host: a live look outside the

u.s. supreme court where today is the first day of the new supreme court term. and lawrence hurly is here at our table to tell us about it. he is supreme court correspondent for tomple son reuters. guest: good morning. host: the recent piece. what are you saying here? guest: this is the first supreme court term since the -- the first full term since the administration came in, in january. so they've had some time to adjust their legal positions in some of these big cases that hang towards the court, including one of the cases being argued today, the very first case of the term, a big employment case where the obama administration had sided with employees and the trump administration has now switched its position and is supporting the employers. host: tell us more. implingts this is a case whether guest: this is a case whether workers can group together to file class claims against their employer through oshtration agreements they have to sign

when they become employees. this has big rep cushions for workers because if companies are allowed to prevent them from making these claims, it would make it hard erd for workers to bring these claims. -- and with the court being a conservative majority, people believe the court may decide to support the companies and the trump administration's change now supporting the companies could help with that. host: that's just to get us started. how many cases will the court take up this term? guest: they usually take up about 70 cases. they haven't take b them all up yet but they have taken up some big ones they will be hearing. host: the number nine, they're back to nine justices full-time with justicegoers ch in there. what does that mean moving forward in terms of the court's action? guest: this is also his first full term on the court. he just had a coup of months

spring. he so there will be a lot of attention on what he is like, how he interacts with his colleagues, what kind of votes he takes in the upcoming cases. his addition means now this conservative majority again which we had a year with eight justices after the death of justice scleia where there were only eight with a spring. so there will be a lot of 4-4 split.n what he is but now we've got this majority again. >> the phone numbers are on the bottom of your screen. talking about the opening day of the supreme court especially some of the cases we've already started touching on but we'll touch on more. how does it go? uest: they go until june but

arguments until april, then they get them out by june. host: ruth baber ginsberg called this term nothing short of momentum. what is she saying? guest: she was doing all the ar april, then they get them out by june. reporters a favor so we could quote that. but she said it's going to be a momentum term. she's talking about these cases including one about redistricting. host: so on the screen we are ligsing some of the key cases. we do have this redistricting case. tell us what the arguments are. guest: to what extent lawmakers in states that draw districts much so on end, pretty as much as they want in order to maximize their own party's number of seats they can get. this case brings up the question of whether that can be a constitutional violation, courts never decided.

or if they did rule there are restrictions on what states could do it could have courts n impact on how all states draw their districts. host: katie from alabama. caller: good morning. really glad to be on here. a lot of people don't seem to follow the reality of what donald trump represents. he has his mega crowd but thinks he's actually a pop list and going to help the average labor in this country. nothing could be further from the truth. he's done a brilliant job of pretending to be the friend of laboring and union people. while in this case this gentleman has just renchingsed we're seeing trump with his appointments and his continued omise to appoint similar

corporate labor lawyer type judges to the supreme court, he's doing what ronald reagan started back in the 08s. he's perpt corporate labor lawyer type tax cutting the destruction of private and public unions. these were the stallwart bedrock way that middle income, so-called middle class americans could maintain a level of income, a level of dream. rt of american tax cutte and we're going to see them knock it down, we're going to continue to see this destruction of american unions, which are a good thing. they will villainized donald trump and his cronies have villainized the concept of unions. i would like this man to address a little bit of the struction of the unions in america. guest: what's interesting there are two big cases this term that the court has taken that could address worker rights. the case we talked about already about the ability to bring class claims. there's also another case they took up last week we'll be hearing later in the term about

public sector upeions and whether or not they can take fees from nonmembers to pay towards collective bargain even if they don't want to be a member of the union. allow half the state unions to do this and it's an important part of their funding and an important way they can influence events. so if the court rules against workers or unions, in both those cases, it would be a major setback for them. host: one of the other major cases is called masterpiece cakeshop. this is a religious liberty case. explain the background of that case. guest: this is kind of a fascinating case. it's about a christian baker in colorado who is asked to make a wedding cake for a gay couple and he refused to do so based religious beliefs.

