# All My Eyes on The Supreme Court! Anastasia Boden Talks to A&G

An episode of [Armstrong & Getty On Demand](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1259438987), 10 Oct 2026, 13 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0516ff28-c0d6-492a-b264-ae3900375fc8/54831d91-3f0e-40d5-ba91-b4de01618ed4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=4db37684-c7ed-4964-843c-ae3900375fd7

Anastasia Boden (civil rights attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation & host of the “In Dissent” podcast) joins Armstrong & Getty to talk about The Supreme Court's current session. Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: And now, here's Armstrong.
[0:11] Speaker 2: And Getty. Thumbs up or thumbs down on public executions.
[0:15] Speaker 2: For the whole family.
[0:17] Speaker 1: Executing an entire family?
[0:19] Speaker 2: No, the family watching. You gather around the television with
[0:21] Speaker 2: the kids. The execution's almost on. Hurry, kids, hurry!
[0:26] Speaker 1: That's right.
[0:27] Speaker 3: Why don't we talk about that in the Supreme Court's
[0:30] Speaker 3: current session, in the Supreme Court conference, whatever that is
[0:34] Speaker 3: that's going on, with Anastasia Bowden, Constitutional Scholarship Director and
[0:38] Speaker 3: Senior Legal Analyst with the Pacific Legal Foundation, and host
[0:41] Speaker 3: of the very popular InDissent podcast.
[0:43] Speaker 1: Anastasia, how are you?
[0:45] Speaker 4: Good morning, doing well.
[0:46] Speaker 2: You gonna watch?
[0:48] Speaker 4: That really sent me last night.
[0:50] Speaker 5: I can't even, I didn't think this was real life
[0:52] Speaker 5: anymore when I saw that headline.
[0:54] Speaker 1: It's not going to happen, right? The public execution.
[0:58] Speaker 4: Who knows anymore?
[0:59] Speaker 2: Well, I saw something. Is it legal? Is there any
[1:02] Speaker 2: reason it wouldn't be legal?
[1:04] Speaker 5: Actually, I was just doing some research recently on sort
[1:08] Speaker 5: of censorship on TV because I realized, you know how
[1:11] Speaker 5: years ago they used to bleep out bad words and
[1:14] Speaker 5: now everything you watch. And I was like, why is that?
[1:17] Speaker 5: And apparently there's not a whole lot of limits if
[1:19] Speaker 5: it's streaming. So I think maybe they could stream it.
[1:22] Speaker 2: So that's why the streaming... Because you can put anything
[1:26] Speaker 2: on the Internet, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because otherwise
[1:30] Speaker 2: somebody would try to shut it down over it being violent.
[1:33] Speaker 2: The TV.
[1:33] Speaker 5: Yeah, if it was the TV, they could sense that
[1:35] Speaker 5: I think it'd be harder under FCC rules. But under
[1:38] Speaker 5: the Internet, they can show you anything. They can say anything.
[1:40] Speaker 3: But only broadcast television. Cable has completely different rules, which
[1:45] Speaker 3: is all ridiculous and has rendered the FCC ridiculous. And
[1:48] Speaker 3: hilarious anachronism.
[1:50] Speaker 2: But back in the day, the problem always was if
[1:52] Speaker 2: you tried to watch some gritty crime drama on NBC
[1:55] Speaker 2: and the tough-talking cop was calling somebody a jive turkey
[1:59] Speaker 2: because he couldn't say any bad words, it was always
[2:01] Speaker 2: just ridiculous. So glad we've gotten past that hurdle.
[2:04] Speaker 3: Right. So I'm looking through some of the notes you
[2:07] Speaker 3: sent over, Anastasia, and some of it has to do
[2:11] Speaker 3: with the conference that the justices have. Is that when
[2:15] Speaker 3: they decide what cases to take and which not to?
[2:18] Speaker 4: That's right.
[2:18] Speaker 5: And they just had their big conference because they were
[2:21] Speaker 5: sort of on break for the summer. And so when
[2:22] Speaker 5: they got back, there were hundreds of petitions waiting for them.
[2:26] Speaker 4: And so on Monday, they denied about.
