Will SCOTUS Show Its True Colors?

February 10, 2026·1 hr 4 min·4 clips

James Comey and Jack Goldsmith argue the Supreme Court has actually been a real check on Trump — and the data backs them up.

California goes first. Sarah sets up the redistricting fight as California's answer to Texas, then presses the obvious question: is one map racial gerrymandering while the other gets a pass? The case comes through a three-judge panel, with Judge Bumate dissenting and calling California's map a paradigmatic racial gerrymander. That word does some work. Sarah and David treat the Supreme Court's response as a test of how evenly the justices handle race and district lines. Then the numbers show up. A SCOTUSblog interim docket stat pack says the Trump administration won 90 percent of 27 applications from the beginning of the administration through the court term that ends when the new term starts in October 2025. Sarah slows it down. The 90 percent figure is not bogus, but the denominator is doing a lot of quiet work. Many injunctions were never appealed, including matters tied to Doge, trans rights, funding cuts, climate and environmental issues, and access to federal property. Immigration is outside the count. So are the Comey and Letitia James matters, which they treat as real losses even though they do not fit neatly in the injunction bucket. The denominator keeps nagging at the whole discussion. If the administration had emergency-application options in the triple digits but brought only 27, the win rate says plenty about selection, not just Supreme Court strength. Then comes habeas. The Fifth Circuit's immigration-detention cases shift the conversation from docket math to people held indefinitely after entering the country illegally. Congress gets a quick cameo. Sarah points back to 1996, when Congress was still doing legislation, as the statutory starting point for the detention fight. The last turn is professional candor. A lawyer saying her job sucks becomes a small ethics puzzle about refreshing honesty, blunt courtroom practice, and where candor turns into unprofessionalism. Sarah has heard sharper edges. She leaves Judge Sutton's memorandum opinion about allegations against Judge Boasberg, plus listener questions, for the next podcast.

As heard by us

A brisk legal-politics read on redistricting, emergency docket math, immigration detention, and courtroom candor.

Advisory Opinions opens with the Supreme Court's handling of California redistricting, framed as a response to Texas and as a test of how racial gerrymandering claims get sorted when partisan power is also plainly in the mix.

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Why you'd press play

If you've clocked the 90-percent SCOTUS win-rate claim, this is the episode that hands you the denominator.

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