The dockets are really short:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21a240.html; https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21a244.html. If you look at the dockets, you'll see that the Court shortened the time involved by a LOT. Very few briefs filed already, and briefs are to be filed by Dec 30.
Update on the Vaccine Mandates cases now being considered by the Supreme Court of the United States; dockets accessible at the links in the quotation above. Briefs were filed today, and final reply briefs are due Monday. Oral arguments will be held on Friday, January 3, beginning at 10AM EST. The Court did permit "divided argument," meaning both that more than one lawyer can argue for each side, and that each of those lawyers will get only 15 minutes at the podium, rather than the usual 30, for each of the two cases in each of the two consolidated arguments. But the lawyers seem quite good, so the shorter fast-paced arguments should also be good.
One explanation circulating for why the Court made the surprise decision to hold an expedited oral argument is that it wanted to head off criticism of any decisions without full briefing and argument. As discussed higher in this thread, the main topics of the briefings were the extent of the relevant federal agencies' statutory authority to enact the mandates, whether the agencies met the procedural requirements for issuing such rules, and the specific impacts of the rules. The parties' briefs were very good, but a few important points:
*there is a distinct difference in the briefs written before the rapid spread of omicron and newer briefs, including the inclusion of the newest argument circulating in the media: "we need workers and these mandates cut the supply of workers we need."
*the biggest test (as discussed earlier in this thread) may be over the "major question" doctrine, which, distilled, says that courts should not defer to regulatory agencies' expertise if the proposed regulatory expansion would be too broad. IOW, we won't allow agencies to expand their own authority too far; e.g., "the OSHA rule would affect 84 million Americans."
*in all four cases, the most important two jurists appear to be Justice Kavanaugh (with lots of quotations to opinions he wrote while on the D.C. Circuit appeals court) and Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeff Sutton (with whom I worked on several matters before he went on the bench, and he is both very capable and well-regarded by the Supremes). Judge Sutton wrote a dissent in an earlier proceeding in the OSHA mandate case, and one theme seems to resonate in the briefs: earlier cases dealing with mask mandates should not control here because you can remove a mask, but can't remove a vaccination. That is, should the Court permit an emergency rule, which will expire within a few weeks, to impose a permanent "medical procedure"?
It is likely that live audio will be made available by the Court for the oral arguments beginning at 10AM EST on Friday, January 7. Audio should also be available
on the Court's website at some point afterwards
