be a true rumor. That's exactly correct. I did my undergraduate in two and a half and my law school in two and a half and was a practicing lawyer at age 23.

Good heavens. Did you know going through college and law school at that breakneck speed? Did you know you wanted to be a lawyer or did that shift happen somewhere along the way? Well, I have to tell you, I was always interested in the law. I was always interested in understanding how policy and the laws wrapped together and how it made an impact across our state. So I truly always did want to be a lawyer and had come and served as a page in the House of Representatives when I was at junior in high school. And it was very intriguing to me and just kind of followed that dream and was able to move forward. And that became my profession.

In a way, as the Mississippi AG, your career has sort of come full circle because you started out in the AG's office as a special assistant. What did you do as a special assistant? Well, I did, and it's so humbling, I'll tell you, to be back in this job and certainly in this position as the Attorney General, having served as a special assistant, Attorney General, when I began my career. And I served here for five years, and it was just such an incredible five years of my first practice of law, and I enjoyed it tremendously. And so what I was able to do when I was here, we represented a number of different agencies. I certainly did litigation. I tried the first videotape trial in the state of Mississippi with prisoners in a federal court case that we tried on the campus of the prison. It gave me a wide breadth of knowledge, information. I worked on redistricting. I worked with the legislature.

I wrote laws at that point, and it was an opportunity to really expand my horizon serving as a special assistant attorney general. So you left the AG's office and went to private practice as a bond lawyer. So first of all, what is a bond lawyer? That's a great question. They're not too many bond lawyers. But I had been given the opportunity when I was a special assistant attorney general. One of my agencies that I represented was the state bond commission. So the state bond commission working in conjunction with the legislature issues bonds on behalf of the state to,

fund economic development projects, which is, we all know, are very key to all of our respective states, certainly helps with our workforce, building the strength of the economic development across the many facets of businesses, bringing in new businesses, growing existing businesses. And when you're a bond lawyer, you're also, you know, it's the financing piece of the arm. It could be, as we do, bonds through the state of Mississippi, they could be the general obligation bonds, taxable or tax exempt. We are funding the different projects. Many times they're projects that help our universities and colleges, our community colleges. So again, providing the funding to support these projects that the legislature saw fit to build or to support in one way or another.

So given the wide breadth of subject matters you worked on as a special assistant AG, what is it that made you pick bond law? Well, I have a business background. I've always financed business. That was something that was already a natural for me. And when you are talking about millions and millions of dollars, you're talking about the interest that has to be figured. You're looking at the projects. You're determining if the specific dollars that add up per job, support that, understanding the complexity of how you put out your bonds for 30 years, 20 years, how do you pay for your projects, that was always something that I enjoyed and like that piece of the business. So it was very attractive for me to step into that bond lawyer role. Now, you've also held quite a few public

posts, especially in the area of public finance and public economic development. So for instance, you were counsel for the Mississippi House Ways, Means, and Local and Private Legislation Committees. What did you do there? Again, I was so blessed. It was truly an opportunity to learn, to expand my bandwidth. You know, having worked at the AG's office and dealt with the legislature for that number of years, it was very exciting and very key for me to serve as Ways and Means Council and local and private. But, you know, Ways and Means, that is such a strong committee. You think about the number of bills that come through that committee alone. So I had the opportunity to be the person that was writing the laws on behalf of my committee members,

you know, at the direction of the chairman that I had at that time. And we did some incredible legislation that came through there, even the gaming at that time for the state of Mississippi. But you remember ways it means we were talking about, again, the finances, the bond bills that I had worked on previously on the other side at the Special Assistant Attorney General. level. You're talking about all the financing for the states, the tax base. So again, for me,

it was truly an opportunity to learn and to be apart from the writing of the legislation as opposed to being on the other side where I had been involved from the AG's representation side. So you were in the AG's office, you were in the legislature, and then

you moved into the executive branch working as a director for the Mississippi Department of Employment. Security and the Mississippi State Personnel Board. What were those experiences like? Well, again, I've been very fortunate. Every step of my career has been so exciting and, again,

giving me the opportunity to learn more, to represent, to be able to be involved on so many different levels. I was actually in private practice when I got the call from Governor Haley Barber to come back into the public arena and provide public service. So I was delighted. It was an honor to serve for Governor Barber. And I came back in at that point to work at the Department of Employment Security. This is a big agency, and we were doing a complete change.