[2:29] Speaker 5: 12 pages worth of cases, disappointing a lot of people,
[2:32] Speaker 5: a lot of interesting cases that they denied. And then
[2:35] Speaker 5: today they're going to meet again and determine whether to
[2:37] Speaker 5: take more cases.
[2:39] Speaker 1: Wow.
[2:40] Speaker 2: Do they vote on that like they do on everything
[2:42] Speaker 2: else since majority rules? Is that how it works?
[2:44] Speaker 5: They vote and then they break bread because they've decided that,
[2:48] Speaker 5: you know, it's hard to stay mad at anyone if
[2:50] Speaker 5: you can look them in the eye and eat afterwards
[2:53] Speaker 5: with them. So they always after their conferences, they vote,
[2:56] Speaker 5: they get very mad at each other, then they go
[2:58] Speaker 5: have lunch.
[2:59] Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's an interesting idea.
[3:01] Speaker 3: So to your mind, what are the most interesting ins
[3:04] Speaker 3: and or outs from the conference so far?
[3:07] Speaker 5: There were a few that got denied Monday that were interesting.
[3:10] Speaker 5: One involved a student who had worn a Let's Go
[3:13] Speaker 5: Brandon armband, and he was punished for that. And there
[3:17] Speaker 5: were some questions about whether the school should be in
[3:19] Speaker 5: the business of punishing children for speech they don't like.
[3:24] Speaker 5: That was denied, so we won't get an answer from
[3:26] Speaker 5: the Supreme Court on that. And then there was this
[3:28] Speaker 5: other interesting one about a Pennsylvania judge who was posting
[3:32] Speaker 5: on Facebook some pro Biden posts praising Democrat policies. And
[3:36] Speaker 5: he was suspended and his pension was taken away. And
[3:41] Speaker 5: he said that violated his free speech rights. And the
[3:44] Speaker 5: Pennsylvania Supreme Court had said it was fine for the
[3:49] Speaker 5: judicial board to suspend him. He appealed to the Supreme
[3:52] Speaker 5: Court and the Supreme Court said we're not touching that.
[3:54] Speaker 4: And it's kind of interesting.
[3:55] Speaker 5: I mean, certainly people shouldn't surrender their free speech rights
[3:58] Speaker 5: when they go into office or go into public service.
[4:01] Speaker 5: On the other hand, it's kind of a bad look
[4:03] Speaker 5: for the justice system when your judges are praising a
[4:06] Speaker 5: particular party's policies.
[4:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels to me like impartiality is hanging by
[4:12] Speaker 3: a thread in the public perception anyway, so that wouldn't help.
[4:15] Speaker 2: Hey, as we've learned over the years, choosing to take
[4:19] Speaker 2: a case or not is every bit as big a
[4:21] Speaker 2: deal as making a decision on– of taking it and
[4:23] Speaker 2: making a decision on one for obvious reasons. Do we
[4:26] Speaker 2: get to hear their reasoning? Because when they take a case–
[4:29] Speaker 2: and make a decision, we get to read their opinions
[4:32] Speaker 2: and know, well, this justice thinks this and this justice
[4:34] Speaker 2: thinks that. But when they decide to let go, for instance,
[4:38] Speaker 2: the let's go brand an armband, which I wish they'd
[4:42] Speaker 2: have taken up. Do we get to hear their reasoning
[4:44] Speaker 2: on that? Because, you know, that whole case, I remember
[4:47] Speaker 2: it was interesting because you can wear a Black Lives
[4:50] Speaker 2: Matter T-shirt to school or have a my body, my
[4:53] Speaker 2: choice or all kinds of other political stuff and nobody complains.
[4:57] Speaker 2: But anyway, do we get to hear their reasoning when
[4:59] Speaker 2: they decide not to take something? Very rarely.
[5:02] Speaker 4: I mean, they deny so many cases.
[5:03] Speaker 5: They only take 1% of every case that's asked of
[5:08] Speaker 5: them to take. So the vast majority of their action
[5:11] Speaker 5: is denying cases. Justices can write a dissent from denial.
[5:16] Speaker 4: But again, it's so rare.
