"Two boxes today... Two boxes is likely to mean two or more opinions, depending on their length."

I'm following the live-blogging of the Supreme Court at SCOTUSblog.

Ah! We just got the first Supreme Court opinion ever by Neil Gorsuch.

It's a unanimous opinion, affirming something about Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

The court holds that a company may collect debts that it purchased for its own account... without triggering the statutory definition of "debt collector."

UPDATE: Sessions v. Morales-Santana. This is an important case on citizenship law and sex discrimination. 

This is a challenge to U.S. citizenship laws, which treats children are born overseas and have one U.S. citizen parent and one non-U.S. citizen parent differently depending on which parent is the U.S. citizen; children of U.S. citizen mothers are treated more favorably.... The court holds that the differential treatment by gender "is incompatible with teh requirement that the Government accord to all persons "the equal protection of the laws.'"

However, the court adds, it cannot convert the exception for mothers who are not married into the main rule displacing the provisions covering married couples and unwed fathers. Put another way, it can't rewrite the laws. So what it does is "leave it to Congress to select, going forward, a physical-presence requirement (ten years, one year, or some other period) uniformly applicable to all children born abroad with one U.S.-citizen parent and one alien parent, wed or unwed."

And, meanwhile, "the Government must ensure that the laws in question are administered in a manner free from gender-based discrimination."

This was a question that the court agreed to review in another case several years ago, before Scalia died, but they deadlocked 4-4 because Justice Kagan was recused.

I want to read the opinion. I'll talk about this more later.

I'm very interested to see what Justice Ginsburg has written about sex discrimination. (It's so easy to father a child! You don't even need to be within a thousand miles of the mother.) There is no dissenting opinion, however, and Roberts and Kennedy join Ginsburg's opinion. Thomas and Alito have a concurring opinion.

The Thomas opinion, joined by Alito, is easy to read and shows the problem, so I'll leave you with this:

The Court today holds that we are “not equipped to” remedy the equal protection injury that respondent claims his father suffered under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952. Ante, at 23. I agree with that holding. As the majority concludes, extending 8 U. S. C. §1409(c)’s 1-year physical presence requirement to unwed citizen fathers (as respondent requests) is not, under this Court’s precedent, an appropriate remedy for any equal protection violation. See ante, at 23. Indeed, I am skeptical that we even have the “power to provide relief of the sort requested in this suit—namely, conferral of citizenship on a basis other than that prescribed by Congress.” Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS, 533 U. S. 53, 73 (2001) (Scalia, J., joined by THOMAS, J., concurring) (citing Miller v. Albright, 523 U. S. 420, 452 (1998) (Scalia, J., joined by THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment)). The Court’s remedial holding resolves this case. Because respondent cannot obtain relief in any event, it is unnecessary for us to decide whether the 1952 version of the INA was constitutional, whether respondent has third-party standing to raise an equal protection claim on behalf of his father, or whether other immigration laws (such as the current versions of §§1401(g) and 1409) are constitutional. I therefore concur only in the judgment reversing the Second Circuit.