the gay couple then complained and the state civil rights commission sanctioned the baker for discriminating against the couple. so the question in this case is whether the baker has actually a free speech right, although it has kind of a religious overtone the case really comes down to free speech, which is the baker's free speech saying because making a cake is a reli of creative expression, kind of like writing a song or a poem or something like that, that he should be able to have a say in what he says and that if he doesn't agree with the thing that he's being asked to do he shouldn't have to do it. with host: we have utah senator mike lee who clerked for justice alito and talked about this case. here's a look. >> i view this as a compelled speech case. the bakery owner here was being asked to do something expressive, to engage in expressive conduct that the cake bake anywhere this circumstance was not unwilling in any respect to do business

with same sex couples. what he didn't want to do was to use his expressive talents to make a specialty cake in this circumstance. he would have been happy to ell one off the shelf. wasn't inclined to participate wedding by putting his talents to work in a unique case. so in that respect i think this case is more properly viewed as something involving compelled speech. there are, as you know, heightened standards that apply when the government is trying to compel someone to engage in speech or to express themselves against their own will. host: a wedding by putting his compelled speech case ique he says. guest: right. it's about the free speech, at least the lawyers for the baker say it's about his free speech rights. but the lawyers for the gay couple say that a ruling in favor of the baker in this case would be what they call a license to discriminate because it would allow people to rcumvent anti-discrimination

laws. host: here's what you wrote recently. likely to be heard in december. also the 2015 ruling. tell us more. guest: justice kennedy is the swing vote on the court in a lot of these big cases. he is a conservative on the conservative wing but sometimes sides with the liberals. this really kind of cuts him down the middle because on the one hand he does support and is well known for supporting gay huge part that's a of his legacy when he leaves the court. but he's also a big advocate for free speech and religious rights. so he has to find a way to rule of his legacy when he leaves the in this case that he is comfortable with and whatever he decides is probably what's going to happen. because he will be casting the fifth vote and the other to ces will probably have

go along with it. host: dave is calling from bresmville in ohio. what would you like to say or ask? caller: top of the morning to you. i would like to basically just bring up one point. why are all the supreme court justices part of the ivy league? either from harvard or princeton or cornell or whatever. why don't we have to go along with a justice that's other than the ivy league? host: what is the breakdown in terms of college? and why do you think people think that's important? est: it is true that the supreme court is probably one of the most elitist institutions in the country if not the most. not just the justices but most of the law clerks who come to the court every year, who are young recent law school graduates. nearly all come from the top law schools and there have been some complaints in the past that that leads to a lack of

on the court in terms the law clerks and also the justices themselves because a lot of them come from the same kind of ivory tower kind of background. some of the justices do make more of an effort than others to try to overcome that by hiring law clerks from different law schools, maybe not the ones that everybody knows justices themselves because a lot of them come from the same kind of about. but when it comes to the nominations, the supreme court justices do tend to be from the ivy league schools. host: several did attend something called the annual red mass. and what is vent the significance? guest: well,s in an event held every year at the catholic religious event held every and the year to celebrate the legal profession and usually several of the justices attend. i think five of them went yesterday. i think also the u.s. solicitor general who is the main lawyer for the trump administration was also there.

host: justice roberts, tomples, alito, kennedy and then solicitor general. the notes we got about the they dealt with immigration, religious freedom, and democracy among other issues. we are talking they dealt with hurly who is with thompson reuters, supreme court correspondent taking your questions and comments on the new term. eon from california. caller: good morning. nothing that supreme court decides with gorsuch from the should even be acknowledged because gorsuch is someone that only the republicans have should even de on the court. the democrats have been put on the sideline. so that's where we should stay. on the sideline, just watching. that's my comment. >> reaction? guest: that's a reference to i

believe the appointment of justice gorsuch which was made possible because the republican controlled senate refused to act on the former president barack obama's nominee for that same position which was appeals court judge garland. the republicans held the seat over until the election took place, and then when donald trump won he was able to appoint kneelgoers ch and the republicans were able to by changing the senate by changing the senate rules and eliminating the filibuster for supreme court nominees which will have an effect in the future of the party majority being able to get their justice on the court worry about g to the minority party stopping it. host: jim on the democratic line. worry about the minority caller: good morning. it was always my belief that judges should blindly weigh right. how did we end up with