[5:17] Speaker 5: And that's why if you get a dissent from denial,
[5:19] Speaker 5: it's like, for me, I've gotten a couple of them.
[5:21] Speaker 5: And it's a loss, right? They're not taking your case.
[5:24] Speaker 5: You should be really sad. But somehow, it's really heartening
[5:27] Speaker 5: when you actually get to read the dissent from denial. Because, yeah,
[5:31] Speaker 5: you get to understand. And it's a it's a justice saying, no,
[5:34] Speaker 5: we should have taken this case. You never get a
[5:36] Speaker 5: reason that they don't take it. But you do get
[5:38] Speaker 5: a justice saying, here's why we should have. And that
[5:41] Speaker 5: always feels like a win somehow, which is kind of sad.
[5:44] Speaker 2: But, yeah.
[5:46] Speaker 1: Interesting.
[5:46] Speaker 3: So let's talk about the cases that they have agreed
[5:48] Speaker 3: to take on. And indeed, they are hearing oral arguments
[5:52] Speaker 3: this week and on into next week, I think, and
[5:55] Speaker 3: and beyond. What are some of the biggies happening?
[5:58] Speaker 4: That's right.
[5:59] Speaker 5: This was the first week of oral arguments for the term.
[6:01] Speaker 5: The big one involved a Boulder City that had sued
[6:05] Speaker 5: ExxonMobil and another company under Colorado law for alleged local
[6:10] Speaker 5: injuries caused by climate change. And there's already some preemption
[6:15] Speaker 5: going on about whether you can sue these businesses for
[6:18] Speaker 5: interstate pollution.
[6:20] Speaker 4: You have to sue under federal law. Completely unworkable.
[6:23] Speaker 2: Next case. I mean, how would that ever work? Yeah,
[6:25] Speaker 2: of course.
[6:27] Speaker 5: It's right, and the city tried to get around it
[6:29] Speaker 5: by saying, well, we're not suing for pollution, we're suing
[6:31] Speaker 5: for misrepresentation. They misrepresented their effect on the climate, and
[6:36] Speaker 5: those sort of misrepresentation claims are traditionally a state law thing.
[6:39] Speaker 4: That's like a, I don't know, breach of contract or fraud.
[6:42] Speaker 5: Those things are traditionally left to the state, so they're
[6:44] Speaker 5: clearly trying to get around federal preemption. On the other hand,
[6:49] Speaker 5: some justices seem to buy into that this was perfectly fine.
[6:53] Speaker 5: I think the good news for everyone is even if
[6:56] Speaker 5: the court were allowed to allow the city to sue Exxon, which, yeah,
[7:00] Speaker 5: it'd be pretty crazy. As the attorney oral argument said,
[7:03] Speaker 5: that would mean that somebody could sue a person filling
[7:06] Speaker 5: up their tank in Colorado for purported climate change.
[7:11] Speaker 4: It just opens up world to so many lawsuits. That's
[7:15] Speaker 4: so tangential.
[7:16] Speaker 5: But I think Congress would step in and preempt that.
[7:20] Speaker 5: I mean, if they could do anything.
[7:21] Speaker 2: That's hilarious that you think Congress would do something. They
[7:25] Speaker 2: get a lot of lobbying. Bless your heart, as they
[7:27] Speaker 2: say in the South.
[7:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, a little.
[7:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, that one is just loony tunes. What else we got?
[7:33] Speaker 5: Well, today, I'm personally, I have all my eyes on
[7:37] Speaker 5: the Supreme Court constantly refreshing even as we speak because
[7:41] Speaker 5: PLF has.
[7:41] Speaker 2: All my eyes is a funny phrase.
[7:43] Speaker 4: Well, you know.
[7:45] Speaker 3: There's an obvious question to be asked here.
[7:47] Speaker 4: I have eyes everywhere, guys.
[7:49] Speaker 2: I have eyes everywhere. Oh, that's the metaphorical.
[7:52] Speaker 3: Oh, go on.
[7:55] Speaker 5: Well, we have six cases at PLF that are pending.
