This morning’s rather lengthy Supreme Court order list.
There was one new grant:
Issue : Whether free exercise plaintiffs can only succeed by proving a particular type of discrimination claim — namely that the government would allow the same conduct by someone who held different religious views — as two circuits have held, or whether courts must consider other evidence that a law is not neutral and generally applicable, as six circuits have held; (2) whether Employment Division v. Smith should be revisited; and (3) whether the government violates the First Amendment by conditioning a religious agency’s ability to participate in the foster care system on taking actions and making statements that directly contradict the agency’s religious beliefs.
Additionally, the Court called for the views of the Solicitor General in two significant cases out of California:
Issue : Whether the exacting scrutiny the Supreme Court has long required of laws that abridge the freedoms of speech and association outside the election context – as called for by NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson and its progeny – can be satisfied absent any showing that a blanket governmental demand for the individual identities and addresses of major donors to private nonprofit organizations is narrowly tailored to an asserted law-enforcement interest.
Issues : (1) Whether exacting scrutiny or strict scrutiny applies to disclosure requirements that burden nonelectoral, expressive association rights; and (2) whether California’s disclosure requirement violates charities’ and their donors’ freedom of association and speech facially or as applied to the Thomas More Law Center.
Starting on page 27 of today’s orders the Supreme Court issued a per curiam decision relating to a defaulted pension plan involving the Roman Catholic Church in Puerto Rico. Basically they cleared a jurisdictional train wreck from the tracks and once the Puerto Rican courts fix that on remand, then maybe a Free Exercise case can be considered. 
Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote a separate concurrence in the case.
Justice Sotomayor wrote a lengthy dissent from denial of certiorari in a capital case.
Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, wrote a concurrence in denial of certiorari in a Title VII case.
Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito, wrote a dissent from denial of leave to file a Bill of Complaint in Arizona v California, an original jurisdiction case. Justice Thomas is of the opinion that the Supreme Court lacks the power to refuse State v State original jurisdiction cases, a view that probably is correct.
Justice Thomas dissented from denial of certiorari in a “Chevron” case.
Due to the above, this order list goes 59 pages.