We were changing the culture of this agency. We were going from the unemployment agency to the employment agency, and we did that very well. We restructured, changed the dynamics, changed the delivery of services, looked at how we could do things more efficient, more effectively, changed the administrative law judges to hearings telephonically. And then we were hit by Katrina. And we were ready, and we made complete headway, getting people paid, helping our businesses

being very supportive. And we truly did end up changing the employment, was considered the unemployment to the employment office, and we changed our model to increasing employment in Mississippi. And as I continue to serve under Governor Barber's leadership, he nominated me to be the executive director of the Mississippi State Personnel Board. And so in that position, it's like serving as the HR representative for all of state government. So at that point, I had about 32,000 state employees under the umbrella to provide services. Again, we looked at how we could do that more efficiently, more effectively. how could we provide services to all of our different agencies, and we move things electronically.

Again, we changed our administrative law judges to hearing those different hearings through telephonic measures. So it was, again, for me, quite the experience, and I learned so much, and we were able to, again, change the dynamics to a much more efficient and effective manner of service. So what led you in 2012 to run for state transit? And what was it like being the state treasurer? Oh, again, what a tremendous honor. You know, when that came available, I had the opportunity to kind of look over my skill set, and I had been very blessed to serve in all these capacities.

And having been a bond lawyer, having represented the state treasurer's office, having written the laws that affected the treasurer's office, I felt like my skill set was the best match to serve in that capacity. So when I ran, it was just an unbelievable experience. It was the hardest thing I've ever done to run in a statewide elected campaign, but it was the most blessed. Got to meet so many people across the state. There are so many ambassadors that truly wanted to see our state continue to be successful.

And so I knew when I was moving forward with that position and then got elected, that it was, again, another service that I could provide with excellent teams. And I will tell you that all the way through, I've just had tremendous teams, and that's made all of the different agencies be very successful. But when I did run that year in 2011, it was even more of an honor because we've only had four women elected statewide office in 200 years. So for me to be only one of four is such a tremendous honor. And on that note, in 2020, that's last year you assume the role of attorney general. the first woman ever to hold this spot, the first Republican, to hold this spot since 1878.

What was it like assuming that position? Oh, my goodness. I wish you could see me. It was incredible. Again, so humbling, such an honor to be able to come into this position. Again, for me to serve as a mentor or role model for other women, to encourage them, to empower them, to step in different positions, whether it's the public service arena, business, medical profession. It was just an overwhelming feeling, again, of such honor. And then also then to serve as the first Republican, you know, to really talk about our conservative values, our principles, and to really put those into play when we actually got into this office. Since we mentioned that you started your career there, now you're there

as the V-A-G. How is the office changed since you were there? as a special assistant. Well, and I will tell you this, so to come back to this, which is an amazing office, it's very complex, and we touch people lives every day, we're supporting people, we're making a difference. You know, to come back 35 years later, it's just, wow. And it was a wonderful office when I was here, my first five years of practice, because I knew how this office operated, I knew the magnitude of this office.

It has certainly grown since I did. been here. You know, we have probably 280 people right now on staff. We probably had 100 when I was here at that junction in my career. But I understood how important this office was. I understood how we could really meet the needs of people across the state. Understanding that in this position, I'm not only the chief legal officer, I'm the chief law enforcement officer. So to come back in and really partner with our law enforcement, partner with our municipalities and our counties, to partner with our businesses, our different state agencies, the legislature, and the list goes on and on. I knew we were in for a wonderful, positive ride since I'd gotten here.

Can you give us a snapshot of a day in the life of the AG? Oh, goodness, I will tell you, it's never dull. It's something new and different every day. we are certainly representing people on so many different levels. It could be that I'm in court. It could be that I'm speaking with different agency members, the legislature, meeting with other elected officials. It's important for me. I'm out and about because I think when I am listening and talking to people,

I am hearing the needs of the people. So in my role, I am out and about because I want to be impressing on people that this is their office, that this is their legal office, and our job is to represent. And I take that even to a different level. It's important for me to be active on a national scene because we get better and we get stronger if I understand what the national issues are

as well as what the issues are in our state. So that's been very key for me. There are many times I'm out and about because we've had a number of things that have happened across our state. And it could be that, you know, it's involving law enforcement for that day. It could be that, again, speaking to a university because this is the people's office and I want them to know all that we do.