politicized supremes where they are republicans or democrats should they not be all centrist? i'll hang up. host: let's hear what our guest has to say. guest: like with a lot of things in this country, a lot of things have become politicized. it's hard to keep even the judiciary out of politics. a lot of people also think that with the end of the filibuster that was just talked about for judicial nominees, not just for supreme court but for lower courts which was a move that the democrats made a few years ago, will lead to perhaps a more kind of ideologically dwidded judiciary. host: take us deeper into some of the cases we've talked about. we had a list on the screen. but jan yuss versus the union dues case. explain deeper what we are

going to see when the court finally takes that up. guest: this is a case that the court actually did take up. or the issue, the same issue they took up a couple years ago just before justice scleia died and it looked like the court was going to rule against the unions after the oral argument. and then he died and suddenly the court couldn't decide the case. so it ended up coming out as a 4-4 case which means that there's no actual ruling. and no precedent set. so this case gives them the chance to decide that question which is a question that they actually need to decide because hey're actually being asked to overturn a precedent from about 40 years ago. if they do, that will be a blow to the unions because it will prevent them from being able to take these fees from nonmembers for collective bargaining activities. this is not about political spending, which nonmembers can

already opt out of that but it's the ability to take the money for the collective bargaining activities which the unions say if they can't take that money the workers who aren't union members get a free ride because the union is still representing them in negotiations but they're not having to pay towards it. host: we spent the first hour talking quite a bit about guns and the tragedy in las vegas where more than 50 people were killed and 200 injured by the gunman at one of the hotels on the strip. are there any gun cases on the court's docket this career? >> they haven't gotten one yet but it's quite possible they could. obviously the supreme court in massive say has a in the gun rights debate when they choose to weigh in if they do and there's a couple of cases heading in this direction. one is from the district of columbia about a gun regulation in d.c. where we are, and also another case from maryland concerning a separate law.

and supreme court is being reluctant to weigh in on gun 2008 as nce 2010 and well which was the big decision where they found that there was an individual right to bear arms under the constitution, under the second amendment. but since then they haven't really weighed in on what the scope of that is. and these cases, if they were to reach the court, could give them an opportunity to do that. host: explain something else for us. you recently wrote and we read in the news that the court canceled arguments that had been scheduled for october 10th in what would have been the biggest case, whether the president's ban on people entering the u.s. from several muslim majority countries amounted to unconstitutional discrimination against muslims. so what's going on? guest: this is complicated. if we go back a few months that the president's march 6 executive order which was his second travel ban was brought by blocked by a lower court.

in june, the supreme court in a preliminary decision allowed it to go into effect in a limited way. that was a 90 day travel ban. that has now expired. it expired on september 24. after that, on that same day the president announced his new travel ban. so the day after the supreme court said ok well, we don't know exactly what's going on here. we have these arguments scheduled for october 10. maybe we should take it off the argument calendar and they'll hear a briefing, figure out what they're going to do with the case. i think a lot of us think they're probably going to end up dismissing it so they can allow the lower courts to take a look at this. host: what other cases will you be watching in this court's new term? guest: well, a lot of good cases this term. there's another one we haven't talked about is the case about sports betting from new jersey where new jersey has tried to

pass a law that would allow some limited form of sports betting but there's a federal law that says they can't. this is a challenge to that which if new jersey wins, it could make it easier for other states to do that. host: what else is out there? guest: we talked about the baker case. there's a huge privacy rights which of cell phones course become very prevalent in recent years. and the supreme court is gradually weighing into these issues about technology and privacy. this is a big case about whether the police need a wasn't when they're trying to access historic cell site location information, which is the information that pings from your phone to the cell phone tower which the police can use to figure out where someone is or was over a long period. and so this case could help sort of set a new standard for how easily the police can get this type of information which

could then be applied in other cases down the line. host: i'll stress again this is a brief overview. we will be sure to get you back during the supreme court term but we want to move on to other business.