[7:58] Speaker 5: We're asking the Supreme Court to take. And so that's
[8:01] Speaker 5: a lot. That's a lot for any law firm. And today,
[8:03] Speaker 5: the Supreme Court is going to decide whether to take them.
[8:05] Speaker 5: So we have Katibi, which I've spoken about before, involving
[8:07] Speaker 5: California's mandate that people who teach continuing medical education include
[8:12] Speaker 5: implicit bias in their lecture.
[8:14] Speaker 4: Even if it's totally irrelevant. So that's one case. Yeah,
[8:18] Speaker 4: that's egregious in my opinion.
[8:20] Speaker 5: We also have one having to do with Soho in
[8:24] Speaker 5: New York, where in order to live in Soho in
[8:26] Speaker 5: the past, you had to be a government-certified artist.
[8:30] Speaker 2: What a funny phrase. That is a hilarious phrase.
[8:35] Speaker 1: That's a Soviet phrase.
[8:38] Speaker 5: Yeah, it didn't work out so well as you can imagine.
[8:40] Speaker 5: And the government wasn't even really enforcing it. They hardly
[8:43] Speaker 5: licensed anyone. And Soho had to grow, so people just
[8:46] Speaker 5: kind of moved in. So it became totally unworkable. And
[8:49] Speaker 5: now a whole bunch of people live there who are
[8:51] Speaker 5: not government certified, nor artists, actually. And so to kind
[8:55] Speaker 5: of fix the system, they said, well, we will allow
[8:58] Speaker 5: you to come into compliance with the code for a
[9:02] Speaker 5: fee of $ 100 per square foot.
[9:04] Speaker 2: Of course. Right.
[9:06] Speaker 4: And we think that's unconstitutional.
[9:08] Speaker 2: How much do you know about this? Like, back when
[9:10] Speaker 2: they were certifying artists, what was the process? Like, I'm
[9:13] Speaker 2: doing macrame, and do I meet with a government board
[9:15] Speaker 2: and fill out some paperwork? And they decide.
[9:17] Speaker 1: They.
[9:17] Speaker 2: Hold it up to the light? I don't know.
[9:19] Speaker 1: That stitching's a little uneven.
[9:22] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, we've seen this before. This is crazy.
[9:23] Speaker 5: But, you know, in Louisiana, famously, in order to become
[9:26] Speaker 5: a licensed florist, you had to do a floral arrangement,
[9:29] Speaker 5: and they would decide if your floral arrangement was sufficiently
[9:33] Speaker 5: aesthetically pleasing that you could become a florist.
[9:35] Speaker 2: And guess who was the judge?
[9:37] Speaker 4: Guess who was the judge?
[9:38] Speaker 5: It was the licensed florists themselves who sat on that board.
[9:41] Speaker 4: And decided that you two could.
[9:44] Speaker 2: Become a florist. Wow. It's amazing how far off track
[9:48] Speaker 2: we can get.
[9:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
[9:50] Speaker 2: It's just stunning.
[9:52] Speaker 5: It is, and that's why all of my eyes are
[9:55] Speaker 5: on the Supreme Court today, We got to bring the
[9:58] Speaker 5: Constitution back, people.
[10:00] Speaker 2: You're living in Soho and you're enjoying your life. I
[10:04] Speaker 2: think there's a non-government approved artist moved in next door.
[10:08] Speaker 2: He's doing poetry and he hasn't been approved by the
[10:09] Speaker 2: government at all.
[10:11] Speaker 1: The agony.
[10:12] Speaker 3: Hey, honey, you want to go see the hot new band?
[10:14] Speaker 3: They're government approved. It's just ridiculous. Anastasia Bowden of the
[10:19] Speaker 3: Pacific Legal Foundation is on the line. Are there any
[10:22] Speaker 3: of the oral arguments coming up that are especially compelling?
[10:26] Speaker 3: I'm scrolling through some of the info on SCOTUSblog, and
[10:29] Speaker 3: my eyes are glazing just a tad.
[10:32] Speaker 5: Yeah, this is not as fun of a term as
[10:37] Speaker 5: previous terms.
[10:38] Speaker 4: That might be by design.
