U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says the current Supreme Court confirmation process is an example of how the nation’s capital is “broken in some ways.” Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, Thomas reflected on his 25 years as a justice, including his own bruising confirmation process and his fondness for Justice Antonin Scalia. Commenting on the state of discourse in America today, he said, “I think we have decided that rather than confront disagreements, we’ll just simply annihilate the person who disagrees with me. I don't think that’s going to work in a republic, in a civil society.” Yahoo has the Associated Press story.

The short-handed Supreme Court may be showing signs it is having trouble getting its work done, the Associated Press reports. The justices have yet to schedule three cases for arguments that were granted full review in January – an indication they may think the issues involved (separation of church and state, class-action lawsuits and property rights) will lead to a 4-4 split. "It’s much more difficult for us to do our job if we are not what we’re intended to be – a court of nine,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Monday. The justices have divided evenly in four cases since Antonin Scalia’s death last term. WRCB-TV has the story.

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to stop a Senate subpoena of the website Backpage.com for documents related to how the company screens advertisements for signs of sex trafficking, CQ Roll Call reports. Backpage.com will now have turn over business records as part of a Senate investigation. The one-page order does not include any reasoning for the decision or how specific justices voted. Backpage.com opposed the subpoena on First Amendment grounds.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday blocked a congressional subpoena seeking information on how the classified advertising website Backpage.com screens ads for possible sex trafficking, the Associated Press reports. Backpage had asked the high court to intervene, saying the subpoena threatens the First Amendment rights of online publishers. The Senate voted 96-0 in March to hold the website in contempt after it refused to produce documents for a congressional investigation into Internet-based human trafficking. A federal appeals court had directed the website to respond to the subpoena within 10 days. Roberts said the company does not have to comply until further action from the Supreme Court. The Times Free Press has the story.

The U.S. Justice Department has told the Supreme Court that it made “several significant errors” when providing information about immigrant detentions for a 2003 case, the ABA Journal reports. The department recently reviewed statistics for an upcoming case and discovered it had underestimated the time some immigrants spend in detention. It now says the time is closer to one year rather than the five months originally claimed. The court called the five-month period a “very limited time of detention” and relied on that fact in deciding it was constitutional to deny bail to immigrants with criminal records who were being held while appealing their deportation order.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday denied a request from North Carolina to allow provisions of its controversial voting rights law to go back into effect. In a 4-4 split, justices left standing a lower court opinion that struck down the law. The vote was a win for civil rights groups and the Department of Justice, which had argued the law would have a disparate impact on minority voters. Local Memphis has a CNN story.

The Gloucester County, Virginia, school board asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to find that the U.S. Department of Education does not have the authority to tell public schools they must let transgender students use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The school district is facing a lawsuit by a transgendered student seeking to use the bathroom that matches his gender identity. An appeals court found in the student’s favor but the Supreme Court issued a temporary reprieve in the case. The court has yet to decide whether it will hear the Gloucester case in its next term. The Crossville Chronicle has more from the Washington Post.

Responding to North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s contention last week that changing the state’s voter identification law for this year’s election would create confusion among voters and poll workers, the U.S. solicitor general argued to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday that keeping the photo ID mandate in place would harm black voters. “Once an electoral law has been found to be racially discriminatory, and injunctive relief has been found to be necessary to remedy that discrimination, the normal rule is that the operation of the law must be suspended,” the government argued. The Greenville Sun has more from the AP.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 42 percent job approval rating is down slightly from September 2015 and matches the low point in the Gallup poll's 16-year history. The earlier mark was recorded in 2005 just after the court allowed the use of eminent domain to seize private property for economic development. Among its other findings, the poll indicates that Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to approve of the court, though the differential has narrowed. Read more or view survey methodology, complete question responses and trends.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Monday evening requested that the U.S. Supreme Court reinstate his state’s voter ID law, which was thrown out by a federal appeals court last month. McCrory wants the law to be in effect for the November general election, Roll Call reports. “Allowing the Fourth Circuit’s ruling to stand creates confusion among voters and poll workers, and it disregards our successful rollout of Voter ID in the 2016 primary elections," McCrory argued.