I'm Elizabeth Lattery and I'm Tiffany Bates and welcome to SCOTUS 101 where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

This week we're talking about sports betting, shackling, the new RBG documentary, and we'll interview Skodis Bloggs, Amy Howe.

The Supreme Court issued five opinions earlier this week, so they are slowly making headway in the 30 or so cases that are outstanding.

We are going to quickly run through those opinions.

So first up was Murphy versus NCAA, which was probably the biggest decision of the week.

This is the sports betting case.

The Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prevented states from legalizing sports

betting. The court ruled that the law which prevented states from passing new laws or repealing

old laws with the goal of keeping sports betting illegal in most states violates the 10th Amendment.

So the opinion was a seven-two opinion with Justice

Stephen Breyer joining all but one part of the majority, and that dealt with a severability issue.

Justice Ginsburg wrote a dissent, which was joined by Sotomayor and in part by Breyer.

So writing for the majority, Justice Alito explained that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution

withheld from Congress the power to issue orders directly to the states.

So what's known as the anti-commandeering doctrine, this says that Congress can take a carrot or stick approach to encourage the states to enact federal priorities, but Congress cannot force state governments to pass laws with

Congress's preferred policies.

Alito wrote that a more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.

So this decision gives the green light to the dozen or so states that were already considering

legalizing sports betting.

And there's also been some speculation about what impact this could have beyond the sports world,

particularly in the legal battle between the Trump administration and sanctuary cities,

where the 10th Amendment is a big issue.

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