As I once noted, following the Supreme Court is a bit like following professional baseball. Summer is the off-season, and the World Series is the string of cases handed down in the last week of the Term at the end of June. When the season ends, you either celebrate the victories of your team or shrug and say, “well, there’s always next year” (especially if you can get some promising new talent brought up from the minors). You can’t buy hot dogs and beer during oral argument, but that’s just a quirky tradition and may change under the new Chief Justice.
28 U.S.C. § 2 states that “the Supreme Court shall hold at the seat of government a term of court commencing on the first Monday in October of each year”. This means today is kind of like opening day at the Supreme Court. They really should have the President throw out the first petition, but instead the day begins pretty much like all the other ones. At least we can sing an appropriate song, to the tune of “Take me out to the ball game”:
Take me out to the law game
Take me out to the Court,
Grant some petitions for certiorari
I don’t care if the opinions are scary!
Let me root, root, root for respondent,
If he doesn’t win activism’s to blame,
For it’s 3, 4, 5 votes to win at the Supreme Court game.