Edward Blum, the activist behind the U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down affirmative action, set his sights on two new targets this week, Reuters reports. Students for Fair Admissions, Blum’s group behind the high court case, has a new campaign to end an affirmative action exemption at military schools. The group launched a website called "West Point Not Fair" and is asking those denied acceptance at military schools to contact it. Earlier this week, the nonprofit American Alliance for Equal Rights, founded by Blum, sued an Atlanta-based venture capital fund that supports Black women who own small businesses. The group says the Fearless Fund is violating a law barring racial bias in private contracts by allowing only Black women to participate in a grant competition.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Congress has “no authority” to regulate the court in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Friday, The Hill reports. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito told the Journal. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.” Alito and other legal observers argue that Congress cannot prescribe regulations for the court without running afoul of separation of powers issues. The comments come as the U.S. Senate faces potential action on legislation mandating a binding ethics code for the court. Two weeks ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance the measure.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito last week blocked a Texas-based federal judge’s decision to strike down a regulation aimed at reining in firearms known as “ghost guns,” Reuters reports. Alito put the case on hold for one week, which ends tomorrow. The Justice Department issued the gun rule in 2022 to target the proliferation of homemade weapons kits that can purchased without a background check. The rule would require manufacturers to be licensed, to conduct background checks and to add serial numbers to their products. U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor blocked the rule nationwide in July saying the department exceeded its authority in adopting it. The administration asked the Supreme Court to halt the ruling while it appeals to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the U.S. Trustee asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to halt Purdue Pharma from proceeding with a bankruptcy settlement that protects the company’s owners, the Sackler family, from lawsuits, reports Reuters. The DOJ argued that Purdue should not be allowed to move forward with its restructuring before the Supreme Court weighs in on legal protections for non-bankrupt entities, an issue that has divided bankruptcy courts across the U.S. Last week, an appeals court ruled that Purdue may proceed with a plan approved in May that would shield the Sacklers from opioid related lawsuits in exchange for a $6 billion contribution to the company's broader bankruptcy settlement.

The U.S. Supreme Court today granted Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request to lift stays imposed by a lower court that had halted construction of the final section of a 303-mile natural gas pipeline through the federally owned Jefferson National Forest, reports Reuters. The $6.6 billion project has been embroiled in litigation since construction began in 2018. The pipeline, which extends into Appalachia, is considered key to unlocking the biggest shale gas-producing basin in the U.S. Environmentalists say the project would pollute soil and water in the forest and increase the use of natural gas, a leading greenhouse gas emitter.

The share of Americans with a favorable opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to its lowest point in public opinion surveys dating to 1987, the Pew Research Center reports. A new survey shows that fewer than half of Americans express a favorable opinion of the court, while a narrow majority have an unfavorable view. Opinions of the court have become somewhat less positive since April, when about half of Americans had a favorable impression. The center reports that this data marks the first time in its polling that the public’s views of the Supreme Court are significantly more negative than positive. Read more about the recent findings.

Alabama lawmakers declined to create a second majority-Black congressional district today in defiance of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in June to give minority voters a greater voice in elections, reports Associated Press. The senate instead created a plan to increase the percentage of Black voters from 31% to 40% in the state’s 2nd District. The map was completed hours before a court-imposed deadline. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is expected to sign the legislation.

The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 today along party lines to advance a bill that would mandate a binding ethics code for the Supreme Court, reports Reuters. The legislation would impose new requirements for financial disclosures and for recusal from cases in which a justice may have a conflict of interest. The bill would require Republican support to win passage in the full Senate. Democrats have sought legislation after reports by Associated Press, ProPublica and other news outlets that have called into question both liberal and conservative judge's adherence to practicing full disclosure of outside income and gifts.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s staff has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children’s books, the Associated Press reported today. Details of those events were obtained by AP through open records requests to public institutions as part of an ongoing investigation into the ethics practices of the court. The documents show examples of taxpayer-funded court staff performing tasks for the justice’s book ventures, which workers in other branches of the federal government are barred from doing. The AP also found that colleges and universities that host justices for speaking events used those visits as fundraising opportunities and that justices repeatedly accepted all-expense-paid teaching trips to locales such as Hawaii, Iceland and Italy that were “light on classroom instruction."

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal from the Biden administration over the use of in-house judges to handle cases brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Bloomberg News reports that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Congress violated the Seventh Amendment, which protects the right to a jury trial in civil lawsuits, by allowing the SEC to ask an administrative law judge to impose penalties rather than going to federal court. The 5th Circuit also said Congress gave the commission too much leeway to decide which cases will go before its in-house judges. The appeal from the Biden administration asserts that the ruling will have “massive practical consequences” across the government if it is not overturned.