Welcome to Supreme Court Brief. The justices are speaking regularly right now, just weeks before the start of the new term, and we've got a few lines from Justice Kagan about keeping her thoughts to herself—at least on some things. Plus: Catch up with a group of students who spent some time this year inspecting the papers of justices at the Library of Congress. Also: The House Judiciary Committee is taking another look at how to make federal courts more accessible. Thanks for reading, and your feedback is welcome and appreciated. Contact us at [email protected] and [email protected], and follow us on Twitter at @Tonymauro and @MarciaCoyle.

Students Seeking SCOTUS Nuggets

Searching through the papers of Supreme Court justices can be tedious work. Some yield few insights (Byron White's, for example) and even a treasure trove like Harry Blackmun's papers can be a tough slog.

But that hasn't deterred waves of honor students at Southern Methodist University from spending a week at the Library of Congress exploring justices' papers and finding nuggets that give them new insights into the work and personality of the nation's highest jurists.

"It was super interesting to see how much bargaining goes on," said Lizzie Klink, a senior. "A lot of us were not familiar with the Supreme Court but we were amazed at all the cool things we saw."

Or, as political science professor Joe Kobylka put it, "It's not your traditional spring break. It's not Cancun." Kobylka has brought students from his Supreme Court seminar to the Library of Congress five times since 2011. "The students love it," he said. "You can teach this stuff, but having them experience it is totally different." Kobylka is writing a biography of Blackmun, due out next year.

Jeff Flannery, head of the library's manuscript reading room, said in a library publication, "It is gratifying to see a new generation of students exploring the collections and getting excited about accessing these unique documents." In addition to combing through the papers, the students this year visited the court and spent time with Scott Harris, the clerk of the court. They also happened to be at the court on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's birthday, and joined in the "planking" celebration in front of the court plaza.

And then they blogged about their experiences. Some excerpts:

>> "I came across a memo in Blackmun's files where a clerk reported to Blackmun that Scalia was infuriated over the circulated dissent in Lucas [v. South Carolina Coastal Council] and that Scalia would now be adding new language to his majority opinion. The opportunity to examine the papers of the Justices is unlike any other." —Paxton Murphy

>> "It was super fascinating to realize how much of an influence the clerks had on the decisions that the justices made. Honestly, at first, I was slightly alarmed because it seemed like these recent college graduates were making monumental decisions. However, after talking to the clerk of the Supreme Court he assured me that while clerks do have some influence, everything that a justice writes in an opinion is ultimately his/her own." —Lizzie Klink

>> "Today was Day #4 of our Washington D.C. research trip. I do not think I have ever been this mentally exhausted ever in my life. At the same time, however, I wish I could spend more time at the Library of Congress." —Natalia Albores

>> "Another interesting aspect of our research was seeing the development of the opinion writing. It is comforting to know that even brilliant Supreme Court justices go through several drafts of opinions with red ink to correct misspellings, grammatical errors, and sentence structure. In particular, Justice Blackmun never found a draft he could not mark up with corrections, whether he wrote it or not." —Emily Calomino

Read all of the "Honors Course Reflections" here. —Tony Mauro

'Sometimes You Want to Call a Friend'

The U.S. Supreme Court is one of the most close-lipped government bodies in all of Washington. Secrets are guarded. Leaks are infrequent. The secrecy puts a burden, of course, on the justices themselves, and on their clerks. Some things just can't be talked about openly.

'I've gotten pretty good at knowing what, if I say, will create headlines I don't want," Justice Elena Kagan said recently in a conversation with Heather Gerken, dean of Yale Law School.

Kagan continued: "You are not going to hear every single thought that I have today. It's not going to happen."

Kagan described walking a "line" in public—keeping some thoughts to herself while not trying to be "completely boring and anodyne."

The justice's wide circle of friends in the law are no help when Kagan's stuck in the middle of a big issue and trying to resolve it.

