. >>> i want to bring in the great nina totenberg, it's really nice to see you this evening, thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> can you give us a layman's understanding of what the court could have done and how much they did within that realm of possibility? how far did they go and how emphatic was this ruling? >> it was pretty emphatic but still pretty limited because all this was about was the temporary restraining order, the stay on the government from continuing to enforce that executive order. so now comes the question of whether the order itself is constitutional or not within the statutes and there are lots of arguments on that. >> do you think the washington state attorney general who we just heard from is right in assessing probably the next step is that this is going to be back with the trial court judge? back with the district court judge and it will be a matter of working this out on the merits, taking depositions, using discovery to get to both the intent and impact of this order? >> i think that's probably right although you can neck be sure. i would doubt th

what we know about that legal philosophy, we are joined by two longtime supreme court watchers: nina totenberggal affairs correspondent for npr; and marcia coyle, chief washington correspondent for "the national law journal," and a newshour regular. thank you both for being with us. nina, let's begin with you. we'll look at a landmark case, the hobby lobby case which gets into religious freedom, rights of employers versus employees-- that's a real shorthand version of it. i'm going to read you a little passage from a ruling that was authored by him in a lower court, obviously. he says this: so in this case, what happened as a result, is that a small, closely held company was not forced, as part of the affordable care act, to provide birth control to its employees. what can we read into that as far as it might relate to other rulings, which would come to the high court? >> this was a dissent that gorsuch authored, and he was vinticateed by a 5-4 vote on the supreme court. and what tho those who are concd about his nomination would say, i think, is that if you apply this rationale to, for exampl