Big day in the Supreme Court — "the last scheduled day, but they could easily add another day if they wanted to."

I'm following the live blog at SCOTUSblog.

UPDATE 1: The first case is Abbott v. Perez, a 5-4 decision about racial gerrymandering in Texas:

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion,in which GORSUCH,J.,joined. SOTOMAYOR,J.,filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

From Alito's majority opinion:

It was the challengers’ burden to show that the 2013 Legislature acted with discriminatory intent when it enacted plans that the court itself had produced. The 2013 Legislature was not obligated to show that it had “cured” the unlawful intent that the court attributed to the 2011 Legislature. Thus, the essential pillar of the three-judge court’s reasoning was critically flawed.

When the congressional and state legislative districts are reviewed under the proper legal standards, all but one of them, we conclude, are lawful.

From Sotomayor's dissent (for the 4 liberal Justices):

This disregard of both precedent and fact comes at serious costs to our democracy. It means that, after years of litigation and undeniable proof of intentional discrimination, minority voters in Texas—despite constituting a majority of the population within the State—will continue to be underrepresented in the political process. Those voters must return to the polls in 2018 and 2020 with the knowledge that their ability to exercise meaningfully their right to vote has been burdened by the manipulation of district lines specifically designed to target their communities and minimize their political will. 

UPDATE 2: Ohio v. AmeEx, written by Justice Thomas, also 5-4. SCOTUSblog summarizes:

This is an antitrust case, in which a group of states are challenging a provision in the contract between American Express and the merchants that accept its cards; the provision bars the merchants from trying to steer their customers to use a particular credit card.... The Court holds that Amex's steering provisions do not violate federal antitrust law.... Court defines the market as two-sided, including both merchants and cardholders. When the market is defined this way, the Court says, it is clear that the plaintiffs have not met their burden to show anti-competitive effects.

And that's all for today, so I guess there will be another day.

AND: Breyer's dissent in Amex begins:

For more than 120 years, the American economy has prospered by charting a middle path between pure lassez-faire and state capitalism, governed by an antitrust law “dedicated to the principle that markets, not individual firms and certainly not political power, produce the opti­mal mixture of goods and services.”

That is, Breyer — a former antitrust lawprof — misspelled laissez-faire.