So we spend a lot of time on outreach because, again, it's always how we can help and empower others. So talking about national issues, you are as Attorney General of the State of Mississippi, lead counsel for probably the most watched case of this Supreme Court term, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. Can you give us an overview of your case? Absolutely. And by far, this will probably be the biggest case of my lifetime and certainly one that has tremendous magnitude for the state of Mississippi, but for our country. This is an important case for the life movement. We're asking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade and KCV Planned Parenthood. Now, that alone is just an incredible request. It's an impactful ask. But when you break it down, to the most elemental level. Dobbs is about the rule of law. This is a rule of law question. The Constitution establishes that the individuals

that the people elect to the legislative branch, they get to make the kinds of decisions that are at issue, such as abortion policymaking. But we have to balance the competing interest. We have to make compromises and find solutions to these hard choices just like this. So what has happened historically now for the last 50 years, the court took away those decision-making from the elected leaders with Roe, and they locked the abortion policy-making

discussion away in the judiciary. And when they did that, they stunted the debate on a lot more than abortion. So we haven't had the opportunity to really have a true, honest debate about how we care for the dignity of women and their children. And this now gives us the opportunity to do just that. And so we're excited to have this very strong, healthy dialogue about empowering women, empowering their children, protecting the medical community. And this is the first conversation to look at how we support women and their children from a holistic viewpoint. How did you go about choosing the members of the legal team for Dobbs? Well, again, such a blessing.

Again, I've had an incredible opportunity to make tremendous hires. I had some excellent people here, and it's just a tremendous merger of everyone in this office because it's a team effort. And this one was very important. I have to tell you, I appointed Mississippi's first solicitor general. We'd never had a solicitor general here. and so in doing that, I was able to appoint the first one. The first Solicitor General, Christy Johnson, was selected to serve on the federal bench,

and so she now serves as the first female on the federal bench of the Southern District. So then I had another opportunity to hire another Solicitor General, and again, what a blessing to be able to have someone step into this role again, and Scott Stewart was hired as a Solicitor General. graduate of Princeton University and Stanford Law. He clerked for Justice Thomas and Justice O'S Gannon of the Ninth Circuit. He spent four years at the Department of Justice litigating cases at federal courts across the country. And so he is the key member of the team that has come in and we've been able to really utilize his strength,

his leadership, and get the whole team that we put in place to rally around and really craft our entire appellate legal strategy and represent the state in front of, you know, the United States Supreme Court where we're headed. So again, an opportunity to put a magnificent team together. Besides your ongoing work on Dobbs, what are some of your other accomplishments as AG that you're most proud of? Well, there are so many areas that when we got into office I really wanted to address because I felt like it's important to stop and talk about people that are victims, that we could step in and help them. How could we get them to be survivors?

And several of these are hard topics that a lot of people don't really want to have the conversation. It's easier to not notice or not pursue. But one of them that we've really been very fortunate and made a lot of headway is human trafficking. We instituted a full court press to shut down traffickers in the state of Mississippi and to really help their victims recover without any shame or blame. That was really important to me. We also put in victims advocates, and we have new victim services that we can help provide services to these individuals and different groups. It was, again, so important that we do that.

We trained investigators because this was a new way to look at how do we rescue people and how do we empower them. We did training with our prosecutors. Again, important getting the prosecutors on board because this is an entire process. So as we trained our law enforcement and all of our other partners in criminal justice, we continued to move into a full public awareness campaign across the state. We call it be the solution. We want to empower all Mississippians to help show that these traffickers that they are just absolutely not welcome in the state of Mississippi. Does the fact that the president is from the opposing party have an effect on your sort of day-to-day responsibilities as AG?

or your strategy? Well, absolutely. It is definitely required that we be more vigilant. The Biden administration has overreached in nearly every area of our lives in the past year. So from coming across into the state's tax and spending authority to violating longstanding religious liberty protections. So they've just gone at every level in an overreach. And in a lot of ways, the state attorneys general, we're the last line of defense. And I know that my fellow Republican AGs and I, we take that very seriously, and we've banded together, we unite, we support one another, we're filing a number of lawsuits, we write letters to the administration because it's important to protect our values and our rights and not have

that overreach from the president's administration. What are some other, besides Dobbs, other litigation matters that we should keep an eye on from Mississippi. Well, we do have a number of those. I'll tell you, our legislature passed the Fairness Act, which is to protect girls' sports and to ensure that girls have a level playing field in their school athletic program. The ACLU has indicated in news reports that they intend to challenge our law, and we're ready. We're prepared to defend that law. That's going to be important, and we see that coming, you know, probably very soon. Well, General Fitch, one final question for you before you go. If you could have a conversation with any Supreme Court