[10:40] Speaker 5: The Supreme Court has traditionally liked to take a term
[10:43] Speaker 5: off after it does big things, although that hasn't been
[10:45] Speaker 5: the case recently. It feels like every term we're getting
[10:48] Speaker 5: some pretty big cases. But a lot of people think
[10:50] Speaker 5: that right now the court is keeping room for two things.
[10:54] Speaker 5: One is the emergency docket, which they keep getting these
[10:57] Speaker 5: emergency petitions that they have to kind of squeeze into
[11:00] Speaker 5: their schedule. So that's one thing they might be keeping
[11:03] Speaker 5: room for. The other thing is the Trump docket. Every
[11:05] Speaker 5: single term, there's a Trump docket, you know, emergency Trump measures.
[11:08] Speaker 5: And here we have the midterms coming. Who knows what
[11:11] Speaker 5: kind of election things are going to be going on.
[11:13] Speaker 5: So some people think they're kind of keeping it dull.
[11:15] Speaker 4: To make space.
[11:17] Speaker 2: You're probably right. They got to carve out a he's
[11:20] Speaker 2: going to do something that we have to rule on.
[11:23] Speaker 4: Public executions.
[11:24] Speaker 2: Public executions, maybe, for instance.
[11:26] Speaker 1: See, I got to disagree.
[11:27] Speaker 3: I mean, like Salazar versus Paramount Global, Jack and I
[11:30] Speaker 3: were just arguing about this off the air the other day,
[11:33] Speaker 3: whether the phrase goods or services from a videotaped service
[11:36] Speaker 3: provider is used in the Video Privacy Protection Act's definition
[11:39] Speaker 3: of consumer refers to all of a videotaped service provider's
[11:43] Speaker 3: goods or services.
[11:43] Speaker 1: Or only to its audiovisual goods or services. We almost
[11:46] Speaker 1: came to blows.
[11:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, we had to go eat break bread together to
[11:49] Speaker 2: get over it.
[11:50] Speaker 4: The hill you died on?
[11:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I'm dying on this hill.
[11:55] Speaker 3: Oh, boy. Well, we can't wait to hear what PLF
[11:57] Speaker 3: cases get picked up, so let's check back again soon.
[12:00] Speaker 2: Who do you like?
[12:01] Speaker 4: Thanks so much.
[12:01] Speaker 2: Plessy or Ferguson?
[12:03] Speaker 1: Oh, boy. Yikes.
[12:05] Speaker 4: I like freedom.
[12:07] Speaker 2: There you go.
[12:08] Speaker 1: Amen to that, sister. Anastasia Bowden of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
[12:12] Speaker 1: Always enlightening. Thanks a million.
[12:13] Speaker 2: It is stunning how far off track societies can get.
[12:19] Speaker 2: There's all this stuff that we take for granted that,
[12:24] Speaker 2: you know, any normal person thinks that you would never,
[12:27] Speaker 2: ever forget. Even consider the idea of a neighborhood where
[12:32] Speaker 2: only government-sanctioned artists could live. What?
[12:36] Speaker 3: Or a system where for a hospital to get an
[12:38] Speaker 3: MRI machine, the other hospitals with MRI machines around the
[12:42] Speaker 3: area would have to approve it. I don't think there's
[12:45] Speaker 3: a need for it, they would say, thinking about their profits.
[12:48] Speaker 3: Freaking obviously. Wow.
[12:50] Speaker 2: But it's mobbed up.
[12:52] Speaker 1: That's crony capitalism.
[12:53] Speaker 3: That is rent-seeking, where the government denies freedom in the
[12:58] Speaker 3: name of protecting the consumer.
[12:59] Speaker 1: It's mobbed up.
[13:00] Speaker 2: Hey, that's a pretty good poem. Two stanzas, rhymes. Sorry,
[13:04] Speaker 2: government says no. What?
[13:07] Speaker 1: Wow.
[13:08] Speaker 2: How long did it last that way?
[13:10] Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I don't know.
[13:11] Speaker 2: I'm going to have to do more research on that.
[13:13] Speaker 2: That is just stunning stuff.

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