U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doubled down Tuesday on his pledge to block President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee from a confirmation hearing and vote this year, CQ Roll Call reports. “On that sad day when we lost Justice Scalia, I made [a] pledge that Obama would not fill his seat,” McConnell said yesterday from the stage of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. When it comes to picking a Scalia successor, McConnell said, “That honor will go to Donald Trump next year.”

The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday asked the Supreme Court for a rehearing of a case challenging President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration as soon as a ninth justice is appointed. The administration said there should be a definitive decision on the merits of the executive actions instead of the 4-4 split by the high court that left an appellate court decision striking the actions in place, but did not set precedent on the issue. WRCB-TV has the Associated Press story.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledged her critical comments on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign were “ill-advised,” expressing her regret in a statement today, Politico reports. “On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect,” she said.

A Virginia school board hoping to block a transgender teen from using the boy’s bathroom at his high school took its legal fight to the Supreme Court yesterday, Politico reports. The move marks the first time that the legal battle over transgender students’ bathrooms use has been brought to the court. The board is challenging a federal appeals court decision that (1) directed the school to honor the teen’s preferences and (2) rejected a request to block the ruling while the school appeals to the high court. In response, the school board filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to suspend the decision.

In interviews with the New York Times and CNN this week, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said “I can’t imagine what this place would be – I can’t imagine what the country would be – with Donald Trump as our president,” and that Trump “is a faker” and “he has no consistency about him." The comments have raised questions about the appropriateness of a justice commenting on a political candidate, with Trump even calling for her resignation. The ABA Journal looks at the legal ramifications, if any, of her comments.

The U.S. Supreme Court on a 4-4 vote declined to rehear a challenge by California teachers to a ruling that a union’s “fair share” agreement with the state did not violate their constitutional rights. The teachers had urged the court to hold the case until a ninth justice was confirmed and seated, but the court denied the petition for rehearing without comment. Legal counsel for the group said it was disappointed in the court’s action but “will look for opportunities to challenge compulsory union dues in other cases.” Bloomberg BNA has more on the case.

After months of uncertainty about its future, the Oyez Project, a free repository of more than 10,000 hours of U.S. Supreme Court oral-argument audio and other court resources, has found a new home. The project’s founder, Jerry Goldman, who is retiring soon, told the National Law Journal that a new arrangement with Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute and Justia, an online publisher of legal information, will keep Oyez alive.

FOR WEDNESDAY

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a number of cases during its next term. They include whether (1) a child with cerebral palsy can sue after not being allowed to bring her service dog to school; (2) Republican lawmakers relied too heavily on race in redrawing congressional districts in North Carolina and Virginia; (3) shipping a single component of a patented invention overseas can constitute infringement; (4) an employer can avoid paying legal claims arising from sudden layoffs by using a structured dismissal of its Chapter 11 case; (5) a man born in the Dominican Republic to an unwed noncitizen mother and American father may become a U.S. citizen; (6)

Read more about these cases from SCOTUSblog.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its three final opinions for this term this morning. Among the rulings, the court found that Texas laws requiring abortion centers to meet surgical center standards and abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges constitute an undue burden on abortion access and therefore violate the constitution. The court also ruled that a domestic-violence conviction is a misdemeanor crime of violence for purposes of limiting access to firearms. The final decision vacated the corruption conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. SCOTUSblog has more on the decisions, while the Tennessean looks at the abortion ruling’s impact on similar laws in Tennessee, which are currently being challenged. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee had agreed to stay the proceedings until the high court ruled.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s book, "The Court and the World," netted the justice around $120,000 last year, the Associated Press reports on WRCB-TV. Breyer's royalties are modest compared with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, who received multimillion-dollar payments for their best-selling memoirs.