Justice, living or dead, who would it be? And what would you talk about? Oh, I have to tell you. It would be Justice Scalia. I mean, I had the opportunity once to meet with him, visit with him, have dinner with him. I'd love to be able to have more time to talk with him. He was such an incredible individual with great wisdom, great heart, compassion. He came down here and went hunting in Mississippi. And just to hear him talk about, you know, the trials and tribulations that he went through as a young boy, his rise through the different levels of the judiciary, and then to be on the United States Supreme Court. And when we all stop and pull back in, we look at the powerful impact that Justice Scalia had.

but how he did it with such grace and such wisdom and such insight and how the decisions that he was involved in will just, they'll just be impactful for us for the rest of our lives. Well, General Fitch, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so very much. I enjoyed the opportunity to get to visit with you on a number of these different topics. Thank you so much. Well, G.C., we've already done trivia about famous or infamous court leaks. That seemed like the most appropriate topic for this week's trivia, but since we've already done it, I figured we'll move on to a different topic. But if anyone's interested in Supreme Court leaker trivia, check out our episode from earlier this year, which you can find and which we aptly named Supreme Gossip.

If only we had known, Zach, if only we had known. Listen, we were just ahead of our time. That's what it was. Ahead of our time. For this week's trivia, G.C., I thought we could focus on Justice Stevens. Now, I know this may seem like an odd choice, but as we mentioned on Monday, before the leaked draft opinion dropped, the court held its long-delayed memorial service for Justice Stevens. So this seemed like an appropriate topic. I love it.

Great. All right, G.C. I'll start off with a relatively easy one. Who appointed Justice Stevens to the Supreme Court? This I know. It was President Gerald Ford. Stevens actually was his only appointment. That is exactly right.

You are off to a great start, G. See, bonus question, who did Justice Stevens replace on the Supreme Court? Oh, this I don't know. Any guesses? No. Okay, that's okay. That's okay. He actually replaced William O. Douglas.

And what's actually interesting about this is President Ford had actually tried to unsuccessfully initiate impeachment proceedings against Justice Douglas when Ford was serving as a member of the House of Representatives. So it was kind of a weird coincidence that that was the justice he got to replace on the court. Second bonus question for you, G.C. Okay. A chance to redeem yourself here. Who replaced Justice Stevens on the court when he retired in 2010? Recent history I can do. That would be Justice Kagan.

Exactly right. All right. Very good. Very good. You redeemed yourself with the second bonus question. Now, G.C., we know Justice Stevens had a very long tenure on the court. And in fact, he was the third longest serving justice in the court's history. So here's my question.

Can you name the two justices who served longer than he did? Oh, interesting. Long serving justices. I'm going to guess that Justice Douglas was one because I know that he served for a very long time. That is right. And in fact, Justice Douglas was the longest serving justice on the court. And as for the second, you've got me. Well, that's okay. This one was a little more difficult, a little more obscure, not recent history. It was actually Justice Stephen Field. Justice Field retired from the court on December 1st, 1897, after having been appointed in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln.

Wow. Now, a fun fact, G.C. is apparently Justice Stevens mistying Justice Fields as the second longest serving justice by only a few days. Wow. So if he had just stayed on the court a few more days, he would have tied or even surpassed Justice Field. Well, I think this officially puts the lie to the idea that justices retire for strategic purposes. Maybe. I don't know if I'm sold, but maybe, maybe. All right. Now, Justice Stevens was the third longest serving justice. But another fun fact, he was actually the second oldest justice in terms of years, in terms of age, to ever serve on the court. He was. 90 years and two months old when he retired. So who was the oldest justice to ever serve on the court? That would have to be Oliver Wendell Holmes. That's right. Now, he didn't beat Justice Stevens by much because he was only 90 years and 10 months old when he retired. Wow. That I didn't know. I thought he was actually older.

So he lived for several years after he retired, but he was 90 years and 10 months. Fascinating. When he left the court? All right, final question for you, G.C. And I think this one will be near and dear to your heart, especially given your interest in administrative law. Which famous, or infamous, administrative law decision did Justice Stevens author? Well, that would of course be Chevron. That is correct. Well done today, G.C.

Thank you, Zach. Thank you very much. Well, that's all we have for today. Thank you to everyone for listening to SCOTUS 101. please be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, IHeartRadio, or wherever else you listen, and as always, we'd appreciate if you left us a five-star rating. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SCOTUS 101, and email us at SCOTUS 101 atHeritage.org with your questions, comments, or ideas for future shows.

Case is submitted. You've been listening to SCOTUS 101, brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive produced by Giancarlo Canaparo and Zach Smith. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitHeritage.org.