"You can never just call a friend. You've got to call a clerk instead—clerks are great, clerks are great," Kagan said, drawing laughter. "Sometimes you want to call a friend." —Mike Scarcella

House Takes Run at Increasing Access to Courts

The House Judiciary Committee has its hands full with plans for impeachment and related investigations. Nonetheless the subcommittee on courts, intellectual property, and the Internet is gearing up for another hearing on a well-worn subject: the public's right of access to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

The hearing, set for Sept. 26 but not yet on the committee's official calendar, is expected to touch on subjects ranging from free access to court filings (that means PACER,) sealed court filings, and livestreaming and broadcasting appellate hearings including, possibly, the always recalcitrant justices of the high court. It's not yet known whether any jurists will testify.

Numerous bills have made it through the House, but tend to die in the Senate, even though some proposals—such as same-day or live audio streaming—have bipartisan support. All 12 federal appeals courts already allow for some form of audio release of their proceedings.

"Improving access to federal courts seems to be the one policy that Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee agree on," said Gabe Roth of Fix the Court. "I hope they can capitalize on the momentum from this hearing by crafting legislation on broadcast and PACER that can go the distance." —Tony Mauro

Supreme Court Headlines: What We're Reading

•  Clarence Thomas's Radical Vision of Race. "This vision is what sets Thomas apart from his fellow-conservatives on the bench, who believe that racism is either defeated or being diminished. It's a vision that first emerged during Thomas's early years, when he was on the left and identified, on a profound level, with the tenets of black nationalism. Like most ideological commitments, Thomas's politics are selective, but much of the program he embraced in his youth—celebration of black self-sufficiency, support for racial separatism—remains vital to his beliefs today. Those beliefs are coming closer, each term, to being enshrined in the law," Corey Robin writes in an excerpt from his new book about Thomas. [The New Yorker] Vanity Fair speaks with Robin hereabout his new book.

•  CFPB, Changing Stance, Backs Law Firm Fighting Agency's Independent Design. The Justice Department, now backed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, threw its support behind a law firm challenging the power of the agency's single director. [NLJ]

•  Justice Department to Honor Team that Worked on Kavanaugh Process. "Typically, the distinguished service honor, the department's second highest, is given to employees who worked on significant prosecutions, rather than on judicial nomination processes." [NYT] CNN has more here.

•  Supreme Court Says Judges Are Above Politics. It May Hear a Case Testing That View. "The debate over the role politics plays in judging is mostly theoretical. But a petition filed this month by Gov. John C. Carney Jr. of Delaware, a Democrat, makes it concrete. It asks the justices to consider whether states may take into account the political affiliation of judges to try to achieve something like ideological balance on their courts." [NYT]

•  Inside Wilson Sonsini's Pro Bono SCOTUS Work for Delaware Governor. A team from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is representing the Delaware governor's office pro bono at the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging a federal appeals court ruling that threatens to upend how the state structures its judiciary, contract records show. Wilson Sonsini's Michael McConnell, a former federal appeals judge and now Stanford law professor, is lead counsel and would argue the case if the justices agree to hear it. [NLJ]

•  How John Roberts Killed the Census Citizenship Question. "Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote against President Donald Trump's attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but only after changing his position behind the scenes, sources familiar with the private Supreme Court deliberations tell CNN." [CNN]

•  Supreme Court Leaks 'Super Rare,' Serve 'Ulterior Purposes. "Compared to other branches of government, the work of the highest court in the land is notable for the degree to which the justices are able keep their deliberations private. So when information seeps out, like it did this week, court watchers pay attention, to say the least. Former clerks describe a strict culture of confidentiality and observers express alarm about the sanctity of a cloistered court." [Bloomberg Law]

•  Trump Asylum Victory May Only Be Temporary. "Had Breyer and Kagan joined the dissent, that would presumably have created a 5-4 split at this early stage, with Roberts in the majority. That might have made it harder for him to flip to the other side when the case is ultimately argued. By declining to dissent now, Breyer and Kagan are giving Roberts cover to go the other way when the case comes before the court." [Bloomberg Law]

•  Georgia Man Fights for Gay Rights in U.S. Supreme Court 'Hotlanta' Case. "A ruling in favor of [Gerald] Bostock would give gay and transgender workers greater protections, especially in the 28 states including Georgia that do not have comprehensive measures on the books against employment discrimination. A ruling against him would mean gay and transgender people in those states would have few options if they encounter workplace discrimination." [Reuters]